The IT Jungle

Without Further Ado: Power10 Entry Server Pricing

September 26, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

We have been through the new Power10 entry servers from just about every angle imaginable, which has been our great pleasure. And now, we come to the moment we have all been waiting for: What is the bang for the buck of a Power10 machine? As is usually the case when you ask any question, the answer is: It depends.

To try to figure this out, we put together pricing information for all of the different variations of processors for the Power8, Power9, and now Power10 entry servers with one of two processors. And when we say all of …
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What CMOD Functions You Can Access Via New Nav

September 26, 2022 Alex Woodie

IBM made a lot of news in May with the launch of IBM i 7.5 and Technology Refreshes for IBM i 7.4 and 7.3. One of the items that you may have missed in the avalanche of news was the unveiling of a new interface in IBM Navigator for i (a.k.a., New Navigator) that gives access to Content Manager OnDemand for i (CMOD) functionality.

CMOD, as you probably know, is a licensed application from IBM that has been around for decades, which means there has to be a good number of customers using it for essential business functions. While paper …
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Guru: Beware of SQL Precompiler Variables

September 26, 2022 Ted Holt

In a famous Henny Youngman joke, a patient says, “Doctor, it hurts when I do this,” to which the doctor replies, “Then don’t do that.” Corny jokes aside, I have spent decades trying to identify programming practices that hurt when I do them, and having identified them, cease to do them. A case in point is the misuse of the variables that the SQL precompiler defines in my RPG programs, variables such as SQLCODE, SQLSTATE, and SQLER3.

“So what,” I hear you ask, “is the problem with these variables? ” Well, they’re global, and global variables are evil. Global …
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It’s Time To Take The IBM i Marketplace Survey

September 26, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

The 9^th annual IBM i Marketplace Survey that HelpSystems does every fall is open, and if we hope to get some insight into what is going on in the base and report back on it in January 2023, we need you to take a few moments right now to take the survey and tell us about your IBM i shop.

This survey, which was conceived of by the late Dan Burger of IT Jungle and Tom Huntington of HelpSystems, was started nine years ago because we were all frustrated by the lack of insight about the IBM i base. …
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IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 24, Number 39

September 26, 2022 Doug Bidwell

Another week, another security vulnerability. This one could be a biggie, so pay attention. Security Bulletin: IBM Common Cryptographic Architecture (CCA) is vulnerable to denial of service (CVE-2022-22423), which you can find out more about here. The vulnerability can be fixed by applying a PTF to IBM i. Releases 7.5, 7.4, 7.3, and 7.2 of IBM i will be fixed. Each PTF bundles updates to CCA 5.x MTM for 4767 and CCA 7.x MTM for 4769, bringing their respective firmware levels to 5.7.12 and 7.3.44 or later, respectively.

Here are the fixes for this particular vulnerability:
```
IBM i release	
```
… Read more
LTO Group Pushes Roadmap Out to Generation 14

September 21, 2022 Alex Woodie

Native capacities for Linear Tape-Open (LTO) cartridges will once again double with every successive generation, according to a new roadmap published this month by the group of companies behind the LTO spec.

The new roadmap published by IBM, HPE, and Quantum, which are the Technology Provider Companies (TPCs) behind the LTO program, show the LTO Ultrium format being pushed out four more generations. When LTO Gen 14 tapes hit the market – likely a decade from now or longer – they will have a native capacity of “up to 576TB,” and a compressed capacity of up to 1.44PB.

It’s been …
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IBM Knows Your System, So You Already Know Its Cloud

September 21, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Tonny Bastiaans, worldwide offering manager for Power Virtual Server at IBM, and Ash Giddings, a product manager at Maxava and an IBM Champion 2022, have been doing a series of joint presentations over the last few months. I recently had a chat with them to get the juice.

There are a lot of companies that sell hosting, many that sell hosting and call it cloud, and many who have true utility-style cloud computing. But there are very few venerable systems vendors indeed who have long experience in creating full systems to run a diverse set of enterprise applications that also …
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Trinity Guard Brings Security Suite Up to Speed with IBM i 7.5

September 21, 2022 Alex Woodie

IBM put a major focus on improving security with the release of IBM i 7.5 earlier this year, with stronger out-of-the-box default configurations, new password controls, and improved monitoring. With the launch of TG Suite 3.0, Trinity Guard is helping its customers get the most out of those security improvements.

IBM made a slew of security improvements with the launch of IBM i 7.5, which it unveiled in May and which shipped soon thereafter. Highlights include the elimination of security level 20, a new password level 4 that includes 512-bit encryption, the elimination of default passwords, and new table functions …
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Four Hundred Monitor, September 21

September 21, 2022 Jenny Thomas

Is it me or is everyone noticing how busy life has been lately? With everyone seemingly running in all different directions, it’s almost impossible to keep up with it all. Here in the Jungle, our goal is to help you by organizing all the latest IBM i, and related, news and notable events into a digestible package. If you have something you want to share with us, we are all ears so please be sure to send it our way. And now, read on as we share with you the latest news of the week, and some events that …
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Withdrawal Symptoms: A Bunch Of IBM Services Tweaks, Storage Deleted

September 21, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Every product comes to the end of its life cycle, whether it is hardware or software or even services because it is troublesome to repair or troubleshoot the old stuff as it wears out (in the case of hardware) or suffers from bit rot (in the case of software) or brain drain (in the case of services). And so it is with a bunch of different things that affect some big Power Systems shops.

With a bunch of new Technical Account Manager (TAM) and ServicePac services offerings for the Power Systems line, which we wrote about back in August, …
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A Smorgasbord Of Power Systems Stuff

September 19, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

It is usually pretty quiet on the IT front in the wake of the American Labor Day holiday, especially with a lot of European countries also having bank holidays around that time and many schools just starting back up again. Here in 2022, it is no different, although IBM did uncharacteristically launch the full subscription entry Power S1014 server aimed at IBM i customers on September 6.

In any event, in the weeks surrounding the holiday, Big Blue did a bunch of stuff relating to the Power Systems platform and we want to tell you about it so you stay …
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The Security Awareness Of People Is The Important Firewall In IT

September 19, 2022 John Fehr

Your company can have the best firewalls, the best intrusion detection and protection systems, and the best sensors and filters all wrapped around the IT organization. Your company can have the IBM i platform, legendary for its rock-solid security, locked down with the tightest security, and everyone can change their strong passwords frequently. Your company can have administrators using tools to monitor exit points and the Integrated File System that can be a breeding ground for viruses. Your company can have firewalls and antivirus software installed on every desktop, laptop, tablet, and smartphone that comes in contact with your infrastructure. …
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Pandora FMS Log Monitoring Solution Gets IBM i Hooks

September 19, 2022 Alex Woodie

Pandora FMS, an open source log monitoring solution that has been in use for decades, is being integrated with IBM i, the software’s commercial backer announced last week. Thanks to a partnership between Pandora FMS and the French company M81, organizations that use the software can add IBM i into the monitoring mix.

Pandora FMS, short for Flexible Monitoring System, is an open source tool for consuming and analyzing server and network logs. The utility, which was written in PHP and runs on Linux, uses agents (developed in Perl) to keep an eye on servers running Linux, Windows, and Unix …
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As I See It: Different Yet the Same

September 19, 2022 Victor Rozek

For all of you who must discover,
for all who seek to understand
In having left the path of others,
you find a very special hand

— Christy Moore, Bright Blue Rose

It is among the most common of human yearnings: the desire to see oneself as special and distinct from the herd. Individualism, coupled with exceptionalism has long been ingrained in American mythology. The model endures, even as it evolves over time, as each generation rebels against the prior in an attempt to create its own unique identity.

But it’s becoming increasingly difficult to claim uniqueness when we live …
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IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 24, Number 38

September 19, 2022 Doug Bidwell

It is a quiet week for PTFs, with two security vulnerabilities for the IBM i platform and not much else.

We will start with Security Bulletin: Samba for IBM i is vulnerable to attacker obtaining sensitive information due to a memory leak with SMB1 requests (CVE-2022-32742), which you can find out more about at this link. Here are the fixes:
```
IBM i Release	5770-SS1	PTF Number	
                7.4		SI80816	
                7.3		SI80815
```
And then there is Security Bulletin: IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty for IBM i is vulnerable to identity spoofing with authenticated user and ability to bypass security restrictions due …
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Debunking Modernization Myths

September 14, 2022 Alex Woodie

If you’re embarking upon an application modernization project, you’re not alone, as many organizations running older computer systems are looking for an upgrade. But that increased need for modernization has coincided with the rise of several myths on the topic, which is a cause for concern.

The first modernization myth is that all you need for a modernization project is a code converter that takes your legacy source code and automatically converts it to a modern codebase. While code converters do have a role to play, there are many more important aspects to a successful modernization effort.

“The spin being …
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The Global State of Cybersecurity Is Not Good

September 14, 2022 Alex Woodie

“It’s a jungle out there” may be the best way to summarize the state of cybersecurity at the moment, as recent global events coalesce into a melting pot of politically motivated hackers, the criminal underground, foreign scammers, and widespread domestic vulnerabilities.

Let’s start with everybody’s favorite topic: scams. If you’re longing for the simple days of the Nigerian 419 scams, you’re not alone, as the playing field for scams has evolved considerably in recent years. That’s not to minimize the continued threat of the 419 scam, which sometimes resulted in a physical kidnapping, or worse. But the idea of getting …
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The Lucky Seven Tips Of IBM i DevSecOps

September 14, 2022 Olenka Van Schendel

The number seven has been a symbol of luck and fortune and design in many ancient cultures around the world, and so it is with the IBM i world. As it turns out, we think there are a “Lucky Seven” key tips for optimizing your own DevOps implementation, allowing you to leverage your IBM i platform for competitive advantage. And we want to share them with you.

The programmers who create applications for the IBM i platform and its decades of predecessors were given a set of development tools from IBM with augmentation from third parties such as ARCAD Software, …
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Four Hundred Monitor, September 14

September 14, 2022 Jenny Thomas

Labor Day is a turning point in the year. Summer comes to an end. Students are all back to school. And the beginning of conference season, which means the news cycle will start ramping up. It’s also time for the now 9^th annual Marketplace Survey from HelpSystems. Your responses give us a snapshot of how organizations running IBM i are using the IBM Power hardware and the operating system, and lets us take the pulse of entire community. It’s worth a few minutes of your time, and you’ll have an opportunity to look at the results once all of …
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IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 24, Number 37

September 14, 2022 Doug Bidwell

Some weeks are loud and noisy, like cats fighting, when it comes to IBM i PTFs, and some weeks are quiet, like mice trying to avoid the notice of the cats. This week is one of those quiet ones, albeit still with High Impact/Pervasive patches and Security patches for all four current IBM i releases.

Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by IBM i release level since we last published:

PTF Groups 7.5:
- HIPERs (High Impact/Pervasive)
- Security
- MustGather: How To Obtain and Install QMGTOOLS
PTF Groups 7.4:
- HIPERs (High Impact/Pervasive)
- Security
- MustGather: How To Obtain and Install QMGTOOLS
PTF …
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