Alex Woodie
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7 Must-Have Open Source Products for IBM i
December 7, 2016 Alex Woodie
… Read moreThe IBM i operating system is proprietary; its Licensed Internal Code (LIC) is private, and good luck getting into the innards of DB2 for i. But for all the top-secret code running in an IBM i server, there’s a surprising amount of open source technology available for the platform, too. Here are the top seven open source products every IBM i shop should have, or at least be aware of.
These products are in no particular order. But we would be remiss if we didn’t start with the big one from IBM itself.
1. Open Source Technologies on IBM i
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IBM i Performance Secrets Revealed
December 7, 2016 Alex Woodie
… Read moreThe IBM i server is unlike any other computer system on the planet, with unique architectural elements like single level storage and TIMI that simplify programming and boost security. But the 64-bit RISC server also has unique performance characteristics, especially compared to its X64 brethren. To ensure long-term success with the platform, it’s critical to maximize performance.
The folks at IBM recently put together a very informative paper that describes some of the unique performance tracking features that are present in every IBM i system. The paper, titled “IBM i on Power – Performance FAQ,” dives into the various components
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Reporting Elevated IBM i Privileges to SIEM
December 7, 2016 Alex Woodie
… Read moreWhy work hard to find a back door when you can go through the front door? This is the gist of the enlightened hacker mind, which understands there is an excess of user profiles equipped with administrative privileges floating around most shops. Now new software from Townsend Security can detangle the complexity of authority levels and give intelligent SIEM tools the data they need to keep hackers out of IBM i.
Far too many IBM i shops weaken their security by handing out special authorities like they’re candy canes at a Christmas party. PowerTech has documented this unfortunate phenomenon quite
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What A Trump Presidency Might Mean For IBM Rochester
December 5, 2016 Alex Woodie
… Read moreBig changes are expected in national policy when Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States on January 20, 2017. From healthcare and climate change to tariffs and international trade, Trump has promised to do things that will help to “make America great again.” But what will this mean for IBM, one of the most American of success stories, and specifically its Rochester, Minnesota, plant, home of the IBM i server?
During his historic presidential campaign, Trump insisted that middle-class Americans were getting the short end of the economic stick, and that he would
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Skills Shortage Prompts Fresche’s New View of X-Analysis
November 30, 2016 Alex Woodie
… Read moreDifferent companies have different ways of dealing with the emerging IBM i skills shortage. Some shops may look to college grads for fresh new faces, while others may seek to retrain existing IT personnel in IBM i skills. Still others will seek to exit IBM i through wholesale migration to X86 or cloud platforms. At Fresche, the skills shortage presents an opportunity to get a well-regarded code analysis tool called X-Analysis into the hands of more people.
X-Analysis, you will remember, was Fresche Legacy’s first big purchase following its 2012 name-change from Speedware. Developed by the British software
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ERP System Gets an A+ in User Satisfaction
November 30, 2016 Alex Woodie
… Read moreInfor generally received high marks from users of its A+ application, according to a recent report by the Frantz Group. However, the fact that many users of the IBM i-based distribution system are going five to 10 years between ERP upgrades means many are missing out on potentially valuable features, the report concludes.
There were no major revelations in last week’s release of the Frantz Report, titled “Customer Research Survey: Infor A+ and IBM iSeries,” which depicted a swath of North American IBM i shops in the light you would have expected. That is, Infor A+ customers are generally
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RPG Website Resurrected. Is the Language Next?
November 30, 2016 Alex Woodie
… Read moreThe IBM i community got a peak at the latest RPG website last week when the official wraps were taken off www.ile-rpg.org. While it may appear to be new, the website is in fact a resurrected (and updated) version of an older website, rpglanguage.biz, that was essentially abandoned by its previous owner. The website’s new owner, TEMBO Tech Labs, is confident that it will help spread the word about RPG’s prowess as a business language.
John McCay originally created the rpglanguage.biz website back in 2007 to provide a place where RPG developers could share tips, concerns, and
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What Koch’s $2.5 Billion Infor Investment Means For IBM i
November 28, 2016 Alex Woodie
… Read moreKoch Equity Development LLC, the private equity arm of Koch Industries, will invest more than $2 billion into IBM i ERP giant Infor, the companies announced last week. Infor says it will use the cash to expand its business, while news reports say some of it will go to pay off earlier investors in the company.
Infor wouldn’t comment on questions about what exactly it’s going to spend KED’s reported $2.5 billion investment, beyond what it said in the press release. Even IBM i customers would benefit, an Infor spokesman said. “All existing and future customers will reap
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Vulnerabilities In 3DES Encryption Put It Out To Pasture In IBM i
November 14, 2016 Alex Woodie
… Read moreIBM i customers should stop using 3DES, also known as Triple DES, ciphers due to the SWEET32 vulnerabilities that could leave sensitive information unprotected as it moves between client and server via the OpenSSL and OpenVPN protocols. This was the gist of a security alert sent last week by IBM, which also issued new PTFs to address the problems in its own IBM i products.
On November 4, IBM issued security bulletin N1021697, which discussed what to do about so-called SWEET32 security vulnerabilities in OpenSSL and OpenVPN. The security problems, which are detailed in CVE-2016-2183 (for OpenSSL) and
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Is the IBM i Skills Shortage Accelerating Platform Migrations?
November 9, 2016 Alex Woodie
… Read moreThere are a lot of headwinds working against the IBM i platform, including a high up-front cost, a legacy perception, and executives who automatically default to X64 technology with technology decisions. These are all external challenges that the IBM i community can’t do much about. But there’s one headwind that’s internal to the IBM i community: A growing lack of personnel with the requisite IBM i skills.
One company that’s transitioning off the IBM i platform due, in part, to a lack of skills is PRGX. For decades, the Atlanta, Georgia, company used IBM‘s midrange server to automate many