• The New Capabilities IBM Added To Navigator For i

  April 23, 2025 Alex Woodie

  The addition of multi-factor authentication (MFA) to IBM i 7.6 is the big news with the recent operating system update from IBM. But IBM has introduced new capabilities to other parts of the platform as well, and some of the biggest reside in Navigator for i.

  As the strategic Web-based console for administrating the IBM i server, it’s natural that Navigator for i gets lots of attention. Whether you’re looking to monitor or manage the databases, inspect batch jobs, configure security, or monitor performance, Navigator for i is the one central place that lets you do it. You can, of …

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• One Big Time-Saving Network Enhancement In IBM i 7.6

  April 23, 2025 Alex Woodie

  IBM i 7.6 brings a host of new enhancements around security and database development, among other areas. But IBM has also brought one big new capability to the operating system’s networking environment that will be worth the cost of an upgrade for some larger IBM i environments.

  IBM introduced Ethernet Link Aggregation support in IBM i 7.1 Technology Refresh 3 (TR3), which shipped way back in 2012. Ethernet Link Aggregation enables several full-duplex Ethernet links to be grouped into a single line description with a single Media Access Control (MAC) address, which can boost reliability as well as throughput. …

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• Using AI To Derive Application Intelligence And Drive Modernization

  April 23, 2025 Marc Dallas

  Everybody in the IBM i space knows that Big Blue is working on a coding assistant based on generative AI models to help developers write better and more consistent RPG applications with what everyone assumes will be a smaller and smaller programming talent pool.

  But there is more to leveraging AI as a tool for application development and modernization than this. There are those who want to be able to use GenAI tools that can analyze and convert code from one language to another – much as the same large language models were first trained to translate between two languages …

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• Sundry Interesting IBM i Announcements For You To Ponder

  April 23, 2025 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  We are still picking though the latest tweaks and changes to the IBM i platform that came with the April 8 announcements. We are still also working through our disappointment that there was not one single interesting hardware announcement from Big Blue relating to the Power Systems platform. We are having a bit of iron deficiency, it seems.

  First thing first, we noticed this week that the official Redbook for IBM i 7.6, which naturally enough is called IBM i 7.6 Features And Functions, has been published, and is jam packed with 215 pages of more details about …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 27, Number 16

  April 23, 2025 Doug Bidwell

  This week, we bring you two security vulnerabilities and an import HIPER for firmware updates for Power Systems iron. Let’s start with the firmware.

  There is new microcode for Firmware 950 .. 950.D1, which you can find out more about at this link here, and new microcode for Firmware 950 .. 950.E0, which you can read all about at that link there. These are HIPERs and affect the following hardware:

  • Power System S914 Server (9009-41A)
  • Power System S922 Server (9009-22A)
  • Power System S924 Server (9009-42A)

  Now for the vulnerabilities. First, we have Security Bulletin: IBM i 7.6 is …

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• IBM i 7.6 Brings More Security Improvements Than Just MFA

  April 14, 2025 Alex Woodie

  Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is the big headliner with IBM i 7.6, which IBM begins shipping at the end of the week. This is good and right, since IBM i customers have been begging IBM to add MFA to the platform for so long. But the new IBM i release brings several other major security enhancements that customers will appreciate too, including a new command to disable non-secure connections, new encryption algorithms, streamlined regulatory compliance, and an easy way to tell what security patches have been applied, among others.

  IBM has made it clear that it is taking security seriously on …

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• z17 Mainframes Give IBM Time To Ramp AI-Accelerated Power11 Systems

  April 14, 2025 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  We had been expecting for the Power11 processors and their new Power Systems servers to be announced sometime around the spring to early summer of this year and to start shipping in volume in the summer, maybe in June or July, with a nice sales bump in the second half of 2025. However, now the Power11 launch will be in the second half of the year, and IBM’s Systems group will be counting on a bump first from the System z17 mainframes that were launched last week.

  This has happened before, and more than once, and it is a good …

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• Guru: Unlocking The Power Of %CONCAT And %CONCATARR In RPG

  April 14, 2025 Gregory Simmons

  When working with strings in RPG, especially in modern free-format code, the %CONCAT and %CONCATARR built-in functions (BIFs) offer efficient and readable solutions for combining strings. These functions simplify the process of concatenating multiple string values, making your code cleaner and easier to maintain. In this article, we will explore how they work and demonstrate their practical applications.

  The %CONCAT BIF allows you to combine multiple strings. It’s a more efficient and readable alternative to traditional concatenation using the + operator.

  Here’s a simple example:

  **Free
  Ctl-Opt Main(CONCAT_1) ActGrp(*Caller);
  
  Dcl-Pr pause ExtProc('sleep');
    time_to_sleep Uns(10) Value;
  End-Pr;
  
  Dcl-Proc CONCAT_1;
  
    Dcl-S firstName 

  …

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• As I See It: Lucie, Lucie, Lucie

  April 14, 2025 Victor Rozek

  There is a school of thought that views AI as possibly being the last invention humankind will ever have to create. The theory is that AI, particularly artificial general intelligence (AGI), will assimilate so much knowledge and reasoning skill that it will out-think, out-plan, and out-create anything mere mortals can hope to achieve.

  Well, not if France has anything to do with it. There appears to be a wide disparity in the competence of AI renderings as demonstrated by the charming, but unreliable, French chatbot named Lucie. The government was recently forced to take its chatbot offline because it was …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 27, Number 15

  April 14, 2025 Doug Bidwell

  There are so many announcements, and one of the big ones is ACS 1.1.9.8! We downloaded the new ACS and we have used this for a day, and so far there are no known issues at this time. We suggest treading lightly with this tool until after general availability on April 18. But it is looking good so far, though!

  There is also a new security vulnerability, which is Security Bulletin: IBM i is vulnerable to an out-of-bounds write in NTP services due to multiple vulnerabilities. More information available at this link. The issue can be addressed by applying …

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