• What’s In the Latest Update to PowerHA

  July 24, 2024 Alex Woodie

  A handful of new capabilities have been released for PowerHA customers over the past few months, including support for asynchronous policy-based replication in FlashSystem, new administrative functions, support for SQL services, and the addition of new management functions in an updated Web interface.

  As IBM notes in its announcement letter for IBM i 7.5 TR4, there is a long history of integration between PowerHA SystemMirror for IBM i and IBM Spectrum Virtualize, the software for managing IBM FlashSystem SAN arrays. This tradition includes native support in PowerHA for various Spectrum Virtualize replication mechanisms, including Metro Mirror (synchronous replication), Global Mirror …

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• InterForm Sells Majority Stake to Private Equity Firm

  July 24, 2024 Alex Woodie

  InterForm A/S, the Danish output management vendor whose products are resold by Infor and other application vendors, has sold a majority stake of itself to VIA equity, a private equity firm also based in Denmark. InterForm says it will use the investment to accelerate business development around the world.

  InterForm A/S has been targeting IBM midrange systems with its output management software since the company was founded back in 1987. While it supports open systems today, it has more than 4,000 installations on IBM i and predecessor systems, which makes InterForm arguably the most heavily used output management system on …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, July 24

  July 24, 2024 Jenny Thomas

  If you’re looking for some respite from the political news of the day, you have come to the right spot. Fortunately for us, there is no shortage of news in our industry, either. IBM had a good week when it came to the Crowdstrike debacle that led to the “blue screen of death” for many Windows users and worldwide outages. And we’re happy to share all the new blogs, training, and other resources that are popping up all around our ecosystem where it seems companies are pushing forward with purpose and remaining focused on their goals and the road ahead. …

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• Fortra Leans On XDR For Full Spectrum Security

  July 22, 2024 Alex Woodie

  When it comes to security, more is often better. As in, more security professionals running more security products and services that deliver more overlapping coverage of your security weaknesses. The good news for IBM i shops is that Fortra delivers more solutions with more coverage than probably anyone else in the industry, particularly with its XDR solution.

  XDR, or extended detection and response, is the state of the art for enterprise security today, and essentially is replacing security information and event management (SIEM) tools at the top of the security food chain, says Tom Huntington, the vice president of technical …

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• Future-Proof Your Data Strategy With LANSA BI

  July 22, 2024 Stephen Strake

  Last October, with no warning at all, IBM suddenly pulled the plug on its Db2 Web Query business intelligence tool for the IBM i platform. This left a lot of customers in the lurch, since Db2 Web Query is based on but very different from the WebFOCUS business intelligence tool from Information Builders.

  IBM and Information Builders, we later learned, could not come to terms on how to re-license the WebFOCUS engine at the heart of Db2 Web Query, and thus far, IBM has not provided an alternative BI platform or a migration tool for any third-party applications.

  The upshot …

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• Guru: Web Concepts For The RPG Developer, Part 3

  July 22, 2024 Chris Ringer

  Greetings everyone. Articles part one and two were both an introduction on how to build components in an HTTP request. In part three, we will begin to connect the dots and discuss how to asymmetrically sign a simple string. If you ever need to send a secure HTTP request to a government agency or financial institution, you likely will authenticate with a signed token. So, here we go!

  Base64 Take Two

  In part one, the SQL scalar function BASE64_ENCODE embedded in RPG converted a string to base64. This technique will cover most use cases, but what if you need …

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• As I See It: Communication Fail

  July 22, 2024 Victor Rozek

  If there is one frequently overlooked source of workplace discontent it involves the quality of communication. Or the lack of it. On a corporate level, pronouncements seem predictably boilerplate lacking authenticity if not veracity, more suited to limiting liability than guiding behavior. Everyone, for example, touts their commitment to customer service. But customers must often navigate draconian phone trees and endure excessive wait times before being connected to a helpful human.

  The disconnect between what is said and what is experienced is based on two sets of competing values: Professed Values, and Operational Values. Professed Values are the ones companies …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 26, Number 28

  July 22, 2024 Doug Bidwell

  Welcome to this week, which is a very, very quiet week, even for the IBM i PTF Guide. Like, hardly anything at all is happening. There are a few little things, which we will now point out.

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

  PTF Groups 7.5:

  • Fix list for IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty
  • MustGather: How To Obtain and Install QMGTOOLS

  PTF Groups 7.4:

  • Fix list for IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty
  • MustGather: How To Obtain and Install QMGTOOLS

  PTF Groups 7.3:

  • Fix list for IBM WebSphere Application Server

  …

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• How To Contribute To IBM’s GenAI Code Assistant For RPG

  July 15, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Back in October 2023, IBM launched its “Project Hopper” Watsonx Code Assistant for Z, which as the name suggests is a programming assistant that will eventually be built into the open source VS Code integrated development environment that was created by Microsoft and that is being explicitly trained to help programmers take applications coded in COBOL and convert them to Java. We speculated back then about how LLMs and GenAI might be used to do similar – and different – things for the IBM i platform, and back in May at the POWERUp 2024 conference Steve Will, the chief …

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• Maxava Strengthens Leadership Team With Key Appointments

  July 15, 2024 John Dominic

  As Maxava positions itself for continued growth and innovation around the world, we are thrilled to announce several key appointments that will enhance our leadership team. These strategic moves are designed to strengthen our operational capabilities, meet complex customer demands, and expand our international market presence in HA/DR, multi-platform monitoring and security.

  Sheena Bernard has been promoted to vice president of operations. In her new role, Sheena will oversee the technical, development, and services teams, ensuring that Maxava continues to deliver innovative solutions and support to our clients. Sheena has extensive commercial, business improvement, and operational management expertise, having previously …

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