• Spring 2024 IBM i Technology Refresh Unveiled by IBM

  May 8, 2024 Alex Woodie

  IBM today took the wraps off the latest Technology Refresh for the IBM i platform. When IBM i 7.5 TR4 and 7.4 TR10 ship on June 14, customers will find enhancements such as Merlin version 2, new features in Navigator and ACS, security improvements, a couple of RPG enhancements, HA and DR enhancements, and a host of new SQL-based database services, among other capabilities.

  In addition to new features, which we’ll get to in a second, the launch of IBM i 7.5 TR4 and 7.4 TR10 is important for an unexpected reason: It will mark the beginning of IBM’s transition …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, May 8

  May 8, 2024 Jenny Thomas

  Yesterday was announcement day for IBM, which is always an exciting day for our community. We were right on top of it here in the Jungle, releasing two breaking news pieces to cover the launch of Power S1012 and the latest Technology Refresh for the IBM i platform. You can read both articles in our Top Stories section below, and you can be assured that it is only the beginning of our coverage as we will continue to dissect what we’ve learned and research more details for you. Enjoy this week’s edition of Monitor!

  Top Stories From Around The Jungle

  …

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• April Showers Bring May IBM i Security Vulnerabilities

  May 8, 2024 Alex Woodie

  IBM has patched more than a dozen security flaws in IBM i and related products this spring, including serious flaws in the operating system proper and the compilers, and a critical vulnerability in Administrative Runtime Expert that landed a nearly perfect CVSS Base score.

  In the interest of time, let’s cover the security vulnerabilities in descending order of severity. That means we’re starting with the worst and then moving on to the slightly less worse.

  ARE Flaw

  The flaw reported in the Administration Runtime Expert for i (ARE), which IBM launched in 2010 to make it easier to manage IBM …

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• Power Systems Poised To Embiggen This Year?

  May 6, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  We were away on a hiatus and not publishing last week, and therefore we are now going to go through Big Blue’s financial results for the first quarter of 2024, and take a deep dive into its systems business and Power Systems in particular. Once again, the news is generally good, and that is comforting when this is the final third of the Power10 and System z16 product lines from IBM, with follow-on Power11 and System z17 processors expected sometime next year.

  In the March quarter, IBM reported overall revenues of $14.46 billion, up 4.1 percent year on year, with …

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• Thoroughly Modern: How To Navigate IBM i Cloud Success – Beyond Migration

  May 6, 2024 Lief Morin

  The decision to migrate to the cloud is a vital part of an organization’s modernization endeavors. However, the true measure of success lies after the production applications go-live. To understand the critical role of a strategic plan, the measurements of success, and technical and process optimizations, it is essential for organizations to achieve operational excellence and realize the benefits of the IBM i cloud.

  IBM i Cloud Environments: Private, Hybrid, and Public

  In a previous article, we provided definitions of various cloud consumption models, but as a brief review, a cloud service is one that offers self-service, network access, …

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• Kisco Bolsters IBM i Security Business With DXR Buy

  May 6, 2024 Alex Woodie

  Kisco Systems has acquired DXR Security, the company co-founded four years ago by IBM i security expert Carol Woodbury. The deal immediately boosts Kisco’s position in the IBM i security space, and gives Woodbury an opportunity to cement her midrange legacy.

  Woodbury started her computer security career in Rochester, Minnesota back in 1984, when she was hired to work on securing IBM’s midrange platform. Over a 16-year career, she eventually rose to the position of AS/400 Security Team Leader and Chief Engineering Manager for Security when she retired in 2000.

  Known simply by the community as the AS/400 security architect, …

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• What Big Blue’s HashiCorp Buy Might Mean For The IBM i Platform

  May 6, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Here is a riddle for you, or even two. Why did IBM buy systems software maker HashiCorp for $6.4 billion? And what on Earth, if anything, will this mean for IBM i customers, or even Power Systems customers in general?

  If you want to get a deeper background into HashiCorp, check out the Related Stories link at the bottom of this story for the detailed analysis I have done on the company over at The Next Platform. In the meantime, a short overview of HashiCorp and its tools is in order.

  Mitchell Hashimoto and Armon Dadgar, the co-founders of …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 26, Number 17

  May 6, 2024 Doug Bidwell

  Some of the links in the IBM i PTF Guide appear to be broken, but don’t worry about them. IBM is in the process of changing the format of the Cover page for IBM i patches and a few of the links are stuck in the middle. We will attempt to get them back in synch by the next issue. This is the effect of the latest in IBM’s efforts to make the web information for IBM less verbose and more accessible. Any comments on such, please share!

  And now, some security vulnerabilities for IBM. Four, to be precise.

  First, …

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• Raz-Lee Simplifies MFA for IBM i

  April 24, 2024 Alex Woodie

  The need for multi-factor authentication (MFA) has never been higher, as cybercriminals continue to compromise corporate and governmental systems to steal data and hold systems for ransom. That market need has led Raz-Lee Security to add several new features to its MFA solution that should help its customers stop, or at least significantly slow, unauthorized access to IBM i.

  Raz-Lee Security has sold MFA as part of its comprehensive iSecurity suite for several years, going back at least to December 2021, according to the company’s release notes for the product. With this month’s update to Raz-Lee MFA, the company has …

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• IBM Cranks Up the Performance for Run SQL Scripts

  April 24, 2024 Alex Woodie

  Access Client Solutions (ACS) users who are tired of waiting for database fields to resolve in the Run SQL Scripts (RSS) facility will be happy to hear that IBM felt their pain and RSS will return data much more quickly to return data with ACS version 1.1.9.5, which IBM shipped earlier this month.

  The speed-up of field resolution time was listed as a concern to at least one IBM i user, who took to IBM Power Ideas Portal to voice his or her concern. “Simply put the resolution of potential field makes content assist almost unusable,” the user wrote. “I …

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