It is a time of transition for the Power Systems line, and that is one of the reasons why sales have been picking up in recent quarters. The full Power8 product line has been rounded out and is shipping in volume, from the smallest single-socket box up to the biggest, baddest 16-socket server. The Power7+ processors have been in midrange machines since October 2012 and came to entry machines in February 2013 and are winding down in the channel. With IBM i 5.4 sunsetted and IBM i 6.1 saddling up for its ride to the west, this is when we

How could IBM be more successful with IBM i? How about this novel idea: product promotion. For all the money it spends on product development, IBM fails to expand the IBM i market because product awareness remains low. This discussion could go in a lot of different directions, but for today let’s make the focus free-form RPG. This is one of the top IBM i enhancements in recent memory. Why isn’t the IBM i community aware of it?

Beginning with IBM i 7.1, RPG IV coders gained the capability to do completely free-form programs. The benefit of free-form calcs had

IBM last month issued integrity PTFs for IBM i 6.1 through IBM i 7.2 to address eight recently discovered security vulnerabilities in OpenSSL. This includes the so-called Logjam Attack in TLS, which was disclosed by security researchers in May and could allow attackers to read encrypted traffic. The eight vulnerabilities also exist in i5/OS V5R3 and V5R4, but IBM will not fix them, it says.

IBM i shops are encouraged to apply the patches–including SI57527 for IBM i 6.1, SI57473 for IBM i 7.1, and SI57468 for IBM i 7.2–as soon as possible. For organizations running older versions of the

His days are spent in a small room, eyes fixated straight ahead. His appearance is neglectful, and he often forgets to take sustenance. An observant visitor might notice a peculiar thickness around his slender waist. He wears a diaper. He endures this indignity not because he is elderly or disabled, but because he cannot bear to tear himself away from the screen on which endless battles rage.

Chinese authorities estimate there are another 24 million like him, a generation of gamers addicted to the action-life depicted in violent virtual worlds. Marathon sessions are common. Serious gamers routinely play for 20,

Small IBM i shops often wrestle with the same demons and dragons as enterprise-class businesses. The rules are the same and size does not matter when the opponent is regulatory compliance and privacy laws. There’s no leniency when it comes to data security. Because of this, many small shops are examining their tape backup policies, often devised with no thought toward security, and taking a look at online backup options.

Data protection comes down to getting the data encrypted and then stored at an off-site, secure location. Without a mandate to protect the personal information collected, data handling would not