TFH Volume: 28 Issue: 14 Archives

Tooling Around With IBM i Access Client Solutions Announcements

February 21, 2018 Dan Burger

Access Client Solutions (ACS) received several feature/function enhancements when the Technology Refreshes were announced last week with a little something for end users, system administrators, and database engineers. Although nothing stands out as a major item, this is an incremental release fulfilling user-requested features.

The 5250 emulator is a good example. It’s a key technology that is likely the most used component in ACS, but it’s been around for so long it’s easy to think there’s nothing new in emulation. But users never seem to cease to ask for something new: support for Chinese CCSID 1371 is one of those …
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BRMS Cloud Backups Get Recovery Teeth

February 21, 2018 Alex Woodie

IBM i shops that use Backup, Recovery and Media Services for i (BRMS) have been able to save their backups to the cloud for over a year. However, they faced restrictions when it came to restoring those backups to a system that wasn’t the originating server, which made the feature less useful in real-world disaster. Now IBM and its development partners are removing that restriction with the latest batch of IBM i tech refreshes.

We touched on the new BRMS capability last week in our round-up story about IBM i 7.3 Technology Refresh 4 (TR4) and IBM i 7.2 TR8. …
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IBM Patches ‘ROBOT’ Flaw in IBM i Crypto Library

February 21, 2018 Alex Woodie

IBM has issued patches to fix a serious security problem in the IBM Global Security Kit, or GSKit, a relatively obscure crypto package that implements SSL/TLS encryption algorithms across a variety of IBM products, including IBM i. An old flaw in the underlying RSA crypto algorithm that could let hackers decrypt data in a “side channel” attack has resurfaced under a new moniker: “ROBOT.”

GSKit is an IBM toolkit that implements various encryption-related functions, including symmetric and asymmetric ciphers, random number generation, hashing algorithms, and encryption key management capabilities, for products that need over-the-wire encryption, including IBM i, Linux, and …
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Four Hundred Monitor, February 21

February 21, 2018 Dan Burger

Artificial intelligence (AI) may be the goose that laid the golden egg, with promises of systems endowed with the intellectual processes characteristic of humans, such as the ability to reason, discover meaning, generalize, or learn from past experience. But there are seldom talked about dangers that could cook your goose. Pay attention to regulatory compliance, law, privacy, and ethics as you integrate AI into your systems.

Class action lawsuits are barking at the heels of Intel stemming from the handling of the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities. These stories, plus tips on communications skills that aid project planning, make it into …
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IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 20, Number 7

February 21, 2018 Doug Bidwell

This is our latest Spectre and Meltdown (SM) speculative execution security vulnerabilities update. We finally got the straight answer on firmware to models from IBM. We have updated the SM worksheet in the IBM i PTF Guide to reflect what we have learned. Just a reminder, the Spectre and Meltdown speculative execution security vulnerabilities have been classified by IBM’s Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) as having a “High Severity” level.

There are no changes to the PTF Groups this week. I suspect the Power9 announcement and Tech Refreshes have kept everyone busy.

Here is a rundown on the IBM …
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Tooling Around With IBM i Access Client Solutions Announcements

BRMS Cloud Backups Get Recovery Teeth

IBM Patches ‘ROBOT’ Flaw in IBM i Crypto Library

Four Hundred Monitor, February 21

IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 20, Number 7

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