• Four Hundred Monitor, May 4

  May 4, 2022 Jenny Thomas

  Today, May 4, or, “May the 4th be with you,” is a celebration of all things Star Wars. As fans know, the fourth day in May became Star Wars Day because of the turn of phrase, “May the Force be with you,” used by Jedi masters in the movies. Yesterday, May 3, was a celebration for the IBM i, albeit without a fancy name. Announcement Day isn’t always on May 3, but it’s a big deal no matter what day it falls on in our ecosystem. We will have lots of news and analysis coming from our IBM i masters …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 24, Number 18

  May 4, 2022 Doug Bidwell

  Well, good people of IBM i Land, you are getting another relatively light week when it comes to PTFs, which makes sense with IBM i 7.5 and IBM i 7.4 TR 6 rolling out this week. This is good news because now you have time to digest all of the announcements and to start thinking about how you might take advantage of all of the new software Big Blue has been working on.

  For those of you who have not kept current on your PTF patches, there is a vast archive of IBM i PTF Guide editions for you to …

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• Entry And Midrange Power10 Machines Coming In July

  May 3, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  If an IT supplier never gives a precise date for the launch of a product – and there are plenty of them that do not – then they can never be officially accused of shipping something late when the delivery date slips. But in the era of Coronavirus, all kinds of things are shipping later than expected and one of them is the entry Power Systems servers based on the Power10 processor. The other one is the midrange Power Systems machine based on the Power10.

  In a pre-briefing with Steve Sibley, vice president and global offering manager for Power Systems, …

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• Power10: A Simple And Smooth Migration To The Cloud

  May 3, 2022 Jason Hardy

  Is it because you like the big upfront capital expense and the depreciating asset? Is it because installing PTFs and doing OS upgrades gives your IT team something to do during slow times? Or maybe it’s because the thought of migration and downtime is just completely overwhelming to you? While I don’t have an answer to the first two reasons above, I’m here to tell you that a migration does not have to be difficult, and downtime can be practically nonexistent.

  I recently spent some time with an IBM reseller, and he walked me through the steps of migrating to …

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• Announcement Day: IBM Lifts The Veil On IBM i 7.5 And 7.4 TR6

  May 3, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Big Blue today announced IBM i version 7.5, the first new version of the operating system in three years. Among the big new features with this release are enhancements to Db2 Mirror, better security configurations, and new database features. A new modernization framework called Merlin and a new IBM i subscription option were also unveiled by IBM, which also announced IBM i 7.4 Technology Release 6.

  One of the big headlines with the IBM i 7.5 announcement is Merlin, which IBM says stands for the Modernization Engine for Lifecycle Integration. Merlin provides a lightweight, browser-based development environment for creating new …

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• As I See It: A Taxing Problem

  May 3, 2022 Victor Rozek

  Elon Musk sifted through his couch cushions and found $44 billion in pocket change, so he bought himself some barbecue with a side of Twitter.

  Elon managed to make a lot of money while the economy tanked during the pandemic years, and there have been rumblings of discontent from mere mortals suggesting that perhaps he, and his billionaire brigade, should actually pay their fair share of taxes. But while Americans are disinclined to begrudge a man his good fortune, these days, middle class realities are rife with rising costs and resentments. To put things in perspective: the average American would …

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• Subscription Pricing Coming To IBM i And Power Systems

  May 3, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The advent and evolution of cloud computing – or one might say the reinvention based on timesharing and renting that was prevalent for large systems in the early days of corporate computing in the 1960s and 1970s – has had a lot of effects on the IT market in the past 15 years. But perhaps the biggest effect is to shift IT budgets away hardware acquisition and perpetual software licenses with technical support for both and toward a simpler subscription pricing model that spreads the cost out over time and moves spending on IT wares from the capital expense part …

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• Infor Moves IBM i Products to New ‘Compass’ Group

  April 27, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Infor is taking a new approach to managing many of its IBM i-based ERP systems and supporting the customers that rely on them to run their businesses. Called Compass, the new group is tasked with revitalizing Infor’s relationships with IBM i customers by catering to their unique needs, according to the company.

  Infor created the Compass group about 10 months ago, soon after Koch Industries finished its acquisition of the company, according to Stewart Applbaum, the executive vice president and general manager of Infor Compass, who took over Compass about a month after it was created.

  “We realized that we …

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• Shipped Tape Capacity Up 40 Percent, LTO Program Says

  April 27, 2022 Alex Woodie

  LTO tape providers shipped 148 exabytes of total capacity in 2021, representing a 40 percent increase over the previous year, the LTO Program announced last week. The number shows how far data growth bounced back following the slowdown during the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

  The total amount of compressed storage capacity delivered to customers jumped from the previous record of 114 EB in 2019, according to the LTO Program. The shipped capacity figure fell to 105 EB in 2020, an 8 percent drop from 2019.

  “Despite the significant business disruptions and uncertainty in 2021, LTO tape …

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• mrc Fills Reporting Gap in Product Lineup

  April 27, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Finding the right reporting tool can make you feel like Goldilocks searching for the right bed or bowl of porridge. Some of the reporting tools are too technical and hard to use, while others are too simplistic and don’t offer enough functionality. Chicago-based software developer mrc thinks it has found just the right combination of functionality and ease of use with its new Report Designer.

  m-Power is a low-code development platform that supports IBM i and other Java platforms. While the software is not a full-blown integrated development environment (IDE), it can provide the capability to quickly generate Web interfaces, …

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