• Going Off IBM Hardware Maintenance A Risky Move

  April 15, 2019 Alex Woodie

  Organizations that are running older Power Systems servers have some tough decisions coming up. IBM ceased offering hardware support for Power 6 servers on March 31, and support for Power 7 will go away on September 30. Some organizations may choose to support themselves instead of upgrading to a newer machine, but that move comes with substantial risks.

  While there’s no central clearinghouse for this sort of information, it would appear that a good percentage of IBM i customers – if not most of them – have hardware and software support agreements with IBM. Big Blue provides three years …

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• IBM i Announcements Loom, and So Does POWERUp 2019

  April 15, 2019 Alex Woodie

  By now you probably know that IBM is making its next round of IBM i announcements next Tuesday, April 23, via a COMMON webcast. But what you might not know is that COMMON has more than a dozen sessions about the yet-to-be-disclosed announcements planned for the upcoming POWERUp 2019 conference taking place next month at Disneyland.

  “Right now we’re looking at about 15 or 16 sessions about the announcement itself,” COMMON Executive Director Manzoor Siddiqui tells IT Jungle. “We’re going to be the first conference where people will have access to the knowledge and the content around that.”

  On …

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• Guru: Preamble Comments

  April 15, 2019 Chris Ringer

  Do you remember what you ate for lunch two days ago? If you’re like me, you had to think about it for a minute before answering. Now imagine trying to recall the detailed requirements of a few programs you wrote a year ago so you can modify them for a new project. Or better yet, what if someone else like a retired employee or a traveling contractor coded these programs? At this point you may become very dependent on any comments they left in the code.

  It’s been said that any time spent commenting on your code now might save …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, April 15

  April 15, 2019 Jenny Thomas

  If you are an IBM employee thinking of leaving your job, IBM probably knew about it before you did. Big Blue has been using AI as an employee retention tool and can predict with 95 percent accuracy which employees are likely to leave, CEO Ginni Rometty said in a recent interview. A little scary in the wrong hands, but if used effectively could mean a happier, more satisfied workforce, and cost savings in seeking and training new employees. You can see Rometty’s whole interview at the first link below, and then continue on to catch up on the rest of …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 21, Number 15

  April 15, 2019 Doug Bidwell

  And the PTFs just keep on rolling. . . . This week, there are patches in the HTTP Server Group for IBM i 7.2 and IBM i 7.3. There is also a new Database Group for IBM i 7.2.

  And, as is common with most production operating systems these days, especially those that have a lot of components derived from open source software where things get discovered and patched out in the open where everyone can see and with a rapidity that operating systems of days gone by did not have to deal with, there is a continual stream of …

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• Syncsort Debuts Unified IBM i Security Suite

  April 10, 2019 Alex Woodie

  Syncsort rolled out a suite of software this week that unifies several of the IBM i security products it has acquired over past two years. Dubbed Assure Security, the suite is designed to help IBM i shops lock down servers and protect them from threats while getting a handle on emerging data regulations, like the looming California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

  The acquisition of Vision Solutions by Syncsort back in June 2017 closely coincided with the two companies’ joint pivot into data security. Vision, of course, was best known as a provider of IBM i high availability solutions when it …

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• GoAnywhere Tops in MFT, Research Group Says

  April 10, 2019 Alex Woodie

  We haven’t heard a whole lot about the GoAnywhere managed file transfer (MFT) solution since HelpSystems acquired Linoma Software back in 2016. But the product is coming to life in a big way this year, thanks to a major refresh of the IBM i-supported product, as well as a top score in a reputable research group’s ranking of MFT products.

  Info-Tech Research Group last week published a report ranking nine MFT products from some of the biggest names in file transfer and IT, including IBM, Ipswitch, Oracle, Adobe, and Citrix, among others. While GoAnywhere didn’t …

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• Raz-Lee Reels In The File Editors

  April 10, 2019 Alex Woodie

  File editors can be great time-savers in certain situations. Who wouldn’t want developers to be able to quickly get into a database file, fix some errors, and then jump back out? Clearly, the answer is the security department. But thanks to a new solution from Raz-Lee Security called iSecurity Safe Update, file editors can be used without giving the security officer nightmares.

  File editors are among the most popular products on the IBM i platform, thanks to their capability to developers and administrators to make changes to data quickly and easily, without requiring programming. The IBM i operating system comes …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, April 10

  April 10, 2019 Jenny Thomas

  “You see golf. We see data.” I probably won’t be watching, but golf fans know the Masters kicks off this week in Georgia, and tech fans will be interested in seeing how IBM’s Watson keeps the tournament running smoothly. Of course, I wish I could tell you the IBM i was prominently featured, but it is always good to see IBM getting in front of 13 million television viewers, if the 2019 Masters lives up to last year’s numbers. You can see IBM’s slick website for the Masters at the first link below, and continue on from there for the …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 21, Number 14

  April 10, 2019 Doug Bidwell

  We have some new items to report with this week’s PTF Guide. There are new HIPER and Security groups for all three supported releases. And there is a new MQ group for 7.3 and 7.2. Plus, there are new links for the System Passport Advantage and Passport Advantage Express. That’s a lot of new for you to chew on.

  Sadly, there is nothing new to report for tips this week. That would have been too much to hope for, anyway. There are also no new defectives to review this week.

  Here is the last defective PTF rundown for each release: …

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