• 2021 Predictions for IBM i: Part Two

  January 20, 2021 Alex Woodie

  The response from the first batch of IBM i prediction we ran last week was superb. Here’s hoping that the community finds the second batch of predictions equally as worthwhile.

  Chris Wey, the president of the Power Business Unit at Rocket Software, wonders if crystal balls have any power left following the events of last year. “After an unpredictable 2020, the very notion of predictions is called into question,” Wey says. “Still, as an optimist, I believe we will see some incredibly positive outcomes of the past year’s turmoil in the coming year in our space.

  “First, Power systems …

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• Zend Server for IBM i Now 64-Bit, Available Via RPM

  January 20, 2021 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops can now get Zend Server for IBM i via RPM, which has become the standard method for obtaining and installing open source software on the IBM i platform. The enterprise-grade PHP runtime for IBM i also now runs in 64-bit mode, according to Perforce, the owner of the Zend PHP products.

  According to the release notes for Zend Server 2020 for IBM i, the new release brings a host of new features, changes, and fixes to the product. Among the biggest changes is the adoption of RPM packaging for all components, including the IBM i specific ones …

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• New IBM i Logo, Publication

  January 20, 2021 Alex Woodie

  The new year has brought a few changes for those interested in IBM i content (i.e. “words and pictures”), including a new IBM i logo that debuted in a product from IBM, as well as a new publication that is focused, at least in part, on covering the IBM i community.

  Let’s start with the new logo. With last month’s launch of Access Client Solutions (ACS) version 1.1.8.6, IBM introduced what looks like a new IBM i logo. The new logo only seems to appear in the ACS product at the moment.

  Some folks liked the new logo, saying …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, January 20

  January 20, 2021 Jenny Thomas

  While the rest of us hunkered down last year, IBM was on an acquisition spree that has continued into 2021. The acquisitions were all in the cloud or financial tech industries, which comes as no surprise if you’ve been watching. Big Blue has been making its intentions in the cloud business very clear for some time now. IBM’s moves continue to dominate the news of the week, a sampling of which we have culled for you below. Don’t forget to check our Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings calendar below, which is starting to fill up with lots of …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 23, Number 3

  January 20, 2021 Doug Bidwell

  The IBM i platform may be more rugged and secure than any other platform out there, but no software, no matter how cleverly written, is impregnable or unassailable. Every piece of software has some attack surface, even if it is minimized to the greatest practical extent.

  And so it is that we learn about Security Bulletin: OpenSSL for IBM i is affected by CVE-2020-1971, which you can read about more at this link and which is yet another vulnerability that comes through the OpenSSL stack. The issues can be fixed by applying a PTF to IBM i. IBM i releases …

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• IBM i Software And Power Systems Upgrades Keep Rolling Forward

  January 18, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  During tough economic times, I am fond of reminding people – and especially myself as I try to remain calm in a recession or whatever the heck this is we are dealing with now during the coronavirus pandemic – that business, in the aggregate, never goes to zero. No matter how bad it gets, thus far in the modern era starting perhaps with the Renaissance and maybe even longer but certainly since the agricultural and industrial revolutions in the 1700s, people still need stuff and they need people to grow or make it.

  That doesn’t mean it is easy, however. …

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• Preparing For What’s Next In A Thoughtful, Structured Way

  January 18, 2021 David Wright and Albert Swett

  (Sponsored Content) January is the time for New Year resolutions – pausing and reflecting, taking stock, reassessing, and for deciding the most important things to focus on in the year ahead. This is no less true for IT leaders as 2021 dawns.

  Not only is there a need for the usual annual planning efforts but the coming year will require managing all the uncertain outcomes and consequences of the COVID epidemic. Some unexpected IT priority changes will probably persist – enabling remote working, accelerating digital business, and increasing cloud usage. Other things may slowly return to “normal” – …

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• Guru: Fall Brings New RPG Features, Part 3

  January 18, 2021 Jon Paris

  In my previous tips (see Related Stories below), I covered the new BIFs and op-code options added with this release. This time I’m going to discuss a couple of new compiler options that focus on the conversion of character data to numeric.

  While you may not have needed these capabilities to date, it is highly likely that you will in the near future. Why? Because of the rapid growth in the use of web services in the IBM i world. I don’t think I have talked to a single client in the last 12 months who was not already providing …

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• ARCAD Plugs IBM i DevOps Suite Into Microsoft Azure

  January 18, 2021 Alex Woodie

  IBM i developers can now leverage a collection of DevOps tools on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, courtesy of a new integration announced in December 2020 by ARCAD Software.

  Azure DevOps is an end-to-end DevOps environment that provides a range of project management services for developers who are building software to deploy on Azure or other platforms.

  Microsoft ostensibly introduced the software as a service (SaaS) offering back in October 2018. But in reality, Azure DevOps is the latest name of a product that can trace its lineage back to 2006, when Microsoft launched Visual Studio Team System.

  Through its …

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• Park Place Buys Curvature To Become Maintenance Goliath

  January 18, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The big tend to get bigger, and this is certainly happening in the third-party maintenance (TPM) business for IT equipment. We didn’t catch this when it happened, but back in November, Park Place Technologies acquired rival Curvature for an undisclosed sum. Both companies have substantial businesses supporting IBM Power Systems customers, although they are by no means exclusively focused on providing alternative hardware support for these platforms alone.

  We did a story about using third party maintenance providers back in April 2019, and followed it up in September 2019 as Power7 and Power7+ iron was coming to the end …

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