• Hacking IBM i: Penetration Testing Gains Popularity

  April 13, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Think your IBM i is hacker-proof? It may well be, but only a handful of systems have escaped the wrath of Carol Woodbury, the HelpSystems IBM i security expert who previously was the platform’s security architect at IBM. In recent years, Woodbury and company have ramped up a unique penetration testing service that aims to poke holes in IBM i configurations, all in the name of better security.

  Penetration testing, or ethical hacking, is growing in popularity as organizations seek to solidify the security of their servers. Open systems platform, like Linux and Windows servers and cloud resources, are the …

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• Where Is The Power Systems-IBM i Stimulus Package?

  April 13, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The governments of the world are spending to try to compensate for the economic slowdown in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which is the right thing to do. We wonder why IBM has not done more to help its Power Systems business.

  Just before the coronavirus pandemic really started to kick in throughout Europe and the United States, and as the Power9 family of Power Systems machines was entering the long tail part of its sales cycle, IBM announced a deal in Europe that gave customers buying its so-called scale out (what we would call entry) one-socket and two-socket …

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• Guru: Copy From Stream File FMTOPT(*NOCHK)

  April 13, 2020 Bob Cozzi

  Using SQL frequently, as I do, I tend to look for solutions to problems that can be resolved using the database language (i.e., SQL). Sometimes I have to invent a missing piece of the puzzle. Often that entails writing a User-Defined Function (UDF) for use in SQL, but sometimes a CL command is the better choice.

  Recently I had a situation where what the client calls an “EDI File” was being downloaded using sftp on the IBM server running i. This file is created at a vendor that runs IBM mainframes (an actual mainframe by the way) and the file …

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• The X Factor: Home Base

  April 13, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  As you might imagine, New York City is on my mind a lot these days. And I have some advice for you as you are transitioning to tighter quarters and working from home – something I have been doing for 25 years now.

  Way back in the dawn of time, back in the wake of the launch of the AS/400 when I graduated from college and moved to New York City because it was the biggest, scariest thing that I could do, my brain sort of melted from the enormity of it all. At that time, a recession was underway …

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• IT Starts To Feel The Impact Of The Great Infection

  April 13, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  You know the difference between an economy and an ecosystem? Me neither.

  We stand by our conviction – and that backed up by the economists and market watchers at IDC – that the IT sector is going to fare better than other sectors in the wake of the global coronavirus pandemic and the jarring effects of the lockdown most of us are under. But we are also not surprised that IDC had to revise its estimates of IT spending projections for 2020 and beyond only a few days after putting out its initial thoughts. It’s a fluid situation, with …

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• IBM i Can Thrive Under New CEO, Arvind Krishna

  April 8, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Arvind Krishna took the reins as CEO of IBM on Monday, marking the changing of the guard at one of this country’s foremost tech firms. But this is no ordinary switch, as Krishna must immediately navigate IBM through an extraordinary crisis that combines technological and social upheaval along with a new business climate. If given the proper attention, the IBM i platform has the chance to shine.

  A new IBM CEO is a momentous event in and of itself. Since Thomas Watson founded the company in 1914, there have been only nine other CEOs at the Armonk, New York, company …

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• imPower Technologies Embraces Switch to Online Learning

  April 8, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Traditional schools around the world are in turmoil as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown and the sudden switch to online learning. For Jim Buck and his new IBM i training venture, imPower Technologies, the sudden popularity of virtual education validates the work he and his colleagues have done to build an Internet-based IBM i education operation.

  “We’ve been preparing for this unknowingly for years now,” imPower Technologies Chief Operating Officer Michelle Lyons says. “Had we known, we couldn’t have prepared better.”

  Buck and Lyons started building imPower Technologies nearly three years ago to provide an online vehicle to deliver …

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• Exploring ALL400s In Tableau

  April 8, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Those who love maps and the IBM i platform will get a kick out John Rockwell’s latest trick: an aerial view of the IBM i installed base through the lens of Tableau’s interactive BI software. And even if you have no particular predilection for geography, the ability to drill down into details and statistics of the IBM i populace is worth a look anyway.

  Rockwell, of course, is the steward of ALL400s, the list of IBM i shops that Rockwell started assembling back in 2005. The list contains the names of nearly 48,700 organizations that currently run or previously …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, April 8

  April 8, 2020 Jenny Thomas

  The lockdown continues and while it may seem like everything has come to a screeching halt, the world is still spinning and businesses are carrying on as best as they can. Take IBM, for instance. The plan for introducing us to its new CEO has been in the works for some time, and pandemic or not, it came time for Arvind Krishna to take the reins. And on April 6, he did exactly that, and started the day with a letter, which you can see at the first link in the Top Stories From Outside The Jungle section below. Before …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 22, Number 14

  April 8, 2020 Doug Bidwell

  We hope you are well out there in IBM iLand during the Great Infection. These are tough times, but we can get through it together. The PTF updates are a little skimpy this week, and that is just as well with people having plenty of other things on their mind.

  And here is the rundown by IBM i release:

  PTF Groups 7.4

  • QMGTOOLS

  PTF Groups 7.3

  • QMGTOOLS

  PTF Groups 7.2

  • QMGTOOLS

  PTF Groups 7.1

  • Nothing here to see here

  New (or Updated) Links this week:

  • ACS: Missing IBM i ACS 5250 Menu Bar
  • TLS: How to Enable TLS for the

  …

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