• In The IBM i Trenches With: Chilli IT

  May 9, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  There are many strengths in the IBM i platform besides its hardware and software architecture or the sophistication and ease of programming embodied in its development tools. The diversity of its partner ecosystem is another strength.

  As we pointed out last March with the launch of our ongoing In The IBM i Trenches series, globally there are thousands of resellers, each serving tens to hundreds to sometimes thousands of customers, as well as thousands of suppliers of third party maintenance, of technical support, of programming and system management services, and now of hosting and cloud computing. We want to get …

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• Power Private Cloud Gets More Cloudy With Pricing Tweaks

  May 9, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  As promised two years ago, Big Blue has been gradually and steadily transforming from a business model where it sells machines and perpetual software licenses and support for the both of them to a model where it sells capacity based on usage like a big cloud – like its own IBM Cloud – does.

  As part of the May 3 announcements, IBM has made a few changes to its Power Private Cloud Solution – the word “solution” has become basically useless in the context of IT, just like “offering” has, and I tell writers that I work with that if …

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• Power9 Servers Get Updated Flash Drives

  May 9, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM may be on the verge of launching its entry and midrange Power10 servers in July, as we reported last week, but that doesn’t mean it will not continue to sell Power9-based machines for now and out past the general availability of the Power10-based systems.

  To that end, in announcement letter 122-042, IBM is adding new enterprise-grade flash drives in the U.2 form factor that is roughly analogous to a 2.5-inch disk drive. These new drives, which come from an unnamed source, support the NVM-Express protocol that speeds up flash drives (because they stop talking the SCSI disk …

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• IBM Merlin Brings New Approach to Developing on IBM i

  May 4, 2022 Alex Woodie

  IBM is rolling out a new application development framework dubbed Merlin as part of its release of IBM i version 7.5. Designed primarily as a lightweight alternative to RDi and running in containers, Merlin could provide a guide for how IBM sources and distributes development tools going forward.

  Merlin is a new Licensed Program Product (LPP) offering from IBM designed to enable IBM i developers to create new ILE programs from scratch, or to modernize existing ones. The software, which is officially called Modernization Engine for Lifecycle Integration, is based on a mix of open source and proprietary tools from …

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• Help Us Determine The State Of IBM i In 2022

  May 4, 2022 Miranda VanHorn

  The bi-annual State of IBM i Modernization survey needs your perspective!

  Profound Logic’s State of IBM i Modernization Survey looks at trends and attitudes that shape the IBM i modernization market. The data collected gives the entire community a better understanding of the current state of the IBM i and the priorities of businesses with a similar tech stack.

  The report created from this survey provides the community with essential data, and pre-pandemic we reached out to the IBM i community every year and collected hundreds of data points on how businesses plan to use and modernize the platform in …

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• Infor Touts Stronger Roadmap For IBM i ERP

  May 4, 2022 Alex Woodie

  It may not be fashionable in some circles to have ERP software that runs on IBM i, since containerized microservices running in the cloud are all the rage. But since it was fully acquired by Koch Industries last year, Infor does not care. That change of heart is at the center of a renewed focus on continued development of its IBM i ERP systems.

  For many years, Infor actively pushed many of its IBM i customers to move to other platforms, including cloud-based ERP systems. While it didn’t sunset any of the IBM i products (it has around a dozen …

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• 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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