• Guru: Keeping Track Of IBM i System Limits

  January 17, 2022 Dawn May

  Every complex system has limits, and computer systems are no different. During my work with clients over the years I’ve seen many shops push their systems as far as they can go until performance breaks down. The limits I encounter are generally numbers of things: How many objects can exist in a library? How many rows can be inserted into a table? How large can a file in the IFS be?

  Typically, these limits are large and you may think you do not need to worry about them, especially after an upgrade. But as the workload on your system …

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• Recent IBM i Redbook Roundup

  January 17, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Say what you will about IBM, but it puts out a lot of technical information compared to its peers in the systems business, and always has. The techies at Big Blue and its many business partners expend a great deal of effort to put good technical information about Power Systems servers and the IBM i platform out there to help people better understand, run, and manage their applications and systems.

  It can be hard to keep up with it all, so we perused the IBM Redbook library on your behalf and now present to you a roundup of the most …

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• IBM Preconfigures Power System Racks Running Oracle Database

  January 17, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  If you are one of the suppliers who still sells Unix and Linux servers for supporting back-end relational databases or platforms that compete against Unix and Linux iron, then Oracle is something you have to contend with either directly or indirectly. As the dominant database platform for running ERP, CRM, SCM, and other applications, you have to partner with Oracle even if you have to compete against the company.

  The good news is that at least Oracle no longer is selling big iron machinery based on the Solaris Unix and the Sparc processors that the company acquired when it bought …

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• Log4j Hits Heritage Version of Navigator for i – No Patch Coming

  January 12, 2022 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops running the old version of the Navigator for i client should be aware that the software is vulnerable to the Log4j security vulnerability, and there will be no patch to fix it, IBM says in a new security bulletin. There will, however, be fixes coming to other vulnerable components, including IWS, IAS, and IBM i Access Client Solutions (ACS), IBM says.

  Just before we hit the holiday break, the extremely severe Apache Log4j security vulnerability was disclosed to the world, resulting in a frantic effort to patch servers, desktops, refrigerators – just about anything with a …

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• IBM i Community Predictions for 2022, Part 2

  January 12, 2022 Alex Woodie

  The new year is upon us, which means it’s time for predictions. We continue where we left off on Monday with our second installment of predictions from the IBM i community.

  The way Fresche Solutions Chief Product Officer Marcel Sarrasin sees it, 2022 will be a period of heightened competition in the business jungle.

  “Technology advancements and changing markets will drive new competitive threats in 2022, creating the urgent need for new digital solutions to help companies thrive, survive and grow,” Sarrasin says. “Focus will be on new IT products and applications that will deliver improved business processes, pave the …

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• IBM Delivers a Db2 Mirror Update

  January 12, 2022 Alex Woodie

  IBM updated its Db2 Mirror continuous availability solution last month with support for ObjectConnect, which shrinks the amount of disk space required to copy objects from one IBM i server to another. It also updated the high-speed networking protocols at the heart of the Db2 Mirror solution, which should improve the security of data flowing over networks and makes Db2 Mirror clusters more feasible over longer distances.

  IBM has provided ObjectConnect commands on the IBM i server for years as a way to replicate IBM i objects. The software is useful because it improves the efficiency of copy operations by …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, January 12

  January 12, 2022 Jenny Thomas

  Happy New Year! It’s hard to believe anyone is entering the new year without a tiny bit of hope that we may see Covid and all its variants fade into the background of the news cycle. Here in the Jungle, we continue to be grateful to serve the IBM i community and are looking forward to what we hope will be an interesting year for the Power Systems platform, with entry and midrange Power10 machines coming to market. But before we march ahead, just wanted to call some attention to everyone’s favorite Guru Ted Holt, who retired at the end …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 24, Number 2

  January 12, 2022 Doug Bidwell

  The Log4j and Log4Shell saga continues here in the second edition of the IBM i PTF Guide in 2022, which is a fast follower to the one we published just two days ago. IBM has issued a new Security Bulletin, explaining that IBM i components are affected by CVE-2021-4104 (Log4j version 1.X), and the full details about the security exposure and mitigation techniques can be found at this link.

  Here are the affected products and their versions:

  • IBM Navigator for i (heritage version only): IBM i 7.4, 7.3, and 7.2 – the heritage version
  • Integrated Web Services Server (IWS):

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• The Pivotal Year Ahead For Big Blue And IBM i Shops

  January 10, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  When we look back on it many years from now, this year, 2022, will be a pivotal year in the history of the Power Systems platform from Big Blue, which was commercially significant starting in February 1990 when the RS/6000 was launched but which obviously traces its roots through the IBM i and OS/400 branches of the Power Systems family tree all the way back to the System/3 launched in July 1969 just 10 days after humans first landed on the moon.

  There are different kinds of pivot points in the history of the IBM midrange platforms, including the launch …

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• IBM i Community Predictions For 2022, Part 1

  January 10, 2022 Alex Woodie

  While the month and year ostensibly are just values in the date field, when the calendar flips over from December to January, things feel different. There’s a greater sense of hope and optimism for what the new year will bring. Coming off another calamitous year filled with COVID-19, perhaps it’s we need that even more so this year.

  It has become an IT Jungle tradition to ask members of the IBM i community at the start of the year for their predictions. This year is no different, and so we’ll kick off the first part of our (most likely) two-part …

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