• Four Hundred Monitor, February 2

  February 2, 2022 Jenny Thomas

  I have read that February is the border between winter and spring, which should come as good news for much of the U.S. as the East Coast lies in the grip of some frigid temperatures. But neither the month nor the temps are of consequence to IBM, which has charged into the new year with renewed vigor. As we check in on the latest news regarding Big Blue, we see that the charge is on to refocus after the split from Kyndryl, with the hybrid cloud being the first order of business. Once you’ve caught up on the news, don’t …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 24, Number 5

  February 2, 2022 Doug Bidwell

  Another week, another security vulnerability. This time, there is one in the Db2 stack for IBM i. Specifically, we present to you Security Bulletin: IBM Db2 Mirror for i is vulnerable to denial of service due to gson 217225, which you can read in full at this link. As the Db2 Mirror database clustering technology is only available on IBM i 7.4, this is the only IBM i release that is affected.

  The IBM i Group PTF number containing the fix for this vulnerability follows: Release 7.4 – SF99668 level 17.

  Just a reminder that there is a new …

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• The IBM i Cloud Just Got More Frictionless With Virtual Serial Numbers

  January 31, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  If the cloud is to be successful, it has to do more than provide a new deployment and pricing model for IT organizations. It has to also maintain and retain some of the important practices in use by the IT department. One of the big disconnections between on premises IBM equipment and capacity sold in the cloud has been the serial number that identifies a machine, which is a kind of birth certificate and Social Security number for each box that comes off the IBM factory lines.

  That serial number is used to identify the machine for technical support purposes …

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• Learning To Drive Fast On The DevOps Roadmap

  January 31, 2022 Andrew Ireland

  Maturity doesn’t come with the passing of time, but with experience, whatever age you may start doing something. So it is with DevOps. In many ways IBM i teams have been ‘ahead of their time’, deploying small code increments to production fast and often.  However we are seeing that requirements in integration and hybrid cloud are pushing the boundaries in DevOps transformation, and that to avoid costly, high-risk migration projects in the future it is important to act now and start taking further steps on that IBM i DevOps maturity journey.

  Full DevOps maturity depends on sharing development methods and …

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• Focal Point Buys UCG Technologies, On The Hunt For More IBM i Deals

  January 31, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  There is a wave of acquisitions underway in the managed service provider (MSP) and technical support services businesses of the IBM i market, with companies trying to amass the skillsets to provide a more complete stack of services to IBM midrange shops. The acquisitions are also being fueled by a business model of cross-selling across merged company portfolios and getting the size necessary to expand into new geographies and to find new customers as IBM i shops confront the growing complexity of their infrastructure and looming shortages in skilled IBM i personnel.

  That, in a nutshell, is why Focal Point …

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• IBM Says Nothing About Power Systems In Q4

  January 31, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In the wake of its spinout of the Kyndryl managed services business, which represented about a third of the company’s revenues and employees, Big Blue has changed the way it organizes its groups and divisions which, generally speaking, more accurately reflects what it sells and the underlying systems business that is International Business Machines.

  Which is great. We have been kvetching about this since 2016, the last time IBM reorganized its business and its financials, so hooray. And we did a preview of the new financial reporting segments, and how IBM backcast them into 2020, with our own revenue …

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• DSC Bullish On IBM i Cloud Growth

  January 31, 2022 Alex Woodie

  You may know Data Storage Corporation as the company that provides hosted high availability and disaster recovery services. But the New York company has moved beyond its roots in data storage with its fast-growing cloud hosting business, where it runs hundreds of IBM i environments on behalf of its customers. With the great cloud migration just starting for Power customers, there’s a considerable upside for companies like DSC.

  Data Storage Corporation was one of the first IBM business partners to get into the cloud business. It started building its IBM i cloud in earnest in late 2012, and launched it …

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• Is COBOL on IBM i Experiencing a Renaissance?

  January 26, 2022 Alex Woodie

  There is no doubt that RPG is the dominant language when it comes to IBM i development. But there are some indications that more interest in COBOL may be brewing in IBM i circles, particularly among customers of a certain size and industry segment.

  COBOL has been on the mind of Dan Magid, the CEO of data integration software developer Eradani. That will happen when large banks come out of the blue and ask you to support COBOL in your product, which Eradani did with its data integration middleware for IBM i.

  “What’s been interesting for us is, we …

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• Midrange Optimism for In-Person Events in 2022

  January 26, 2022 Alex Woodie

  If you’re hankering to reconnect with your IBM i colleagues in person this year, we have good news for you: In-person events are set to make a comeback in 2022. COMMON’s annual POWERUp conference in New Orleans in May tops the list, but many other groups are making their physical comebacks, too.

  COMMON president Gordon Leary is eager to bring the world’s largest IBM i user group back into the physical fold starting May 23, when the POWERUp 2022 conference kicks off at the New Orleans Marriott. So are a lot of COMMON members who haven’t seen each other in …

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• Companies Still Grappling with Economic Woes

  January 26, 2022 Alex Woodie

  We’re nearly 23 months into the pandemic, but COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on how we work and play. Companies that make and move goods — a core constituency of the IBM i installed base — have been hit particularly hard by the COVID-induced kink in the supply chain, but rising prices and inflation aren’t far behind.

  The United States is in the middle of a remarkable economic period that few experts (if any) predicted. For that, you can thank your friendly neighborhood coronavirus, which put into motion a series of events, many with unforeseeable consequences, that continues to ripple …

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