• GiAPA Tracks SQL Performance Issues On IBM i

  March 16, 2026 Alex Woodie

  Tracking down SQL performance problems with IBM i applications sometimes can be difficult, thanks to the mysterious ways that IBM’s Db2 query optimizer works. To help shine a light on changes the optimizer may suddenly make to query access plans, the IBM i performance experts behind GiAPA developed a new tool, dubbed SQL Observer.

  The Db2 query optimizer is a wonder of software engineering. The IBMers who developed it deserve a ton of credit for creating a smart piece of software that keeps SQL queries running so efficiently. Users simply submit the query they want to run, and the …

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• LegacyBridge Uses AI To Automate Data Entry On 5250 Screens

  March 16, 2026 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that are interested in eliminating manual data entry on 5250 screens may be interested in a new AI-based offering from a startup called LegacyBridge. According to the product’s developer, LegacyBridge uses computer vision and language AI technology not only to understand the information on source documents like PDFs, but also to navigate the 5250 screen and enter the pertinent data into the appropriate field.

  You could say that Dmitrijs Tarasovs is an automation afficionado. “I’ve had a thing for automating boring, time-consuming tasks long before the AI boom,” he told IT Jungle in an email interview. “Finding  …

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• As I See It: The Surgical Years

  March 16, 2026 Victor Rozek

  Should you be lucky enough to live so long, you will enter what I call “The Surgical Years.” Inevitably, regardless of how much kale you eat, or exercise you get, or protein drinks you guzzle, your body will betray you and you will require serious medical intervention. That poses a two-pronged dilemma for millions of people: cost and availability.

  Insurance premiums and co-pays are skyrocketing. Out of network care is often simply unaffordable. Rural hospitals are closing, medical appointments, particularly with specialists, are often unavailable for months. Many people are forced to ignore nagging pains until their condition becomes unbearable, …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 28, Number 11

  March 16, 2026 Doug Bidwell

  The Power11 processors and their systems have in the field since last summer, and for those of you fortunate enough to have a server with that “new car smell,” now is the time to learn about the new processor and systems and figure out how to optimize performance on these machines and take advantage of their special features.

  To that end, IBM has put out a new best practices guide called IBM Power11 Performance Optimization For IBM i to help you begin the processor of tuning up your new machine. You can download it here.

  In addition to this, …

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• We Need To Get A Little Insight From You

  March 16, 2026 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  There are a lot of shops that backup their systems to tape and then store tapes offsite, or they use cloud backup services that accomplish the same feat.

  We don’t judge, but we do need to understand what you do, why you do it, and how well this strategy works for you. And to that end, we are working with FalconStor, which provides offsite data protection services for the IBM i platform, to survey readers of The Four Hundred.

  The survey only takes a few minutes and will give us insight into what is really going on out …

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• No Joke: Big Memory And Flash Price Hikes Coming April 1

  March 9, 2026 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  As I told you about last week, price increases for Power Systems and Storage products have indeed come to pass. We were poo-pooing the idea that IBM would have a 25 percent across-the-board price increase, saying this would be unprecedented and unjustified. But the price increases that go into effect in three weeks (just after the first financial quarter of 2026 ends) are jaw dropping even if they are mainly for main memory and flash drives.

  We would love to show you the link to the announcement letter, but as far as we know there is no customer announcement …

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• Strategic Topics To Think About For 2026, Part 2

  March 9, 2026 Philippe Magne

  Last month, in the first part of this series, I presented a bunch of strategic topics that I think the IBM i community needs to think about as we figure out what needs to be done in their application estates in 2026 and beyond. I talked predominantly about pragmatism versus hype with AI and then DevSecOps transformation and AI integration into DevSecOps. You can read Part 1 at this link, and that is probably a good idea before diving into Part 2.

  In Part 2, I want to focus in on application security. This is a big theme, and …

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• Guru: IBM i Job Log Detective Brings Structure To Job Log Analysis In VS Code

  March 9, 2026 Gregory Simmons

  Remain Software has released a new Visual Studio Code extension called IBM i Job Log Detective, and it targets a pain point every IBM i developer understands: reading job logs efficiently.

  In addition to its marketplace availability, IBM i Job Log Detective is open source under the MIT license and can be found on GitHub at: https://github.com/RemainSoftware/jld

  There has never been anything wrong with IBM i job logs themselves. They are exhaustive, consistent, and remarkably detailed. When something fails, the job log contains the truth. The issue has always been consumption. Large QPJOBLOG files can run thousands of lines (or …

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• IBM Launches Hybrid Cloud Backup Product With Cobalt Iron

  March 9, 2026 Alex Woodie

  IBM and its business partner Cobalt Iron last week announced the launch of a new cloud backup product. Dubbed Secure Automated Backup with Compass for IBM Cloud, the new SaaS offering can protect data residing across customers’ landscape, including IBM Cloud, other clouds, and on-prem systems like IBM i.

  Cobalt Iron was founded in 2013 with the goal of modernizing backup and recovery. Founder Richard Spurlock saw that companies were spending too much time with platform-specific backup products, so he decided to build a centralized virtual tape library (VTL) solution that could back up and recover data across a range …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 28, Number 10

  March 9, 2026 Doug Bidwell

  It was a super quiet week in IBM i Land this week. Seriously. Like, we have never seen it so quiet. No security vulnerabilities, no new PTF groups issued for any of the five supported IBM i releases. It has been very, very quiet indeed. So that probably means you need to brace yourself for a bunch of stuff in the next couple of weeks.

  We did want to point out that there are massive price changes coming for Power Systems main memory, which were announced to business partners on March 2 and which take effect on April. (This is …

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