• Guru: Web Concepts For The RPG Developer, Part 1

  April 22, 2024 Chris Ringer

  Way back in the 1990s, I recall accessing data with only RPG III F-Specs. But nowadays some of that critical data may live in the cloud. The good news is tools like HTTPAPI and RXS and SQL functions like SQL HTTP are available to access that remote data from the IBM i. But what you may not know is how to actually format components in those HTTP requests.

  Here I will discuss some techniques to build those components in an HTTP request before sending it across the web.

  HTTP Get Versus Post

  The two most common methods for an HTTP …

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• Gartner: IT Spending To Grow Faster Than Expected In 2024

  April 22, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The adoption of generative AI by enterprises and the acceleration of the rates of use of IT services from outside consultants to get stuff done is going to boost IT spending higher than expected this year, according to the prognosticators at Gartner.

  In terms of aggregate dollars, the effect if the latter is much larger than the former. The broad IT services category is now expected to account for $1,520 billion in spending worldwide this year, up 9.7 percent compared to last year and representing a $19 billion increase from the forecast that Gartner made in January. It will not …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 26, Number 16

  April 22, 2024 Doug Bidwell

  It is an interesting time out there in PTF Land, so brace yourself. There are four security bulletins and two security warnings about potential denial of service vulnerabilities. Let’s do the security bulletins first and then the denial of service issues.

  First, we have Security Bulletin: IBM i Access Client Solutions is vulnerable to an infinite loop or out of memory error due to vulnerabilities in Apache Commons Compress, which you can find out more about at this link. The affected product(s) include IBM i Access Family versions 1.1.2 – 1.1.4, and versions 1.1.4.3 – 1.1.9.4. The issue can …

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• Drilling Down Into New IBM i Perpetual And Subscription Pricing

  April 15, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  As we reported in last week’s issue, Big Blue increased pricing on its pricing for per-core perpetual software licenses, per user licensing fees, Software Maintenace, and subscription prices back on January 1. We missed the change – again, apologies for that – and let you know about the basics of these and other hardware and software price changes. This week we are going to look at the effect of these changes on the cost of the base IBM i systems software stack.

  To review: On September 9 last year, IBM announced the price increases that went into effect as …

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• Securing The Crown Jewels When Intruders Break Into The Glass House

  April 15, 2024 Ash Giddings

  Recognizing the importance of proactive cybersecurity, Maxava is proud to announce the launch of Maxava Security, a ground-breaking solution set to revolutionize IBM i data protection. Departing from conventional reactive measures prevalent in many IBM i security solutions, Maxava Security heralds a proactive paradigm shift, prioritizing heightened visibility along with swift recovery over the traditional incident-response model.

  The IBM i server has long been a workhorse in the business world. Renowned for its reliability, stability, and ability to secure, it hums away in the background, running key applications while housing mission critical data for countless organizations. Yet, no system is …

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• Guru: Fooling Around With SQL And RPG

  April 15, 2024 Gregory Simmons

  Editor’s Note: This was originally scheduled to be published on April 1. No joke. And for a lot of complex reasons, that could not happen. But, it’s still fun, so enjoy.

  I started out one morning, purely interested in having a bit of fun. Honest. In RSS within ACS, I often like to run this SQL:

   select *
   from json_table(
        QSYS2.HTTP_GET('https://icanhazdadjoke.com/',
                '{"header": "Accept,application/json", "sslTolerate":"true"}'),
                'lax $' columns ("joke" varchar(200) CCSID 1208)
        )
  

  

  Okay, that was fun. This is harmless, good fun. But then I thought, what if I put this into a simple RPG program? Then I …

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• As I See It: With Deepfakes, Nothing Is Real Except The Consequences

  April 15, 2024 Victor Rozek

  With an election looming that promises to be conducted with snake-oil ethics, the Congress recently turned its attention from its usual dysfunctional finger pointing to hear testimony about the growing plague of deepfakes.

  The usual suspects were represented, in this case Google and Meta, by a spokesman from the industry-funded lobbying group NetChoice. Not surprisingly, they wrapped themselves in the First Amendment and accepted little or no responsibility for what their users post online. They argued that existing laws governing fraud and harassment were sufficient to protect targets (aka victims) of deepfakes.

  Standing against the “it’s-not-our-fault” brigade was the mother …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 26, Number 15

  April 15, 2024 Doug Bidwell

  Hey, this is interesting. We have no security vulnerabilities to report on this week for the IBM i platform. And this is also interesting. There is a new version of Access Client Solutions, called V1.1.9.5. We will be putting together a news story to talk about this, but in the meantime, we thought you should know that it is out. There ain’t a lot else going on, as you will see.

  Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by IBM i release level since we last published:

  PTF Groups 7.5:

  • IBM i Access Client Solutions V1.1.9.5
  • QMGTOOLS

  PTF Groups 7.4: …

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• Visualizing the Business Apps Used In the IBM i Marketplace

  April 10, 2024 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops run an incredibly diverse array of software, including open source programs, packaged applications, and homegrown software. When it comes to business applications, data from the last nine State of IBM i Marketplace Surveys from Fortra helps to tell the tale.

  The IBM i platform was born to run applications. It’s right there in the original name, after all: Application System/400. Software vendors flocked to support the AS/400 following its launch in 1988, and while there has been some attrition over the years, there remains a strong core of vendors developing and supporting applications running on the platform. …

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• Avatier Bolsters Self-Service Password Reset with MFA

  April 10, 2024 Alex Woodie

  Self-service password reset cuts both ways. On one hand, users want convenient ways to reset passwords they invariably will forget. On the other, events like the recent MGM cyberattack show that more thorough user authentication is required. The folks at identity management solution provider Avatier think they have come up with a novel way to satisfy both camps – without getting cut in the process.

  You might not have heard about Avatier, but the Pleasanton, California, has been quietly serving the single sign-on (SSO) and identity management needs of IBM i shops for the past 24 years. It’s integrated …

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