• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 19, Number 15

  April 26, 2017 Doug Bidwell

  It has been two weeks since the last batch of HIPER PTFs came out, and while the PTF action is a little on the light side, there are a bunch of important updates that are out for IBM i 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3.

  As we have explained before in the IBM i PTF Guide, every two weeks Big Blue updates the High Impact and Pervasive, or HIPER, PTFs that are so critical to the system that in Big Blue’s opinion they should be on every system as quickly as possible. In general, any HIPER PTF that affects any operating …

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• Getting Offensive With The Legacy Label

  April 24, 2017 Dan Burger

  It’s not that we don’t care about CIOs with concerns. But what concerns us more are solutions to those concerns. It’s just a matter of fact that we hear a lot more about problems than we do about solutions. Members of the IBM i community share many of the same concerns, although each has their individual fingerprints.

  To start off down the problem-solving path, it’s not a bad idea to talk about common concerns with colleagues and experts. That’s the path we’re on today as we talk with Alan Seiden, a PHP on IBM i consultant, open source advocate, …

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• State Of IBM i Security: Seven Areas That Demand Attention

  April 24, 2017 Alex Woodie

  The latest installment of the annual State of IBM i Security was released last week by HelpSystems, and the results were about what you would expect: most IBM i servers are basically wide open for abuse.

  In a webinar last week, HelpSystems director of security technologies Robin Tatam discussed the findings of the report, which was based on security assessments conducted on 332 systems during 2016. He broke the findings down into seven core areas that should be addressed, including system security levels; administrative privileges; passwords and user profiles; data and program permissions; network access and exit programs; audit trails; …

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• Guru: Three Ways To Manage Unmatched Data

  April 24, 2017 Ted Holt

  Heaven forbid that I would ignore a failed RPG CHAIN (random read) operation. I always take appropriate action. Which action I take depends on the situation. The same applies to outer joins that don’t find matching data in a secondary table. Here are three ways to deal with unmatched data in an outer join using SQL.

  To illustrate, let’s use three tables from an overly simplified general ledger system. The first is a table of departments into which the business is divided. The second is a chart of accounts. The third is a transaction file that feeds the general ledger. …

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• As I See It: In the Land Of Lost Listeners

  April 24, 2017 Victor Rozek

  “I should sell my tongue and buy a thousand ears.” – Rumi

  Rumi would not do well on social media. Not much listening going on there. We are a culture of speakers. From the advent of email through the current suite of thumb-enabled apps, all are designed to amplify the mouth. From sea to shining sea, we have become one long declarative sentence fragment.

  Let’s face it: Most of us speak because we want to be heard. Only a priest in a confessional begins a conversation in anticipation of listening to someone blather on about their dysfunctions. But that’s the …

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• The Power Systems Decline Did Not Have To Be This Bad

  April 24, 2017 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Thirteen weeks ago, when IBM reported its financial results for its final quarter of 2016, we said that the Power Systems business would decline in every quarter ahead of the Power9 launch, and while this is not a hard thing to predict, it has certainly turned out to be true in the first quarter of 2017. Both IBM’s Power Systems and Systems z machines and their related operating systems were hit by gut-wrenching declines.

  The good news, as we have pointed out time and again, is that IBM’s true systems business is distinct from and is a superset that …

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• Native Open Source: Why It’s Time for IBM i

  April 19, 2017 Alex Woodie

  When you think about open source software for IBM i, chances are good you envision PHP applications or Ruby code or even Node.js, all of which were adapted from other platforms to run on IBM i. But there’s a new movement afoot to spur more development of open source software that runs natively on IBM i.

  Make no mistake about it: getting PHP, Ruby, Python, Node.js and the others to run on IBM i is a good move by IBM. The work Big Blue has done to bring these technologies to IBM i – much of which is delivered …

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• ARCAD Strengthens IBM i Modernization Portfolio

  April 19, 2017 Dan Burger

  Two IBM i modernization products have been added to IBM’s eConfig ordering system, signaling an increased emphasis helping customers move forward on the modernization path. The additions come from ARCAD Software and pertain to the conversion of fixed-format RPG source code to free-format code and the analysis of existing IBM i applications.

  The conversion of legacy code to modern free form syntax is accomplished by the ARCAD Converter product. The process is recognized as a progressive step toward RPG code that is more easily understood by programmers from outside the RPG world and, therefore, more easily integrated and more easily …

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• Connecting IBM i Into A Broader Security Web

  April 19, 2017 Alex Woodie

  In the on-going war between cybercriminals and everybody else, there’s no place for lone wolfs. The strength of any individual company’s security is largely dependent on the collective posture of multiple groups of actors. Luckily for IBM i shops, there are defined paths to plug into the broader shield that’s constantly evolving to keep us safe.

  The idea of collective security is nothing new. Every anti-virus engine you’ve ever owned for the past 25 years is kept up-to-date by groups of security researchers who constantly stay on the lookout for new pieces of malware and new forms of attacks.

  But …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, April 19

  April 19, 2017 Dan Burger

  As an IBM i programmer or manager of programmers, how do you instill the mindset of be better today than you were yesterday and be better tomorrow than you are today? It’s not rocket science or brainwashing. See today’s Monitor for how it’s done.

  Last week, IT Jungle published a story titled Blockchain: A Link in Your Long Term IBM i Plan. This week, it’s Technology Review writing about blockchain and a conference called the Business of Blockchain. Setting aside the over-inflated expectations and the white hot hype that we’ve come to expect with the next big thing, blockchain …

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