• It Would be Uncommon For IBM Announcements To Not Be In May

  March 11, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  For as long as we can remember, there is a general trend of spring and fall announcements for the IBM midrange. It is not a perfect correlation, of course. The original AS/400 announcement was done on the summer solstice on June 21, 1988, which does not fit the pattern we are talking about. But in general, the spring-fall pattern is something that goes back long before enterprise Linux releases and OpenStack releases all shifted to an April-October cadence.

  This being a new year and the POWERUp2024 conference being held May 20 through 23 in Fort Worth, Texas, we are …

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• The Long And IBM i Road That Leads To Your Door

  March 11, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It is hard to find a modern platform that has such a long heritage as the machine on which your company’s business runs. Depending on when you want to draw the lines, the IBM i platform running on Power Systems iron dates back to the System/3 in 1969 or the System/38 in 1978 or the System/36 in 1983 or the AS/400 in 1988. No matter which line you want to draw, that is a long time for a continuously upgradable and upgraded operating system and database platform combination and its underlying hardware.

  Not only do the predecessors of the IBM …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 26, Number 10

  March 11, 2024 Doug Bidwell

  The beat just keeps on rolling for IBM i 7.2, which is now four releases back from the current IBM i 7.5 release and which is still getting updates. There is a new Group HIPER again this week after there being a Group HIPER only a week ago, and there is also a Group Security set of patches, too, for IBM i 7.2.

  To be precise, there is a new 720 Group HIPER, level 243, rolled up in PTF patch SF99719, which you can read about here. There is also a new 720 Group Security, level 130, rolled up …

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• PUB400: Your Free IBM i Playground

  March 4, 2024 Alex Woodie

  Search the Web for “free Linux server” and hundreds of results pop up. Do the same for “free IBM i server” and your results are much more limited. But what the universe of free IBM i servers lacks in quantity it makes up in quality thanks in large part to PUB400, a free IBM i instance that has been serving the midrange community for nearly a quarter century.

  Many IT Jungle readers undoubtedly are familiar with PUB400.com, which was started by Holger Scherer on a little AS/400 Model 150 back in 1999. Over the years, the site and the …

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• Focusing On People: Strengthening Cybersecurity In IBM Power Systems

  March 4, 2024 Tom Horan

  In the digital realm, cybersecurity is crucial, particularly for essential infrastructures like IBM Power Systems. These machines support various business functions and are prime targets for cyberattacks. Even the most fortified tech defenses can crumble due to one human error. This concise guide highlights the critical importance of the human element in safeguarding IBM Power Systems from cyber threats and outlines key strategies for implementing a people-centric security framework.

  Understanding The Threat Scene

  The cyber threat landscape is constantly evolving and becoming increasingly complex, with hackers continuously devising new, innovative tactics to exploit vulnerabilities. Among the emerging trends are ransomware …

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• More Critical Security Vulns Reported In IBM i Components

  March 4, 2024 Alex Woodie

  The run of serious security vulnerabilities in IBM i components continues in early 2024, as IBM reported 10 new flaws exist across OpenSSH, the Apache Web Server, ISC, and Facsimile Support for IBM i in February and early March. All of the flaws impact IBM i 7.2 through 7.5 and all have been patched by IBM via PTFs.

  The most critical of the recent batch of security flaws exists in OpenSSH, the open source security utility for establishing encrypted communications between hosts and clients. As described by IBM in this February 23 security bulletin, the vulnerability (CVE-2023-51385) is caused …

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• Some Clarity – Well Actually Less – On IBM i Subscriptions

  March 4, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  As we pointed out a few weeks ago, it looks like at least some aspects of Big Blue’s subscription model for pricing hardware and systems software is a work in progress. We accidentally saw an IBM document dated February 15 that had updated some aspects of the subscription pricing for machines in the IBM i P05 and P10 software tiers and said that others would be updated on May 7.

  In the time that it took us to write that story, which wasn’t long, IBM took the PDF down and said that it needed to make edits to that …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 26, Number 9

  March 4, 2024 Doug Bidwell

  IBM i 7.2 has been superseded a long time ago, but there is still a lot of it in the Power Systems installed base and Big Blue is still making updates to it for those customers who are stuck on the 7.2 release and who are stuck paying for extended support, which is very expensive. To that end, there is a new 720 Group HIPER, level 242, rolled up in PTF patch SF99719, which you can read about here.

  There are also two new security vulnerabilities for the IBM i stack.

  First, we have Security Bulletin: IBM WebSphere Application …

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• The Cloud Is Part Of The IBM i Present, And A Bigger Part Of Its Future

  February 26, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  As obvious as this might sound in hindsight, if you want to get the right answers, you have to ask the right questions in the first place. And as inquisitive communicators, we will be the first ones to admit that this is not always as easy as it sounds.

  It is hard to draw the line in the timeline sands for when the first true cloudy instance of a Power Systems machine running a rentable license to the IBM i operating system was announced, but it is safe to say that various hosting providers have been renting out parts of …

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• No Matter Where You Are Going, Migrate Live Helps You Get There

  February 26, 2024 Ash Giddings

  Businesses are now faced with more choices than ever before when it comes to their IBM i environments. Should they keep them on-premise on Power10 following a well-trodden path, migrate them to a partner’s Power cloud, or embrace the public cloud? Or maybe some combination of the three?

  Whatever the decision, probably the largest hurdle is the actual migration, with downtime invariably not an option coupled with the challenge of moving terabytes of critical data without impacting the business. Traditional migration methods are time-consuming, prone to error and come with integrity risks. In addition, system administrators and those responsible for …

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