• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 19, Number 8

  March 1, 2017 Doug Bidwell

  It pays to be regular when it comes to systems management, and it is not a good thing to get too far behind. Take Windows Server as an example. With tens of millions of customers and plenty of bugs and security patches for this target-rich environment, Microsoft has to do everything in its power to try to keep the Windows installed base – both servers and PCs – patched and secured.

  Windows Update can be used to automatically apply patches as they come out in the wake of Patch Tuesday once a month, or customers can set up a dedicated …

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• Security Awareness: Eight More Patches For IBM i Vulns

  February 27, 2017 Alex Woodie

  National security awareness month isn’t until October, but that didn’t stop IBM from issuing a torrent of patches this month to address all kinds of security problems in its products. For IBM i specifically, Big Blue patched eight flaws found across the OpenSSH and OpenSSL libraries for the three IBM i OSes under support. The Power HMC also received numerous security patches, as did dozens of other IBM products.

  OpenSSL and OpenSSH have been the source of numerous security vulnerabilities over the past three years, ever since the Heartbleed flaw was found in OpenSSL. As more flaws are found in …

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• IBM i Community To Get Closer Look At Watson

  February 27, 2017 Dan Burger

  The cogs in cognitive are turning. And there are indications that IBM is ready to go beyond the story of how it works to stories about it is working. The messengers remain somewhat tight lipped, but we can expect cognitive to be a celebrated technology at the COMMON conference in early May.

  Watson, the face of IBM cognitive computing, is highly recognizable. Bluemix, IBM’s cloud platform for building, running, and managing apps and services, including Watson, is getting more attention. And the number of APIs that pull this together with integration points for all platforms, including IBM i, …

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• Guru: Eliminate The Legitimate Use Of GOTO, Take Two

  February 27, 2017 Ted Holt

  I was annoyed that IBM chose not to support GOTO and TAG in free-form RPG calculations. I rarely used those opcodes, but when I did, it was in disciplined situations when nothing else would do. Besides, I didn’t want to be treated like a baby. Now it’s a non-issue. IBM finally provided an alternative to the last legitimate use of GOTO.

  Almost five years ago, I wrote about a situation that I come across from time to time, namely the need to execute a clean-up routine before exiting an RPG subprocedure. Since nothing forbids a subprocedure to have multiple …

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• As I See It: Expanding Reach And Shrinking Intelligence

  February 27, 2017 Victor Rozek

  For those of us accustomed to ingesting information in scraps, the Lincoln-Douglas debates would have been a month’s worth of forced-feeding. Lincoln, the challenger, and Douglas, the Senate incumbent from Illinois, jousted seven times in seven cities adhering to a format that would shrivel today’s sound bite-spouting politicians, and overwhelm voters with truncated attention spans.

  The first candidate would speak for a solid hour, followed by a 90-minute rebuttal, topped-off by a 30-minute rejoinder from the first speaker. Three hours of political debate; three hours of issues and remedies, analysis and inspiration, with speakers erudite enough to keep audiences engaged …

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• What’s Wrong With Modern RPG?

  February 27, 2017 Dan Burger

  IBM continues to enhance RPG. If it wasn’t being improved on a regular basis, there would be cause for concern, but some people find cause for concern in everything. Satisfaction is on the other side of the fence, even after they’ve crossed the fence. That’s not an endorsement for “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” There’s always room for constructive criticism and honest assessments of the circumstances.

  That brings us to the RPG enhancements in the recently announced Technology Refresh identified as IBM i 7.2 TR 6 and IBM i 7.3 TR …

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• Top 11 Ways to Protect Your IBM i from Insider Threats

  February 22, 2017 Alex Woodie

  Hackers get a lot of attention when it comes to cyber security, and for good reason: external cyber threats are growing in volume and sophistication. But one shouldn’t overlook the harm that insiders can—and do—wreak on companies on a daily basis. Security expert Carol Woodbury recently shared 11 ways IBM i pros can protect the server from the very real threat posed by insiders.

  Woodbury, who is the vice president of global security services at HelpSystems and formerly was IBM‘s chief security architect for the AS/400, says IBM i shops unknowingly leave themselves open to internal attacks through a …

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• IBM i TRs Bring New Open Source Data Transfer Tools

  February 22, 2017 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that adopt the latest Technology Refreshes from IBM will find a trio of new open source tools for moving data and objects across various data transfer protocols used on the Internet. The addition of Wget, cURL, and rsync to the IBM i Open Source solutions package will give IBM i shops more choices for moving data.

  As IBM added open source development tools like Python, PHP, and Node.js to the platform, it has triggered requests for additional tools that open source developers are familiar with, says Alison Butterill, the offering manager for IBM i in Rochester, Minnesota. …

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• Linoma Climbs the File Transfer Ladder

  February 22, 2017 Dan Burger

  Linoma Software has taken its managed file transfer software up another notch with its latest release of GoAnywhere Version 5.4.2. The basic aptitude of managed file transfer (MFT) products cover the secure and automated transfer of files inside and outside of organizations. That includes sharing data among the various platforms from IBM i to Windows, Linux, Unix, mainframe, and Mac OS.

  With its latest refresh, Linoma‘s GoAnywhere updated its SSL cipher configuration picklist for the admin server, HTTPS/AS2 server, FTP server and FTPS server. Just six weeks ago, SOAP and RESTful Web Services were added with the introduction of …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, February 22

  February 22, 2017 Dan Burger

  A few weeks ago, Jesse Gorzinski was featured in an IT Jungle story. This week the IBM business architect of open source technologies shows up as the author of new blog called Open Your i. Open source can be really good for IBM i. And since we’re all accustomed to acronyms, OYi has a nice ring to it. We’ll be keeping an eye on Jesse.

  Monitor is also pointing to stories on cloud security mythology, IT budget advice for a bigger piece of the pie, testing your mental strength when taking on new projects, dialing into the top ten …

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