• State Of The Power Systems Base 2025: The Operating Systems

  February 10, 2025 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  What is more important: Keeping a server platform current or keeping its operating system current?

  That is a trick question, and it is tricky in two ways. First, you should keep both hardware and software current, or more precisely, keep both as current as the applications, the budget, and good sense permits. A server older than five years is going to start having component failure (usually with the disk drives and fans), and one that is 10years old has the chance of a much more catastrophic failure. However, with a machine that is five to ten years old, you can …

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• ARCAD Discover: Global Application Analysis With An AI Interface

  February 10, 2025 Michel Mouchon

  Here is a simple test to reckon the value of the applications that run your company. Walk down to the datacenter, or over to the datacloset, or SSH out to the cloud, and turn the physical or logical machine running those applications off. What happens next?

  Aside from a lot of animated conversations and possibly some cursing, not much until you turn the machine back on and the system, databases, and applications reboot. You already knew this, but now everyone else has discovered, rather suddenly, how the very existence of the business and the livelihoods of the employees is dependent …

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• Rocket Consolidates Half a Dozen Terminal Emulators With Secure Host Access

  February 10, 2025 Alex Woodie

  Rocket Software has rolled out Secure Host Access, a new terminal emulator for utilizing the classic greenscreen interfaces of heritage IBM i, mainframe, and Unix applications. The new offering consolidates multiple emulators acquired by Rocket over the years into a single offering, while delivering much-needed security features that the previous emulators largely lacked.

  Rocket Software’s Secure Host Access is a terminal emulator that provides a full array of TN5250, TS3270, and VT connectivity from PCs, Web browsers, and mobile devices. The Java-based product offers all the features and capabilities that you would expect to find in a mature emulator, …

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• IBM Christens Its 2025 Class Of Champions

  February 10, 2025 Alex Woodie

  Big Blue has declared a new roster of IBM Champions, those heroes among us who display expertise in technical subject matters, are tireless advocates of IBM platforms, and otherwise exhibit excellence in their work. Members of the IBM i ecosystem, as usual, are well represented in the program, even if the platform doesn’t have its own category. IBM also refreshed the badges it distributes as part of the related IBM Rising Champion Advocacy program.

  A quick check of the 2025 IBM Champion web page shows there are 1,035 IBM Champions around the world in this, the 17th year of the …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 27, Number 6

  February 10, 2025 Doug Bidwell

  It is a quiet week as far as security vulnerabilities go, so if you are in North America, or you like American football, we hope you enjoyed Super Bowl LIX and know that there is nothing too serious you need to handle right now with your IBM i system. There are some new HIPERs and patches to Java and the Apace Web server.

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

  PTF Groups 7.5:

  • HIPERs (High Impact/Pervasive)
  • Java
  • IBM HTTP Server for i

  PTF Groups 7.4:

  • HIPERs (High Impact/Pervasive)
  • Java
  • IBM HTTP

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• Izzi Throws Retiring IBM i Software Company Founders A Lifeline

  February 3, 2025 Alex Woodie

  Founders of smaller IBM i and System z software vendors who are looking to sell their companies before they retire may want to check out a new venture called Izzi Software. In an interview with IT Jungle, the executives heading the startup explain that it has a mandate to spend millions of private equity dollars on acquiring midrange and mainframe ISVs that have solid products and businesses, but may not be big enough to attract M&A attention from bigger firms.

  It’s no secret that the IBM i and System z communities tend toward the older side of the age …

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• IBM Power On Track To Get Above $2 Billion A Year

  February 3, 2025 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM’s stock price is kissing $260 a share, and this is a level that, adjusted for stock splits, the company has not seen since before it ran up on the rocks in the early 1990s as its mainframe business and AS/400 business all shrank at the same time that RISC/Unix systems and X86 gear in the datacenter took off. What’s going on?

  Well, here is the deal: IBM has customers using its Power and z servers for mission-critical back office systems, and a lot of the customers using its IBM i, AIX, Linux, and z/OS platforms are going to be …

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• What Do IBM i Shops Use To Write Applications These Days?

  February 3, 2025 Alex Woodie

  When it comes to languages and tools for developing applications on IBM i, there are a ton of options available for customers. Thanks to the PASE runtime, a variety of open source languages and runtimes have been brought to the platform, not to mention the time-tested ILE technologies from IBM. But what do IBM i shops actually use to write new apps? For answers, we look to Fortra’s 2025 IBM i Marketplace Survey results.

  Fortra recently released the results for the 11th installment of its IBM i Marketplace Survey, which is based on surveys it conducted in late 2025 …

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• Does Your IT Budget Reflect The World At Large?

  February 3, 2025 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Sometimes, numbers are so large they become almost meaningless. If I say $1 trillion or $5 trillion to you, do you really have a sense of it except relatively to some other number in the same order of magnitude? You can feel the change, but you can’t feel the actual magnitude of the actual number?

  It is with this in mind that we turn to the latest forecasts for IT spending from Gartner, which shows a slight acceleration in the rate of spending increase from 2024 to 2025, but ironically, shows the absolute figures for IT spending in those two …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 27, Number 5

  February 3, 2025 Doug Bidwell

  Welcome to February! Punxsutawney Phil has predicted six more weeks of winter after being awakened from his slumber and seeing his shadow in the western Pennylvania town that is the adjective of the groundhog’s formal name. But, then again, don’t be too upset about the lingering winter. This furry prognosticator is only right 39 percent of the time, which is a little bit worse than flipping a coin.

  Frankly, the best supercomputers in the world can’t predict the weather, either, because the conditions are changing faster than the models. . . so there is that.

  We can predict with near …

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