• So You Want To Do Containerized Microservices In the Cloud?

  June 30, 2021 Alex Woodie

  As a modernization consultant working in IBM’s Rochester, Minnesota, lab, Amy Anderson gets to hear from some of the most tech-savvy IBM i shops in the world. Her job requires her to know where shops are now, listen to where they want to go, and chart a path that takes them there. That can sometimes be quite a challenge, especially considering the rapid pace of technological change at the moment.

  “One of the things that we’re seeing now is the whole industry now is focused on modernization,” Anderson said during her session at the recent NAViGATE conference hosted by COMMON …

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• In Search Of Next Gen IBM i Apps

  June 28, 2021 Alex Woodie

  What will become of our RPG and COBOL applications? If IBM i chief architect Steve Will has his way, the core elements of them will evolve into what he calls “next gen” applications that can run in the cloud, if necessary.

  “We are not just focusing anymore on trying to help clients get past green screens to mobile interfaces or Web interfaces,” Will said during his recent COMMON NAViGATE session, titled IBM i PLUS Cloud is the Answer. “There are still clients and applications that need to get there. We understand that. But you can’t just stop there now. …

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• Keeping Up With Open Source Security Updates

  May 26, 2021 Alex Woodie

  Open source is a source of technological innovation on IBM i, in multiple respects. But it also opens the platform up to additional security vulnerabilities. That’s why it’s important to stay on top of security patches, for the core operating system as well as the open source technologies that are helping to transform it.

  IBM does a good job of keeping up with security vulnerabilities are found in the operating system as well as the multitude of open source technologies that are included with it. In the last five weeks, IBM has issued several security bulletins for core open source …

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• On Your iRadar: Super Smart Chatbots

  April 28, 2021 Alex Woodie

  Don’t look now, but thanks to breakthroughs in natural language processing (NLP), we’re on the cusp of having chatbots that can provide human-like question-answering capabilities. Within a matter of years, according to experts, basic communication between companies and their customers will be handled by AI, leaving humans to handle tougher cases and VIPs.

  The key breakthrough driving advances in NLP are large language models, specifically a class of language model called a transformer network. These transformer networks use deep learning methods to essentially learn the right sequence for words to go together. The order of words has been one of …

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• Low-Code API Development Gets A Boost From Profound

  March 10, 2021 Alex Woodie

  Profound Logic last week launched Profound API, a new product designed to enable the development and management of RESTful Web services with a minimal amount of coding. The browser-based product works with IBM i programs and data, as well as assets located off the box, and is designed to enable even entry-level IT professionals to get into the API game.

  Application programming interfaces (APIs) have been around for decades. Nearly every developer will call or expose an API at some point in their lives. But APIs have been gaining new momentum lately as a critical layer enabling the future of …

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• iTech Solutions Keeps You In The Know With VERIFi

  February 22, 2021 Alex Woodie

  “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” That time-tested bit of advice from Ben Franklin has many applications, including, it turns out, IBM i systems management. And through its new VERIFi offering, iTech Solutions is set to provide many ounces of prevention by keeping customers on top of what is happening with their IBM i servers.

  iTech Solutions’ VERIFi comes in three flavors. With VERIFi Weekly Status Reporting, the company remotely monitors key aspects of IBM i server health and summarize those findings in a PDF sent once a week for $295 per year. It offers …

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• COVID-19: A Great Time for Application Modernization

  February 1, 2021 Alex Woodie

  If your IT department has been waiting for the right time to start your digital transformation, then you’re in luck: With hundreds of millions of folks around the world stuck in their homes and largely limited to interacting via the Internet, the COVID-19 pandemic and economic lockdown represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build new digital channels to reach them.

  COVID-19 is taking a brutal toll on our country in terms of lost lives and lost livelihoods. There’s no upside to that, no way to spin that into a positive. But for IBM i shops that, for whatever reason, have resisted …

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• MariaDB Now Available Via RPM

  December 7, 2020 Alex Woodie

  When it comes to databases for the IBM i community, Db2 for i is, and always be, number one. But there’s no reason to limit yourself to just one database, and now IBM is making it easier for IBM i shops to get their hands on MariaDB, which could be the number two database on the platform.

  MariaDB is an open source relational database that is a fork of MySQL. MySQL, of course, has been supported on the IBM i server for many years. But following Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems, which had acquired the company that developed MySQL, …

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• Remain Software Delivers Trio of Updates

  November 11, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Remain Software last week announced the delivery of new releases of three separate products, including TD/OMS, its lifecycle management tools for IBM i; Gravity, its workflow management system for multiple systems; API Studio, which helps IBM i shops develop and manage API connections to existing software.

  TD/OMS, which is Remain Software’s flagship offering, is an application lifecycle management (ALM) tool for IBM i developers. The core of the offering is the Object Management System (OMS), which guides users through the process of defining applications and their associated objects, while additional modules provide more targeted functionality for reporting, impact analysis, …

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• Profound and Connectria Hook Up in Cloud-Modernization Push

  October 21, 2020 Alex Woodie

  IBM i modernization tool provider Profound Logic and Connectria, one of the biggest private cloud providers for IBM i, announced a strategic partnership last week. The goal of the union, representatives with both companies say, is to give their respective IBM i customers a leg up as they seek to streamline their IT systems.

  Matt Biegacki, the vice president and chief marketing officer for Connectria, and Michael Killian, the vice president of strategic accounts for Profound Logic, shared their thoughts on the partnership during a call with IT Jungle this week.

  From Profound Logic’s perspective, the partnership with …

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