• Systems Of Record On Premises, Systems Of Engagement In The Cloud

  April 18, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. I guess it all depends on the words, and the picture. But sometimes, when you see a bit of market data that displays an industry trend, it nails exactly what the anecdotal evidence suggests is going on in the real world. It saves a lot of words in that regard, particularly if you are looking for some kind of confirmation that your own strategy is one that is prevailing out there in the IT market at large.

  So it was with a chart that we came across recently in …

  Read more

• Connectria, Now A Top AWS Partner, Primed For Hybrid Push

  April 13, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Amazon Web Services has lots and lots of servers and storage — enough to supply the IT needs of more than 1 million customers around the world, including one rather large e-commerce site. The cloud giant also has more than 125,000 business partners helping it to scale out to meet those customer needs. Now, thanks to a recent promotion, IBM i hosting specialist Connectria won’t get lost in the AWS partnership jungle.

  Last week, Connectria announced that AWS has named it a Premier Consulting Partner, the highest echelon in the AWS Partner Network. With just 120 members, the move into …

  Read more

• IBM Ships ACS Version 1.1.9.0

  April 13, 2022 Alex Woodie

  IBM this week delivered an update to Access Client Solutions (ACS), the popular Java-based utility that many IBM i professionals use to interact with the platform. IBM is delivering several enhancements with ACS version 1.1.9.0, some of which came through the request for enhancement (RFE) process. It also defaults to opening IBM’s new Navigator for i, rather than the old one, which is susceptible to the Log4j security vulnerability.

  ACS is the universal Java-based utility that IBM unveiled 10 years ago this August to replace older Client Access products, including the ones for Windows, Linux, and Mac. The software, which …

  Read more

• Cloud-Based Stock Optimization Solution Integrates With IBM i

  April 11, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Since COVID-19 struck two years ago, we have seemingly jumped from one supply chain problem to another. First, it was toilet paper and cleaning supplies that were flying off the shelves, then it was shortages of anything with a microchip. The shortage du jour: baby formula. Now a Georgia company called Thrive Technologies is using machine learning technology to help distributors stay on top of supply chain disruptions.

  Thrive Technologies has been developing inventory planning solutions since it was founded in 2001 by CEO Rick Morris. The company says it picks up the inventory slack where ERP solutions typically …

  Read more

• If It Can Move To Cloud, It Will; If It Can’t, It Won’t

  March 21, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Cloud is a distribution model more than it is a technology transition in the datacenter, and even before Amazon Web Services launched in March 2006, a lot of us were contemplating returning to the time-sharing, utility model of compute. It was a natural thing after enterprise IT shops dealt with decades of best-of-breed computing and systems integration as well as a wave of outsourcing. If you could pay IBM to run your IT shop as it is, why not just pay someone to create a better one and put it on their books?

  This cloud thing – which has the …

  Read more

• How Technical Debt Can Affect Your Business In 2022

  December 15, 2021 Dave Willis

  IBM’s Power Systems is its own ecosystem. Businesses that have been on a platform like IBM i for an extended period of time, from years to decades, can run into challenges that stem from accumulated technical debt.

  At a high level, technical debt typically refers to what happens in software development when choosing an easy solution, rather than taking the time when coding and designing business applications. Over-customizations and old code that your business has relied on for so long, may be less expensive, solve an immediate problem, and help in the short term, but end up hurting your business …

  Read more

• Want to Modernize? Great! Now Get to Work

  December 8, 2021 Alex Woodie

  Application modernization has been one of the more popular topics through the course of 2021. After the initial scare of COVID-19 wore off and the pandemic wore on, many companies came to the conclusion that older applications were hobbling their ability to compete in an increasingly digital world. While it’s clear the desire for modernization in the cloud is building, what’s unclear is the extent to which that will translate into action at IBM i shops.

  The COVID-19 pandemic and economic lockdowns rewarded two groups: companies that had largely digital business plans, and those who could run their applications in …

  Read more

• AWS Offers Mainframe Migration Service. Is IBM i Next?

  December 6, 2021 Alex Woodie

  Amazon Web Services, the world’s largest cloud service provider, last week unveiled a new service to help IBM mainframe customers modernize their workloads and move them to the cloud. Will the cloud giant, which says it’s completely driven by the needs of its customers, launch a similar service for midrange workloads running on IBM i?

  AWS Mainframe Modernization is a new service AWS launched at its re:Invent conference last week that aims at making it “faster and easier to migrate mainframe and legacy workload to the cloud.” In addition to AWS components, the service includes roles for systems integrators, such …

  Read more

• A Year Later: Diving Deeper into How Connectria Brings IBM i Workloads Closer to AWS

  November 17, 2021 David Wilderman

  Connectria has worked in the IBM i and AIX hosting business since 2000. We have strong expertise in both IBM and cloud; we’ve offered IBM i private cloud services and support for more than a decade. We work with a great deal of Power Systems users who are making strides toward the cloud, as many have in the last year thanks to soaring cloud demand in the wake of the pandemic.

  Traditionally, we have helped IBM users by augmenting their existing staff as they retire or turnover by handling production workloads and delivering managed services with capability, not just hardware. …

  Read more

• What IBM i Shops Want From Cloud, And How To Do It Right

  September 27, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It is no secret to readers of The Four Hundred that we are big proponents of so-called cloud computing, which doesn’t just include access to slices of servers but also storage to keep their data and networking to link them to the world and, if multiple slices share work, to link them to storage and to each other.

  We never liked the term “cloud,” because it connotes a fuzzy kind of infrastructure when quite the opposite is true. We still don’t like calling it cloud computing, but language is created by consensus, not by fiat, so sometimes we have to …

  Read more

Previous Articles Next Articles