• 2023 IBM i Predictions, Part 2

  January 23, 2023 Alex Woodie

  Two thousand twenty-three is shaping up to be a transition year of sorts in the IBM i community, with midrange Power10 servers hitting the market, IBM i 7.3 (finally) meeting its end, and an economic recession looming. We tapped our network of IBM i prognosticators to help fill in the particulars with part two in this annual series.

  There’s been a security awakening in the IBM i community, and Robin Tatam, director of security technologies with Fortra (formerly HelpSystems), sees that translating into greater security controls as threats to the IBM i proliferate in 2023.

  “The IBM i community is …

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• 2023 IBM i Predictions, Part 1

  January 16, 2023 Alex Woodie

  What will happen in the IBM i world in 2023? Your guess is as good as ours, which is why we have corralled some of the most respected names in the industry to gaze into their crystal balls and give their prognostication for the year to come.

  Donnie MacColl, the senior director of technical support and GDPR data protection officer at Fortra (formerly HelpSystems), kicks off this year’s batch of predictions with an expectation of more automation, thanks to a lack of skilled employees.

  “Automated operations will accelerate along with migration to the cloud,” MacColl tells us. “Automation is key …

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• 2022: An IBM i Year in Review, Part One

  December 14, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Well, it’s that time of year again – time to look back on the year and contemplate what happened. It was another eventful year in the midrange, with new servers and new operating systems. The IBM i user and vendor communities also worked to make it a rewarding year.

  2021 started innocently enough back in . . .

  January

  Cybercriminals earned a gazillion demerits for their early 2021 Christmas present to cybersecurity professionals: Log4j, the most critical security vulnerability to hit the IT world in years. With a perfect CVSS severity rating of 10, Log4j sent security professionals scrambling in …

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• Want To Influence IBM i’s Direction? Consider Joining An Advisory Council

  December 12, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Do you want to make your mark on the future of IBM i? If so, there may be a volunteer position available to you on one the two advisory councils run by COMMON and COMMON Europe, which play important roles in advising IBM what new features and technologies should be added to the platform.

  Members of the COMMON Americas Advisory Council (CAAC) and the COMMON Europe Advisory Council (CEAC) play an important role shaping what new features and functionality are added to the IBM i platform. The two councils work closely with IBM to review and prioritize customer requirements submitted …

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• IBM Welcomes COMMON Advisory Councils to Rochester

  December 7, 2022 Alex Woodie

  One of the hallmarks of a good company is listening to customers. A company may not do everything that its customers wish, but it must show that it’s listening to maintain the relationship. This dynamic was in play during an IBM i meeting that took place last month in Rochester, Minnesota, between IBM and the advisory councils for both COMMON North America and COMMON Europe.

  The three-day meeting that took place November 14 through 16 involved a handful of members from the COMMON Americas Advisory Council (CAAC) as well as the COMMON Europe Advisory Council (CEAC). Both advisory councils had …

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• COMMON Launches IBM i Security Conference

  August 17, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Security is a big concern for IBM i professionals, and now the topic is getting its very own conference. COMMON recently announced that the inaugural i on Security 2022 conference will take place this October in conjunction with its NAViGATE conference in St. Louis, Missouri.

  Security on the IBM i has been dismal for many years, according the annual PowerTech State of Security report, which has documented the poor security practices of IBM i shops. While the servers can be locked down as tightly as any in the industry, the combination of poor configuration, archaic programming models, and lazy administrative …

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• Guild Mortgage Takes The 20-Year Option For Modernization

  June 27, 2022 Alex Woodie

  When Kurt Reheiser returned to the IBM i server after a 15-year hiatus away the platform, things weren’t a lot different than how he left them. “My skills were more relevant than I thought they would be,” the former RPG developer said during last month’s POWERUp 2022 conference. Now as the CIO of a multi-billion-dollar company called Guild Mortgage, Reheiser is overseeing a modernization initiative that will keep building on the company’s successful history of custom development on the IBM i platform.

  Reheiser shared his and his company’s IT journey during a keynote address at COMMON’s annual user conference …

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• Plotting A Middle Age Career Change To IBM i

  June 20, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Not many colleges teach the IBM i and RPG anymore, which makes it hard for midrange shops to replenish talent that way. But organizations have another resource they can tap for technical personnel: slightly more experienced individuals who are ready to start a second career. This is the path taken by Shelly Petty, who recently shared her story at the POWERUp 2022 conference in New Orleans.

  Petty spent 12 years working in the banking field before making her career change to IBM i. Her previous job was a high-stress position that required her to handle securities on behalf of corporate …

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• Let’s Celebrate The Diamond Jubilee Of COMMON Europe

  June 13, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Europe is a collection of countries that, over centuries of commerce, cultural exchange, and war have learned to come together and create a community of common interest. And so it is not a surprise at all that COMMON Europe, which is celebrating its 60^th year – it’s Diamond Jubilee – and that is something that very few organizations in the world ever attain.

  And so, as the COMMON Europe Congress gets underway today in Alicante, Spain, we wanted to offer our congratulations and celebrate that longevity and continuity. (If you have a hankering to travel this week, you can …

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• POWERUp Brings IBM i Base Back Together in the Big Easy

  May 25, 2022 Alex Woodie

  After two years of lockdowns and Zoom calls, IBM i professionals were joyful to be face to face with fellow users this week at the POWERUp conference in New Orleans. The celebration lasted all week, and spilled over onto Bourbon Street at times, but that didn’t get in the way of the primary mission: Getting educated on IBM i. And with the latest enhancements, there was a lot to learn.

  For many POWERUp 2022 attendees and ISVs, COMMON’s annual conference is the first physical event they’ve attended since the pandemic started back in March 2020. With the easing of …

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