• New IBM i Events Spin Up In May

  April 26, 2021 Alex Woodie

  Last year, the coronavirus pandemic devastated tech conferences, those multi-day affairs that brought computing communities together and that resulted in a lot of cheese being eaten and coffee being dranken. So it’s big news that COMMON will be holding its first in-person event in over a year in May with its NAViGATE 2021 conference. But before then, HelpSystems will be holding its inaugural BuildIt event next week.

  HelpSystems’ BuildIT conference will take place May 4 through 6. It will be an online-only affair, and feature more than 40 sessions covering a range of IT topics. Much of the event …

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• Big Blue Unveils Spring 2021 IBM i Technology Refreshes

  April 12, 2021 Alex Woodie

  IBM tomorrow will announce the latest round of Technology Refreshes (TRs) for the current versions of the operating systems. With IBM i 7.4 TR4 and 7.3 TR10, IBM is focusing its efforts on extending automation across various components of the operating system, including the database, security, and high availability. But a surprise also awaits IBM i enthusiasts who are visually inclined.

  IBM gave IT Jungle a preview of the announcements that will go public tomorrow, and (very kindly) gave us permission to cover them in today’s issue of The Four Hundred. That means that the announcement materials will not …

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• As Data Security Deteriorates, Reconsider Your Exposure

  March 22, 2021 Alex Woodie

  The shift towards digitalization wrought by COVID-19 and the associated lockdowns has given new life to cybercriminals, who are exploiting the changes in computer access patterns to steal data and enrich themselves. For IBM i shops, the time to lock down vulnerable endpoints in the system-of-record was yesterday.

  If you’re not feeling a sense of urgency about the data security situation, then you’re not paying attention. Since the start of the year, numerous reports from security professionals have alerted the IT community to new and evolved dangers that are lurking online.

  Consider a report due this week from SlashNext Threat …

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• Long-Term Impacts of COVID-19 Predicted for IBM i Shops

  March 17, 2021 Alex Woodie

  The COVID-19 pandemic and the associated economic lockdown will have a long-term impact on how IBM i shops operate, a panel of experts said during the IBM i Futures Conference yesterday. From being innovative and agile to the importance of security and disaster recovery, there are lessons to learn across the board.

  It’s been exactly a year since governments around the world instituted severe lockdowns to, ostensibly, stop the spread of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The lockdowns have come, gone, and come again in many parts of the world, injecting a level of uncertainty into our work lives …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, March 10

  March 10, 2021 Jenny Thomas

  The plan is on the table. IBM has released its annual report, which is accompanied by a letter from CEO Arvind Krishna expressing his confidence in IBM’s future as a hybrid cloud and AI platform company. Of course, this plan isn’t a surprise as we have monitored IBM’s laser focus on the hybrid cloud that has intensified since Krishna took the help almost one year ago, but there is lots of interesting information about IBM’s the path IBM is paving and the strategies to get where it wants to go that you can access from the link in the Top …

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• IBM i Groups Cautiously Adding In-Person Events To Schedules

  February 8, 2021 Alex Woodie

  Nearly one year after the novel coronavirus reared its nasty head in the United States, shutting down large swaths of the economy and forcing hundreds of millions of people to shelter at home, there is the hint of a glimpse of a ray of sunshine: The possible return of in-person events in the IBM i community. Maybe, anyway. Or maybe not.

  While nothing is certain in these unprecedented, topsy-turvy times, it appears that several IBM i groups are planning to host physical events where actual humans will be allowed to congregate with other humans for the purpose of learning about …

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• 2021 Predictions for IBM i, Part 1

  January 13, 2021 Alex Woodie

  With an eventful 2020 thankfully in the rearview mirror, it’s time to start thinking about what 2021 might have in store for us. The IBM i community, like most of the world, could use a little bit of hope at the moment. We asked IBM i community leaders to deliver predictions, and they responded.

  Liam Allan, who is a consultant at Seiden Group and the creator of ILE Editor, has a couple of predictions for IT Jungle.

  “My focus is mainly software. I do still predict Node.js gaining traction on IBM i,” Allan writes. “The tooling is really …

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• COMMON Launches Focus, A Live Educational Series

  December 9, 2020 Alex Woodie

  COMMON yesterday kicked off the latest virtual event during this social distanced year of COVID-19. Focus is a series of half-day workshops on IBM i topics that is taking place through December 17. It’s a live event, which is good, but best of all, it’s free — as long as you are a current COMMON member.

  Focus consists of 18 half-day sessions across eight topic areas that are taking place this week (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday) and the same days next week. The sessions, which kick off each day at 1 p.m. CT, are presented live by real live IBM …

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• How The Latest TRs Bolster The Core IBM i OS

  October 7, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Yesterday was Technology Refresh (TR) day for IBM and its IBM i operating system, and Big Blue didn’t disappoint. The company unveiled new releases of IBM i 7.4 and 7.3 that bring a slew of new capabilities to the core operating system as well as surrounding offerings like Db2 Mirror, ACS, and RDi. In this article, we’ll look at enhancements to the core OS and related key features.

  During a COMMON webcast Tuesday, IBM i Chief Architect Steve Will touched broadly on a number of enhancements that soon will be available in the TRs. Most of the new capabilities will …

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• IBM i Tries On a Red Hat

  September 30, 2020 Alex Woodie

  When IBM initiated its $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat in 2018, it was done to prepare Big Blue for the coming wave of innovation around things like containers, AI, clouds, and next-gen workloads. It was generally understood that most of the benefits would accrue in the X86 space. But apparently the plan called for sizable doses of IBM i, AIX, and mainframe, too.

  Last week at COMMON’s virtual POWERUp conference, IBM’s Joe Cropper, who works in Power development and holds the title IBM Master Inventor, laid out how the Red Hat acquisition will benefit IBM i and …

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