• Beta Of MCP Server Opens Up IBM i For Agentic AI

  October 27, 2025 Alex Woodie

  When Anthropic quietly released Model Context Protocol (MCP) in November 2024, it didn’t garner a whole lot attention. But as the agentic AI wave grew in early 2025, the protocol suddenly was hailed as the new standard for integrating AI applications, tools, and data sources. A good indication of just how far MCP has come is the fact that IBM released an early version of the MCP server for IBM i this month.

  Project Bob got the big headlines at the IBM TechXchange conference, which took place the second week of October in Orlando, Florida. And for good reason, as …

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• What You Will Find In IBM i 7.6 TR1 and IBM i 7.5 TR7

  October 13, 2025 Alex Woodie

  It’s early October, which means leaves are changing colors, nights are getting colder, and IBM developers in southern Minnesota and elsewhere are gearing up the autumnal Technology Refreshes for the IBM i operating system.

  With last week’s announcements of TR1 for IBM i 7.6 and TR7 for IBM i 7.5, which ship November 21, IBM has committed to delivering a slew of updates and new functionality across the range of IBM i system software, from application development to administration.

  Before we get into the specific areas of IBM i, let’s cover the general enhancements it made with I/O handling. For …

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• Stelo Touts Data Replication For IBM i In Azure Cloud

  September 29, 2025 Alex Woodie

  If you are in the market for data replication software for IBM i, you might want to check out Stelo (formerly StarQuest). The company has supported the IBM i server for many years, and recently announced that its software is available on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace.

  Stelo got its start back in 1992, when Paul Rampel founded StarQuest to develop data connectivity tools for IBM, Microsoft, and Cisco Systems environments. The company launched the Host Data Replicator (HDR) product in 1998, when was adapted with real-time capabilities to become the StarQuest Data Replicator (SQDR) product in 2001.

  In 2022, StarQuest …

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• Crossroads RMC Shows Off New AI Dashboard at inPOWER 2025

  September 22, 2025 Alex Woodie

  Crossroads RMC will be showing off its new AI-powered dashboard at Infor’s inPOWER 2025 event this week in Wisconsin. The new offering, dubbed the NextTrack Analytics Dashboard, allows users to ask questions about data residing in ERP database using plain English, thereby broadening the availability of actionable information to new groups of users.

  Crossroads RMC has built a name for itself within the Infor ERP community thanks to its solutions for manufacturers. The company’s manufacturing execution systems (MES) offering sit comfortably atop ERP LX, M3, and other ERP systems, providing access to shop floor scheduling capabilities that do not exist …

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• NAViGATE, inPower 2025 On Tap for September 2025

  September 15, 2025 Alex Woodie

  As the summer turns to fall, IBM i professionals will be turning out to a pair of events being hosted in the Midwest, including Infor’s imPower 2025 conference in Wisconsin, and COMMON’s NAViGATE conference taking place in Pennsylvania. Both shows are expected to draw hundreds of participants.

  NAViGATE 2025 takes place this week in Pittsburgh. COMMON is hosting about 110 sessions on IBM i topics across the three-day event, including sessions on application development, security, high availability, and administering the system.

  Tim Rowe, an IBM architect for application development, and Julia Yan, the lead developer of Navigator for i, will …

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• New DbToo SDK Hooks RPG And Db2 For i To External Services

  August 25, 2025 Alex Woodie

  A team of open source developers led by IBM’s Jesse Gorzinski have developed an experimental new software development kit (SDK) designed to integrate RPG applications and Db2 for i data with external services. The SDK, dubbed DbToo, initially targets watsonx, Ollama, OpenAI endpoints, Kafka, Slack, and Twilio, providing another option for integrating IBM i with popular AI models and messaging services.

  The mainstream IT world is currently evolving at a tremendous pace, largely driven by open source big data projects as well as large language models (LLMs) that promise to automate a range of functions currently performed by humans. The …

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• Profound Logic Adds MCP To IBM i AI Tool

  July 28, 2025 Alex Woodie

  The world of AI is moving extremely fast right now, with new models, techniques, and technologies emerging every week. One of the newest bits of AI tech to catch on is Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP), which has quickly become a defacto standard for connecting data sources to AI models. Profound Logic, which has been on the cutting edge of AI, is the first IBM i vendor to bring MCP support to the server and the Db2 for i database.

  Anthropic quietly launched Model Context Protocol in late November 2024 as a way to enable large language models (LLMs), such …

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• Maxis Adds IBM i Support To Database Modernization Tool

  July 21, 2025 Alex Woodie

  Legacy applications are frequent targets for modernization efforts, but databases also need their share of TLC. One company that specializes in database modernization, Maxis Technology, recently announced support for IBM i and its integrated Db2 for i database with its flagship product, dubbed Alchemize.

  Maxis Technology is an Eagle Rock, Missouri, company that specializes in database modernization. Founded by Steve Cornell in 2011, Maxis develops the Alchemize database power tool, which allows developers and engineers to automate a range of database tasks, including: data migration and loading; data mapping and archiving; data transformations and cleanup; fixing data quality issues; optimizing …

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• Liam Allan Shares What’s Coming Next With Code For IBM i

  June 23, 2025 Alex Woodie

  The rise of Code for IBM i arguably is the best IBM i technology story of the past few years. The VS Code development environment came out of nowhere to challenge Rational Developer for i as the pre-eminent developer tool on the platform. And according to Liam Allan, who started this whole thing, Code for i is only going to get better in the months and years to come.

  There is clear and unmistakable momentum behind VS Code and Code for IBM i, the VS Code plug-in that Liam Allan created back in 2021 while working at Seiden Group …

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• Meet The Next Gen Of IBMers Helping To Build IBM i

  June 16, 2025 Alex Woodie

  The graying of the IBM i installed base is a topic that deserves attention, as every platform must find a way to reinvent itself if it wants to survive. IBM executives have been vocal about the need for IBM i customers to hire younger people. Well, it looks like Big Blue is taking its own advice, judging from the new crop of developers working in the Rochester and Toronto labs, and beyond.

  It’s hard to believe that Liam Allan has been working on the IBM i platform for nearly a decade. Allan, who started working on IBM i when he …

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