• Top 5 New IBM i Features to Check Out Now That Fall TRs Are GA

  December 7, 2022 Alex Woodie

  All of the new features that IBM unveiled earlier this fall with the Technology Refreshes for IBM i 7.4 and 7.5 (as well as another stealth “non-TR” TR for 7.3) are now generally available. Some of them shipped before December 2, but pretty much all of them are now GA. With so much enterprise computing goodness ready to download, what will you adopt first?

  We know it’s not Christmas yet. But with so many new features, it can be hard to figure out what to do first. While everybody has their own computing priorities, we have our own ideas for …

  Read more

• Finding IBM i’s Place In Data Fabrics And Data Meshes

  December 5, 2022 Alex Woodie

  The commercialization of the Internet kicked off an unpredictable series of developments in the computing world. One of those is the proliferation of Web applications, each with its own data silo, bringing chaos to data management and data governance. Application architects are now seeking to tame that data chaos through novel infrastructure architectures, including the data mesh and the data fabric.

  While the lure of digital transformation gives companies hope that they, too, can benefit from breakthroughs in analytics, machine learning, and IoT, the data at most companies is in such a state of mess that in most cases it’s …

  Read more

• Data Is Streaming Into The Cloud, Including From IBM i

  November 14, 2022 Alex Woodie

  We are in the midst of a vast migration of data into public clouds, as companies seek to leverage technological innovation occurring in the cloud for competitive advantage. While there are no IBM i runtimes in the public cloud yet, IBM i shops are still getting value by moving their valuable Db2 for i data into the cloud, often using streaming technologies and tools like Apache Kafka and Apache Camel, as well as an updated ETL offering from IBM.

  It is tough to understate the magnitude of the transition to the public cloud is having on the $4 trillion IT …

  Read more

• IBM and Microsoft Bring .NET to Power, After All

  November 9, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Despite initially denying the existence of a project to bring the Microsoft .NET runtime to Power, IBM this week officially announced that .NET version 7 will run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Power. The technology becomes available immediately, although the database driver connecting .NET applications to Db2 for i will take more time.

  Over the years, there have been various attempts at getting the .NET runtime unhooked from its Windows roots and replanted on the Power platform, including some targeting the IBM i operating system. In 2011, a big step forward was made with the Mono Project, which …

  Read more

• Db2 Web Query Gets ML-Powered Insights, Cloud DW Connection

  November 2, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Organizations adopting the latest release of Db2 Web Query will find new capabilities in the graphical designer, an automated insights generation function that uses machine learning as well as new capabilities in the data migration tool that will help customers move data to cloud data warehouses, among other capabilities.

  Db2 Web Query is IBM’s flagship business intelligence offering for the IBM i platform. The software is based on WebFOCUS, the BI offering developed by Information Builders, with whom IBM has had an OEM relationship since 2007. In 2021, Information Builders was acquired by TIBCO Software, which has continued …

  Read more

• TRs Deliver Database and SQL Updates for Every IBM i User

  November 2, 2022 Alex Woodie

  When it comes to SQL services and database updates, there’s something for just about every IBM i user in 7.5 TR1 and 7.4 TR7. With dozens of new and enhanced database functions and SQL services, these TRs in fact may be the biggest releases ever, according to Scott Forstie, the Db2 for i architect at IBM.

  During a recent interview with IT Jungle about the new Watson geospatial capabilities that his team delivered in the database (which you can read about here), Forstie pondered the journey he and his team have been on, and how it’s culminated to this …

  Read more

• Flash Storage Is Table Stakes For Any IBM i Cloud

  October 31, 2022 Andrew Johnson David Fahrenkrug

  After a long wait, the IBM i market is finally entering the true cloud era, one where utility pricing, performance, flexible capacity, and managed services are all available for companies running the IBM i operating system and RPG, Java, PHP, and sometimes COBOL applications against the Db2 for i relational database.

  But there are clouds, and then there are things that should not rightly be called a cloud.

  And we think that if you are a modern cloud, then your primary storage has to be flash and that there is no place for a hard disk drive based on spinning …

  Read more

• Inside IBM i’s New Geospatial Functions For Db2

  October 24, 2022 Alex Woodie

  One of the more interesting elements of the recent IBM i Technology Refreshes is the addition of Watson-based geospatial functions to the Db2 for i relational database. According to IBM, the new capabilities will make it simpler and easier to incorporate advanced geospatial functions into IBM i applications.

  As its name implies, Db2 for i’s new geospatial functions allow people to compute data that has a geographical aspect to it. In this case, the geographical data takes the form of latitude and longitude readings on the Earth, and the functions provide ways to manipulate those points (as well as lines …

  Read more

• IBM Unveils Fall 2022 Tech Refreshes for IBM i

  October 12, 2022 Alex Woodie

  IBM yesterday announced Technology Refreshes for its two most current IBM i operating systems, including 7.5 and 7.4. Security continues to be a big driver of new functionality with 7.5 TR1 and 7.4 TR7. But the fall TRs bring a bevy of enhancements across all areas, including the database, IBM i services, open source, application development, and analytics, among others.

  Security has been the number one concern for CIOs for a few years now, and IBM has responded with a number of new features in IBM i. Some of the new security features exist in IBM i Navigator, the GUI …

  Read more

• What CMOD Functions You Can Access Via New Nav

  September 26, 2022 Alex Woodie

  IBM made a lot of news in May with the launch of IBM i 7.5 and Technology Refreshes for IBM i 7.4 and 7.3. One of the items that you may have missed in the avalanche of news was the unveiling of a new interface in IBM Navigator for i (a.k.a., New Navigator) that gives access to Content Manager OnDemand for i (CMOD) functionality.

  CMOD, as you probably know, is a licensed application from IBM that has been around for decades, which means there has to be a good number of customers using it for essential business functions. While paper …

  Read more

Previous Articles