• Precisely Streams IBM i Data Into Amazon’s New Db2 Service

  April 8, 2024 Alex Woodie

  Amid the torrent of news that Amazon Web Services unveiled at its re:Invent show four months ago was RDS for Db2, a new hosted relational data service based on IBM’s database. Amazon Web Services offers the Linux, Unix, and Windows (LUW) variant of Db2, but thanks to a new connector unveiled by Precisely last week, IBM i and mainframe shops have a way to replicate their data into it.

  Amazon RDS is among the cloud giant’s most popular services, and likely one of the most popular IT services ever created. According to one estimate, Amazon RDS brings in $7 billion …

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• Ibi Reaches Out to D2b Web Query Customers, Discusses Cause of Breakup

  March 25, 2024 Alex Woodie

  Nearly six months after ibi and IBM abruptly ended their OEM relationship, ibi is now reaching out to Db2 Web Query customers and encouraging them to license the business intelligence product it was based on, its own WebFOCUS suite. An executive with ibi also provided IT Jungle with some insight into the source of the breakup and what its IBM i customers can expect going forward.

  On the same day that IBM was unveiling the Fall 2023 Technology Refresh last October, it made an unexpected announcement that shocked the IBM i community: It would no longer sell Db2 Web …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 26, Number 11

  March 18, 2024 Doug Bidwell

  This week in IBM i is sponsored by security vulnerabilities and precious little else. There are three security vulnerabilities that are new that you need to be aware of, so let’s get to it and let you get back to work.

  First, we have Security Bulletin: IBM Db2 Web Query for i is vulnerable to a remote attacker bypassing security restrictions or to denial of service, which you can read more about here. The fixes are as follows:

  IBM Db2 Web Query for i 		Release		OS Release
  5733WQX 		2.4.0		7.4 and 7.5
  				SI85982
  				SI85987
  

  Second, we have Security Bulletin: …

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• RPG Training Program Spun Up by Trucking Industry Outsourcer

  February 7, 2024 Alex Woodie

  If you’re in the trucking business and need RPG programmers, you might want to check out the outsourcing firm DDC FPO, which has spun up a new program in the Philippines to train junior RPG programmers to work at American trucking firms.

  DDC FPO is one of the country’s largest business process outsourcing (BPO) firms serving the trucking industry. The company, which is headquartered in Evergreen, Colorado, works with more than half of the country’s less-than-truckload (LTL) operators. About one-third of the bills of lading generated daily are generated by DDC FPO workers, the company claims.

  The IBM i platform …

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• IBM i Chief Architect Will Gives N2i Some Platform Pointers

  January 10, 2024 Alex Woodie

  It’s hard to find someone more knowledgeable about the ins and outs of the IBM i platform than Steve Will, who holds CTO and chief architect titles at IBM. So when Will accepted an invitation from COMMON’s N2i (New to IBM i) group to speak to IBM i newcomers this week, it was a good chance to pick up something new.

  One of the first things that IBM i newcomers will notice about the IBM i is that it’s an unusual platform, in several regards. For starters, it’s older than many platforms, being able to trace its lineage back to …

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• 2023: An IBM i Year in Review

  December 13, 2023 Alex Woodie

  With another year nearly in the books, it’s time to take a stroll through the IT Jungle archives and reconsider some of the 728 stories we published in 2023. Here’s a look back at the biggest IBM i news stories of 2023.

  January

  The top concern of IBM i professionals, according to Fortra’s annual IBM i Marketplace Study, was once again security, a position it has held for six straight years. The latest crop of IBM Champions unveiled in January featured about 90 members from the IBM i community, out of a total of 839 for the year. Is …

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• Thoroughly Modern: Practical Ways IBM i Developers Can Use AI Today

  December 4, 2023 Scott Gingerysty

  This October at COMMON’s NAViGATE Conference, I presented a session about practical ways that IBM i developers can use AI in their day-to-day development practices. We discussed how you can streamline and optimize the development process, improve coding velocity, enhance code hygiene, testing and documentation, and we also looked at some of the caveats. After connecting with the folks at COMMON – and seeing their enthusiasm – I felt inspired to share these examples with the IT Jungle community.

  So, why AI for developers? AI offers a transformative toolkit that streamlines learning and amplifies creative problem-solving. Through machine learning algorithms, …

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• IBM i Momma Bear Retires

  December 4, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Alison Butterill is probably the most famous IBM i visage in the world. For as long as we can remember – which is not necessarily any kind of test we realize – Butterill has been front and center, calming and thoroughly explaining the IBM i platform, being the interface between customers and engineers steering its development, and being its official spokesperson alongside of IBM i chief architect Steve Will.

  We are sad to report that Butterill retired as worldwide IBM i offering manager from Big Blue on November 30. And in a manner that is absolutely consistent with her calm …

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• AWS Inks Deal With Connectria To Have a Power Play

  November 15, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The long road of history has not been made impassible by the charred marketing tanks and flaming sales assault vehicles of those who have tried to breach Fortress Rochester, but there are a whole lot of rusting machines off on the horizon cluttering the road and more than a few smoking machines nearby as well as some sizable holes in the ramparts out on that cornfield in Minnesota.

  While the proprietary minicomputer businesses and the Unix server businesses of the competition of the AS/400 and IBM i platform have all been destroyed and that IBM is indeed the last bastion …

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• In A Parallel Universe, There Is An IBM i Data Warehouse, Too

  November 8, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Over the many years that we have been watching the Power Systems business – which is all of them, starting with the original RS/6000 announcement in February 1990, the first announcement we ever attended and at IBM’s original headquarters at 590 Madison in New York City – we have seen time and time again how Big Blue has rolled out parallel cluster data warehouse configurations for its AIX customers.

  Somehow, the IBM i platform and predecessor OS/400 platform have never been shown the same respect. Despite the fact that there are midrange and large enterprise customers who would very likely …

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