• What’s New in IBM i Services and Networking

  May 18, 2022 Alex Woodie

  As expected, IBM delivered a slew of new IBM i services with the delivery of IBM i 7.5 last week, giving IBM i professionals handle new methods for working with various components of the platform. The new releases of the operating system also brings a number of enhancements in the networking stack, which are notable for several reasons.

  The past several new releases and Technology Refreshes (TRs) have brought new IBM i services, which are SQL-based alternatives to traditional ways of accessing things on the platform like IBM i objects, system information, and other components. At this point, IBM has …

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• Top Five Failures In State of IBM i Security For 2022

  April 18, 2022 Alex Woodie

  HelpSystems last week officially unveiled its annual State of IBM i Security report, the 18th straight year for the series. Like with past reports, the 2022 version highlights some of the continuing challenges that IBM i customers face when trying to secure their systems. A few key areas stand out above the rest.

  The IBM i server is a bit of an enigma when it comes to security. While it is widely perceived to be one of the most secure computing platforms on the planet – and “virus-proof” to boot – the reality is that a good number of IBM …

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• Glimpsing Hope in the IBM i Security Situation

  April 6, 2022 Alex Woodie

  These are dark days in the security business, thanks to the boom in ransomware, the looming threat of cyberwar with Russia, and the poor security of IBM i servers. But just as it’s darkest before the dawn, there could be some preliminary indications that the IBM i community is finally starting to wake up when it comes to securing their most important applications, systems, and data.

  It’s hard to be optimistic in the face of repeated failures. When it comes to IBM i security, those failures have been well-documented in annual State of Security reports for nearly two decades by …

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• Taking A Camel-First Approach to Integration

  August 11, 2021 Alex Woodie

  Unicorns and Chupacabras may not exist on this planet, but camels certainly do. And according to midrange open source guru Jesse Gorzinski, IBM i shops would do well to take a camel-first approach to integration challenges.

  The camel, of course, is Apache Camel, the Java-based integration framework that’s designed to connect two or more systems. During the recent OCEAN TechCon21 conference, Gorzinski, IBM’s business development manager for open source on IBM i, presented a compelling overview of Camel and how it can benefit administrators and developers in an IBM i environment.

  “Apache Camel can make it pretty easy to …

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• Locking Down Exit Point And IFS Vulnerabilities On IBM i

  March 24, 2021 Pauline Brazil Ayala

  It’s true that the IBM i server is among the most securable servers on the planet. But all too often, customers do not take the time to secure their environments properly. This is particularly true for two of the most oft-neglected components of the IBM i environment: exit points and the IFS.

  IBM introduced exit points with the launch of OS/400 V3R1 way back in 1994. We remember that version well here at Trinity Guard, because soon after that, we developed the industry’s first exit point monitoring software for the AS/400 at PentaSafe, the spiritual predecessor of our company. …

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• Kisco Locks Down IBM i Report Distribution

  October 28, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Users will gain more control over how their IBM i spool files are distributed and displayed, with a new release of WebReport/i, which is Kisco Information Systems’ spool file utility automatically reformatting and distributing spool files.

  WebReport/i can reformat IBM i spool files in a variety of different ways. It can change them into HTML, RTF, PDF, XLS, XLSX, TIF or CSV formats, and it can also distribute them via HTTP, FTP, email, Google Drive, Dropbox, and even fax.

  With Release 14, which was unveiled earlier this month, Kisco has shored up the security of the product. Specifically, when posting …

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• Security Gaining Attention On IBM i, But More Progress Needed

  June 22, 2020 Alex Woodie

  First, the good news: IBM i shops are paying more attention to security and are making it a priority, according to the 2020 State of IBM i Security Study. But that isn’t necessarily translating into better security, as too much data remains vulnerable, the new report concludes.

  “A deeper understanding of the risks and the security controls built into the OS is currently driving a wave of interest in prioritizing cybersecurity issues on IBM i,” Robin Tatum, director of security technologies at HelpSystems, wrote in the 2020 State of IBM i Security Study, now in its 17th …

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• Why You Need To Implement Exit Point Security – Now

  June 15, 2020 Rich Loeber

  As everyone knows, the only truly secure computer is one that is not networked to any other system or any client, and that has no users doing anything at all on the system. And if you really want to be honest about it, you should probably turn its power off. Then, it would be perfectly secure – and perfectly useless as well.

  To make any system useful, it has to be opened up so it can be reached by the world, and it may be hard to remember this now, three decades after the client/server and Internet revolutions, but there …

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• ILEditor 2 Gives IBM i Shops A New Development Option

  May 6, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Liam Allan recently unveiled ILEditor 2, a new integrated development environment (IDE) for IBM i. The new IDE sports a fresher look and better performance compared to the first version of ILEditor, as well as an extensible plug-in system, which should also deliver better code coverage.

  For many years, members of the IBM i community have expressed frustration by the high price, size, and performance of Rational Developer for i (RDi), which is IBM’s flagship development tool for the IBM i community. While the IDE’s performance has improved in recent years, members of the community still bemoan the …

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• Guru: Move Objects with Access Client Solutions

  October 14, 2019 Dawn May

  Sending objects from one IBM i partition to another is a common task. Access Client Solutions’ IFS task makes it simple to copy or send objects. The IFS task was introduced in ACS in July 2016, so this is not a new development, but it may not be widely known.

  Perhaps you need to send a save file to another IBM i partition. There are several ways to do this. FTP and Secure FTP are often used, but using FTP to transfer IBM i objects involves all sorts of complications. The IBM i Knowledge Center dedicates an entire section on …

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