• 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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• The State Of The IBM i Installed Base, Part 2

  February 17, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In the first half of our analysis of the IBM i installed base, we looked at the number of machines and the number of logical partitions that respondents of the IBM i Marketplace Survey for the 2020 report gave last fall when they took the poll. We did some math and analysis on this to show that there is a large block of customers with lots of machines and lots of partitions that are just as important to Big Blue as those with big, fat NUMA servers.

  In the second half of this series about the state of the IBM …

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• The Distinguished Professionals Of IBM i

  February 17, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  We use the term legacy a lot in the IBM midrange and mainframe markets, and not necessarily in the good way we talk about political leaders or business executives or sports stars all leaving a legacy behind of their body of work. I use the term when it means something precise – legacy applications, for instance, are the ones that originated back in time and that have not been modernized in any substantial way because perhaps they don’t need to be.

  I prefer the term vintage when I am talking about hardware and software releases because that conveys a …

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• Security Still the Top Concern as Privacy Regs Loom

  February 12, 2020 Alex Woodie

  For the fourth year in a row, security is the number one concern of the IBM i installed base, according to HelpSystems’ 2020 IBM i Marketplace Survey. IBM i shops are clearly concerned about the need to prevent unauthorized access to applications and data. But security’s first cousin, data privacy, also stands to gain more attention with the recent passage of data privacy laws, such as GDPR and CCPA.

  HelpSystems released the results of its latest marketplace survey last month, as it has done for the past six years. And just as it has for every year since 2017, security …

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• Participate In The 2020 IBM i Marketplace Survey Webcast

  January 13, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Every fall for the past six years, HelpSystems puts out the call for the IBM i community to participate in its annual survey of the base so we can find out what is going on out there in your shops. And then as the new year just gets going, the company hosts a webinar that goes over the results of the survey with commentary from a bunch of people.

  Tom Huntington, the executive vice president of technical solutions at HelpSystems, will host the webinar, and I plan to attend as do two familiar IBMers and a new one. That would …

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• IBM i Priorities For 2017: Pivot To Defense

  February 1, 2017 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops around the country will be concentrating their efforts more on defensive IT measures like security and high availability this year, as offensive measures like application modernization and mobile app development take a back seat on corporate to-do lists, according HelpSystems’ recent marketplace study.

  While digital transformation is still an important topic that IBM i shops should have on their radar, an even bigger priority in 2017 will be getting one’s digital house in order before hackers, disgruntled employees, or natural disasters conspire to compromise data and disrupt operations.

  That message came through loud and clear in HelpSystems …

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• More IBM i Predictions For 2017

  January 25, 2017 Alex Woodie

  The great thing about crystal balls is everybody gets their own view. One man’s (or woman’s) view of the future is different from the next. When prophesizing about the IBM i platform, people tend to have different viewpoints, which is part of what makes this exercise so much fun (well that, and all the extra coffee and donuts we editors enjoy while letting you do all the work).

  We gave you a taste of things to come with our first installment of 2017 IBM i predictions. Back by popular demand, here’s round two of IBM i predictions, beginning with the …

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• Linoma Gets Graphical With Journal Entries

  January 25, 2017 Alex Woodie

  Prolific is one word that describes the IBM i platform’s aptitude at writing journal entries. The volumes are truly astounding. But searching through this machine-generated data using a green screen is a tedious task that’s better for inducing eyestrain than generating results. That’s why Linoma Software is proffering up a new graphical interface for working with journal entries in Surveyor/400.

  Surveyor/400 is a handy multi-tool that does a little bit of everything for programmers, administrators, and end-users alike. The Java-based product lets users explore IBM i through a Windows Explorer-like interface; query DB2 for i data with a File Editor; …

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• UCG And HelpSystems Make Acquisitions

  January 25, 2017 Alex Woodie

  A common prediction for the New Year is that we’ll see more mergers and acquisition (M&A) activity in the IBM i marketplace. That refrain struck a truthful note just a week into 2017, with two IBM i vendors, UCG Technologies and HelpSystems, making deals of their own.

  UCG Technologies wheeled and dealed to buy E-Safe Technologies, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based provider of IT services that counts IBM i as a specialty. Formerly known as Premiere Technologies, E-Safe was founded in 1989, and had more than 250 customers located from Pittsburgh to the Great Lakes area, including a good number …

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• IBM i Trends, Concerns, And Observations

  January 23, 2017 Dan Burger

  There is far more going on in IBM i shops than many non-IBM i people would expect. And the truth of the matter is that some IBM i shops might be surprised to find out what other shops are up to. The IBM i Marketplace Survey is one of our windows into that world. And it’s just been compiled for the third consecutive year. We have been watching and reporting on this survey and the trends it identifies because it is one of the best finger-in-the-wind indicators of the directions IBM i shops are headed.

  There are more than a …

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