• Guru: For IBM i Newcomers, An Access Client Solutions Primer

  March 1, 2021 Rob McNelly

  I enjoy reading about IBM i Fresh Faces. Sure, it’s refreshing to see that it’s not just graybeards like me who are working on the platform, but what really matters is that young people are learning about, getting hands-on with, and coming to love IBM i. I appreciate that many of these stories revolve around system/application modernization and open source solutions. This gives newcomers to IBM i a degree of comfort by reducing their learning curve.

  Learning any new technology is challenging. Specifically, how do you go from learning about the concepts to actually getting on a machine and …

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• Some Practical Advice On That HMC-Power9 Impedance Mismatch

  March 1, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In any modern IT infrastructure – be it compute, storage, or networking – there is an increasing architectural movement to break control planes from the compute, storage, or networking planes. In this sense, the Hardware Management Console, which people have been complaining about since it was launched so long ago we can’t even remember it.

  The HMC debuted as an external controller for system configuration and logical partition configuration with the Power5-based “Squadron” line of servers running OS/400 back in 2004, including the Power 520 and the Power 570 as well as the Power 575, Power 590, and Power 595 …

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• New Release Of ACS Now Available

  December 9, 2020 Alex Woodie

  IBM delivered a new release of Access Client Solutions (ACS) last week, right on schedule. With ACS version 1.1.8.6, users will find a host of new features designed to accelerate their productivity across a range of uses.

  ACS is the Java-based utility that has become one of the most used (and useful) ways that administrators, programmers, and engineers can interact with the IBM i server. The software, which is free to IBM i customers on maintenance, features a 5250 emulator, 5250 printer emulation, data transfer capabilities, IFS file viewing, spool file management, and a virtual console for LAN and HMC …

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• Cloud Walkers Updates IBM i Partition Manager, Slashes Prices

  November 2, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  All over the world, a lot of things are taking a bit longer to get done these days thanks to the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. But things are still getting done, and that is the main thing. So it is with Bartlomiej Grabowski, the founder and chief executive officer of Cloud Walkers, the startup based in Prague in the Czech Republic who released a tool called LPARKit, which we covered at its V1 release back in December 2019.

  The plan, Grabowski tells The Four Hundred, was to take all of the input from the V1 users …

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• The Rest Of October’s Power Systems Software Announcements

  October 19, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The software stack in the Cognitive Systems division, which most of us still call the Power Systems division, is a lot wider and deeper than the IBM i stack, even though IBM i does represent a lot of the software functionality and generates a lot of the revenue stream for Power Systems machinery.

  In addition to the Technology Refresh updates for IBM i 7.4 and IBM i 7.3, which were announced on October 6 and which will be available on November 13, Big Blue also updated a bunch of other pieces of systems software that run on Power Systems, which …

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• IBM Rolls Out ACS 1.1.8.5

  August 12, 2020 Alex Woodie

  IBM last week introduced a new release of Access Client Solutions (ACS), the popular IBM i client that’s used by administrators, programmers, and engineers alike. There are enhancements to Run SQL Scripts, new 5250 viewing options, and a performance boost for viewing selected files on the IFS with version 1.1.8.5, among other mostly minor updates.

  According to the release notes associated with the new iteration of ACS, IBM made a handful of changes with version 1.1.8.5.

  Let’s start with the improvements to Run SQL Scripts, which is an increasingly popular utility in ACS that leverages the power of SQL and …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 22, Number 3

  January 22, 2020 Doug Bidwell

  We are rolling along and singing a PTF song here as January is ramping up and everyone working on IBM i is getting back to work after the holidays.

  First of all, the new J-Resave for 7.3 has been tested on a slip of the LIC, which we have been talking about for the past month, and it works! So this is very good news for customers who have created logical partitions without the Hardware Management Console (HMC). The default SST profiles Expired Passwords after PTF upgrade – see this link: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/1127871. And here is the rest of the …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 22, Number 2

  January 15, 2020 Doug Bidwell

  As you well know, there is an issue with LPARs that are hanging on machines that have the latest Technology Refreshes applied to IBM i 7.3 and IBM i 7.4 in cases where the Hardware Management Console (HMC) is not managing the partitions. The details of the issue with the Technology Refreshes are outlined in APAR MA48101, and what it means is that a guest partition created with Virtual Partition Manager (VPM) inside SST or Integrated Virtualization Manager (IVM) will hang on IPL after the apply of the TRs. This gets real elaborate, so we strongly suggest you review …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 22, Number 1

  January 13, 2020 Doug Bidwell

  We want to remind you once again about the LPARs that are hanging on machines that have the latest Technology Refreshes applied to IBM i 7.3 and IBM i 7.4 in cases where the Hardware Management Console (HMC) is not managing the partitions. The details of the issue with the Technology Refreshes are outlined in APAR MA48101, which is essentially a bug report that warns customers of an issue with the software stack and oftentimes gives hints about when and how it will be fixed.

  Here is the issue in a nutshell: IPL-SRCC6003962-WAIT Hang with IBM i 7.3 with …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 21, Numbers 51 And 52

  January 6, 2020 Doug Bidwell

  The PTFs keep rolling even through the holidays, so this is our time to get caught up with the last two weeks of patches in 2019 as the new year is beginning.

  In PTF Number 51, we dug a little deeper into the issue we found out about just as The Four Hundred was going on hiatus where LPARs are hanging on machines that have the latest Technology Refreshes applied to IBM i 7.3 and IBM i 7.4 in cases where the Hardware Management Console (HMC) is not managing the partitions.

  The details of the issue with the Technology Refreshes …

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