• IBM i Roadmap Promises A Long Ride, Few Bumps

  June 10, 2019 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It would be hard to find a group of enterprise IT shops that are more conservative – meaning averse to risk – than the IBM midrange. Arguably, IBM System z mainframe shops are even more risk averse, but perhaps it is a matter more of scale than degree. In the average IBM i shop, one person – or maybe a handful of people – is keeping risk at bay, while in a mainframe shop there could be dozens or hundreds that are trying to steer the ship without rocking the boat.

  Every now and then, Big Blue publishes an IBM …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 21, Number 21

  June 3, 2019 Doug Bidwell

  You come to the IBM i PTF Guide to find out what’s new, and I am here to tell you. First of all, there is a new PTF Group for backup and recovery, which is perhaps not very exciting but is nonetheless one of the most critical aspects of the IBM i system. We also find that the HTTP Server in IBM i 7.2 and IBM i 7.3 has security vulnerabilities.

  The relevant PTFs for the Web server fixes are:

  • 3 SI69900 & SI69828
  • 2 SI69901

  For further details check this link.

  Also, there is a new PTF Group …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 21, Number 19

  May 15, 2019 Doug Bidwell

  So, here’s the deal: There is a new IBM i 7.3 Cume! 19116! C9116730! Have fun with the latest cumulative release on the newest shipping variant of IBM i, all rolled up and ready to rock. Also, SAP on i PTF links have been added to each release and, by the way, I installed Technology Refresh 6 for IBM i 7.3 earlier this week at a customer site and there were no issues, which is a good thing indeed. There is also a new DB2 Group for IBM i 7.3.

  Be sure to check out the SAP on i Blog, …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 21, Number 18

  May 6, 2019 Doug Bidwell

  In this iteration of the IBM i PTF Guide, you will find that there is a new set of PTF patches for the TCP/IP Group for both IBM i 7.2 and IBM i 7.3, and also new HIPER and Security Groups for the big three current release, which are of course IBM i 7.1, IBM i 7.2, and IBM i 7.3. IBM i 7.4 won’t be here until the AS/400’s 31st birthday on June 21.

  Here are the new or updated links in the Guide this week:

  • System IBM i Home Page
  • System IBM i License Topics
  • Open Source Midnight

  …

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• Deep Dive On IBM i 7.4 And IBM i 7.3 TR6 Hardware Limits

  April 29, 2019 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  As everybody knows by now, IBM has announced both the Technology Refresh 6 for IBM i 7.3 and the shiny new IBM i 7.4 release. We did a brief overview of these operating system releases in last Wednesday’s issue, concurrent with the launch and ahead of their respective May 10 and June 21 general availability dates, to put them into perspective. Now, it is time to get into the nuts and bolts and bits and bytes of what Big Blue has announced.

  Rather than try to do it all in one story or possibly two, we are breaking it …

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• IBM i 7.4 Rolled Out, And IBM i 7.3 Tech Refresh Rolled Up

  April 24, 2019 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Every couple of years, we get a new release of the IBM i operating system from Big Blue, and it has been quite a number of years since we have seen a new version of the platform. But that’s alright, since IBM has its Technology Refresh mechanism for adding support for new hardware and for adding significant new software function to the platform without breaking release-level compatibility and therefore requiring customers to requalify their applications, or worse yet, be forced to port their applications to an updated operating system.

  This new Technology Refresh approach has been a very good thing, …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 21, Number 15

  April 15, 2019 Doug Bidwell

  And the PTFs just keep on rolling. . . . This week, there are patches in the HTTP Server Group for IBM i 7.2 and IBM i 7.3. There is also a new Database Group for IBM i 7.2.

  And, as is common with most production operating systems these days, especially those that have a lot of components derived from open source software where things get discovered and patched out in the open where everyone can see and with a rapidity that operating systems of days gone by did not have to deal with, there is a continual stream of …

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• Midnight Commander Comes To IBM i

  March 20, 2019 Alex Woodie

  IBM i professionals who work extensively with files in the IFS will be happy to hear a new software utility has been ported to the IBM i PASE environment that could save them a bunch of time. The open source software, called Midnight Commander, gives developers and administrators a handy command line experience that can help speed up tasks, especially when giving commands to large number of files stored on remote machines.

  Midnight Commander was originally developed in 1994 as a file utility for UNIX, which was beginning to emerge from software labs to challenge minicomputer platforms of the day, …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 21, Number 9

  March 4, 2019 Doug Bidwell

  This week, the new PTFs coming out of IBM are just for WebSphere Application Server 8.5, and only on IBM i 7.2 and IBM i 7.3. There isn’t much going on otherwise, and this is a blessing, most definitely not a curse.

  I have added a bunch of new links to the spreadsheet that encompasses the IBM i PTF Guide, and these include:

  • IWS/IAS: How To Change the Ports Used by IBM IAS v8.5 and IWS v2.6 Servers
  • WireShark: Instructions for Collecting a Wireshark PC Sniffer Trace
  • AFP: Are AFP Utilities and AFP supported on IBM i 7.3?

  And …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 21, Number 4

  January 28, 2019 Doug Bidwell

  Alright, good people of IBM i Land, here is what is new for the latest edition of the IBM i PTF Guide. There are HIPERs – short for High Impact/Pervasive, meaning you need to pay attention to these – for all three current releases, which means IBM i 7.1 (which is on extended support), IBM i 7.2 (which is still on regular support), and IBM i 7.3 (which is new enough to not care about how old it is yet).

  There are also PTFs for the Backup and Recovery group for IBM i 7.2 and IBM i 7.3 releases. …

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