• Thoroughly Modern: AI Success for IBM i Organizations – Small Beginnings, Big Benefits

  December 2, 2024 John Clark

  AI is transforming how businesses operate, but for many IBM i users, the path forward feels unclear. Questions pile up: Where does one begin? How do you choose a project that delivers real results? What if AI causes more disruption than benefit?

  The challenge is real: large-scale AI projects demand significant time, resources, and expertise. There is new terminology, new skills, and a blizzard of possible tools. For most organizations, this feels out of reach. But the solution lies in starting small.

  Small AI projects solve specific problems, provide value, and build confidence without overhauls or unreasonable risk. Learn how …

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• Stop Coding In C and C++, Feds Say

  December 2, 2024 Alex Woodie

  Two federal agencies asked the IT world last month to stop developing applications in memory unsafe languages like C and C++ and to come up with roadmaps to migrate existing apps. While the security alert is unlikely to have a major impact on IBM i application development, the C family of languages does have a presence on the IBM midrange server that will be very tough to remove.

  Organizations should immediately stop developing new applications written in memory unsafe languages like C and C++, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) warned last …

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• As I See It: Gratitude

  December 2, 2024 Victor Rozek

  Tech has taken a number of hits this year, and many of them were aptly deserved. The issues are well known and thoroughly documented. What is often obscured, what is often lost amid the outrage, are some of tech’s extraordinary accomplishments. They are overlooked in part because they have become the baseline for our expectations.

  In the smartphone, for example, the least among us has access to more computing capacity than powered the first Moon landing. We hold a miracle in our hand, and get annoyed if our text message isn’t promptly delivered.

  Imagine, for a moment, living in the …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 26, Number 45

  December 2, 2024 Doug Bidwell

  It was pretty quiet in PTF Land just after The Four Hundred went on publishing hiatus, and we are still playing catch up getting out the sequential changes to the IBM i patch stack and any security vulnerabilities you may need to be aware of.

  The good news this time around is that we have not run across any security issues. So carry on, and have a look at the High Impact/Pervasive (HIPER) and security patches that have been put out for IBM i 7.3, IBM i 7.4, and IBM i 7.5.

  Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by …

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• IBM’s Fall 2024 Code for IBM i Enhancements

  November 13, 2024 Alex Woodie

  Adoption of Code for i continues to soar among IBM i developers, as they shift from heavy, expensive integrated development environments (IDEs) to lighter, open-source options. With the latest Technology Refreshes (TRs) for IBM i, IBM is making the VS Code plug-in even more useful for RPG and COBOL developers.

  Code for IBM i is the brainchild of Liam Allan, the midrange wunderkind with an intense aversion to Rational Developer for IBM i (RDi), IBM’s Java-based flagship IDE for IBM i. As adoption of the VS Code extension grew in the summer of 2022, IBM smartly hired Allan as a …

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• Unlock Business Continuity: Strategies For Success

  November 13, 2024 Tom Horan

  Ensuring business continuity is vital in today’s rapidly evolving IT landscape. Disruptions from natural disasters, cyberattacks, or human error can severely impact organizations. To thrive amid these challenges, you need robust strategies and cutting-edge technologies. That’s where PowerVS stands out – a formidable computing platform specifically engineered to optimize and strengthen your business continuity.

  The Power Of PowerVS

  Let’s discuss why PowerVS is a groundbreaking solution. It’s more than just a computing platform; it’s a robust performance, reliability, and scalability system.

  Here’s how PowerVS can significantly enhance your IT infrastructure:

  • Reduce Downtime: Envision a scenario in which one need not

  …

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• IBM Power for Google Cloud Offering Gets PCI Cert

  November 13, 2024 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that want to run their workloads in the Google Cloud may be interested in the latest news out of Converge Technology Solutions, which recently announced that it has completed the PCI-DSS certification for the company’s IBM Power for Google Cloud (IP4G) platform.

  The availability of IBM Power servers in the public cloud has been growing in fits and starts over the past five years. Back in 2019, a Seattle, Washington, company named Skytap (since acquired by Kyndryl) worked to place Power servers within Microsoft Azure data centers. Connectria, one of the biggest private cloud providers, …

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• Fresche Nabs Redbourn Business Systems For Synon Expertise

  November 11, 2024 Alex Woodie

  Fresche Solutions last week acquired Redbourn Business Systems, a UK-based provider of Synon and CA 2E development and consulting services. The move bolsters Fresche’s previous efforts to cater to the needs of IBM i shops that adopted the Synon/2E development language, and also bolsters the company’s European presence.

  Redbourn Business Systems was founded in 1994 by Steve Cast, a longtime RPG programmer and IBM midrange professional who was among the first to port applications from the System/38 to the AS/400 back in the 1980s. The company, which is based in the English village of Redbourn, provides a range of services …

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• Power Systems Distributor Ingram Micro Goes Public (Again)

  November 11, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  We admit it. It has been a long, long time since we paid much attention to the master distributors that IBM and other IT equipment makers use as a channel between themselves and their systems customers. We used to follow Arrow Electronics and Avnet like a hawk. But we got sidetracked and stopped thinking about them, in part because the late and great Dan Burger used to be our go-to guy for keeping in touch with the Power Systems channel distributors.

  The recent initial public offering of Ingram Micro, which is really the second time the company has gone public …

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• Guru: RPG Receives Enumerator Operator

  November 11, 2024 Gregory Simmons

  The RPG language now (some would argue, finally) has an enumerator operator. This was introduced in IBM i 7.5 TR3 and IBM i 7.4 TR9.

  DISCLAIMER: The edibility of the mushrooms listed in my test program are purely to give the program some context and make it interesting. Their edible status is based on information from the Missouri Department of Conservation’s publication A Guide to Missouri’s Edible and Poisonous Mushrooms. Before foraging for or consuming any wild mushroom do your research and be safe.

  Let’s dive right into a code sample. We’ll start with a simple linear-main program …

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