• Welcoming The New IBM i Chief Architect And Other New Top Brass

  August 3, 2026 Alex Woodie

  As you have likely already heard, IBM i Chief Architect Steve Will retired last week after a 41-year IBM career, and was succeeded in that role by Kris Whitney, who previously was the IBM i platform’s chief engineer. But this is just one change among several in IBM i leadership in recent months.

  For the past four years, Will officially had three roles at IBM, including chief architect for IBM i, IBM i chief technology officer, and IBM Distinguished Engineer. The last two titles, which Will gained in 2022, were significant at the time as they denoted Will’s position …

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• A Deep Dive Into That Power S1112 Entry Power11 Server

  August 3, 2026 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The entry “Bonnell+” Power S1112 server based on the Power11 processor has been shipping for a little more than a week. While we still have not been able to get our hands on updated Power10 entry server pricing as well as the pricing on the new Power S1112, we can tell you a bunch more about the new machine even though IBM has not yet added the Power S1112 to the entry Power11 Redbook.

  The feeds and speeds of the Power S1112 were detailed on July 22 in an IBM i Guided Tour, called Next-Generation Entry Infrastructure for IBM i: …

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• Guru: Beyond Three-Part Naming – Running SQL Across Remote IBM i Systems

  August 3, 2026 Gregory Simmons

  In my article Guru: Finding Data in The Forest – Exploring Three-Part Naming In SQL, I helped you to get started with three-part naming. If you have a network of IBM i systems and haven’t availed yourself of this capability, you may be surprised at just how powerful it can be. Instead of relying on data transfers, replication, or intermediate files, SQL can reach directly into remote systems as though the data were local.

  That works well when you know exactly which remote system contains the data you need. But what happens when your network grows from a handful …

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• How IBM Bolstered IBM i Resilience In The Summer Tech Refreshes

  August 3, 2026 Alex Woodie

  The capability to weather disruptions is a hallmark of the IBM i platform and a major reason why so many companies around the world rely on it to run their businesses. To that end, IBM has enhanced the platform’s resilience capabilities as part of the recent Technology Refresh announcements with updates to Migrate While Active and the BRMS facility, as well as bringing a new VTL to IBM i.

  As mentioned in our first story about the 2026 Summer TRs, IBM has updated Migrate While Active, which it originally announced back in October 2024 as a variant of the …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 28, Number 26

  August 3, 2026 Doug Bidwell

  It is a relatively quiet week in IBM i PTF Land, which is a bit of a relief after all the stuff that was going on last week with s slew of updates and patches as well as the release of the summer batch of Technology Refreshes for the IBM i platform.

  To begin with, the latest System Planning Tool, version 6.26.212.0, is now available for download at https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/632531. So have at it and have fun configuring up those new Power11 machines. . . .

  We also have a new security vulnerability in the IBM i stack. Check it …

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• Power Systems Has A Great Quarter; System Z, Not So Much

  July 27, 2026 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  We have been waiting for a long time for Big Blue’s Power Systems business to get a big bump, and it looks like it has finally happened. And a handful of Fortune 100-level companies deferred their System z17 mainframe purchases as they allocated budget to buying servers for AI and generic – generally X86 machines, and certainly not from IBM – as CPU, GPU, DRAM memory, and flash storage prices are all skyrocketing. And last week, when IBM warned about this push out of System z sales, Wall Street predictably freaked all the way out, sending IBM’s stock down 25 …

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• Does AI Mark The End Of The ERP Era?

  July 27, 2026 Alex Woodie

  For decades, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software has been the backbone of corporate computing. Whether running on-prem or in the cloud, millions of businesses have relied on ERP components to automate their business processes and provide a competitive advantage. But the emergence of generative and agentic AI threatens to upend our relationship with ERP software. Where will ERP end up?

  There is no doubt that AI is improving in capabilities and reliability, often by the week. The top frontier models from companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and DeepSeek feature reasoning capabilities that few people could have plausibly predicted would …

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• Guru: Deterministic Application Development With AI

  July 27, 2026 Dan Darnell and Eric Whitcomb

  Perhaps the key feature of AI is the way answers are obtained by virtue of a conversation with the AI. Contrast this with using a search engine where each “ask” is an independent request with a response.

  An AI conversation has context while search engine interactions do not. More and more, we use AI to create applications through the contextual, iterative, conversational process. As we have ideas we add these to the conversation and our application changes accordingly. Our customers are getting in on the action too. They are providing us with AI generated prototypes for new software or new …

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• What IBM’s Got Cooking In Db2 For i In The Summer TRs

  July 27, 2026 Alex Woodie

  Last week, IBM announced PTFs containing a slew of new Db2 for i features and enhancements as part of the Technology Refresh for IBM i 7.6 and 7.5. While the database is just a part of the story for IBM i 7.6 TR2 and 7.5 TR8, it’s a critical piece of the puzzle. Here’s a preview of the new stuff that you can now play with.

  As part of the summer TRs that we covered last week, IBM delivered five functional enhancements to Db2 for i as part of the Summer TR, shipped one security enhancement, one enhancement for …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 28, Number 25

  July 27, 2026 Doug Bidwell

  Brace yourself, there is a lot of IBM i Technology Refreshes, patches, security vulnerabilities, and other stuff you need to deal with this week.

  Let’s start by pointing you to the Technology Refreshes. You can get more detailed information on the IBM i 7.6 Technology Refresh 2 enhancements at https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/ibm-i-76-tr2-enhancements and on the IBM i 7.5 Technology Refresh 8 enhancements at https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/ibm-i-75-tr8-enhancements.

  There are also cumulative packages for the currently supported IBM i releases, as follows:

  • The latest cumulative package for 7.6 is C6190760
  • The latest cumulative package for 7.5 is C6197750
  • The latest cumulative package for 7.4 is

  …

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