IBM Ideas Archives

One Big Time-Saving Network Enhancement In IBM i 7.6

April 23, 2025 Alex Woodie

IBM i 7.6 brings a host of new enhancements around security and database development, among other areas. But IBM has also brought one big new capability to the operating system’s networking environment that will be worth the cost of an upgrade for some larger IBM i environments.

IBM introduced Ethernet Link Aggregation support in IBM i 7.1 Technology Refresh 3 (TR3), which shipped way back in 2012. Ethernet Link Aggregation enables several full-duplex Ethernet links to be grouped into a single line description with a single Media Access Control (MAC) address, which can boost reliability as well as throughput. …
Read more
The Top Ten IBM i Requests From The IBM Ideas Portal

April 2, 2025 Alex Woodie

Big Blue is gearing up for a major new release of the IBM i operating system. We don’t know yet what will be in the release, but we can forge some guesses by checking out what new features the IBM i community is requesting through the IBM Ideas portal, and how IBM reacts to them.

IBM prides itself on being a customer-focused organization, and so it looks to the IBM i community for direction on what sort of features, capabilities, and fixes the IBM i community currently is looking for. That community outreach takes various forms, including the COMMON Americas …
Read more
IBM Cranks Up the Performance for Run SQL Scripts

April 24, 2024 Alex Woodie

Access Client Solutions (ACS) users who are tired of waiting for database fields to resolve in the Run SQL Scripts (RSS) facility will be happy to hear that IBM felt their pain and RSS will return data much more quickly to return data with ACS version 1.1.9.5, which IBM shipped earlier this month.

The speed-up of field resolution time was listed as a concern to at least one IBM i user, who took to IBM Power Ideas Portal to voice his or her concern. “Simply put the resolution of potential field makes content assist almost unusable,” the user wrote. “I …
Read more
RDi and RPG Enhancements in the 2023 Fall TRs

October 25, 2023 Alex Woodie

RPG developers will see some compelling new features coming out of the recent Technology Refresh (TR) announcement from IBM, including enhancements to the RDi development environment as well as new capabilities in the RPG language itself.

RPG is nearly 65 years old, but like old dogs, the programming language can learn new tricks. The enhancements that IBM has brought to its venerable language with IBM i 7.5 TR3 and 7.4 TR9 continue a strong run of improvements, according to IBM i Product Manager Alison Butterill.

“Every one of the TRs since we announced 7.5 has had at least some RPG …
Read more
What the Fall ’23 TRs Bring Navigator for i

October 18, 2023 Alex Woodie

The releases of IBM i that ship next month will bring enhancements to Navigator for i, the Web-based interface for accessing, monitoring, and managing IBM i. However, without some functions that have yet to arrive, the transition from the legacy Navigator tool will take more time.

It’s hard to believe, but the new Navigator for i offering is only two years old. You will recall that the introduction of New Nav, as IBM called it, was the biggest news with the launch of IBM i TR 7.3 TR11 and 7.4 TR5 in the fall of 2021. Not only was the …
Read more
New Run SQL Scripts Features in ACS Update

August 23, 2023 Alex Woodie

If you’re a fan of the Run SQL Scripts features in IBM i Access Client Solutions, then there’s good news: IBM has adopted several suggestions on how to improve the functionality in the latest release of ACS.

IBM quietly released ACS version 1.1.9.3 last month, enabling a series of new functions in the popular Java-based utility used by IBM i professionals to interact with the platform, as well as a handful of fixes.

At the top of the list, according to an IBM Support document on the new release, are enhancements to Run SQL Scripts (RSS), the handy facility that …
Read more
2022: An IBM i Year in Review, Part One

December 14, 2022 Alex Woodie

Well, it’s that time of year again – time to look back on the year and contemplate what happened. It was another eventful year in the midrange, with new servers and new operating systems. The IBM i user and vendor communities also worked to make it a rewarding year.

2021 started innocently enough back in . . .

January

Cybercriminals earned a gazillion demerits for their early 2021 Christmas present to cybersecurity professionals: Log4j, the most critical security vulnerability to hit the IT world in years. With a perfect CVSS severity rating of 10, Log4j sent security professionals scrambling in …
Read more
Want To Influence IBM i’s Direction? Consider Joining An Advisory Council

December 12, 2022 Alex Woodie

Do you want to make your mark on the future of IBM i? If so, there may be a volunteer position available to you on one the two advisory councils run by COMMON and COMMON Europe, which play important roles in advising IBM what new features and technologies should be added to the platform.

Members of the COMMON Americas Advisory Council (CAAC) and the COMMON Europe Advisory Council (CEAC) play an important role shaping what new features and functionality are added to the IBM i platform. The two councils work closely with IBM to review and prioritize customer requirements submitted …
Read more
IBM i RFE Site Moving to New Location

April 4, 2022 Alex Woodie

IBM last month announced that it’s moving its Request for Enhancements (RFE) program to a new place. From now on, IBM i users will be asked to submit and vote on RFEs via its new IBM Ideas website, where IBM is centralizing the RFE programs for various products, including IBM i.

In the summer of 2016, IBM opened a new RFE program on its developerWorks site at www.ibm.com/developerworks/rfe/. That website marked Big Blue’s first formalization of its requirements process, which up until that point was spread across four entities: the COMMON Americas Advisory Council (CAAC), COMMON Europe Advisory …
Read more

Content archive

Recent Posts

Subscribe

Pages

Search

January

Content archive

Recent Posts

Subscribe

Pages

Search