• Guru: Comparing IFS Directories Using SQL

  June 19, 2023 Mike Larsen

  I use SQL almost every day at my job. It may be just a query in ACS, or it may be embedded SQL in an RPG program. A few days ago, I needed to compare the contents of one IFS directory to another. Combining a few different table functions, I was able to develop a nice solution.

  Note: The code for this article can be downloaded here.

  In this example, I have a directory that has five text files in it. I have a second directory that has three text files in it, and they are the same documents …

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• Fortra Issues 20th State of IBM i Security Report

  May 24, 2023 Alex Woodie

  IBM is celebrating 35 years of its midrange platform next month, and there is no doubt it will be an exciting moment for the IBM i community. But there’s another occasion you might not be aware of: the 20th annual State of IBM i Security Study, which was issued last month by Fortra (formerly HelpSystems).

  Back in 2004, the security experts at PowerTech took it upon themselves to analyze the configurations of customers’ actual iSeries and AS/400 servers (there were still AS/400s around) and write a report sharing what they found. As you might imagine, the state of security, as …

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• Using The Public Cloud For IBM i Disaster Recovery

  April 24, 2023 Ash Giddings

  Disasters can strike at any time, and it’s essential for organizations to have a disaster recovery plan in place to ensure business continuity. However, creating and maintaining a comprehensive disaster recovery plan can be a daunting task, particularly for organizations that rely on IBM i servers, often running business critical applications that perform key functions together with many interfaces into other servers and applications.

  Previously, investments in IBM i disaster recovery solutions were an expensive outlay, requiring significant capital investment in both hardware and software, in addition to the sizable costs associated with running a datacenter.

  Fortunately, with the advent …

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• IBM Bolsters New Nav With Job Scheduler And More

  April 24, 2023 Alex Woodie

  IBM i professionals finally can access the Advanced Job Scheduler from Navigator for i as a result of the new Technology Refreshes (TRs) that IBM unveiled on April 11. But the job scheduler is just one of a number of new capabilities that IBM is bringing to the snazzy new Web-based interface for administrators and power users, which Big Blue would very, very much like for you to use.

  When IBM debuted the new Navigator for i in the fall of 2021 with release of IBM i 7.3 TR11 and 7.4 TR5, it figured it had the luxury of time …

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• How IBM Improved Application Development with the Spring 2023 TRs

  April 19, 2023 Alex Woodie

  IBM i developers have a few exciting new features to look forward to with the latest Technology Refreshes for IBM i 7.5 and 7.4, including a new release of RDi and new RPG and COBOL functions in the compilers.

  As part of the Spring 2023 announcement for IBM i 7.5 TR2 and 7.4 TR8, IBM last week unveiled a new release of Rational Developer for i (RDi), version 9.8, that brings new functionality to the Eclipse-based integrated development environment (IDE).

  According to IBM’s announcement letter, RDi RPG and COBOL Tools Edition runs on

  One of the new features with …

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• Why Maxava High Availability?

  February 27, 2023 Ash Giddings

  Software-based logical replication for IBM i remains a popular solution for high availability and disaster recovery due to its ability to adapt over the years to changing environments like co-locations and the cloud. Maxava HA is known for its efficiency and scalability, but what else sets it apart for large enterprises worldwide?

  Negligible CPU Consumed On Production Server

  The Audit Journal (QAUDJRN) is a valuable tool for protecting the IBM i server with over 70 auditable events. However, in large environments, it can become overwhelmed with hundreds of thousands of entries every minute. Some logical replication solutions heavily rely on …

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• Get Help To Batten Down The Hatches On Your IBM i

  November 28, 2022 John Fehr

  If you have a person on your IT staff that understands the complexities of aggressive malware, ransomware, viruses, and other kinds of hacking and is actually jazzed by this sort of thing – in a good way, a white hat kind of way – and who knows how to use security tools and a deep knowledge to defend your IBM i (and probably your Window Servers ) against such attacks, well bully for you. And if they work for next to nothing, you must be living in some sort of dream world.

  For the rest of the IBM i community, …

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• IBM Unveils Fall 2022 Tech Refreshes for IBM i

  October 12, 2022 Alex Woodie

  IBM yesterday announced Technology Refreshes for its two most current IBM i operating systems, including 7.5 and 7.4. Security continues to be a big driver of new functionality with 7.5 TR1 and 7.4 TR7. But the fall TRs bring a bevy of enhancements across all areas, including the database, IBM i services, open source, application development, and analytics, among others.

  Security has been the number one concern for CIOs for a few years now, and IBM has responded with a number of new features in IBM i. Some of the new security features exist in IBM i Navigator, the GUI …

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• PowerTech AV Automatically Detects Ransomware Activity

  June 29, 2022 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that are concerned about ransomware attacks may be interested in a new release of PowerTech Antivirus from HelpSystems, which can automatically detect ransomware activity on the IBM i system and block it before it can cause damage. There’s also a nifty new “canary file” feature that will hopefully keep IBM i users from falling down the coal mine.

  PowerTech Antivirus, which formerly carried the Stand Guard Anti-Virus label, was originally developed by Bytware to detect and prevent viruses from infecting the IFS on IBM i. The software, which HelpSystems obtained in a 2008 acquisition, uses an …

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• Thoroughly Modern: Good Security Is Just As Important As Good Code

  June 13, 2022 Pauline Brazil Ayala

  Can my IBM i really be hit with a virus? Can it be hit with ransomware?

  These are the questions I regularly get from clients as a security expert with more than 20 years of experience. With the pervasiveness of these ransomware threats and sophisticated cyberattacks that we’re seeing in recent times, it only makes sense that we pay close attention to these threats.

  Security on the IBM i is a complex topic, and it is not one that is easily tackled with a few bullet points and tweaks of systems settings. Just like programming on the platform, for that …

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