ISV Archives - IT Jungle

The IBM i Cloud Just Got More Frictionless With Virtual Serial Numbers

January 31, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

If the cloud is to be successful, it has to do more than provide a new deployment and pricing model for IT organizations. It has to also maintain and retain some of the important practices in use by the IT department. One of the big disconnections between on premises IBM equipment and capacity sold in the cloud has been the serial number that identifies a machine, which is a kind of birth certificate and Social Security number for each box that comes off the IBM factory lines.

That serial number is used to identify the machine for technical support purposes …
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IBM i Community Predictions For 2022, Part 3

January 17, 2022 Alex Woodie

Due to an unprecedented response from the community, we are running a third installment of 2022 predictions. The third (and final) round of predictions kicks off with an optimistic prophecy from Charles Guarino, the president of Central Park Data Systems, who has a very bright outlook for the year ahead in IBM i land.

“As business confidence and optimism rallies, IT budgets will become less restrained,” Guarino tells IT Jungle. “Even those with the least maintained and enhanced legacy systems will experience modernization pressure. This will come from all sources, internal, external and industry compliance, all demanding swift …
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M81 Speeds Backups with Flash for i

February 3, 2021 Alex Woodie

M81, a French independent software vendor (ISV) that develops IBM i software, recently announced a new release of Flash for i, a utility that uses IBM FlashCopy and EMC SnapShot technology to clone an IBM i disk volume in just two minutes. With version 4.0 out the door and a new partnership with an American company, M81 is looking to expands its operations in the United States.

Flash for i is an innovative utility designed to provide an IBM i-centric way to manage the FlashCopy and Snapshot commands that IBM and Dell EMC bring to the table with their enterprise …
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Does IBM i Need Its Own Zowe?

September 30, 2020 Alex Woodie

Getting open source software onto platforms like IBM i and System z is a big focus of IBM, its big iron customers, and the ecosystem of tool and service providers that tread these waters. In 2018, IBM, CA Technologies, and Rocket Software collaborated to create the Zowe framework as a part of the Linux Foundation’s Open Mainframe Project, with the goal to extend System z-based services into the greater open source IT landscape. Is it time for a similar effort on IBM i?

When Zowe launched two years ago, the Open Mainframe Project (OMP) boasted that Zowe would “serve as …
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Inside The ISV Revitalization Initiative For IBM i

March 16, 2020 Alex Woodie

The IBM i server’s strengths are well known: integration, ease of programming, ease of administration, security, resiliency, and a penchant for putting up with abuse. But aside from the platform’s attributes, another factor in IBM i’s favor is the community of independent software vendors (ISVs) who write business applications. To bolster this strength, IBM recently embarked upon an ISV revitalization initiative, and it wants IBM i ISVs to know all about it.

In many ways, applications are the face of the platform. It was fairly common for companies to select a business application, such as MRP, ERP, supply chain execution, …
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More Transparency Needed For Open Source Running on IBM i

July 25, 2018 Alex Woodie

Open source may be the future of IBM i. It certainly seems that way at the moment. But if open source is going to soar to new heights on the platform, it will need better integration with the existing processes in place to monitor and manage the platform.

That’s the opinion of JK Grafe, the CEO of Quad Nova Group, a Jacksonville, Florida-based IBM i consultancy that has offices up the Eastern Seaboard. By Grafe’s own admission, open source is a great thing for the platform. But the difficulty in seeing what’s actually going on with open source workloads …
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Big Blue Gives IBM i Shops A Special 30th Birthday Bash Box

May 21, 2018 Dan Burger

Big Blue is in the middle of celebrating three decades of the IBM i platform, and the company has unveiled a special birthday box that commemorates the occasion. It’s essentially a Solutions Edition package with some extra bells and whistles. For those unfamiliar with the Solutions Editions, they are pre-configured systems with a choice of IBM and ISV software discounts applied. Those discounts would be unavailable when buying the systems or the software individually.

The IBM i 30th Edition offering is based on IBM i Solution Edition Power9 Model S914, a P05 tier box, with four cores. All of the …
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Keep Your IBM i Baby, Not The Bathwater

May 7, 2018 Alex Woodie

In the quest to modernize computer systems, some IBM i shops cease being IBM i shops. Wholesale migrations or complete rewrites of applications on different operating systems are sometimes necessary and beneficial, and sometimes they do more harm than good. When King III Solutions set out to enhance its advanced replenishment system, it managed to create a modern Web front-end that resonates with millennials without giving up its rock-solid IBM i back-end.

Based in Marietta, Georgia, King III Solutions, or K3S, develops software that helps wholesale distributors and retailers better manage their inventory, in part through a collection of …
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IBM i Strategy: Technology Choices And The Vendor Ecosystem

January 24, 2018 Dan Burger

When Steve Will talks about IBM strategy for the future, he’s not talking about next week or even next year. His view is five, 10, and 15 years into the future. That’s where the planning is being done. The next few years are past the planning stage and into the development stage. That’s a general statement of direction. Adjustments happen within shorter development timeframes.

Will, the IBM i chief architect, was at the OCEAN user group meeting last week in Orange County, California, making his case for the future of IBM i. His presentation was titled “IBM i in the …
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IBM i Has A Cup Of Coffee With Watson

March 20, 2017 Dan Burger

As IBM steers its cognitive computing technology toward a profitable business process necessity, we are feeling the presence of Watson in the IBM i community. IBM’s business-oriented path forward for Watson should be well-suited to the “i for Business” installed base, or at least that portion of the installed base that believes IT is a competitive advantage.

Analysts foresee a river of business software flowing from embedded cognitive capabilities. They say deeper data analysis leading to smarter workflow efficiencies have the attention of business managers. And they predict three-quarters of new business software will include artificial intelligence features by …
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