• In The IBM i Trenches With: Chilli IT

  May 9, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  There are many strengths in the IBM i platform besides its hardware and software architecture or the sophistication and ease of programming embodied in its development tools. The diversity of its partner ecosystem is another strength.

  As we pointed out last March with the launch of our ongoing In The IBM i Trenches series, globally there are thousands of resellers, each serving tens to hundreds to sometimes thousands of customers, as well as thousands of suppliers of third party maintenance, of technical support, of programming and system management services, and now of hosting and cloud computing. We want to get …

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• Power10: A Simple And Smooth Migration To The Cloud

  May 3, 2022 Jason Hardy

  Is it because you like the big upfront capital expense and the depreciating asset? Is it because installing PTFs and doing OS upgrades gives your IT team something to do during slow times? Or maybe it’s because the thought of migration and downtime is just completely overwhelming to you? While I don’t have an answer to the first two reasons above, I’m here to tell you that a migration does not have to be difficult, and downtime can be practically nonexistent.

  I recently spent some time with an IBM reseller, and he walked me through the steps of migrating to …

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• Beware The Hype Of Modern Tech

  April 25, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Many IBM i shops are under the gun to modernize their applications as part of a digital transformation initiative. If the app is more than 10 or 15 years old and doesn’t use the latest technology and techniques, it’s considered a legacy system that must be torn down and rebuilt according to current code. But there are substantial risks associated with these efforts – not the least of which that the modern method is essentially incompatible with the IBM i architecture as it currently exists. IBM i shops should be careful when evaluating these new directions.

  Amy Anderson, a modernization …

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• Top Five Failures In State of IBM i Security For 2022

  April 18, 2022 Alex Woodie

  HelpSystems last week officially unveiled its annual State of IBM i Security report, the 18th straight year for the series. Like with past reports, the 2022 version highlights some of the continuing challenges that IBM i customers face when trying to secure their systems. A few key areas stand out above the rest.

  The IBM i server is a bit of an enigma when it comes to security. While it is widely perceived to be one of the most secure computing platforms on the planet – and “virus-proof” to boot – the reality is that a good number of IBM …

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• Fresche Takes On IBM i Security With Trinity Guard Acquisition

  March 14, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  There are things that you worry about that you can’t do anything about, and there are things that you worry about that you actually can do something about – and have a fiduciary responsibility to do. Death and taxes are in the former category, and the security of mission-critical IT platforms are in the latter.

  Fresche Solutions, which expanded from its core application and database modernization business with the acquisition of Abacus Solutions last October, has been on the hunt to do more deals to help IBM i customers tackle the hard problems they face and give them new …

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• Thoroughly Modern: Taking Charge of Your Hardware Refresh in 2022

  February 14, 2022 Peder Lundblad

  IBM i shops are well known for paying a premium for their systems because they are worth it, but they are also just as well known for hanging onto aging hardware a bit past its prime, which has its own kinds of economic costs in higher maintenance and operational costs as well as the risk of a failure in some key component of the hardware or of having an older operating system release that does not have a key security vulnerability or bug patched.

  IBM does a very good job of keeping hardware technology cycles regular, and so there is …

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• 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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• DSC Bullish On IBM i Cloud Growth

  January 31, 2022 Alex Woodie

  You may know Data Storage Corporation as the company that provides hosted high availability and disaster recovery services. But the New York company has moved beyond its roots in data storage with its fast-growing cloud hosting business, where it runs hundreds of IBM i environments on behalf of its customers. With the great cloud migration just starting for Power customers, there’s a considerable upside for companies like DSC.

  Data Storage Corporation was one of the first IBM business partners to get into the cloud business. It started building its IBM i cloud in earnest in late 2012, and launched it …

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• Trinity Guard Update Brings Joy to System Values, SIEM Integration

  December 8, 2021 Alex Woodie

  IBM i administrators who ever desired more control over their system value settings will appreciate the latest gift that Trinity Guard has placed under its customer’s midrange trees. The IBM i security software vendor now has a dashboard that automatically tracks all IBM i system values, even across multiple systems or LPARs. The company is also providing a bulk data transfer to SIEMs to stay on top of the work of naughty elves with TGSecurity Suite 2.4.

  The new system values module that Trinity Guard is shipping with the update to TGSecure (one of three products that make up the …

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• Shield Debuts Nagios Monitoring Solution for IBM i

  December 1, 2021 Alex Woodie

  Shield Advanced Solutions last week rolled out a new system monitoring solution based on open-source Nagios technology that gives customers quick insight into the state of their IBM i server. Dubbed AAG, for At A Glance, the product currently monitor 65 IBM i parameters, and can be used with existing Nagios deployments running on Linux or deployed in a standalone manner with an included Linux runtime.

  Nagios is a free open-source software project that provides monitoring and alerting for servers, networking devices, applications, and other IT gear. The software was originally developed in 2002 to monitor Linux systems, and over …

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