• IBM i Fall 2023 Event Calendar Shaping Up

  September 11, 2023 Alex Woodie

  The next variant of the coronavirus might try to stage a viral comeback, but that’s not stopping IBM i professionals from packing their bags and gearing up for a busy fall conference season, which starts this week with the IBM TechXchange in Vegas.

  IBM TechXchange is a major conference that offers hundreds of sessions for developers, data scientists, IT architects, operations professionals, and infrastructure architects, among other personas. The event, which takes place September 11 -14 at the MGM Grand resort in Las Vegas, Nevada, is expected to draw more than 5,000 attendees for educational and training sessions on AI, …

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• COMMON POWERUp 2023 – Reporter’s Notebook

  April 26, 2023 Alex Woodie

  The international IBM i community descended upon Denver this week for COMMON’s annual POWERUp conference, which continues through tomorrow. By all accounts, the show was a success among attendees, educators, exhibitors, and IBM. Here are a few observations on the show.

  COMMON’s top-notch education was the big draw in the High Plains of Colorado, with more than 300 sessions planned over the four-day event. Sessions containing information about the latest Technology Refreshes (TRs) of IBM i, including 7.5 TR2 and 7.4 TR8, were well attended, including those from IBM i CTO Steve Will and his business architects, including Scott …

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• N2i Gains Traction Among IBM i Newbies

  January 25, 2023 Alex Woodie

  The YiPS made a big push to inject youth into the IBM i community over a decade ago. But when the youthful vigor ran low, members of the community regrouped, re-energized, and rebranded into a new group called New to IBM i (N2i). And judging from N2i’s recent success, the group has hit on something.

  N2i has its roots in the YiPS, according to Marina Schwenk, who was a YiPS member back in the day and now is active in COMMON and the WMCPA. But there’s a crucial difference between N2i and YIPS, she says.

  “The group that we’re …

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• COMMON Launches IBM i Security Conference

  August 17, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Security is a big concern for IBM i professionals, and now the topic is getting its very own conference. COMMON recently announced that the inaugural i on Security 2022 conference will take place this October in conjunction with its NAViGATE conference in St. Louis, Missouri.

  Security on the IBM i has been dismal for many years, according the annual PowerTech State of Security report, which has documented the poor security practices of IBM i shops. While the servers can be locked down as tightly as any in the industry, the combination of poor configuration, archaic programming models, and lazy administrative …

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• POWERUp Brings IBM i Base Back Together in the Big Easy

  May 25, 2022 Alex Woodie

  After two years of lockdowns and Zoom calls, IBM i professionals were joyful to be face to face with fellow users this week at the POWERUp conference in New Orleans. The celebration lasted all week, and spilled over onto Bourbon Street at times, but that didn’t get in the way of the primary mission: Getting educated on IBM i. And with the latest enhancements, there was a lot to learn.

  For many POWERUp 2022 attendees and ISVs, COMMON’s annual conference is the first physical event they’ve attended since the pandemic started back in March 2020. With the easing of …

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• Midrange Optimism for In-Person Events in 2022

  January 26, 2022 Alex Woodie

  If you’re hankering to reconnect with your IBM i colleagues in person this year, we have good news for you: In-person events are set to make a comeback in 2022. COMMON’s annual POWERUp conference in New Orleans in May tops the list, but many other groups are making their physical comebacks, too.

  COMMON president Gordon Leary is eager to bring the world’s largest IBM i user group back into the physical fold starting May 23, when the POWERUp 2022 conference kicks off at the New Orleans Marriott. So are a lot of COMMON members who haven’t seen each other in …

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• 2021: An IBM i Year in Review, Part One

  December 13, 2021 Alex Woodie

  It’s mid-December. and since nothing much else is going on, let’s take a quick waltz through the IT Jungle archives to see what kind of year it was. It all started back in January, when…

  Our esteemed founding editor tried to convince IBM what is plainly obvious: That the IBM i installed base is “still its very largest enterprise computing customer base” (emphasis added). Yes, there are more Red Hat licenses, but when it comes to unique companies, IBM i, with around 120,000 customers around the world, is still tops. Will IBM do the hard work to find a (virtualized) …

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• COMMON Cancels In-Person POWERUp Again, Takes Conference Virtual

  September 22, 2021 Alex Woodie

  COMMON announced last week that it has cancelled the in-person portion of the POWERUp 2021 conference that was scheduled to take place in Virginia Beach due to the Delta variant that is causing coronavirus infections to surge. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the show will go on as a virtual conference October 4-7.

  This was the third time in two years that COMMON has been forced to cancel or delay its POWERUp conference. Like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown just as he’s about to kick it, SARS2 just won’t let COMMON actually hold …

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• Book A Date With Your DR Plan

  July 14, 2021 Alex Woodie

  Chances are, you’ve been through a lot in the past year, from a personal, a professional, and a public health perspective. Your company’s IT estate has probably gone through some changes, too. To keep your IBM i and open systems resilient and able to withstand misfortune, it’s a good idea to revisit your disaster recovery plan to make sure it reflects current reality.

  During COMMON’s recent NAViGATE event, IBM i DR expert Richard Dolewski provided a great description of why it’s so important to check your DR plan now. With so much turmoil caused by COVID, it’s simply too …

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• So You Want To Do Containerized Microservices In the Cloud?

  June 30, 2021 Alex Woodie

  As a modernization consultant working in IBM’s Rochester, Minnesota, lab, Amy Anderson gets to hear from some of the most tech-savvy IBM i shops in the world. Her job requires her to know where shops are now, listen to where they want to go, and chart a path that takes them there. That can sometimes be quite a challenge, especially considering the rapid pace of technological change at the moment.

  “One of the things that we’re seeing now is the whole industry now is focused on modernization,” Anderson said during her session at the recent NAViGATE conference hosted by COMMON …

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