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Rocket Buys Data Integration Provider B.O.S.

September 18, 2023 Alex Woodie

Rocket Software has announced the acquisition of B.O.S., a German provider of data integration software. While the software company targets primarily the mainframe with its data integration solutions, Rocket says it’s considering broadening support to IBM i.

B.O.S. was founded more than 30 years ago to develop data integration solutions that connect the IBM mainframe to other systems. It boasts more than 1,200 installations in 25 countries, including Fortune 50 firms as well as government organizations.

The company’s flagship product, called tcVision, helps customers move data from their mainframe sources, such as Db2, IMS, VSAM files, ADABAS, and CA DATACOM, …
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White Hats Completely Dismantle Menu-Based Security

February 6, 2023 Alex Woodie

Think menu-based security can prevent cybercriminals from accessing the most important parts of your IBM i system? Think again, as the white hat hacking group Silent Signal recently demonstrated in a real-world penetration test of a bank’s IBM i system through a seemingly restricted green-screen interface.

Life was demonstrably simpler for midrange administrators before the Internet took off. Before we had all these different protocols providing access to applications and data – ODBC, FTP, SQL, Remote Command, etc. – an administrator could feel somewhat confident that users weren’t accessing things they shouldn’t by simply configuring their menus in a restrictive …
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IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 25, Number 4

January 23, 2023 Doug Bidwell

Here are some reminders to start off the IBM i PTF Guide this week.

First, there are new releases for Access Client Solutions and the ODBC database driver. (See ACS_NAV in the Guide for the links.) The funny bit – funny odd, not funny hilarious – is that version 26 of ACS did not allow companies to create a database source for ODBC, which is serious shortcoming. Now, there is a new version 27 that will let you do it. Here is the updated software:
```
Description				   Version
IBM i Access Client Solutions (1.1.9.1)	   1.1.9.1
ACS Windows App Pkg English (64bit)	   
```
…
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IBM and Microsoft Bring .NET to Power, After All

November 9, 2022 Alex Woodie

Despite initially denying the existence of a project to bring the Microsoft .NET runtime to Power, IBM this week officially announced that .NET version 7 will run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Power. The technology becomes available immediately, although the database driver connecting .NET applications to Db2 for i will take more time.

Over the years, there have been various attempts at getting the .NET runtime unhooked from its Windows roots and replanted on the Power platform, including some targeting the IBM i operating system. In 2011, a big step forward was made with the Mono Project, which …
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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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Kyndryl Wants to Connect Your IBM i to Microsoft Azure

October 12, 2022 Alex Woodie

Kyndryl, the former IBM division known as Global Technology Services (GTS), last week unveiled an expanded partnership with Microsoft that will see it helping IBM i and System z customers integrate their applications and data with Microsoft Azure, specifically its low-code, no-code development platform called Power.

Kyndryl’s alliance with Microsoft will make it easier for companies to leverage the valuable data and business logic contained in their midrange and mainframe assets as they develop new applications in the Microsoft Power Platform, which is a low-code, no-code development environment.

“Basically, it provides a low-code, no-code environment in Azure for programmers,” …
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IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 24, Number 35

August 29, 2022 Doug Bidwell

Hello good people of IBM i Land. To start off, a reminder that the Memo To Users for supported releases were last updated April 2022. Clients should review the full “What’s New” details to understand recent changes and impact these may have. See the Links tab in the guide to access the Memo for your release, and, check periodically. these should be considered living documents, meaning, they evolve over time, and as such, read frequently!

Also, ADMIN2 is back at 7.5! IBM turned it off at earlier releases to mitigate the log4j vulnerability in those releases. At V7R5 GA, the …
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No Plan To Bring .NET To Power, IBM Says

July 25, 2022 Alex Woodie

IBM says it currently has no new projects underway to get .NET to run on Power, which IT Jungle previously reported was a project that was underway at IBM. What’s more, existing efforts to run .NET applications on IBM i that have been backed by Big Blue have apparently drawn very little interest from the vendor community.

Back in March, we reported on a plan within IBM to get .NET running in a containerized Red Hat Linux and OpenShift environment running on Power, much the same as it had done with System z. Our source told us the project involved …
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Reader Feedback On Guru: The Finer Points of Exit Points

July 12, 2022 Bruce Bading

Hey, Alex:

Hope you are doing well. I was reading this article about exit points and found some technical inaccuracies.

The Socket Exit can be used to cover the following: You can use exits block all unwanted ports blocked. I will be happy to talk with author of this article to explain how this works.
- Not all services have exit points available.
- User defined ports do not have exit points associated.
Best regards,

— Tony Perera, Trinity Guard, a division of Fresche Solutions

Hey, one and all:

As the article states, exit points are an enhancement to cybersecurity on the …
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Guru: The Finer Points of Exit Points

June 27, 2022 Bruce Bading

Many years ago, we received a call from an IBM i customer stating that all exit points were gone and the QAUDJRN and receivers were missing. Then the question, “Do you think we’ve been hacked?” Truth was, the exit points weren’t gone; the associated programs had been de-registered. Conclusion, they had most likely been compromised.

The IBM i platform is a very securable system that can be secured (Secure vs Secured – What’s the difference?, WikiDiff), if you take steps to secure it.

On the IBM i, a limited number of functions provide an exit so that your …
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