• The Power Systems Base Is A Little Less Rusty

  February 27, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Another three years, and another upgrade cycle that can bring about the modernizing of the Power Systems iron that supports the IBM i customer base. Or, more precisely, another four distinct upgrade cycles that customers are on as they move off legacy iron to something more current than what they have.

  What we mean by this is that some customers are stuck on older releases because they are cheapskates by necessity or they have applications that can only run on older releases like OS/400 V5R3, i5/OS 5.4, or IBM i 6.1. Others are stuck on IBM i 7.1. Or IBM …

  Read more

• How Do You Stay In Touch With The IBM i Community?

  February 6, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The IBM i community is global and diverse. There is a lot of things going on in our part of the IT industry, and it can be tough to keep up with everything that is going on with the IBM i platform.

  But it is nonetheless important for us all to understand how people are keeping up to date on new technologies and other cultural and corporate things that are happening in our community. Which is why Tom Huntington, executive vice president of technical solutions at Fortra (formerly known as HelpSystems), did a quick poll during the 2023 IBM i …

  Read more

• 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, …

  Read more

• Integrated Does Not Have To Mean Included And Invoiced

  October 10, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In this era of “pay for what you eat” cloud computing – maybe they should have called it “buffet computing” after all because there sure as hell is nothing cloudy about the bill when it comes – it seems odd that customers can’t pick a la carte the things they want and they don’t want in a system that nonetheless has all of its myriad components and services integrated.

  Let’s start by saying we love that the IBM i system is integrated, with one throat to choke (for the most part) when things go wrong. We are strong believers in …

  Read more

• The IBM i Marketplace Survey Is Open For You

  October 5, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  How many times a day do people tell you what you know matters? Well, it does, and I am telling you. But that knowledge of your IBM i environment is not doing anyone any good, stuck inside of your noggin. To get a realistic sense of what is actually going on out there in IBM i Land, we need you to pipe up.

  The 9^th annual IBM i Marketplace Survey that HelpSystems does every fall is open, and will be for a few more weeks. But we don’t want you to wait until the last minute to participate. Please …

  Read more

• We Need Some Insight From You

  October 3, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  What you are doing – and what you are not doing – with you IBM i platform is important to us. And that is why we are asking you to take the 9^th annual IBM i Marketplace Survey that HelpSystems does every fall.

  This survey, which was conceived of by the late Dan Burger of IT Jungle and Tom Huntington of HelpSystems, was started nine years ago because we were all frustrated by the lack of insight about the IBM i base.

  The data that this survey gathers is invaluable, and long-time readers of The Four Hundred know full …

  Read more

• Take A Minute, And Take The IBM i Marketplace Survey

  September 28, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Hey, you. Yeah, we mean you. You have something we need.

  It’s information. You know, the currency of the modern era. Without it, we can’t figure out where you are and where you are going, and that means we can’t figure out where the IBM i base is and where it might be going. The 9^th annual IBM i Marketplace Survey sponsored by HelpSystems every fall is open, and we need you to take a few moments right now to take the survey and tell us about your IBM i shop.

  This survey, which was conceived of by …

  Read more

• It’s Time To Take The IBM i Marketplace Survey

  September 26, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The 9^th annual IBM i Marketplace Survey that HelpSystems does every fall is open, and if we hope to get some insight into what is going on in the base and report back on it in January 2023, we need you to take a few moments right now to take the survey and tell us about your IBM i shop.

  This survey, which was conceived of by the late Dan Burger of IT Jungle and Tom Huntington of HelpSystems, was started nine years ago because we were all frustrated by the lack of insight about the IBM i base. …

  Read more

• Thoroughly Modern: Latest IT Trends – Bring Security, Speed, And Consistency To IT With Automation

  August 8, 2022 Alan Hamm and Chris Koppe

  The irony of many IT departments is that they have spent many decades automating aspects of the business, literally encoding business processes and interactions with customers, partners, and suppliers to make those processes consistent and fast, but many of the processes used in the IT department itself are done manually and rely on the “tribal knowledge” of the system and application experts.

  This is not only not necessary in many cases today, thanks to a myriad of automation tools that can be brought to bear on IT operations, but it is also dangerous and extremely risky. The systems that run …

  Read more

• IBM i Licensing, Part 2: Subscriptions Change Everything

  June 13, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In a very funny way, the licensing of the IBM i platform is coming full circle with the advent of subscription pricing – with some funny curlicues along the way with over three decades of software licensing history and an even longer history of Big Blue renting, rather than selling, its software. When IBM first delivered its punch card machines, way way back, they were only available for rent, not for sale. The long arm of the law taught IBM to have some optionality, and it thus sold mainframes and minicomputers as well as leasing and renting them.

  But before …

  Read more

Previous Articles Next Articles