• Big Blue Goes After Healthcare With Aggressive Power Systems Pricing

  March 13, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  We often gently admonish the vendors in the IBM i market that they have to make news to be in the news and also to do something snazzy, like a special promotion or a price cut to get the attention of customers as well as to stimulate a little business for themselves and their partners. IBM is not excepted from this advice, and is actually doing it – at least for customers in the healthcare industry that run their applications on Power Systems iron.

  In announcement letter AD23-0111, dated March 12, IBM has put out a new 24-core Power10 …

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• It Would be Uncommon For IBM Announcements To Not Be In May

  March 11, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  For as long as we can remember, there is a general trend of spring and fall announcements for the IBM midrange. It is not a perfect correlation, of course. The original AS/400 announcement was done on the summer solstice on June 21, 1988, which does not fit the pattern we are talking about. But in general, the spring-fall pattern is something that goes back long before enterprise Linux releases and OpenStack releases all shifted to an April-October cadence.

  This being a new year and the POWERUp2024 conference being held May 20 through 23 in Fort Worth, Texas, we are …

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• Focusing On People: Strengthening Cybersecurity In IBM Power Systems

  March 4, 2024 Tom Horan

  In the digital realm, cybersecurity is crucial, particularly for essential infrastructures like IBM Power Systems. These machines support various business functions and are prime targets for cyberattacks. Even the most fortified tech defenses can crumble due to one human error. This concise guide highlights the critical importance of the human element in safeguarding IBM Power Systems from cyber threats and outlines key strategies for implementing a people-centric security framework.

  Understanding The Threat Scene

  The cyber threat landscape is constantly evolving and becoming increasingly complex, with hackers continuously devising new, innovative tactics to exploit vulnerabilities. Among the emerging trends are ransomware …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 26, Number 9

  March 4, 2024 Doug Bidwell

  IBM i 7.2 has been superseded a long time ago, but there is still a lot of it in the Power Systems installed base and Big Blue is still making updates to it for those customers who are stuck on the 7.2 release and who are stuck paying for extended support, which is very expensive. To that end, there is a new 720 Group HIPER, level 242, rolled up in PTF patch SF99719, which you can read about here.

  There are also two new security vulnerabilities for the IBM i stack.

  First, we have Security Bulletin: IBM WebSphere Application …

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• The Cloud Is Part Of The IBM i Present, And A Bigger Part Of Its Future

  February 26, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  As obvious as this might sound in hindsight, if you want to get the right answers, you have to ask the right questions in the first place. And as inquisitive communicators, we will be the first ones to admit that this is not always as easy as it sounds.

  It is hard to draw the line in the timeline sands for when the first true cloudy instance of a Power Systems machine running a rentable license to the IBM i operating system was announced, but it is safe to say that various hosting providers have been renting out parts of …

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• The Power Of Community At LISUG

  February 26, 2024 Steven Wolk

  Running an IBM i user group is hard work these days, but the team at the Long Island Systems User Group makes it look easy. Despite having seen their sister groups in New York and Connecticut fold and cease operations since COVID, LISUG not only stands as the last remaining group in the tri-state area – that is New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut – but has been growing and there’s no shortage of exciting initiatives underway.

  What’s their secret? It’s the same basic formula, with a few twists – but it all starts with showcasing top quality speakers. In …

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• Lots Of Unanswered Questions On IBM i Subscriptions

  February 19, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Like all of you, we have been watching with great interest as Big Blue transitions the IBM i software stack and Power10 hardware to cloud-like, utility-style subscription pricing. We have watched how each part of the IBM i stack has been transformed from the perpetual (and sometimes user) license pricing scheme with Software Maintenance to a subscription.

  As far as we know, and as we reported back in September 2023 when the subscription pricing for the IBM i P05 and P10 software tiers was revealed, March 26, 2024, is supposed to be the last day you will be able to …

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• The State Of The Power Systems Base 2024: The Operating Systems

  February 12, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  What stays in the field longer? The hardware or the software? Well, if you are talking about the IBM i installed base, or indeed that of any legacy systems out there like z/OS or Windows Server, the hardware can often be upgraded easier than the software and so it tends to not stay in the field as long. On average, of course.

  In the real world, it all comes down to specifics. And you have to analyze and interpret the trend lines very carefully so as to not jump to the wrong conclusions.

  So it is with the decade long …

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• The State Of The Power Systems Base 2024: The Systems

  February 5, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The foundation of any system is its processor. It is the central processing unit, or CPU, which used to be part of what we called the main frame in a multi-frame system, that ultimately does the calculations that make computing useful. There have always been many things that wrap around this CPU that turn it into a complete system – memory, networking, other kinds of I/O, various levels of storage, all in their own hierarchies. But if you ask someone what kind of system they have, beyond the vendor and the brand, the next bit of data they will …

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• Power Systems Grows For The Second Year In A Row

  January 29, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Here at The Four Hundred, we take good news very seriously, and so we will just cut to the chase scene and tell you that IBM’s Power Systems business has grown for the second year in a row.

  Take that in for a second. Savor it.

  Think about the dozen years of dramatic decline we saw in the RISC/Unix and IBM i parts of the Power Systems business in the wake of the Great Recession in 2009, when the X86 platform from Intel finally got enough features – as did Windows Server and Linux – to compete effectively against …

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