• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 27, Number 12

  March 24, 2025 Doug Bidwell

  In this week’s IBM i PTF Guide, we contemplate the SF99741 patch and the following note from IBM:

  Recent change to contents – IBM Db2 Mirror for i (SF99668 Group PTF) has been removed from the order.

  Description:  This PTF group includes all PTF groups for the current IBM i release except the Cumulative PTF Package PTF group and WebSphere MQ PTF group. The PTF groups are included by listing them as related PTF groups. Use option 9 (Display related PTF groups) on the Work with PTF Groups (WRKPTFGRP) command to display the included PTF groups. Each time you order …

  Read more

• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 27, Number 11

  March 17, 2025 Doug Bidwell

  Last week was a busy week for PTF patches, but not for security vulnerabilities. And this week is even quieter, but there are new defective PTF reports this week that you need to keep an eye on, as is usually the case in most weeks.

  Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by IBM i release level since we last published:

  PTF Groups 7.5:

  • None

  PTF Groups 7.4:

  • MQ for IBM i – v9.0.0/v9.1.0/v9.2.0/v9.3.0

  PTF Groups 7.3:

  • None

  Tip O’ The Week: We are thinking.

  New (or Updated) links added to the ‘Links’ tab in The Guide this week:

  • None

  …

  Read more

• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 27, Number 10

  March 10, 2025 Doug Bidwell

  There are new PTF group updates for the current releases of IBM i – that would be 7.3, 7.4, and 7.5 – but not much in the way of the occasional weirdness we see in the software stack or the never-ending stream of security vulnerabilities. Take it while you can get it. . . .

  Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by IBM i release level since we last published:

  PTF Groups 7.5:

  • HIPERs (High Impact/Pervasive)
  • Security
  • IBM MQ for IBM i – v9.2.0/v9.3.0
  • PowerHA Tools for IBM i – Full System FlashCopy (FSFC)
  • PowerHA Tools for IBM i

  …

  Read more

• Coming To You Live In A Datacenter Very Near You, Or One Far Away, Too

  February 24, 2025 Ash Giddings

  We are at a pivotal moment in IBM i history regarding migration options. Public cloud solutions like IBM Power Virtual Server and Skytap on Azure have matured to the point where they are now viable for production workloads, shedding the novelty value that surrounded them during the era which coincided with the launch of IBM’s Power9 machines, to a lesser extent, Power10 iron.

  Additionally, Managed Service Providers (MSPs) worldwide are well equipped with Power10 hardware and the expertise to support both migrations and ongoing operations. Furthermore, on-premise Power10 delivers impressive price-to-performance benefits, with Power11 poised to raise the bar even …

  Read more

• State Of The Power Systems Base 2025: The Systems

  February 17, 2025 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In last week’s issue, we talked about the upgrade cycle for the IBM i operating systems over more than a decade based on the annual IBM i Marketplace Survey done by Fortra and pretty heavily massaged by us to reflect what we think is closer to reality for the IBM i market at large.

  No matter if you look at the raw data from the survey or the more elaborate model we have built derived from the past eleven surveys, one thing is clear: There is a regular pattern for Power Systems upgrades among OS/400, i5/OS, and IBM i shops …

  Read more

• IBM Announcements: Service Price Hikes, HANA Iron As A Service, Rust for AIX And Maybe PASE, And More. . .

  February 17, 2025 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  When Big Blue makes big announcements, we break them down and analyze them uniquely. But there are often a lot of little things that happen over the course of a few weeks, and we like to lump these together and give you the rundown. That way you are informed, but you can skim it.

  So let’s take a look the things related to Power Systems and IBM i that have happened in the past few weeks since we last did this. Let’s start with a few price changes.

  In announcement letter AD25-0140, dated February 3 and effective on March …

  Read more

• ARCAD Discover: Global Application Analysis With An AI Interface

  February 10, 2025 Michel Mouchon

  Here is a simple test to reckon the value of the applications that run your company. Walk down to the datacenter, or over to the datacloset, or SSH out to the cloud, and turn the physical or logical machine running those applications off. What happens next?

  Aside from a lot of animated conversations and possibly some cursing, not much until you turn the machine back on and the system, databases, and applications reboot. You already knew this, but now everyone else has discovered, rather suddenly, how the very existence of the business and the livelihoods of the employees is dependent …

  Read more

• IBM Power On Track To Get Above $2 Billion A Year

  February 3, 2025 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM’s stock price is kissing $260 a share, and this is a level that, adjusted for stock splits, the company has not seen since before it ran up on the rocks in the early 1990s as its mainframe business and AS/400 business all shrank at the same time that RISC/Unix systems and X86 gear in the datacenter took off. What’s going on?

  Well, here is the deal: IBM has customers using its Power and z servers for mission-critical back office systems, and a lot of the customers using its IBM i, AIX, Linux, and z/OS platforms are going to be …

  Read more

• Cybersecurity Still Top IBM i Concern, But AI And Others Are Creeping Up

  January 27, 2025 Alex Woodie

  Fortra last week formally released its 2025 IBM i Marketplace Survey results, which marks the start of the second decade of analysis into the IBM i community. In the closely watched Top Concerns component, there were minor changes in the top four items, led by cybersecurity for the ninth straight year. But what’s notable in 2025 is that there’s movement at the bottom of the list, indicating heightened interest in items such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.

  IBM i users from around the world took Fortra’s annual IBM i Marketplace Survey in late 2024 – 250 of them …

  Read more

• Talking Power Systems And IBM i With Bargav Balakrishnan

  January 20, 2025 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In last week’s issue of The Four Hundred, we told you about how the Power Systems division had a new vice president of product management – to be specific, Bargav Balakrishnan, who has spent decades in various technical and management roles within Big Blue. Balakrishnan takes over from Steve Sibley, who has been steering Power Systems hardware development since July 2007 and who was the longest serving executive in that role since the launch of the AS/400 back in 1988.

  This week, we had a chat with Balakrishnan about the Power Systems business and the IBM i platform, and …

  Read more

Previous Articles Next Articles