• Google Launches Power Systems Cloud, But Not Yet for IBM i

  January 22, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Google last week officially unveiled IBM Power Systems for Google Cloud, a new infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offering that will allow customers to run AIX, Linux, and IBM i workloads and manage it from their familiar Google Cloud accounts. Google says that AIX and Linux are ready to go, but says that IBM i customers will have to wait just a little longer to get in on the cloud action.

  The general availability of IBM Power Systems on Google Cloud has been years in the making. Google was one of the earliest enrollees in IBM’s Open Power initiative, and …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 22, Number 3

  January 22, 2020 Doug Bidwell

  We are rolling along and singing a PTF song here as January is ramping up and everyone working on IBM i is getting back to work after the holidays.

  First of all, the new J-Resave for 7.3 has been tested on a slip of the LIC, which we have been talking about for the past month, and it works! So this is very good news for customers who have created logical partitions without the Hardware Management Console (HMC). The default SST profiles Expired Passwords after PTF upgrade – see this link: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/1127871. And here is the rest of the …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 22, Number 2

  January 15, 2020 Doug Bidwell

  As you well know, there is an issue with LPARs that are hanging on machines that have the latest Technology Refreshes applied to IBM i 7.3 and IBM i 7.4 in cases where the Hardware Management Console (HMC) is not managing the partitions. The details of the issue with the Technology Refreshes are outlined in APAR MA48101, and what it means is that a guest partition created with Virtual Partition Manager (VPM) inside SST or Integrated Virtualization Manager (IVM) will hang on IPL after the apply of the TRs. This gets real elaborate, so we strongly suggest you review …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 22, Number 1

  January 13, 2020 Doug Bidwell

  We want to remind you once again about the LPARs that are hanging on machines that have the latest Technology Refreshes applied to IBM i 7.3 and IBM i 7.4 in cases where the Hardware Management Console (HMC) is not managing the partitions. The details of the issue with the Technology Refreshes are outlined in APAR MA48101, which is essentially a bug report that warns customers of an issue with the software stack and oftentimes gives hints about when and how it will be fixed.

  Here is the issue in a nutshell: IPL-SRCC6003962-WAIT Hang with IBM i 7.3 with …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 21, Numbers 51 And 52

  January 6, 2020 Doug Bidwell

  The PTFs keep rolling even through the holidays, so this is our time to get caught up with the last two weeks of patches in 2019 as the new year is beginning.

  In PTF Number 51, we dug a little deeper into the issue we found out about just as The Four Hundred was going on hiatus where LPARs are hanging on machines that have the latest Technology Refreshes applied to IBM i 7.3 and IBM i 7.4 in cases where the Hardware Management Console (HMC) is not managing the partitions.

  The details of the issue with the Technology Refreshes …

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• Cloud Walkers Makes LPARs More Native On IBM i

  December 16, 2019 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  There are a few different technologies that have been grafted onto the OS/400 and IBM i platform from the outside that are just architected differently from and run somewhat counter to the integrated nature of that platform, and all of them are involved, in one way or another, with managing logical partitions on the Power Systems platform and all of them make IBM i shops cranky.

  They are, in no certain order: the PowerVM hypervisor, the Hardware Management Console (HMC), the Virtual I/O Server (VIOS), the PowerVC variant of OpenStack that is native to Power Systems, and external disk arrays, …

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• Important: Some LPARs Hang With New TRs – IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 21, Number 50

  December 16, 2019 Doug Bidwell

  Listen up, folks. This one is serious. A few weeks ago, there were some bad patches on the Db2 for i database for IBM i 7.3, as we detailed here, and as last week was coming to a close, we found out that LPARs are hanging on machines that have the latest Technology Refreshes applied to IBM i 7.3 and IBM i 7.4 in cases where the Hardware Management Console (HMC) is not managing the partitions.

  The details of the issue with the Technology Refreshes are outlined in APAR MA48101, which is essentially a bug report that warns …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 21, Number 49

  December 11, 2019 Doug Bidwell

  After last week’s database action with IBM i 7.3, you could use a breather. And there is not a lot going on this week, thankfully. First, there is a new Redbook called “IBM Db2 Mirror for i Getting Started,” which you can check out at this link.

  There are new Temporary Storage fixes for IBM i 7.4, 7.3, and 7.2 – get ‘em while they’re hot! There is also a new version of IBM i Access Client Solutions V1.1.8.3, and new HIPER groups for IBM i 7.4, 7.3, and 7.2.

  There are no new or updated links in the …

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• Samba Patch Caps Busy Year for IBM i Security

  December 4, 2019 Alex Woodie

  IBM last week patched a moderately severe security flaw in IBM i’s Samba implementation that could enable hackers to access data they really shouldn’t be able to access. The disclosure caps a rather busy second half of the year for security patches on IBM i that saw 26 emergency PTFs and Yum updates for Node.js, Python, the Apache HTTP Server, OpenSSL, ISC Bind, IBM Navigator, and even Db2 Mirror for IBM i.

  On November 26, IBM issued this security bulletin to let people know about the new flaw in the Samba client. The flaw could allow a hacker to not …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 21, Number 48

  December 4, 2019 Doug Bidwell

  This is important: If you are running IBM i 7.3, the Db2 for IBM i Group SF99703, Level 16, dated November 13 is defective. Do not install this group. Instead, install Level 17, which was made available on November 25. If you are not able to do that, contact IBM for assistance. Our understanding is that critical PTFs were not included in Level 16 update for the Db2 group, and the resulting issue is that both the A and B side will lock up and require a SLIP install to repair. You want to avoid that.

  Also, there is updated …

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