• Remain Begins Migrating DevOps Tools To VS Code

  June 9, 2025 Alex Woodie

  For years, Remain Software was 100 percent devoted to Rational Developer for i (RDi) IBM’s flagship development tool for IBM i. It was a good bet, as the bulk of the market used RDi. However, in recent years, popularity of VS Code has soared, and now Remain is embarking upon a major project to redevelop all of its DevOps functionality to work with the browser-based IDE.

  Wim Jongman, the managing editor of Remain Software, started working on the company’s flagship change management product for AS/400, TD/OMS back in 1992. During its iSeries years in the early 2000s, Remain pivoted …

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• Beta For RPG Coding Assistant On Track for 2Q25

  January 20, 2025 Alex Woodie

  IBM is ramping up development of the AI-based RPG Code Assist and expects to have a working prototype ready for testing by the end of the first quarter, IBM i chief technology officer Steve Will said in a webinar last month. The goal is to have a beta ready for during the second quarter and general availability hopefully in the second half of the year, he added.

  Large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI’s GPT and Google’s Gemini have taken the world by storm, and companies are investing tens of billions of dollars in the nascent tech to gain …

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• IBM Clarifies Where It’s Going with IBM i Subscriptions, Product Realignment

  September 11, 2024 Alex Woodie

  As an avid IT Jungle reader, you’re probably aware that IBM is moving its IBM i software stack from a traditional licensing scheme to one based on subscriptions. The company is in the middle of the move at the moment, and it’s also in the middle of a product realignment, which has been the source of some confusion. IBM hosted a webinar recently that helped to clarify where it’s at now with the shift to subscriptions and the product realignment, and where it’s going in the future.

  IBM first announced back in May 2022 that it was shifting to subscription-based …

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• What’s Cooking In Code For IBM i?

  July 15, 2024 Alex Woodie

  With IBM beginning to pull back on green screen development tools for IBM i, the importance of Code for IBM i to the IBM i development community has never been greater. The good news is that there’s a lot of development activity at the moment around the Visual Studio Code plug-in, with new features to replace some of the outgoing greenscreen functionality.

  IBM announced that it was killing off some of the green screen development tools in its Application Development Toolset (ADTS) as part of its Technology Refresh (TR) for IBM i 7.4 and 7.5 in early May. Among the …

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• IBM Begins the Purge of Old Greenscreen Utilities

  July 10, 2024 Alex Woodie

  IBM is prepping the IBM i community to prepare to adapt to some substantial changes that are coming with the next release of IBM i, including the end of support for a large swath of the Application Development ToolSet (ADTS) that ships with Rational Development Studio (RDS). Source Entry Utility (SEU) and Programming Development Manager (PDM) are not among the ADTS tools getting the boot, but that’s not stopping midrange professionals from speculating that their time in IBM i is limited, too.

  As part of its May 7 Technology Refresh for IBM i 7.4 and 7.5, IBM issued a “software …

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• Rocket DevOps Gets Update for Free Format RPG, VS Code, and DORA

  April 24, 2024 Alex Woodie

  The latest release of Rocket’s change management tool for IBM i brings several new capabilities, including improved support for VS Code and Free Form RPG. Rocket DevOps version 10.3.1 also brings better code testing capabilities and will help companies comply with new regulations, such as the EU’s Digital Operations Resilience Act (DORA).

  Rocket Software added support for the browser-based development environment VS Code last fall with the launch of Rocket DevOps version 10.2.2. Customers will find the new release of Rocket DevOps improves on that initial VS Code support, says Puneet Kohli, the president of the Rocket’s Application Modernization Business …

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• IBM Hardware, Software, And Support Prices Hiked

  April 8, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Last fall/summer we caught wind of the fact that IBM was going to raise prices on hardware and software effective this year, and then we never saw the announcement letter from Big Blue on General Price Harmonization or the one on price increases relating specifically to Power Systems and IBM i.

  As it turns out, those announcements were made on September 1 last year and they went into effect on January 1 – something that was not apparent to us (or the business partners that we talk to from time to time) until we were reviewing the subscription pricing deal …

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• IBM Patches New Security Vulns In IBM i Components, Power Firmware

  February 12, 2024 Alex Woodie

  IBM has patched a series of moderate security vulnerabilities in IBM i products and Power firmware over the past two weeks. The IBM i flaws span Rational Developer for i (RDi), Access Client Solutions (ACS), and the Java development kit and runtime, while the Power flaw involves PowerVM and its communications with the Hardware Management Console (HMC).

  Concerns over security hit an all-time high in the IBM i community according to the IBM i Marketplace 2024 study conducted by Fortra. The survey found that 79 percent of IBM i professionals considered security a top concern, a 10 percent increase …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 26, Number 6

  February 12, 2024 Doug Bidwell

  This week we have three new security vulnerabilities, but first we want to remind you that you need to prepare firewalls and proxies for the upcoming infrastructure changes for IBM Call Home, Electronic Fix Distribution. This is considered HIPER by IBM (High Impact/Pervasive), which you can read about here. Public Internet IP addresses are changing for the IBM servers that support Call Home and electronic download of fixes for customer systems’ software, hardware, and operating system. This change pertains to all operating systems and applications connecting to IBM for electronic Call Home and fix download. If you have a …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 26, Number 2

  January 17, 2024 Doug Bidwell

  As odd as it may seem, this week there are HIPER and security patches available for IBM i 7.2, which has long since been off standard and now extended maintenance.

  First, there is a defective PTF for IBM i 7.2, which was noted on January 10.

  • LICENSED PROGRAM = 5798FAX
  • APAR NUMBER: SE81023
  • RECOMMENDATION: Apply fixing PTF xxxxxxx when it becomes available, or remove PTF SI85576, or use the SNDFAX command instead of the SBMFAX command.

  There is also an IBM i 7.2 Group HIPER, level 240, which is SF99719 and which you can find out more about here, …

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