• 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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• Guru: Getting Started With The Code 4 i Extension Within VS Code

  January 22, 2024 Gregory Simmons

  The Code for IBM i extension is growing in popularity and has certainly become my favorite source code editor. This article is not an attempt to convince you to drop RDi and switch to VS Code. Rather, I aim to share with you a few of my favorite settings and features in VS Code.

  Join In The Discussion

  Can’t figure out how to do something? Have a suggestion for a new enhancement? I am continually impressed with the speed at which I get responses when I post something. The team of coders and contributors to the Code for IBM i …

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• RDi and RPG Enhancements in the 2023 Fall TRs

  October 25, 2023 Alex Woodie

  RPG developers will see some compelling new features coming out of the recent Technology Refresh (TR) announcement from IBM, including enhancements to the RDi development environment as well as new capabilities in the RPG language itself.

  RPG is nearly 65 years old, but like old dogs, the programming language can learn new tricks. The enhancements that IBM has brought to its venerable language with IBM i 7.5 TR3 and 7.4 TR9 continue a strong run of improvements, according to IBM i Product Manager Alison Butterill.

  “Every one of the TRs since we announced 7.5 has had at least some RPG …

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• Fall 2023 IBM i Tech Refresh Brings Something For Everyone

  October 11, 2023 Alex Woodie

  As expected, IBM yesterday unveiled its fall Technology Refresh (TR) for IBM i, with updates starting to become available on November 17. IBM announced no new products as part of the fall 2023 TR cycle, but it did spread the love around by giving just about everybody something to cheer about in IBM i 7.5 TR3 and 7.4 TR9.

  Lots of different products that make up the IBM i environment will see some pretty meaningful enhancements with this release. If you spend a lot of time in Navigator for i or ACS, you will see new stuff. We haven’t had …

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• IBM Releases Db2 For i Extensions For VS Code

  October 9, 2023 Alex Woodie

  Interested in developing new ILE applications in VS Code that utilize the Db2 for i database? Then you’re in luck, because IBM recently created and released vscode-db2i, an open source database extension for Code for IBM i, the uber popular development environment that enables ILE programming in VS Code.

  It is tough to overstate the popularity of Code for IBM i, which Liam Allan created and released just over two years ago. The open source plug-in provides ILE functionality for Microsoft’s VS Code, enabling programmers to write and edit RPG, COBOL, C, and CL code in the lightweight, browser-based …

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• Eradani Debuts DevOps Suite for IBM i

  October 4, 2023 Alex Woodie

  It’s been five years since Dan Magid, the former CEO of Aldon and an executive with Rocket Software, has been involved in the IBM i change management and DevOps business. But with next week’s launch of Eradani DevOps at COMMON’s NAViGATE conference, the longtime change management expert is getting back into the game. This time, however, Magid is taking a decidedly different approach.

  What makes Eradani DevOps stand out from other change management tools on IBM i is its focus on open source tools. The folks at Eradani have realized that application developers in the mainstream IT world have pretty …

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• Rocket DevOps Now Supports VS Code

  September 25, 2023 Alex Woodie

  IBM i developers who prefer to code within VS Code can now get all the goodness of automated change management and CI/CD with Rocket Software’s DevOps offering, which now supports the popular browser-based development environment, among other new features.

  VS Code, which is short for Visual Studio Code, has rocketed to popularity in the IBM i community over the past couple of years. That popularity is due in large part to Code for IBM i, the Liam Allan-developed plug-in that brings ILE language support to Microsoft’s open source IDE.

  Allan, who is known to despise IBM’s full-fledged Java-based IDE, …

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• ARCAD’s Deal with IBM for DevOps In Merlin Is Exclusive

  September 20, 2023 Alex Woodie

  When IBM launched Merlin in 2022, it touted the browser-based environment as a new way to deliver functionality to the IBM i installed base and potentially to distribute third-party solutions. But right now, the only third-party vendor IBM is working with when it comes to Merlin is ARCAD Software, which has exclusive rights to supply the DevOps components within Merlin, according to executives with both companies.

  IBM introduced Merlin with great fanfare in May 2022 as a potentially transformative technology. Not only was Merlin the first browser-based integrated development environment (IDE) from IBM, providing an alternative to the powerful but …

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• The Subscription Pricing For The IBM i Stack So Far

  September 18, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  We have been following the transformation of the pricing and packaging of the IBM i operating system, its integrated database, and the suite of Licensed Program Products, or LPPs, that are commonly installed alongside of the operating system to create a mostly complete system software suite. Last week, we talked about how the machines in the P05 and P10 software tiers would be moving to all-subscription pricing, and this week we are following up with the pricing information we have been able to gather to date as well as talking to Big Blue about the changes.

  IBM has been clear …

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