• Guru: Where’s The Table?

  September 14, 2026 Ted Holt

  It began with an irritation. I considered it a simple request. “Which file did my SQL query read?” I was using the Run SQL Scripts tool to modify an SQL query with unqualified table names. And yet I knew of no ready way to determine the schema (library) name of any of the files. How was I to know which tables I had just queried?

  Let me back up a bit. My SQL client of choice is the Run SQL Scripts tool, which is part of IBM’s Access Client Solutions (ACS). It is not unusual for me to copy and …

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• Inside The Security Enhancements In ACS

  August 24, 2026 Alex Woodie

  Keeping track of IBM i configurations and how users are using IBM i is important for security purposes. But administrators and analysts are already so overburdened with other responsibilities that it is easy to let something slip by. That is why IBM is building new SQL capabilities into Access Client Solutions, which hopefully will make it easier for IBM i shops to spot potentially damaging configs or uses before they hurt the organization.

  ACS is one of the most important tools provided by IBM for IBM i professionals, as it contains a slew of facilities for interacting with the system. …

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• Big Blue Finally Unveils First IBM i Tech Refreshes Of 2026

  July 20, 2026 Alex Woodie

  Well, that took a little longer than usual. Last week, IBM finally made its first IBM i Technology Refresh announcements of 2026, formally unveiling the group of updates that collectively will make up IBM i 7.6 TR2 and 7.5 TR8. With the fall TR ostensibly just three months away, the good news with the two new TRs is that the general availability date is this Friday.

  Since IBM moved to the TR cycle back in 2010, it has traditionally given the IBM i community two big updates per year, one in the spring (normally April) and one in the …

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• Guru: Where’s The Table?

  June 8, 2026 Ted Holt

  It began with an irritation. I considered it a simple request. “Which file did my SQL query read?” I was using the Run SQL Scripts tool to modify an SQL query with unqualified table names. And yet I knew of no ready way to determine the schema (library) name of any of the files. How was I to know which tables I had just queried?

  Let me back up a bit. My SQL client of choice is the Run SQL Scripts tool, which is part of IBM’s Access Client Solutions (ACS). It is not unusual for me to copy and …

  Read more

• The Big Easy: Connecting The Dots On Big Blue’s AI Strategy For IBM i

  May 4, 2026 Alex Woodie

  IBM has not yet formally announced the new AI products that it is building for IBM i. We know about Bob and the MCP server, but there is a lot more AI stuff coming to IBM i. IBM shared details of what is coming in closed sessions at POWERUp in New Orleans last week, but hints about where it is going and what is coming were there, if you knew where to look.

  IBM i, as we all know, is a business platform. It runs enterprise applications and it runs them extremely well. If you want to model a nuclear …

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• What Is Threatening IBM i Security Now

  March 16, 2026 Alex Woodie

  The nature of cybersecurity threats is always changing, which requires constant vigilance by those who value security. IBM i is just as exposed to threats as any other networked operating system on the planet, but it’s also unique in certain ways, which actually makes security harder. To get the lowdown on how these phenomena interrelate in the first quarter of 2026, we turn to renown IBM i security expert Carol Woodbury from Kisco.

  Woodbury recently sat down with Justin Loeber, the Kisco owner and head of business development, to present a webinar titled IBM i Threat Landscape 2026: A Fireside …

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• Guru: Access Client Solutions 1.1.9.11 – Security First, With Continued Investment In SQL Tooling

  January 26, 2026 Gregory Simmons

  Big Blue has released IBM i Access Client Solutions (ACS) version 1.1.9.11, and while the release is anchored by an important security fix, it also reflects IBM’s continued investment in the SQL tooling that has become central to day-to-day IBM i development and administration. This is not a feature-heavy update on its own, but it arrives after a series of releases that have steadily expanded the usefulness of both Run SQL Scripts and SQL Performance Center.

  The primary driver for upgrading to ACS 1.1.9.11 is the remediation of CVE-2025-66516, an XML External Entity vulnerability related to how ACS processes certain …

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• Learning And Laughing With Scott Forstie And Tim Rowe

  December 8, 2025 Alex Woodie

  In the darkest days of the 2020 pandemic, with COVID lockdowns in full force, IBM i business architects Tim Rowe and Scott Forstie decided to try something new: start a video blog. Dubbed iSee, the short videos blend serious technical content around ACS and SQL services with goofy puns and silly drawings. Fast forward to fall 2025, and iSee is going strong, as the pair recently aired their 100th iSee episode.

  “Scott and I have been thinking about some fun things that we want to talk about to help you in your every day job,” Rowe said in the very …

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• What You Will Find In IBM i 7.6 TR1 and IBM i 7.5 TR7

  October 13, 2025 Alex Woodie

  It’s early October, which means leaves are changing colors, nights are getting colder, and IBM developers in southern Minnesota and elsewhere are gearing up the autumnal Technology Refreshes for the IBM i operating system.

  With last week’s announcements of TR1 for IBM i 7.6 and TR7 for IBM i 7.5, which ship November 21, IBM has committed to delivering a slew of updates and new functionality across the range of IBM i system software, from application development to administration.

  Before we get into the specific areas of IBM i, let’s cover the general enhancements it made with I/O handling. For …

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• Big Blue Delivers IBM i Customer Requests In ACS Update

  August 25, 2025 Alex Woodie

  Christmas is still four months away, but that didn’t stop IBM from giving Access Client Solutions (ACS) customers the new features they requested. The deliveries were made in the mid-summer update, ACS version 1.1.9.9.

  ACS is the must-have tool that lives in every IBM i professional’s toolbox. It contains a slew of facilities for interacting with the system, including RSS, data transfer, IFS file viewing, spool file management, 5250 emulator, 5250 printer emulation, and a virtual console for LAN and HMC management.

  IBM updates ACS several times a year regardless of the Technology Refresh cycle, as is typical with several …

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