• Infoview Systems Launches Lightweight CDC for IBM i

  February 13, 2023 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that have a need to extract the latest transactions hitting their Db2 for i database for downstream CRM, analytics, or fraud detection use cases may want to check out the new change data capture (CDC) offering unveiled recently by Infoview Systems. When coupled with a streaming data platform like Apache Kafka, CDC opens up new possibilities.

  Infoview Systems is a longtime IBM i product and services firm based in Michigan with a global customer base. The company has been active in the data and application integration space for years, first with the sale and implementation of message …

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• White Hats Completely Dismantle Menu-Based Security

  February 6, 2023 Alex Woodie

  Think menu-based security can prevent cybercriminals from accessing the most important parts of your IBM i system? Think again, as the white hat hacking group Silent Signal recently demonstrated in a real-world penetration test of a bank’s IBM i system through a seemingly restricted green-screen interface.

  Life was demonstrably simpler for midrange administrators before the Internet took off. Before we had all these different protocols providing access to applications and data – ODBC, FTP, SQL, Remote Command, etc. – an administrator could feel somewhat confident that users weren’t accessing things they shouldn’t by simply configuring their menus in a restrictive …

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• N2i Gains Traction Among IBM i Newbies

  January 25, 2023 Alex Woodie

  The YiPS made a big push to inject youth into the IBM i community over a decade ago. But when the youthful vigor ran low, members of the community regrouped, re-energized, and rebranded into a new group called New to IBM i (N2i). And judging from N2i’s recent success, the group has hit on something.

  N2i has its roots in the YiPS, according to Marina Schwenk, who was a YiPS member back in the day and now is active in COMMON and the WMCPA. But there’s a crucial difference between N2i and YIPS, she says.

  “The group that we’re …

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• Realizing The Promise Of Cross Platform Development With VS Code

  January 25, 2023 Jeff Tickner

  An integrated development environment is like a tractor or a truck, or indeed any other kind of tool. There are farmers who want a tractor from John Deere or Ford or Massey-Ferguson, contractors who want a Ford or Dodge or GMC truck, and carpenters and electricians who use Dewalt or Milwaukee Electric or Makita cordless tools.

  No matter the choice of tools, ultimately these blue collar workers are going to farm and build things, and the choice of tool should not interfere with that effort. White collar – or far more likely no collar T shirt – programmers are no …

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• 2023 IBM i Predictions, Part 3

  January 25, 2023 Alex Woodie

  Security. Cloud. AI. The IBM i installed base moves with the general IT tide, which makes these hot topics for all. But what about specific IBM i things, like the availability of IBM i jobs and the difficulty in finding a good RPG developer? These are topics we are tackling in our third – and final – round of 2023 predictions.

  Bob Langieri, the IBM i recruiter who owns Excel Technical Services, has his pulse on the IBM i job situation, particularly in his Southern California region. 2023 looks to be a mixed bag, job-wise, he says.

  “In the …

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• Multiple Vulnerabilities Pop Up In Navigator For i

  January 23, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Why do we network computers again? Remind me.

  A new security bulletin was released for the Navigator for i system management interface for the IBM i platform on January 18, which rolls up four different vulnerabilities for Navigator for i that leave it open to log file access, to obtaining file attributes, and to SQL Injection attacks due to multiple other vulnerabilities.

  You can read about this security bulletin at this link. The most severe of the issues is the SQL injection attack, which has a CVSS Base score of 6.3 out of 10. According to the bulletin: “IBM …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 25, Number 4

  January 23, 2023 Doug Bidwell

  Here are some reminders to start off the IBM i PTF Guide this week.

  First, there are new releases for Access Client Solutions and the ODBC database driver. (See ACS_NAV in the Guide for the links.) The funny bit – funny odd, not funny hilarious – is that version 26 of ACS did not allow companies to create a database source for ODBC, which is serious shortcoming. Now, there is a new version 27 that will let you do it. Here is the updated software:

  Description				   Version
  IBM i Access Client Solutions (1.1.9.1)	   1.1.9.1
  ACS Windows App Pkg English (64bit)	   

  …

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• 2023 IBM i Predictions, Part 1

  January 16, 2023 Alex Woodie

  What will happen in the IBM i world in 2023? Your guess is as good as ours, which is why we have corralled some of the most respected names in the industry to gaze into their crystal balls and give their prognostication for the year to come.

  Donnie MacColl, the senior director of technical support and GDPR data protection officer at Fortra (formerly HelpSystems), kicks off this year’s batch of predictions with an expectation of more automation, thanks to a lack of skilled employees.

  “Automated operations will accelerate along with migration to the cloud,” MacColl tells us. “Automation is key …

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• Top 5 New IBM i Features to Check Out Now That Fall TRs Are GA

  December 7, 2022 Alex Woodie

  All of the new features that IBM unveiled earlier this fall with the Technology Refreshes for IBM i 7.4 and 7.5 (as well as another stealth “non-TR” TR for 7.3) are now generally available. Some of them shipped before December 2, but pretty much all of them are now GA. With so much enterprise computing goodness ready to download, what will you adopt first?

  We know it’s not Christmas yet. But with so many new features, it can be hard to figure out what to do first. While everybody has their own computing priorities, we have our own ideas for …

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• Thoroughly Modern: A Swiss Army Knife For IBM i Developers

  December 5, 2022 Robert Arce

  Our strength as developers and programmers lies not only in the code we write, but also in the tools we choose to surround ourselves with. The right tools are often the determining factor in how productive, efficient and accurate we can be – especially when working with large applications that we didn’t even write.

  Long gone are the days of just managing a handful of programs, technologies, languages or databases, and relying on tribal knowledge to make critical business decisions isn’t just risky, it’s irresponsible. Especially when more and more experienced IBM i (AS/400) developers are changing jobs or retiring …

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