• RevSoft Leans On ‘Shadowing’ To Ensure Speedy Job Scheduler Failovers

  March 24, 2021 Alex Woodie

  There are several things that can prevent a high availability failover from executing quickly on an IBM i server, including data synchronization issues, communication failures, and other problems. With the “shadowing” feature in its job scheduler, RevSoft is determined that issues with synching job schedulers do not make that list.

  Jobs demand special treatment in the IBM i high availability world. Care must be taken to ensure that active jobs, including jobs that are in the job queue as well as jobs that are scheduled to run in the job scheduler, are replicated from the primary server to the backup …

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• Remain Buys MiWorkplace, Integrates It Into TD/OMS

  March 10, 2021 Alex Woodie

  In 2020, Remain Software quietly acquired MiWorkplace, a lightweight integrated development environment (IDE) for IBM i. Last month, the company announced that it has completed the integration of MiWorkplace into TD/OMS, its change management system for IBM i. It also rolled out new releases of TD/OMS, Remain API Studio, and Gravity.

  MiWorkplace is a Java-based IDE out of Germany that’s been building a user base among the IBM i customer base for a few years. The software, which runs on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux, was developed primarily to provide a better coding experience for SEU users, not as a …

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• Power Systems Security: More Than The Sum Of Its Parts

  February 17, 2021 Tony Perera

  The IBM i platform is no longer an island unto itself. In many companies, there is a diversity of different systems — Unix systems, Linux servers, and Windows environments, not to mention IBM i. Each of these environments brings its own strength and weakness. The goal is to not let these differences hurt something that’s important to you: security.

  Make no mistake: It’s a good thing that Power Systems servers can run multiple operating systems. From an IBM i perspective, it ensures more R&D dollars from IBM to support the hardware. It seems doubtful IBM would spend billions to develop …

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• X Marks The Spot For CYBRA’s Forms Software

  December 14, 2020 Alex Woodie

  When it comes to creating forms and labels on the IBM i server, CYBRA’s MarkMagic is one of the most frequently used products in the market, and is used by the biggest companies in consumer goods and retail. With the latest release of MarkMagic X, the company is finding new and creative ways to get additional functionality into the hands of its users.

  MarkMagic X, which is also called version 10, introduces a host of new features that have been requested by CYBRA’s sizable installed base. With over 30 years in business, CYBRA has amassed 2,700 customers, including nine …

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• How IBM i Fits Into the Evolving ERP Market

  November 30, 2020 Alex Woodie

  IBM i remains a solid platform on which to run an ERP system. But with the shift to the cloud, not to mention a surge in homegrown application development on IBM i, the platform’s future for packaged ERP deployments is uncertain.

  The IBM midrange platform has a rich history of packaged ERP applications for a range of business types. From discrete manufacturing and trucking to banking and healthcare management, software vendors have targeted the IBM i platform and its predecessors to run integrated ERP systems and other similar types of business applications for over decades.

  But the go-go ERP deployments …

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• Remain Software Delivers Trio of Updates

  November 11, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Remain Software last week announced the delivery of new releases of three separate products, including TD/OMS, its lifecycle management tools for IBM i; Gravity, its workflow management system for multiple systems; API Studio, which helps IBM i shops develop and manage API connections to existing software.

  TD/OMS, which is Remain Software’s flagship offering, is an application lifecycle management (ALM) tool for IBM i developers. The core of the offering is the Object Management System (OMS), which guides users through the process of defining applications and their associated objects, while additional modules provide more targeted functionality for reporting, impact analysis, …

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• IBM Rolls Out ACS 1.1.8.5

  August 12, 2020 Alex Woodie

  IBM last week introduced a new release of Access Client Solutions (ACS), the popular IBM i client that’s used by administrators, programmers, and engineers alike. There are enhancements to Run SQL Scripts, new 5250 viewing options, and a performance boost for viewing selected files on the IFS with version 1.1.8.5, among other mostly minor updates.

  According to the release notes associated with the new iteration of ACS, IBM made a handful of changes with version 1.1.8.5.

  Let’s start with the improvements to Run SQL Scripts, which is an increasingly popular utility in ACS that leverages the power of SQL and …

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• HCL Certifies Domino 11 on IBM i/Power

  August 5, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Domino 11 officially shipped in late 2019 by HCL Technologies, the company selected by IBM to continue development of the Domino family of products in 2017. Last month, the company announced that Domino 11 running on IBM i has been certified on select Power9 servers. Among the new capabilities that it brings is the new low-code Volt environment.

  The Domino family of products, including Notes, Sametime, Connections, and Traveler, has been through quite a bit over the past few years. After nearly a decade of neglect by IBM, HCL Tech made the development of Domino 10 a priority for the …

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• Hacking IBM i: Penetration Testing Gains Popularity

  April 13, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Think your IBM i is hacker-proof? It may well be, but only a handful of systems have escaped the wrath of Carol Woodbury, the HelpSystems IBM i security expert who previously was the platform’s security architect at IBM. In recent years, Woodbury and company have ramped up a unique penetration testing service that aims to poke holes in IBM i configurations, all in the name of better security.

  Penetration testing, or ethical hacking, is growing in popularity as organizations seek to solidify the security of their servers. Open systems platform, like Linux and Windows servers and cloud resources, are the …

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• Security Still the Top Concern as Privacy Regs Loom

  February 12, 2020 Alex Woodie

  For the fourth year in a row, security is the number one concern of the IBM i installed base, according to HelpSystems’ 2020 IBM i Marketplace Survey. IBM i shops are clearly concerned about the need to prevent unauthorized access to applications and data. But security’s first cousin, data privacy, also stands to gain more attention with the recent passage of data privacy laws, such as GDPR and CCPA.

  HelpSystems released the results of its latest marketplace survey last month, as it has done for the past six years. And just as it has for every year since 2017, security …

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