It looks like IBM is getting pushback from customers and partners who are not happy about an announcement it made earlier this year to lock down access to licensed internal code for System z mainframes, Power Systems, and various storage arrays based on Power7 machinery. As The Four Hundred reported back in February, in announcement| IT Jungle
Founders of smaller IBM i and System z software vendors who are looking to sell their companies before they retire may want to check out a new venture called Izzi Software. In an interview with IT Jungle, the executives heading the startup explain that it has a mandate to spend millions of private equity dollars| IT Jungle
CNX recently launched a major new release of Valence, its development framework for creating Web-based applications for IBM i. With version 6.2, CNX has added a number of new features that assist with improving the appearance and functionality of screens, new RPG toolkit procedures, and better SQL parsing for database interactions. CNX’s Valence story stretches| IT Jungle
Skills depletion within the IBM i community has been well documented on these pages in issues past. Another side effect of working on an older computer platform is the aging of the software vendor community itself. As the baby boomer owners approach retirement age, a handful of industry consolidators are eager to give the software| IT Jungle
We are still playing a “game of ketchup” after the Independence Day holiday in the United States. This week, we learn that IBM i Java Development Kit 11 64-bit VMs Fail with UnsatisfiedLinkError After IBM i Java Group PTF Apply. You can find out more about this issue at this link. The affected IBM i| IT Jungle
Helping you figure out how to survive, adapt, and thrive in this complex IT ecosystem, whether you are an end user of information technology or a vendor of information technology products.| IT Jungle
Alex Woodie is Senior Editor at IT Jungle. He was previously editor of two of IT Jungle's main newsletters, Four Hundred Stuff and The Windows Observer. Prior to joining Midrange Server (as Guild Companies was formerly called) in October 2001, Alex was a products editor at now defunct publisher Midrange Computing, where he was first introduced to the AS/400 and covered hardware, software, and services for Midrange Technology SHOWCASE magazine.| IT Jungle
If you haven’t heard yet, here it is: IBM is planning to make a major IBM i announcement soon. IBM i chief architect Steve Will said as much during his recent IBM i Guided Tour. While Will shared a general outline of what IBM has in mind for the major announcement, specifics still are few| IT Jungle
What is more important: Keeping a server platform current or keeping its operating system current? That is a trick question, and it is tricky in two ways. First, you should keep both hardware and software current, or more precisely, keep both as current as the applications, the budget, and good sense permits. A server older| IT Jungle
In the wake of our discussion two weeks ago of the long-lived releases of IBM i and OS/400 and how they compare in terms of technical support and bug fix coverage to Linux and Windows Server, we got a bunch of questions about just when the service extension – what we call extended support like| IT Jungle
It is hard to find a modern platform that has such a long heritage as the machine on which your company’s business runs. Depending on when you want to draw the lines, the IBM i platform running on Power Systems iron dates back to the System/3 in 1969 or the System/38 in 1978 or the| IT Jungle
What stays in the field longer? The hardware or the software? Well, if you are talking about the IBM i installed base, or indeed that of any legacy systems out there like z/OS or Windows Server, the hardware can often be upgraded easier than the software and so it tends to not stay in the| IT Jungle
We are still assembling the information on the new Power11 processor and the Power Systems machines that use them and working on our analysis before they start shipping on July 25. We will do the most thorough job that we can under the circumstances, as always, but we concede that pricing information is very hard| IT Jungle
If you are like me, you are a fan of podcasts, and one of my favorites is IBM Transformers, hosted by Ann Funai. It’s a must-listen for anyone navigating digital transformation or leading change in enterprise IT. With a thoughtful blend of personal stories and practical insights, Transformers goes beyond buzzwords to explore how leaders| IT Jungle
In the vast and varied ecosystems of Earth, few interactions between species have captured the imagination of scientists and casual observers alike as much as the relationship between bottlenose dolphins and puffer fish. This curious dance, often involving the deliberate provocation of the puffer fish to trigger its natural defense mechanism, has led to many| IT Jungle
The new multi-factor authentication (MFA) capability that IBM has built into the IBM i operating system is a real gamechanger in terms of securing the system and preventing unauthorized access to applications and data. However, it lacks some key capabilities that some customers are looking for in an MFA solution, which third-party vendors are eager| IT Jungle
If you are an ASNA shops, there is an important security update that the company wants you to be aware of. This is an important security notification regarding a vulnerability discovered in two ASNA Windows Services: ASNA Assist and ASNA Registrar. ASNA says that it has resolved this vulnerability with updated versions of all supported| IT Jungle
Today is Power11 announcement day, and as sometimes happens during the debut of a new processor and a new platform to go along with it, we do not have all of the details necessary to tell you everything you need to know about the new Power11 processor and the four of the five Power Systems| IT Jungle
Big Blue has been noodling how it might tweak the subscription pricing for the P20 and P30 tiers since getting feedback on the first pass it did on its big iron Power Systems machines way back in February 2023. That feedback from the company’s biggest IBM i customers was not entirely glowing, but IBM has| IT Jungle
Izzi Software today announced the acquisition of CNX Corp., owner of the Valence suite of Web development tools for IBM i. The deal is the first IBM i-related acquisition for Izzi, which was founded last year with a mandate to buy smaller IBM i and mainframe vendors that typically don’t get M&A attention from bigger| IT Jungle
Faced with ever-growing security concerns, IBM i shops are “attacking” the problem and taking real steps to improve their security posture, Fortra says in its latest State of IBM i Security study. It is the second straight year that Fortra has noticed an improvement in IBM i shops’ approach to security. However, there are still| IT Jungle
Brace yourself because the IBM i platform has five security vulnerabilities that you have to analyze and cope with in this week’s issue of the IBM i PTF Guide. Let’s just jump right in and get to it. First, we have Security Bulletin: IBM WebSphere Application Server is affected by arbitrary code execution (CVE-2025-36038), about| IT Jungle
Last week, IBM took its former foundry partner, GlobalFoundries, to court in a lawsuit that alleges, in essence, that the company promised to deliver Power9 processors based on 14 nanometer technologies and Power10 processors based on 10 nanometer technologies and had some issues with the former and never delivered on the latter. Not only that,| IT Jungle
While the central processing unit inside every server gets all of the glory and much of the budget, these days it is the main memory that stores the data and gives that CPU memory that is perhaps more important and is actually the most costly part of the overall system. This is particularly true of| IT Jungle
The AS/400, under its many names, turns 37 this coming weekend, and let’s all raise a glass and celebrate this venerable and still relevant platform. Or, perhaps a cup of coffee or tea, depending on your mood. In the meantime, before you toast the IBM i, you have two security vulnerabilities to be aware of.| IT Jungle
The price increases that may or may not be happening to cover increasing costs at IBM continue apace. Some of the price increases we have seen over the past several months might be driven by increasing costs or the expectation of increasing costs, and others might be initiated to drive services and software revenues higher| IT Jungle
Nobody is going to mistake an IBM i conference for a college campus anytime soon. But if the recent POWERUp 2025 conference at Disneyland was any indication, there is a definite trend toward younger professionals working on the platform. While the IBM i youth movement is real, companies will benefit from some simple ways to| IT Jungle
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| IT Jungle
As the capacities on flash and disk arrays continue to embiggen and the desire to keep data around is at a fever pitch as everyone is trying to figure out how to train generative AI models using all of their data, the need for tape backup for transactional and operational data has never been higher.| IT Jungle
It’s pretty quiet this week, which is good. We gave you a lot of stuff to do last week anyway, so now you can really get caught up. The important thing is a new security vulnerability, which is in Security Bulletin: IBM Rational Developer for i is affected by an unspecified Java runtime encryption vulnerability| IT Jungle
At COMMON’s recent POWERUp conference, IT Jungle got a chance to sit down with IBM executives to talk about the IBM i business, upcoming Power announcements, and sundry other topics, like is IBM preparing to finally kill SEU, when will we see IBM i 8.0, and does IBM feel lucky enough to launch Power13? Here’s| IT Jungle
A problem has been brewing for back and archiving needs for entry and some midrange IBM i shops, and we did not know about it until the spit hit the fan last week. Had we known earlier, we could have warned you. And maybe Big Blue could have and should have warned you directly more| IT Jungle
IBM is making progress with Watsonx Code Assistant for i, which is on track to become available as a public preview next month. And while IBM perhaps is running into some challenges with generating RPG code, the long-term potential of agentic AI on IBM i is brighter than ever. As we previously reported, IBM is| IT Jungle
Sometimes you get a bunch of big announcements for the IBM i platform or the Power Systems machinery it runs on, and sometimes there are some smaller things that are interesting to a smaller group of people but no less important in their worlds than the big stuff. So it is this week. In announcement| IT Jungle
It is once again “ketchup week” here at The Four Hundred thanks to the Memorial Day holiday last week in the United States, and that means you get two IBM i PTF Guides for the price of one this week. So let’s start with Volume 27 Number 21 dated May 24. There is a whole| IT Jungle
At the COMMON POWERUp 2025 conference this week, IBM pulled the covers back a bit on Watson Code Assistant for IBM i, the new name for the AI-powered coding assistant that IBM first started talking about one year ago. A public preview of WCA for i is becoming available to a limited number of testers,| IT Jungle
Brace yourselves, everyone. There are seven security vulnerabilities that you have to pay attention to this week for the IBM i platform. Remember, as security guru Carol Woodbury is fond of saying: the IBM i platform is not the most secure platform in the world, but the most securable platform in the world. You must| IT Jungle
Welcome to May, and we start out with PH65941, a notice from Big Blue that IBM WebSphere Application Server is vulnerable to server-side request forgery (CVE-2025-27907 CVSS 4.1). You can check out this link for more details. IBM says that the fix for this APAR is set to be included with WebSphere Application Server 8.5.5.28| IT Jungle
Just a reminder that as part of the April 8 announcements, IBM Software Support content is changing to require entitlement check for software patches. See more at this link, but the gist of it is that IBM Software Support Troubleshooting, Question & Answer, and How To documents are changing to require entitlement. This means that| IT Jungle
Timothy Prickett Morgan is President of Guild Companies Inc and Editor in Chief of The Four Hundred.| IT Jungle
It may be hard to believe, but with the launch of IBM i 7.6 today, it has been 13,440 days since OS/400 V1R1 was announced on June 21, 1988, and Big Blue has delivered 27 distinct releases of the OS/400 and IBM i platform with dozens of Technology Refresh interim updates between releases in the| IT Jungle
Big Blue today announced IBM i 7.6, the first new release of the operating system in three years. While version 7.6 brings a range of enhancements, arguably the biggest new feature is the addition of multi-factor authentication directly into the operating system, which will make adopting MFA simple and represent a “massive security improvement” at| IT Jungle
Good day, good people of IBM i Land. This week we start out with two security vulnerabilities and a known issue to beware of the BLOB! Let’s start with the security vulnerabilities. First we have Security Bulletin: IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty is vulnerable to a denial of service due to Netty (CVE-2025-25193), which you| IT Jungle
Last week, we went over the roadmaps for the future Power11 processor from IBM and its follow-on, the Power Next chip that we presume will be called Power 12 because, you know, history. This week we want to take a little bit of a deeper dive into the Power11 strategy and what this might mean| IT Jungle
