These ISVs Are Moving To Support IBM i 7.4
June 5, 2019 Alex Woodie
We’re just over halfway between the announcement of IBM i 7.4 and general availability. That means that IBM i 7.4 and all of its features – including the much-anticipated Db2 Mirror – are actually still in beta. IBM is hustling to take care of last-minute changes to the release before shipping the software, which is planned for June 21. Many of the independent software vendors sailing the IBM i waters are also gearing up for GA.
CNX will support IBM i 7.4 with Valence, its framework for developing modern IBM i applications, on June 21. “CNX will support it on day one,” said Iwona Barnes, Director of Customer Relations.
Profound Logic tells IT Jungle that it’s well on its way to supporting IBM i 7.4. “We are working on testing compatibility with IBM i 7.4,” says Scott Klement, who heads up product development for Profound. “We are fully committed to providing support for this release! I do not yet have the exact date in which our testing will be complete, however, we will make an announcement when it is ready.”
Fresche Solutions is also close. “We were part of 7.4 beta program,” says CTO Brendan Kay. “Most of our products just work seamlessly with it. No issue at all.”
New Generation Software‘s business intelligence software for IBM i will run on the new release. “NGS products will be ready for use on IBM i 7.4 on the first day that OS release is available to customers,” says Bill Langston, director of marketing.
HelpSystems offers dozens of IBM i products across scheduling, security, backup, reporting, and high availability areas, and all of them will support IBM i 7.4 on June 21. “We will offer day-one support for IBM i 7.4 for all of our IBM i-related software products,” says company spokesman Mike Devine.
Trinity Guard, the up-and-coming developer of security and auditing tools for IBM i and the spiritual successor to Pentasafe, will also support the new OS. “Yes, our security suite — TGAudit, TGDetect, and TGSecure — will support 7.4 at release time,” says Pauline Brazil Ayala, vice president of operations and co-founder of the Houston, Texas, company.
SoftLanding plans to support IBM i 7.4 at GA with its line of software change management and systems management products. “We’ll be ratifying our products against 7.4 by the June 21st release date and will be looking to see how some of the new features can be harnessed in our solutions going forward,” SoftLanding Operations Manager Jim Fisher tells IT Jungle.
IBM i shops that manage their development with PTC‘s Implementer can look forward to day-one support. “Implementer 12.3, which came out April 2, 2019, will be certified with IBM i 7.4 when it becomes GA,” says Dawn Blohm, technical support manager for PTC.
Syncsort announced the immediate availability a new version of MIMIX designed to work with IBM’s Db2 Mirror on April 23, the day that IBM announced both IBM i 7.4 and Db2 Mirror (as well as 7.3 TR6). But support for IBM i 7.4 among other Syncsort products, including Assure MIMIX, Assure iTera, and Assure QuickEDD — not to mention its data replication and security products — will have to wait.
“We have been engaged with IBM i 7.4 for many months to develop Assure MIMIX for Db2 Mirror,” a Syncsort spokesperson tells IT Jungle. “Our HA products will complete rigorous testing on 7.4 after it is generally available. We also plan to support 7.4 with our other IBM i products, including Ironstream and Connect CDC.”
Maxava, which provides IBM i high availability software and services, plans to support the new operating system release on June 21. “At Maxava we intend to support IBMi 7.4 from day one,” says Simon O’Sullivan, a vice president with the New Zealand company.
iSam Blue, which develops an HA product for IBM i called iSB-HA, is also working to support IBM i 7.4 and Db2 Mirror. “The big change is Db2 Mirror and our response is to add IFS into our No-Switch Switch,” says Robert Seal, the company’s managing member.
Raz-Lee is planning to support 7.4 when it is released. “As always, Raz-Lee will offer day-one support,” a company spokeswoman says.
ERP vendors are also working to support IBM i 7.4, including VAI and Infor, both of which are targeting day-one support.
“VAI is very pleased with all the new features in IBM i 7.4 and will support it upon release,” says VAI CIO Kevin Beasley. “VAI is also excited about the new continuous availability capability in the new license program Db2 Mirror for IBM i, and will be evaluating for VAI Cloud and customer on-premise deployments.”
“Infor has thoroughly tested IBM i OS 7.4 for its primary IBM-based ERP solutions — Infor XA, Infor LX, and Infor System 21,” says Infor’s IBM i product manager, Ross Freeman. “Infor is enthusiastic to provide day 1 support for OS 7.4 for customers running these ERP products. Infor believes that customers will appreciate many enhancements offered by 7.4 and will be eager to upgrade.”
Several other vendors have expressed support for IBM i 7.4 to Rob Berendt, an IBM i administrator who’s active in the midrange community. Berendt set up a page on the Midrange Wiki website where vendor commitments to IBM i 7.4 are posted.
Vendors like Nutech Systems, Open Text, DRV Technologies, BVS Tools, and Arpeggio Software are in various stages of supporting IBM i 7.4, ranging from “still testing” to planning to support it on day-one, according to the Midrange Wiki site.
Gamma Software is planning on supporting IBM i 7.4 on day one.
JD Edwards applications are expected to support the new OS eventually, but an Oracle spokesperson said that the company “does not comment on support for products that are not GA.”
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