IBM i Community Shares 2024 Predictions

January 15, 2024 Alex Woodie

Spaceship Earth has completed another trip around the Sun, which means one thing: Time for 2024 IBM i predictions! Hopefully you enjoy this year’s predictions, which seem to sport a good mixture of optimism and realism.

The future for IBM i is wide open – open source, that is, says Liam Allan, the creator of Code for IBM i and a software developer for IBM i.

“My prediction is pretty simple. Businesses will continue to invest in themselves through the power of open source,” Allan says. “Whether it be using dev tools, open source runtimes like Node.js, or even newer versions of Java, using open-source empowers them to do new and great things.”

At Fortra (formerly HelpSystems), 2024 will be the year of cybersecurity investments, according to Kurt Thomas, technical product manager for Powertech Solutions.

“In 2024, once again organizations will be forced to invest in cybersecurity for compliance reasons,” he says. “Ultimately, compliance frameworks express the judgement of large parts of society (or massive players in an industry), about how organizations should behave. Viewed from that perspective, society seems to gradually be coming to the conclusion that cybersecurity is a requirement to keep the wheels turning.

“Financial organizations that do business in the EU are well-advised to use the remaining time to prepare for the EU’s Digital Operation Resilience Act, DORA, before it goes into force on January 1, 2025,” Thomas continues. “EU-based organizations in any of the sectors classified as important under the NIS2 regulation will likewise need to shore up their defenses by October 2024. As a result of geopolitical trends, we should also expect to see more attempts to spy on middle-sized and large companies, and to interrupt functions of critical infrastructure. For organizations using IBM i, all of this translates into the need to invest in security on the IBM i and the platforms that connect to it. Each of the aspects of technology, business processes, and people (cyber awareness, training) need to be taken into account for to ensure defenses are up to snuff.”

The future for IBM i is “brite,” but with caveats, according to Josh Bander, an enterprise account executive at Briteskies and a newly named IBM Champion for 2024.

“My prediction for 2024 is that IBM i shops will continue embracing newer languages and technologies such as Node.js, AI, and GitHub,” says Bander, who was behind last year’s household IBM i names campaign. “However, many more shops will leave the platform as they need help finding new talent and keeping their CEOs happy while using an old AS/400. At the same time, those same shops leaving the platform will find themselves in an ever-larger hole while they are migrating because they can’t hire anyone as they leave the platform, but they still need the support for the ‘one-year implementation’ process. Then, the IT staff isn’t able to purchase newer software as they can’t invest in the IBM i as they are migrating. So, we’ll see fewer software sales, but service companies will be overwhelmed with the amount of work coming in.”

The forecast for 2024 is cloudy with a strong chance of increased revenue for managed Power services, according to Bob Losey, the principle and IBM business partner Source Data Products.

“Overall, continued growth in IBM cloud solutions, including hosting, backup and disaster recovery solutions,” Losey tells IT Jungle. “Continued growth in remote IBM i managed services. IBM i users, including those with skills and those with limited skills, will outsource to keep pace with the demands on their time. For disaster recovery, if users do not demand recovery from point of last transmission, expect growth with IBM FlashSystems Storage as this can be less expensive than remote journaling high availability software license, annual support and ongoing maintenance expenses. As extraordinary as the IBM Power10 technology and performance is, for many smaller users (those in the P05 and P10 software tier) the entry cost is difficult for them to embrace. Consequently, I expect the Power 10 growth will favor those with their own IBM i staff and larger users that need multiple cores and LPARs, particularly LUG users. This larger IBM user group can more easily justify the Power 10 price and performance.”

After struggling for survival the past few years, IBM i shops will be moving to capitalize on the business environment, go on the offensive, and take share, predicts Michael Killian, the senior vice president of global sales at Profound Logic.

“The past years revealed the fallibility of organizations, prompting a re-evaluation of established IT practices. In 2024, all levels of organizations acknowledge the imperative for change, embracing new approaches that prioritize value and growth. This shift is evident in the IBM i space, where RPG developers, including those leveraging Profound Logic partnerships, are exploring new possibilities, and recognizing the value of change,” Killian says.

“Organizations, with the support of solutions like Profound Logic, understand that progress involves balancing past IT investments with exploring new technological opportunities. The realization that we live in a diverse technological landscape prompts a harmonious integration of past and present directions,” he continues.

“2024 is not a continuation of the past; it’s a year of decisive action. It involves acknowledging needs, embracing new technologies, and being comfortable with discomfort as organizations, supported by solutions like Profound Logic, learn and explore. It’s a year to propel forward with confidence and resilience, celebrating success and growth in partnership with innovative solutions.”

Tape is still alive, but increasingly, customers are running backups on faster disk-based appliances and virtual tape libraries (VLTs). That trend will continue in 2024, predicts Mary Martinez, the marketing manager at LaserVault.

“IBM i shops will continue migrating from manual tape usage, upgrading their legacy backup and recovery systems to tapeless solutions,” she says. “The simplicity and efficiency of virtual tape solutions, coupled with the advantages of speed and accessibility, make them game-changers in the realm of modern-era backup and recovery. As organizations grapple with escalating data volumes and evolving technological landscapes, embracing virtual tape technology becomes a strategic move towards ensuring the resilience and accessibility of critical business data.”

When it comes to security, IBM i decision-makers will turn over a new leaf and find it’s not quite what they expected, says Justin Loeber, the head of business development at Kisco Systems.

“On the security horizon, we see organizations realizing that bringing IBM i into the enterprise fold and including it in their overall security strategy is not as difficult or costly as they thought,” Loeber says. “We see a focus on security operations combined with an expanded definition of security, reflecting an understanding of security as the ongoing management of a fabric of technologies and operational strategies that includes OS management, patching, disaster recovery, audit, system monitoring and proactive protection. Prevention costs less than remediation. Orgs that ‘get’ this will spend less and get to a more effective security posture (and peace of mind) quickly and easily.”

Ransomware and cyberattacks are wearing us all down, as they seem to occur frequently. While the IBM i has some built-in resistance to cybercriminals, it’s important for IBM i professionals to remain vigilant, Raz-Lee Security CEO Shmuel Zailer reminds us.

“People know about anti-ransomware software solutions, but they don’t realize that ransomware can also target the IBM i as soon as an attack begins,” Zailer says. “This year, we hope this situation changes. We can protect everyone against this menace, so fewer incidents affect the IBM i community this year. We need to protect ourselves from the very start of our sessions inside the IBM i. As Melanie Maynes from Microsoft has said, ‘one simple action you can take to prevent 99.9 percent of attacks on your accounts’ is to deploy multi-factor authentication (MFA).”

“This should be the year of MFA for the IBM i,” Zailer continues. “It can protect every exit point and session, making our systems more secure than ever. We can use MFA with authenticators, fingerprints, face recognition, and other methods. We have invested much of our effort into developing these kinds of solutions, knowing that new challenges will appear in the future for all of us.”

That’s it for batch one of IBM i predictions. Stay tuned for more in the weeks to come.

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