• As I See It: The Ideal Workplace, Part 2

  January 24, 2022 Victor Rozek

  New year, new possibilities. And what better place to start than sharing the experiences and aspirations of IT professionals.

  Last month, as 2021 was coming to an end, I asked readers for feedback on how they would describe their ideal workplace; the issues that were important to them, the quality of their working environment, and how they wanted to be treated by their company and its management. I offered a list of issues for consideration, and below is a summary of their responses.

  The first question was a variation of the classic “paper or plastic” dilemma. Would you prefer to …

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• Some Good Advice About Log4j Mitigation Gotchas

  January 24, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The Apache Log4j logging utility written in Java and available since the end of the Dot Com Boom in early 2001, has been installed far and wide into many systems and systems software packages in the more than two decades it has been available. And that is why the zero-day security vulnerability discovered by Chinese computing giant Alibaba on November 24 last year and revealed on December 9 has caused so much concern.

  Log4j is everywhere and that means the Log4Shell vulnerability that Alibaba described makes it particularly scary. But before we get into some of the mitigation advice that …

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• No Plan To Support New Nav on Older IBM i Releases, IBM Says

  January 19, 2022 Alex Woodie

  IBM has no plans to support the new version of Navigator for i (i.e., “New Nav”) with older releases of the operating system, despite the existence of the severe Log4j security flaw in the heritage version of Navigator (“Old Nav”). The early, unexpected death of Old Nav also will hasten the adoption of New Nav for customers on current releases, and New Nav will become the default version with an update in March, IBM says.

  Earlier this month, IBM announced that no security patches would be forthcoming for Old Nav, which uses the Log4j code at the heart of a …

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• Four Signs That Point to More IBM i Modernization in ’22

  January 19, 2022 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops are under the gun to do something about their aging applications, perhaps more so than any other group of computer users out there, save for System z mainframe shops. Here are four factors that increase the odds that more IBM i shops will embark upon modernization efforts and start updating those heritage applications and databases in the new year.

  1. The White-Hot Economy

  Increased consumer spending is likely to continue in early 2022, thanks in part to the strong recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and the unprecedented financial support provided from the government. The economy is running white …

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• Eradani Brings COBOL Into Its Microservices World

  January 19, 2022 Alex Woodie

  IBM i customers who need to connect their COBOL applications to Web services and APIs may want to check out Eradani, which is in the process of rolling out an update aimed at COBOL code. In the process of updating Eradani Connect, the company strengthened its entire platform, which will benefit RPG shops, too.

  Eradani Connect was designed to make it easy to connect IBM i applications to external APIs in a bi-directional manner. With its native wrap-around code for IBM i, the software allows customers to expose their existing applications using REST protocols and JSON data structures, thereby providing …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, January 19

  January 19, 2022 Jenny Thomas

  New year, same problems. The beginning of 2022 is picking up where 2021 left off in terms of cybersecurity and the problems that come with obtaining it. The log4j bug, which we have reported on extensively here in the Jungle, that appeared before the holidays was likely a harbinger of what’s to come and you can expect that to be reflected in our coverage of cyberattacks and cybersecurity in the months ahead. Our top two outside-of-the-Jungle news stories this week focus on software security in the IT world at large, but we also have our usually fare of community-related news …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 24, Number 3

  January 19, 2022 Doug Bidwell

  Another new security bulletin in this week’s edition of the IBM i PTF Guide. The IBM i Extended Dynamic Remote SQL server (EDRSQL) is affected by CVE-2021-39056, which could allow a remote authenticated user to send a specially crafted request and cause a denial of service. Learn more details and find out how to resolve at this link.

  The IBM i PTF numbers containing the fix for the CVE are:

  • Release 7.4 – SI77996
  • Release 7.3 – SI77995
  • Release 7.2 – SI78002
  • Release 7.1 – SI78040

  Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by IBM i release level:

  PTF …

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• IBM i Community Predictions For 2022, Part 3

  January 17, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Due to an unprecedented response from the community, we are running a third installment of 2022 predictions. The third (and final) round of predictions kicks off with an optimistic prophecy from Charles Guarino, the president of Central Park Data Systems, who has a very bright outlook for the year ahead in IBM i land.

  “As business confidence and optimism rallies, IT budgets will become less restrained,” Guarino tells IT Jungle. “Even those with the least maintained and enhanced legacy systems will experience modernization pressure. This will come from all sources, internal, external and industry compliance, all demanding swift …

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• Thoroughly Modern: Building Organizational Resilience in the Digital Age

  January 17, 2022 Maxime Leclair

  There is so much change happening in the world and technology is playing a critical role. Organizations must use modern digital solutions if they want to survive and thrive amid uncertainty and accelerate growth in an aggressively competitive business landscape.

  Climate change, COVID-19, global and financial crises, among other things, have exposed vulnerabilities in businesses and accelerated the need for new digital capabilities, modern systems, and processes as well as optimized and transformed legacy systems. According to research, 63 percent of organizations flag digital transformation, including building up technological infrastructure and data analytics as top strategic priorities for the …

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• Guru: Keeping Track Of IBM i System Limits

  January 17, 2022 Dawn May

  Every complex system has limits, and computer systems are no different. During my work with clients over the years I’ve seen many shops push their systems as far as they can go until performance breaks down. The limits I encounter are generally numbers of things: How many objects can exist in a library? How many rows can be inserted into a table? How large can a file in the IFS be?

  Typically, these limits are large and you may think you do not need to worry about them, especially after an upgrade. But as the workload on your system …

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