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Thoroughly Modern: What You Need to Know About IBM i Security
March 13, 2023 Fresche Solutions
On a weekly basis, the security experts at Fresche receive calls from IBM i organizations asking for help with ransomware and cyberattacks. These calls are from a broad range of organizations across the spectrum of industries and company sizes.
The IBM i platform has a very strong reputation of being secure, but it’s a dangerous misconception that it is secure out of the box. We can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen an enormous lack of security configuration on the system. It’s often due to a lack of security knowledge and skills on IBM i. But many people still …
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Thoroughly Modern: Flexible And Fractional Staffing Models That Deliver
February 13, 2023 Christine McDowell
If you run an organization that relies on IBM i (AS/400, iSeries) systems, then you know how important it is to have the right skills and expertise accessible when you need them. The reality facing IT leaders is that having the right staff can be both a challenge and costly, but it doesn’t need to be.
By augmenting your teams with the right skills, you can get the help you need when you need it without needing to hire full-time staff. Let’s explore the benefits of augmenting your teams with IBM i (AS/400, iSeries) and other skills.
Integration Services
Integrating …
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Thoroughly Modern: How To Optimize IT In 2023
January 16, 2023 Jeff Swartz
It should be no surprise to anyone that applications running on IBM i are business critical. In many cases, these crucial systems keep the business alive day-to-day. Working with organizations around the globe, we are seeing a lot of activity happening in the IBM i space to optimize operations and put in new workload models. Many IT organizations are looking at upgrading. This includes implementing tech refreshes and moving to Power10 systems.
Now is the time really to think about what the ideal model is for where to run which applications.
Historically, when companies looked at infrastructure upgrades, they would …
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Thoroughly Modern: A Swiss Army Knife For IBM i Developers
December 5, 2022 Robert Arce
Our strength as developers and programmers lies not only in the code we write, but also in the tools we choose to surround ourselves with. The right tools are often the determining factor in how productive, efficient and accurate we can be – especially when working with large applications that we didn’t even write.
Long gone are the days of just managing a handful of programs, technologies, languages or databases, and relying on tribal knowledge to make critical business decisions isn’t just risky, it’s irresponsible. Especially when more and more experienced IBM i (AS/400) developers are changing jobs or retiring …
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Thoroughly Modern: Digital Solutions For IBM i And Beyond
November 7, 2022 Marcel Sarrasin and Scott Gingerysty
IT leaders need to develop strategies that address business goals but also look ahead to a changing economic climate and disruptions. Digital innovation (web, mobile, APis, cloud, etc.) is one of the fastest growing areas of IT. And it’s no wonder – taking on these initiatives while using an iterative approach can deliver quick wins and attainable near-term impacts. This allows organizations to invest in ways that are sustainable.
As organizations look to new business models, seeing technology as a way to accomplish business objectives is the right approach. Competition, market disruption, growth, cost optimization and responding to client needs …
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Thoroughly Modern: Simplify IBM i Application Management and Extract Key Insights
October 10, 2022 Ray Everhart
IBM i developers and managers understand all too well that application documentation is often out of date – if it even exists. A study from the Singapore Management University says that developers only spend 5 percent of their time writing new code. They spend 20 percent of their time modifying legacy code, and they spend 60 percent of their time trying to understand the code before they modify it.
As businesses adapt to compete in their industries, IT is pressured to innovate and improve agility while maintaining existing systems. It’s also critical that stakeholders can quickly access data from …
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Thoroughly Modern: Four Ways Staff Augmentation Is Helping IT Get Things Done
September 12, 2022 Roger Betancourt
According to a recent report by McKinsey, 87 percent of organizations are facing or are expected to face skill shortages in the next few years. The biggest contributor to this pressing issue has been the impending retirement of the Baby Boomer generation, reducing the availability of skilled and specialized workers.
Technology might be the most affected sector, according to McKinsey –– 46 percent of the executives surveyed listed IT, mobile, and/or web design and management as one of the highest areas of concern. Moreover, 73 percent of organizations will have difficulties recruiting technologists and filling open tech positions.
This ongoing …
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Thoroughly Modern: Latest IT Trends – Bring Security, Speed, And Consistency To IT With Automation
August 8, 2022 Alan Hamm and Chris Koppe
The irony of many IT departments is that they have spent many decades automating aspects of the business, literally encoding business processes and interactions with customers, partners, and suppliers to make those processes consistent and fast, but many of the processes used in the IT department itself are done manually and rely on the “tribal knowledge” of the system and application experts.
This is not only not necessary in many cases today, thanks to a myriad of automation tools that can be brought to bear on IT operations, but it is also dangerous and extremely risky. The systems that run …
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Thoroughly Modern: With Cloud, You Need To Crawl, Walk, Then Run
July 12, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan
The idea that all workloads are going to move to the cloud is a fallacy, and so is the idea that there will be only one cloud.
Some workloads will, by necessity due to issues of governance and data sovereignty, remain in the corporate datacenter; some will run in hybrid mode across local and cloud infrastructure; and some will be in the cloud for the rest of their electronic lives. And because of the breadth and depth of applications in the enterprise and the long-established relationships that companies have with their IT suppliers and business partners, there will be many …
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Thoroughly Modern: Good Security Is Just As Important As Good Code
June 13, 2022 Pauline Brazil Ayala
Can my IBM i really be hit with a virus? Can it be hit with ransomware?
These are the questions I regularly get from clients as a security expert with more than 20 years of experience. With the pervasiveness of these ransomware threats and sophisticated cyberattacks that we’re seeing in recent times, it only makes sense that we pay close attention to these threats.
Security on the IBM i is a complex topic, and it is not one that is easily tackled with a few bullet points and tweaks of systems settings. Just like programming on the platform, for that …
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