• Big Blue Offers Cheaper Standard Shipping For IBM i Systems

  July 10, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Since the dawn of time, one kind of shipping and handling was bundled into the price of AS/400 and successor systems. But that has just changed. Now, Big Blue is offering two tiers of shipping and handling for machinery it ships to customers, including Power Systems servers and current in its IBM Storage lineup of tape, disk, and flash products – and it is giving the customers a choice on how they want things shipped and therefore what price they will pay.

  This change was inevitable, and frankly, given the high costs of shipping anything these days, it is amazing …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 25, Number 27

  July 10, 2023 Doug Bidwell

  It has been a quiet week with the Independence Day holiday, excepting the security vulnerability we report on elsewhere in this issue of The Four Hundred.

  We did want to point out that IBM’s TechXchange 2023 conference is coming up, and you should think about attending. This is a must-attend event for technologists using IBM products and solutions. It offers over a thousand technical breakout sessions, hands-on experiences, product demonstrations, instructor-led labs, and certifications tailored to your interests and learning style. The agenda is jam-packed, which you can see here.

  Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by …

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• IBM’s Crypto Card Now a Cloud Service from FNTS

  June 28, 2023 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that want to utilize IBM’s powerful cryptographical processor card to encrypt transactions but don’t want the hassle of buying and maintaining the setup can now tap into a new cloud-based encryption service that utilizes the IBM crypto card and is managed by First National Technology Solutions.

  Representatives with First National Technology Solutions and CLAI PAYMENTS Technologies shared details of their joint IBM i encryption solution at COMMON’s recent POWERUp conference in Denver, Colorado. An executive from IBM, which has given its blessing to the offering, was also in attendance at the session.

  The need for encryption …

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• Why The Journey To The Cloud Is Different For The IBM Power Systems Owner

  June 28, 2023 Tom Horan

  The world of business is evolving rapidly, and one of the most significant transformations is the adoption of cloud computing. Cloud technology offers a wide range of benefits, including scalability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency. However, all organizations embark on unique journeys when it comes to the cloud.

  IBM Power Systems customers have never had so many different choices for how they deploy their infrastructure. With the cloud options becoming more and more validated and the massive shift in how many companies operate, migrating to the cloud has become the center of the conversation.

  The Cloud Evolution

  Before diving into the distinct …

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• Dr. Frank Reminisces on 35th Anniversary, Looks to Platform’s Future

  June 28, 2023 Alex Woodie

  The IBM i community came out in force last week for the 35th anniversary of the creation of the AS/400 back in 1988. IBM corralled a handful of IBM i authorities to speak during three webcasts it held for fans around the world. During a call with European community members, Frank Soltis, who developed the architecture for the S/38 and AS/400, kicked things off by declaring there was really just one platform.

  “I think one of the distinct distinctions that I have is that I worked for IBM for 45 years before retiring,” Soltis, the retired IBM chief scientist told …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, June 28

  June 28, 2023 Jenny Thomas

  Talk about going all in. IBM dropped $4.6 billion in cash this week to pick up technology spend-management platform Apptio. Compared to the $34 billion Red Hat deal of 2019, this might seem like small potatoes, but that was then and these days even IBM has had layoff and hiring freezes, so Big Blue must be feeling very confident this pick up will bolster its capabilities in cloud and automation. “Technology is changing business at a rate and pace we’ve never seen before,” IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said in the release. “To capitalize on these changes, it is essential to …

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• ALL400S Survey Continues, Goes International

  June 26, 2023 Alex Woodie

  John Rockwell, the driving force behind the ALL400S survey, was close to giving it up. Fewer and fewer people were taking the survey, and so he started telling people this would probably be his last go around. Turns out, that notice may have helped to spur a surge of interest in the survey, which is now underway. And now he’s taking the survey international, too.

  Rockwell, an independent, semi-retired IBM i programmer from Florida has been trying to accumulate a list of every IBM i shop on the planet. He shares this work openly through his ALL400s website and the …

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• Integrate 2023, The Lyrics

  June 26, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  When I was at the POWERUp conference in Denver back in late April along with my co-editor, Alex Woodie, we were sitting in the opening keynote address when Alison Butterill, IBM i offering manager, and Steve Will, IBM i chief architect, were on stage talking about the AS/400 launch and how the platform has evolved over time, there was a point in the presentation when a slide went up that listed some of the key features of the platform. I remember seeing “Innovate” and “Integrate” at the top of the list, and that sent my brain down an internal monologue …

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• Why IBM i Remote Managed Services Is The Future Of IT Support

  June 26, 2023 Christine McDowell

  Struggling to manage and safeguard your IBM i systems? Do you find yourself dealing with retiring and limited IBM i resources and unable to support growing business demands? Well, you are not alone.

  According to a recent Fresche survey, more than 70 percent of organizations that rely on IBM i are dealing with resource retirement and IT backlog — with many administrators unable to even take a vacation. IT leaders shared that they are single threaded with limited abilities to keep up and no time to innovate.

  These sentiments were echoed at this year’s POWERUp 2023 conference in Colorado where …

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• Making Git Part of Your Modernization Strategy

  June 26, 2023 Daniel Magid

  Maybe the most important part of your IBM i modernization strategy should be modernizing the tools you are using to develop and maintain your applications. Most of the application development world has moved to tools centered around using Git for version control. There is no reason IBM i developers cannot do the same thing. IBM is solidly behind this strategy with their new Merlin product and most of the change management vendors have some kind of Git integration.

  By adopting Git for version control, IBM i applications can be managed with the same tools that are being used for development …

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