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TechChannel Unveils Interactive Content Platform

What you need to know about TechChannel’s new content platform and partner offerings

iChime: A Virtual IBM i Community

How a casual Zoom meetup turned into a vibrant virtual community fostering IBM i education and connection across the globe

Recognizing TechChannel’s 2023 IBM Champions

The IBM Champions program recognizes technology professionals worldwide who work with and advocate for IBM solutions. Since its formal launch (or relaunch) in 2015, the program has grown rapidly. In January when IBM announced the 2023 Champions, a total of 839 individuals representing 60 countries were recognized. At TechChannel, we have the good fortune of […]

Hanging Out (Virtually) with IBM Champions, Upgrading an Older HMC and More

In January IBM announced its latest class of IBM Champions. As is noted in that blog entry, “This year’s 839 IBM Champions come from 60 countries; 68% of them have been IBM Champions before and are returning to the program, including our 30 Lifetime IBM Champions.” That I am one of those 30 Lifetime Champions […]

The Path to an IBM i Career: Lessons from TechChannel’s Rising Stars

imPower Technologies’ founders Jim Buck and Michelle Lyons were delighted to see several of their past students on TechChannel’s list of 2022 Power Systems Rising Stars. It was less about their courses being mentioned and more about seeing young developers taking lead roles in the community at large. “We are so proud of these talented […]

Scott Klement on REST APIs, DevOps and CICD

Note: This podcast transcript is lightly edited for clarity. Paul Tuohy: Welcome to another iTalk Business with Tuohy. I was about to say it’s great to be joined by an old friend, but when I say old friend, I think just old in that we’ve known each other for awhile. Because you’re nowhere near as […]

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HMC, BMC, VMI, eBMC, FSP, Oh My!

In the beginning of the HMC era life was simple. We had an x86 HMC connected to the FSP (Flexible Service Processor) of the server. You could have redundant HMCs if you wanted, as well. With the migration to the Power HMCs until Power10 we have a BMC (baseboard management controller) in the HMC, and […]

DevOps and Hybrid Cloud: A Q+A With Rosalind Radcliffe

Much of Rosalind Radcliffe’s career has been spent ensuring DevOps can be cross platform and cross enterprise, including zSystems as part of hybrid cloud. Most recently, Radcliffe, IBM Fellow and CIO DevSecOps CTO, moved to the client side in the IBM CIO organization, a customer of the DevSecOps products. The IBM CIO’s office is responsible […]

Visualize System Monitor Data for IBM i

My blog Getting Started with IBM i Navigator System Monitors, Revisited explained how to set up system monitors in Navigator for i. Once you have system monitors up and running, you will want to look at the monitor data on a regular basis. There are three options:  Visualize Monitor Data, Visualize Monitor Data (new tab) […]

Building Computing Skills Through the IBM zStudent Contest

Last year, more than 25,000 contestants participated in the 2022 IBM zStudent Contest, designed to teach participants computing skills and help them gain an edge in the enterprise computing industry. This year’s contest centered on sustainable energy, guiding participants through challenges to collect battery parts for an electric vehicle. Students learn and use JCL, z/OS, […]

Women of COBOL Celebrates International Women’s Day

Since 2021, the Women of COBOL video series has been uncovering and overcoming unconscious biases about COBOL and women in technology. What inspired the series? Moderator Misty Decker, director of worldwide AMC product marketing at OpenText (formerly Micro Focus), says, “I have been in the mainframe ecosystem for 30 years now. Over the years, I’ve […]

IBM and Cohesity Collaborate to Offer New Security Solution

On March 2, IBM announced that it is partnering with Cohesity to offer a new Storage Defender solution that includes IBM Storage Protect, IBM Storage FlashSystems, IBM Storage Fusion, and Cohesity DataProtect. IBM Storage Defender uses AI and event monitoring to combat the impacts of breaches and cyberattacks as security risks rise in today’s data-driven […]

Feet of Iron, Heads of Clay: The Counterintuitive Persistence of Legacy Technology

COBOL and the IBM mainframe are nerds. I’ll explain shortly, but first… The term “feet of clay” has become a common part of our language, referring to leaders, organizations and initiatives that have unreliable foundational traits despite the best and most visionary of intentions. Of course, the subtle implications often include that those very attractive […]

A Deep Dive Into Deep Fakes With Dr. Ilke Demir

Charlie Guarino: Hi everybody. This is Charlie Guarino. Welcome to another edition of TechTalk SMB. I’m really thrilled to have join me somebody that I have been reading so much about and have watched so many videos on, and it’s a real delight to have her here. I’m talking about Dr. Ilke Demir, and let me […]

Teaching the New Class of Mainframe Architects

For Bobby Houston, hybrid cloud architect at Kyndryl, the best part about the mainframe is the people. Pat Stanard, Houston’s mentor and chief mainframe architect at Kyndryl, is one of those people. Houston and Stanard met through Aspiring Architects, a program started by Stanard that prepares participants for careers in mainframe architecture. Bobby went through […]

Getting Started with IBM i Navigator System Monitors, Revisited

Dawn May explains how to set up system monitors in Navigator for i

Networking, Hanging NIM Operations and AIX Quirks

I enjoyed this perspective on the Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) from IBM Champion Andrey Klyachkin: “You know this eternal problem, don’t you? Datacenter guys laid the cable from an AIX server to some port on some network switch. Of course, everything was written on some sheet of paper many years ago. But years went after […]

The Staying Power of IBM i: Ask ChatGPT, IBM i Users or IBM

As I mentioned in my last post, IBM i celebrates 35 years in 2023. That’s 35 years of providing an integrated platform which reliably runs businesses of all sizes—and doing it in a way that not only satisfies our customers, but it does it so well that a vast majority of our IBM i users […]

IBM Announces 2023 IBM Power Strategy

Today, IBM announced several updates to IBM Power, as well as its 2023 strategy for IBM Power clients and partners. Ken King, general manager of IBM Power, says, “It is well known but worth reiterating that IBM Power is designed for mission-critical workloads that require superior availability, reliability, security and performance. In other words, it’s […]

Westley McDuffie on Zero Trust and Data Security

Charlie Guarino: Hi everybody. Welcome to yet another edition of TechTalk SMB. In today’s podcast I am really thrilled to be sitting here with Westley McDuffie. Westley is an IBM security evangelist working with the federal sales team supporting DOD and the intelligence community clients. Westley is responsible for educating IBM’s federal customers, from building […]

Alerting for System Limits on IBM i

IBM i automatically tracks many system limits and allows you to review these limits using various IBM i services, such as the QSYS2.SYSLIMITS view. There are many monitored categories, such as database, journal, work management and file system limits. See the System Health Services topic in the IBM i Knowledge Center for the full list […]

Closing the Mainframe Information Gap Through Education

If you’re reading this, you likely don’t need to be told that a mainframe career is very rewarding. The pay is excellent, the opportunity to work with world-class technology is exciting and the profession is filled with supportive people who are passionate about the platform. Dr. Cameron Seay, an adjunct professor at East Carolina University […]

Problem-Solving via the Internet, the Importance of Patching and More

Recently, I helped mount a filesystem on a Windows system that was being exported from an AIX system. The client wasn’t sure it would work—and there were challenges—but fortunately I found some guidance by googling. Following these instructions, I was able to export a test filesystem from an AIX machine in my lab. Then I […]

The Art of Coding: Teaching the Next Generation of Coders

Many of today’s most in-demand skills at U.S. organizations are computer science-based, and coding tops the list. However, industries across the globe have voiced their concern over the lack of tech skills among high-school and college graduates. Of course, every country has its own projections for coders: Some project a labor market job growth of […]

Mainframe, Security and More: A Review of 2022 and a Look at 2023

2022 was the year people decided whether they wanted to go back to working in an office environment, or whether they preferred to work from home. At some organizations, management feared they would lose control of employees they couldn’t see all day. Other companies trusted their staff to complete tasks at times that suited them—given […]