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Resolving ‘Technical Debt’ With Education
April 12, 2021
This year is a better time than any to get started addressing technical debt in your business. If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that investing the time and energy into creating sound infrastructure in our business, especially in technology, can make or break a business during uncertain times. Technical debt is caused by many factors […]
ArticlesIs Your Mainframe an Unguarded Fortress?
April 12, 2021
Why too many organizations fail to implement adequate security measures on their mainframe operations and how to effectively guard your IBM Z
ArticlesOpen Mainframe Project Begins First Quarter With More Growth
April 12, 2021
As the COVID-19 pandemic began to affect daily life around the world, companies turned to digital opportunities to continue to grow their businesses and maintain regular operations in the face of changing circumstances. As the need for online resources exploded across the globe, so did interest and engagement with online communities. Throughout the pandemic, for […]
ArticlesDeveloping an Effective IBM Z Technology Planning Strategy
April 12, 2021
It’s important to account for all that the IBM Z platform can do for your organization as you build your corporate technology plan. Whether your goals are modernization, cost reduction or something else entirely, planning must be comprehensive and account for all of the technology you have and the opportunity it provides. Defining Mainframe Modernization To […]
ArticlesDefend Your Mainframe Data From Internal Threats
April 12, 2021
In some blissful past that probably never really existed, mainframe users sat in corporate offices, working on 3270 terminals, and you trusted them because you saw them every day and spoke to them regularly. Nowadays, the world isn’t like that. Mainframe users are most likely accessing the mainframe from a laptop, tablet, or phone. Many […]
ArticlesWhen Does a User Profile Become a Bottleneck?
April 7, 2021
I’ve worked with several clients recently where a user profile, which could be a group profile, has become a major system bottleneck. This issue has taken two forms: Performance issues that occur because many objects are created and deleted for a single owning user profile Availability issues because a user profile hits the limit on […]
ArticlesRegister for the ‘How Personal Experiences Shape Corporate Inclusion’ Webinar
April 1, 2021
Join us on April 28, 2021 at 11:00 CST // 12:00 EST for “How Personal Experiences Shape Corporate Inclusion”—the second webinar of the Making Our Strong Community, Stronger collaborative initiative on diversity, equity and inclusion. This collaborative initiative is inspired by a question to mainframe leaders about diversity: “What are you doing about it?” Hear […]
PodcastsDarren Surch on the Future of IBM Z, and His Unique Path to Becoming an IBM Champion
April 1, 2021
Reg Harbeck: Hi, this is Reg Harbeck and today I'm here with my friend and colleague, Darren Surch, with whom I have worked as business partners for, I’m sure it’s gotta be over 20 years now. Darren works for the Interskill online training company and he has been really active in the mainframe ecosystem including […]
ArticlesCloud POS Adoption Skyrockets in Retail Equipped With AI-Based Capabilities
April 1, 2021
Until recently, the go-to solution for most brick and mortar retail stores to save their point-of-sale (POS) data, including product price lists and transaction records, was local platforms. These include a range of solutions, from on-premises PCs or servers to larger service provider network servers. However, many retailers have been making a shift towards online […]
PodcastsJesse Gorzinski on Apache Camel and Open-Source System Lifecycles
April 1, 2021
Charlie Guarino: Hi everybody. This is Charlie Guarino. Welcome back to TechTalk. I am thrilled to have as a guest today Jesse Gorzinski, who is the business architect of open-source on IBM i, or I should really say, Lord Jesse Gorzinski. Jesse, welcome to our podcast. Jesse Gorzinski: Absolutely Charlie. Thank you for having […]
ArticlesMarketing Mainframes: A Q&A With Maemalynn Meanor
March 31, 2021
If you know anything about Zowe, the open-source mainframe initiative spearheaded by the Open Mainframe Project, it’s probably because of Maemalynn Meanor, senior PR and marketing manager, The Linux Foundation. Meanor has been managing Zowe communications since day one and has been helping share the open mainframe story to mainframers, open-source enthusiasts, and the rest […]
ArticlesMainframes and Cloud Computing
March 29, 2021
We all know what mainframes are—the best and most secure, scalable, and available computing platform—but what exactly is the cloud? Cloud computing started off as design idea on diagrams for unspecified routing and hardware, that the viewer didn’t need to worry about. The important parts of the diagram were around the cloud. More recently, the […]
PodcastsSteve Will on What’s Next for IBM i
March 29, 2021
Paul Tuohy: Hi everybody and welcome to another iTalk with Tuohy. I'm delighted to be joined today by the IBM's chief architect for IBM i, Steve Will. Hi Steve. Steve Will: Hey Paul, it's good to talk to you again. Paul: Okay so as people will notice, we're getting a little bit of […]
ArticlesWhy Having a Backup and Recovery Plan Improves IBM i Vitality
March 26, 2021
Monitoring the vitality of your IBM i system is a cornerstone of keeping your business running 24-7. A key component of IBM i’s vitality includes recovering quickly after a disaster with the least amount of disruption to your customers and revenue streams. Debbie Saugen has heard all the excuses for why a company isn’t prioritizing […]
ArticlesExploiting IBM i in a Hybrid Cloud Enterprise Architecture
March 26, 2021
Dominick Pagnotta’s career has come full circle. He began working in IT “well before Windows and Linux,” he says, and first developed applications on AS/400, or even its predecessors. He watched as technology evolved, but now, as CIO of Rochester Drug Cooperative, he oversees new employees developing applications using modern languages on IBM i. Learn how […]
ArticlesCOBOL: What’s XML Got to Do With IT?
March 24, 2021
When I first encountered the works of Thomas Aquinas, which I’m embarrassed to say wasn’t until the beginning of my Master’s degree, commenced 29 years after I completed my bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, the first thing I thought was, “This could be put into XML!” Little did I know that XML was a direct […]
ArticlesTeaching Enterprise Technology Skills With a Bootcamp Model
March 23, 2021
John Thompson, CEO, Mobile Collaborative Education Consulting (MCEC), and Cameron Seay, Ph.D. adjunct instructor at East Carolina University, appear to have very different careers at first glance. Thompson is a retired IBM senior manager and Tennessee State University (TSU) brought his company on board to leverage his expertise in the technology sector and the continually […]
ArticlesStanding Pat Is No Longer an Option With the HMC
March 19, 2021
Lifetime IBM Champion Jaqui Lynch recently wrote about why you need to upgrade to the latest HMC levels and how you can accomplish this task. Her article is full of good information, and you’ll find some great, bookmark-worthy links at the end. But here’s the thing: We―and by we, I mean consultants, along with IBM […]
ArticlesExtend the IBM i Administration Runtime Expert With Custom Plug-ins
March 18, 2021
Creating custom plug-ins for Administration Runtime Expert extends functionality
ArticlesCOBOL Supports the World’s Business Operations
March 17, 2021
“Fine wine gets better with age,” or so the phrase goes. Oddly, this aphorism also in a way applies to COBOL. It was great when it was developed, but over the 60-plus years it’s been around, it’s actually improved in some ways, even enabling many companies to enter the digital age. Reports suggesting hundreds of […]
ArticlesThe Cybersecurity Market Is Rapidly Growing
March 12, 2021
With the rise of internet usage and availability has also come an increase in cybercrimes like scamming, phishing and hacking. This has created a high demand for cybersecurity protocols and policies to help keep enterprises safe from cyber-attacks. According to a 2020 report from Global Market Insights (GMI), the cybersecurity market has been flourishing in […]
ArticlesAIX at 35 and the Layered Significance of AIX 7.3
March 10, 2021
AIX turns 35 this year. While it’s fun to look back (here’s the IBM announcement letter from 1986), there’s also ample reason to look ahead, especially since IBM recently stated that it intends to release AIX 7.3 before the end of this year. Previous AIX releases have included an open beta program, and it’s my […]
ArticlesToday’s Business Systems Run on COBOL
March 10, 2021
In my past life I was a COBOL developer. Yes, I did use Herman Hollerith 80-column punched cards to do my programming. Yes, COBOL has been around for a very long time and yes, COBOL is very alive and well in the year 2021! 60 years old and counting. Admiral Grace Hopper and COBOL Let’s […]
E-BooksTechChannel E-book: Unlocking COBOL Business Value
March 9, 2021
The ubiquity of both the IBM Z platform and COBOL programming language comes from the forethought IBM put into each in 1964 when the first mainframe was launched. COBOL was optimized for business processing with no need to recompile programs. As a result, it continues to run the world’s economy today. But many COBOL shops […]
ArticlesOverview of the IBM i Administration Runtime Expert
March 4, 2021
The IBM i Administration Runtime Expert (ARE) provides the ability to ensure your environment and application attributes remain in a consistent and expected state. Using ARE, you set up templates that define the attributes you want to verify, run the verification against your own partition or groups of partitions and review reports on any differences […]