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Extending Cyberresilience Capabilities

Managing and maintaining storage networks was never easy, but over the past two years, the responsibilities and challenges that come with the job have multiplied and diversified. Administrators must provide secure access to networks that extend beyond virtual corporate boundaries to serve an ever-growing work from home user base. Ransomware and other threats to data […]

Top Reasons to Love AIX

IBM Champion Rob McNelly highlights his top reasons to love the Power Systems, IBM i and AIX ecosystems

IBM Announces Hybrid Cloud Developments to Accelerate Transformation and Simplify Modernization for Clients

In the next step of its roadmap to bring IBM Z and IBM Cloud closer together, IBM has announced Wazi as-a-Service and other key hybrid cloud developments Today, IBM announced a key hybrid cloud development to help clients modernize: IBM Wazi as-a-Service (Wazi aaS), which will bring z/OS development and test-as-a-service to the public cloud […]

IBM Notifications, AIX Migration Tips and More

IBM Champion Rob McNelly on AIX migration tips and tricks, new Power10 performance information, IBM’s updated firmware release schedule and more

How to Leverage RPG and RDi as Modern Development Business Tools

RPG is more than a programming language—it’s a business tool that’s integrated neatly within IBM i, making it a must-have in any developer’s toolkit. Combined, RDi serves as an extension of RPG’s capabilities. This e-book features insight from experts including IBM’s Tim Rowe, Central Park Data Systems’ Charlie Guarino and veteran RPG programmer and developer […]

How to Send Messages to a Slack Channel From a JCL Job That Executes on z/OS

It’s very easy to send messages to a Slack channel from a JCL Job that executes on z/OS. You can achieve this by following the steps below: NOTE: I worked on this proof-of-concept (POC) project on my local Windows machine and therefore, it’s assumed that all instructions pertaining to this POC are tried out by […]

VIO Server Update Tips and Tricks

Last month I presented on VIOS Top Tips to the Power Virtual Users Group. During and after that presentation I picked up some tips that I would like to share here. Many thanks to those who asked questions and provided suggestions during the session. Further reading added a few more tips as well. The tips […]

IBM Announces Next-Gen FlashSystem Storage Offerings

Today, IBM announced the new IBM FlashSystem Cyber Vault, designed to help companies better detect and more quickly recover from ransomware and other cyberattacks. It’s part of a comprehensive suite of data resilience solutions, streamlining all phases of cyberattack recovery and reduce overall recovery time from days to just hours. IBM also released new FlashSystem storage models […]

How Collaboration and Education Can Help Close the IBM Z and COBOL Skills Gap

How do we maintain interest from new IBM Z and COBOL talent? The keys seem to be: education, collaboration and fun. Dr. Cameron Seay, for example, has taught both COBOL and IBM Z at different schools. It’s not that no one is interested in learning about them; it’s just that the information needs to be […]

New to i COMMON Community

Everyone has a point in their career where they look back to and say “Ah, yes that is when … ” a decision, person or event had a significant impact on their career. That is what COMMON’s New to IBM i (N2i) community is trying to do. We are working to bridge that gap from […]

Steve Ferrell on RDi Development

Charlie Guarino: Hi everybody. This is Charlie Guarino. Welcome to another edition of TechTalk SMB. I'm very happy today to be joined by the principal software engineer and the team lead of Rational Developer for IBM i (RDi) at HelpSystems, Steve Ferrell. Steve, welcome to the podcast today.   Steve Ferrell: Thanks, Charlie. Glad to be here. […]

Jeff Cherrington on Rocket Software’s Evolution and IBM Z Contributions

Reg Harbeck: Hi, this is Reg Harbeck and today I'm here with my friend and colleague Jeff Cherrington who is the vice president of product management, Z Systems—I think I missed a word or two there—at Rocket Software. So, Jeff, I guess what we're going to talk about today is just the whole journey that Rocket […]

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Mainframe and IT 2021 Review, With a Look Toward 2022

2020 continued into 2021, giving us more of the COVID-19 era’s new normal. The Oxford Dictionary’s 2021 Word of the Year was “vax”—like vax sites, vax cards, getting vaxxed and being fully vaxxed. Collins Dictionary chose non-fungible token (NFT) as its word of the year. An NFT is a unique and non-interchangeable unit of data—e.g., […]

Streamline Fintech Data Management With IBM Hyper Protect Services

Many banks and financial institutions are modernizing their IT systems and applications to become more agile and responsive by adopting a hybrid multicloud strategy, which involves minimal lift and shift. IBM is a major provider of hardware, software and services that are geared towards helping customers through their mainframe modernization journey. The process of migrating […]

AIX and Power Systems 2021 Review, and a Look Toward 2022

IBM Champion Rob McNelly highlights key AIX and Power Systems 2021 milestones, and reflects on what’s to come in 2022

Send Messages to a Telegram Bot from a JCL Job that Executes on z/OS

A JCL Job that executes on z/OS actually can send messages to a Telegram Bot, and I’ll demonstrate how to achieve this through a series of steps.As a note, I worked on this proof-of-concept (POC) project on my Windows machine. Therefore, all instructions pertaining to this POC should be done on a system running Microsoft […]

10 Hidden Gems in the RPM Pile

From JSON Query Utility, to LFTP, to Service Commander and more, Jesse Gorzinski highlights 10 hidden open-source gems in the RPM pile

Readers Respond: Updating VIOS on POWER7, and a Simplified invscout Script

IBM Champion Rob McNelly reflects on what he’s learned from readers—from mixed results updating VIOS on POWER7 to a cleaned-up invscout script

Mainframe Strategy: Identifying and Solving Common IBM Z Issues

One of my recent clients was a Fortune 100 company utilizing many mainframes and all of the complexities that go with it. My client had robust availability, resiliency everywhere, and redundancy exactly where you expect it. They had a multitude of highly skilled individuals keeping their infrastructure and applications running smoothly. They also had an […]

A Simplified Approach to Understanding z/OS Performance

Knowing and understanding the performance of z/OS systems has always been important for enterprises as mission-critical business processes run in z/OS systems. Each mainframe shop has its own way of dealing with performance, which is a factor of in-house skills. As deep technical skills are becoming rare, a simplified approach to z/OS performance can help […]

AIX 7.3 and HMC v10 Upgrades

In late 2021, IBM released the final versions of HMC v10 and AIX v7.3. Below is a summary of my experiences upgrading my HMC to v10 and a couple of LPARs to AIX v7.3 HMC v10 Upgrades on Your POWERHMC The first step for me is to login to the BMC interface on the HMC […]

Counting the Benefits Part 2: IBM Z and the Global Economy

In Part 1 of this article, I set the stage for recognizing that the IBM Z mainframe has many relevant differentiators that need to be specifically accounted for in RPFs and cost-benefits analyses in order to create a fair playing field where implicit strengths of the mainframe are not assumed as being part of other […]

Speech-to-Text Conversion Using Python

In this tutorial from Subhasish Sarkar, learn how to build a basic speech-to-text engine using simple Python script

The Value of a COMMON Membership

In my last post, I wrote about IBM i resources for continuous learning. This week, I want to talk about COMMONand the value of a COMMON membership. COMMON is a non-profit organization whose mission is to enhance the careers of its members through education, certification, advocacy and networking. Many associate COMMON with the annual conference, but […]

Paving a Path Forward on IBM i and AIX

As organizations accelerate their digital transformations, IBM i and AIX partners and customers are re-evaluating their approach and planning their path forward. While the pandemic added new challenges, many organizations are facing the same or similar challenges that were present before COVID-19 and now are just at a heightened level of importance. Modernizing RPG Applications […]