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ALL400S provides valuable intelligence on the world of IBM i and recently shared the results of their year-end 2023 survey of AS400 and i-series businesses.

Cloud computing platforms can offer unprecedented scalability compared to traditional onsite or hosted servers, but adapting IBM i applications to x86-based cloud platforms has historically been a prohibitive challenge. But today, new solutions like Skytap and Infinite i make cloud platforms a viable option for organizations that depend on IBM i applications. We explain how in this blog.

IBM i’s RCAC functionality offers a flexible option for securing sensitive data like social security numbers, credit card numbers, and more–without requiring complex modifications to integrated applications.

Oracle has ended standard support for JD Edwards World, a longstanding ERP software for IBM i that has served many companies well for years. 

In this blog, we explain the important details you need to know if your business relies on JD Edwards World. While your organization will need to plan for a new support strategy, it does not need to give up its JD Edwards ERP system if it is still providing strong value. Third-party support can help.

If your business-critical applications are still running on this version of IBM i, now is the time to begin planning to migrate to a newer release.

In this blog, we break down the key details.

Power i / IBM i has been one of the most secure platforms around for decades. But, as we recently discussed in our debrief on the Log4j virus, no ecosystem is immune to serious risks – even Power i/IBM i. 

If your organization wants to begin taking a more systematic approach to securing its critical infrastructure, it can be hard to know where to begin. Based on our experience supporting and securing a variety of enterprise-scale Power i implementations, security audits are the ideal foundation for more robust security practices. In this blog, we explain why and provide a breakdown of how our team organizes a Power i / IBM i security audit.

IBM i 7.5 (announced May 3, 2022) is here, featuring a diverse array of enhancements that will help this environment stay as secure as possible while continuing to add new functionality. In the wake of threats like the Log4J virus, IBM continues its commitment to continually improving protections for what is already one of the most secure environments around.

In this blog, we provide a summary of some of the most important features included in the IBM i 7.5 update, followed by a more comprehensive feature list.

The retirement of a key internal IT resource can pose serious risks to a business’s operations, particularly if it is sudden or unplanned. The hiring market for specific technology skillsets is already challenging. And the labor pool is even smaller (and shrinking fast) for legacy applications. As retirement continues to diminish the availability of talent for legacy solutions, the potential disruptions caused by difficulty finding a replacement will only grow more acute.

IBMi 7.4, released in April, 2019, offers valuable new features that make this upgrade especially important. In particular, the 7.4 update offers some essential features for ensuring the most secure IBM i environment possible, including enhanced hashing for SQL queries, improved system tools, passwords, and more. 

In this blog, we discuss a report on the total cost of ownership (TCO) of IBM i and Power i servers. PSGi’s ground-level experience working with a variety of manufacturing and distribution companies across North America suggests that this IBM pairing can be extremely effective, generating substantial long-term ROI. This TCO report provides data to back our experience (and in the time since, IBM has confirmed that this ecosystem will be supported through at least 2032).