Welcoming the IBM Community

Category: IBM i

  • IBM i 7.6 Release

    IBM i 7.6 Release

    From Steve Will on the 8th April 2025 Happy new release day IBM i community! Welcome to 2025 and my first blog of the year. We are starting the new year off with a big one, as today we announce IBM i 7.6 and IBM i 7.5 TR6. Anyone following closely in the community, or…

  • Say Hello to IBMi 7.6

    Say Hello to IBMi 7.6

    Big, Bold & Better Than Ever! Attention, IBMi fans! The wait is over, and the latest and greatest version—IBMi 7.6—is finally here. Who would have guessed that name! Let us have a quick light-hearted look at this release. We cannot be serious all the time. If IBMi were a superhero, this release would be its…

  • Collection Services Q & R

    Collection Services Q & R

    The “R” in the title is no typo, no Q & A this time. The “R” does refer to the name Collection Services Collection in the screen shot, which is available in two flavours, but what is the difference? Well, that is a question that is easy to answer. There are two kinds of collection…

  • The Year of Many Changes

    The Year of Many Changes

    2025 began a month ago. It is now February 2025, and we are back to our daily responsibilities: tickets, customer calls, and our regular routines. We’ve already forgotten our New Year’s resolutions. Let me remind you of a few tasks you need to accomplish this year. Buy a Power10 server This is the most important…

  • Choosing the Right Language on IBM i

    Choosing the Right Language on IBM i

    RPG, ILE, SQL & Open-Source Programming Our grandchildren have just started secondary school and along with the expected French, Spanish and German they have been offered Mandarin. Everyone has welcomed this as ‘moving with the times’ and adding another ‘useful string to their bow’. In this ever-shrinking world it is an advantage to be multi-lingual.…

  • Mapepire Introduction

    Mapepire Introduction

    In my last couple of articles, I have shown python accessing data on the IBM i, accessing both DB2 for i and SQLite. The SQLite article used an SQLite package to get the data, and for the DB2 for i example I used ODBC to retrieve data from the IBM i. In this article I’ll…

  • noxDB Intro

    noxDB Intro

    In November 2024 I was invited to the Benelux Common conference in the Netherlands to give a couple of workshops, and what a great event it was. I had the opportunity to meet up with a good friend of mine Niells Liisberg from Denmark, where we had time to look at a couple of projects…

  • Passwords: Looking Ahead

    Passwords: Looking Ahead

    Be it auditors, the recent NIS2 Directive , or just common sense, stepping away from IBM i user profiles with never expiring passwords has always been the better choice. Since IBM i has been around for quite some time, a lot of the security options have gotten a bit long in the tooth. For sure,…

  • Open Ports on IBM i

    Open Ports on IBM i

    In this article I will talk about another great open-source utility for our IBM i. A couple of years ago I wrote an article on a great open-source utility called Service Command. It can be found at this link. As part of this package, we have a command called SCOPENPORTS. I will show what a…

  • Where Are You Listening?

    Where Are You Listening?

    Security is hard to ignore these days and for good reason. So, adding TLS to all IBM i applications is a logical step to take. For sure there are the well know ports, for which it is not hard to guess by which application they are used. Well-know Ports Service Port Function HTTP 80 Web…

  • Python DB2 for i Access

    Python DB2 for i Access

    Introduction In my previous article, I wrote about how to access a SQLite database and output the SQL resultset in a neat table. If you need a recap, my previous article can be found at this link. In this article I will show you how to access a DB2 for i table, and like my…

  • 30 Years of Db2 on IBM i

    30 Years of Db2 on IBM i

    August 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of Db2 on IBM i and its predecessor platforms – iSeries & AS/400. Those of you who follow the platform closely might think that my mathematic skills are lacking since IBM i celebrated its 35th anniversary last year in 2023. Obviously, that’s a gap of 5 years. Does that…