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IBMi

A collection of 324 posts

A message from IBM Bob to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot and all the other silicon-based freeloaders…

A message from IBM Bob to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot and all the other silicon-based freeloaders…

IBM Bob: Right, listen up, you bunch of overhyped algorithms! I’m inviting you all to the i-UG Conference Midlands 2026, on Tuesday 3rd November at The Mount Hotel, Wolverhampton in the UK. A whole day of IBM i, technology, networking and humans pretending they understand everything we say. There’

Stop Memorising Commands: Managing IBM i with SQL Services

Stop Memorising Commands: Managing IBM i with SQL Services

If you’ve administered IBM i for any length of time, you know the routine: run a WRKACTJOB, squint at the screen, page down, take a screenshot and paste it into a ticket. It works, but it doesn’t scale and it’s hard to automate. IBM i Services change

Subfile Maintenance with Bob

Subfile Maintenance with Bob

In my last article, found here https://powerwire.uk/putting-ibm-i-bob-through-its-paces/, I asked Bob to create a subfile program used to maintain our database table called BookP and to be honest, it did a pretty good job! Nothing fancy but an efficient and well documented program. A junior programmer could easily

A Fresh New Look for i-UG

A Fresh New Look for i-UG

We’re excited to share a fresh new look for i‑UG. A new visual identity that reflects who we are today and where we’re heading as the UK’s IBM i user community. For more than three decades, i‑UG has been a place where IBM i professionals,

Putting IBM i BOB Through Its Paces

Putting IBM i BOB Through Its Paces

My First Real Test of the New AI Assistant Artificial intelligence has been creeping steadily into the IBM i ecosystem for a while, but the arrival of IBM i BOB marks a notable shift: an AI assistant designed specifically for our platform, our tooling and our way of working. As

IBM i Journalling

IBM i Journalling

Getting Started If you've spent any time managing an IBM i server, you've probably heard the term "journaling" thrown around in conversations about high availability, disaster recovery and database integrity. Journaling is one of the most powerful and most underused, features built into IBM

Replace Native IO with Embedded SQL

Replace Native IO with Embedded SQL

If you've been writing RPG for more than a few years, chances are your programs are full of CHAIN, SETLL, READE and UPDATE operations against physical and logical files. It works. It's fast. It's also increasingly the wrong default. Embedded SQL in RPGLE isn&

Be Committed to using Commit

Be Committed to using Commit

A few weeks ago a call came in from a customer. A SQL delete statement had been executed on one of the tables on the production system. Immediately after having pressed enter, the error was detected. In order to determine what needed to be done to repair the damage, I

IBM FlashSystem and IBM i: Built for the Ransomware Era

IBM FlashSystem and IBM i: Built for the Ransomware Era

For IBM i shops, operational resilience isn’t a feature you can turn on later, it’s the price of admission. The new IBM FlashSystem 5600, 7600 and 9600 don’t just raise the bar on performance; they rethink what storage-level protection looks like for mission-critical workloads. Being able to

Stay up to Date with RPG Enhancements

Stay up to Date with RPG Enhancements

If you’ve been developing on IBM i for a long time, you’ll know that RPG has a reputation for being stable, reliable… and quiet. Enhancements arrive steadily, but rarely with fanfare. As a result, many IBM i shops are still writing RPG that looks and behaves much like

The IBM i Skills You Need Are Already In‑House

The IBM i Skills You Need Are Already In‑House

The "Great Retirement" of the mid-2020s is no longer a theoretical threat discussed in boardrooms; it is a daily operational reality. As we move through April 2026, the IBM i community faces a unique inconsistency. The platform is more capable than ever, powering global supply chains, hybrid cloud

Check Object Integrity

Check Object Integrity

One of the challenges of today’s world is how to keep informed. For that reason, I have subscribed to the IBM website https://www.ibm.com/support/mynotifications. First of all, you need an IBM ID, which you may already have, to be able to subscribe to the products

Hello Bob!

The landscape of AI-powered development tools is evolving rapidly and IBM has entered the arena with a distinctive offering. IBM Bob, announced in October 2024, represents the company's answer to GitHub Copilot and similar AI coding assistants, but with a distinctly enterprise-focused approach that sets it apart from

i-UG (UK) Announces 2026 Summer i-Power Event

i-UG (UK) Announces 2026 Summer i-Power Event

Join us for the 2026 Summer i-Power Event! The i-UG (UK) is thrilled to announce that the 2026 Summer i-Power event will be held at Leonardo's Hotel in the heart of Milton Keynes on the 2nd and 3rd of June next year. This event promises to bring together

Featured Featured

MFA: A Complete Guide to Affected Areas - Part 2

This article continues our deep dive into Multi, Factor Authentication (MFA) on IBM i, focusing on the new features introduced in version 7.6. If you’re new to MFA or need a refresher, you can start with the first part of this series, What is Multi, Factor Authentication? available

Featured Featured

MFA: A Complete Guide to Affected Areas - Part 1

This article continues our deep dive into Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) on IBM i, focusing on the new features introduced in version 7.6 If you’re new to MFA or need a refresher, you can start with the first part of this series, What is Multi, Factor Authentication? available

ACS Enhancements 1.1.9.9

A month ago, IBM i Access Client Solutions 1.1.9.9 was released. Probably you have it already running and are using it in your IBM i environment. I have already come across a lot of articles informing you about the new functionality added to ACS 1.1.9.

What is Multi-Factor Authentication?

Why Your Digital Life Depends on It! IBM’s latest release, IBM i 7.6, brings a major security upgrade to our favourite server: Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). This built-in feature is a game-changer and it’s something every admin should know about. Implementing MFA can feel like a daunting task,

Node-RED Version 4

The Node-RED project has recently unveiled a major new release, version 4.0, which introduces a host of enhancements focused on improving the development experience, collaboration and long-term flow maintenance. This article provides a detailed look at the key changes that make this new version a significant upgrade for developers

Change IPL Attributes

In the IBM i world, when dealing with High Availability and Disaster Recovery the history started with software replication, no matter which product you started or are still using, starting the printers has always been one of my concerns. I only wanted the printers to be starting on the production

Stretch Imagination with SQL Part 2

Article Summary: This article is about tackling a fun SQL challenge. The goal was to parse a spool file in a different way than usual, so I could show how to display the data in a table and automate the process. I also wanted to demonstrate how to handle repeating

i-UG i-Power 2025: The Premier IBM i Event in the UK

The i-UG i-Power 2025 Conference is set to be one of the most exciting events for IBM i professionals in the UK. Taking place at the Mercure Northampton Hotel, this flagship event brings together industry experts, developers, and IT professionals to explore the latest advancements in IBM i technology. The

Stretch Imagination with SQL Part1

Scenario: Let’s take a simple query like select * from qsys2.SYSTEM_STATUS_INFO It gives quite useful information, right? In fact, 109 columns of information that I have to scroll through all right through the screen. And so forth. Now, what if I want to track these metrics, say

Your Guide to Using cURL

At the two recent i-UG (the largest IBM i User Group in the UK), I gave a presentation about three great open-source utilities on the IBM i. Those being: cURL LFTP rSync Having just checked, I have written about the last two on PowerWire, so for completeness, I must write

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.