Welcome to another edition of Talsco Weekly

IBM i Brief: 📚 IBM i and System Z Hold Firm in the Face of Cloud Pressure. To the clouds and back again.
AI: 📊 IBM AI Research Unveils API-BLEND: A Game-Changing Resource for AI.
Development: 🖥️ Raspberry Pi single-board computer. 📈 IBM i Marketplace Survey: 2024 Insights.
Security: 📈 AAG/NG4i updates surge through 2023. 🔒 NSA releases Top Ten Cloud Security Mitigation Strategies.
Resources: Your Ultimate IBM i Resource: Development, Analysis, and Administration Solutions at Your Fingertips.

IBM i Brief

📚 IBM i and System Z Hold Firm in the Face of Cloud Pressure

Despite the IT industry’s push towards cloud migration, IBM i and System Z users, including American trucking firms, remain loyal to their tried-and-tested on-prem systems. These legacy technologies, while viewed as “old tech,” continue to provide value and stability, leading many to question the rush towards cloud adoption driven by new tech trends.

While there is a clear move to the cloud for certain workloads, and various application needs, there is a large portion of the IBM i community as noted in this article, that will never move their mission critical applications to the cloud.

In fact, some that do, might move back.

To the clouds and back again

This brings me back to a Talsco Weekly issue from back in 2022 and an important question that every IBM i shop should be asking themselves.

Is The Cloud, the best solution for every IBM i shop?

In reality, it appears that many IBM i shops might have a different take on the Cloud. While some might embrace it, others will not.

Here is an example from outside the IBM i ecosystem, but it is relevant here.

A well-known project management software company, Basecamp, has been running partially in the cloud (hybrid) for more than a decade.

And now, they are thinking about leaving.

They run:

“extensively in both Amazon’s cloud and Google’s cloud. We’ve run on bare virtual machines, we’ve run on Kubernetes. We’ve seen all the cloud has to offer, and tried most of it.

In their case, they have concluded:

“Renting computers is (mostly) a bad deal for medium-sized companies like ours with stable growth. The savings promised in reduced complexity never materialized.”

Does this mean having the cloud as part of your solution is wrong? And how does this relate to the IBM i?

Read the full article.

AI

📊 IBM AI Research Unveils API-BLEND: A Game-Changing Resource for AI

API-BLEND revolutionizes AI systems by enhancing Large Language Models’ (LLMs) capability to execute tasks via diverse API interactions. This groundbreaking dataset, diverging from synthetic data reliance, facilitates model training and benchmarking with over 178,000 instances focusing on sequence tasks. With its innovative curation approach and superior performance in out-of-domain generalization, API-BLEND propels AI development toward real-world functionality and adaptability.

Development

IBM i: The ‘i’ stands for integration, and open-source solutions are one way to unlock new possibilities as well as extending the reach of the IBM i platform.

Open source = community-driven

Here is one IBM i solution that has been entirely built with Open Source.

🖥️ Raspberry Pi single-board computer

We undertook a project to add IBM i monitoring to Nagios using Raspberry Pi and the NEMS distribution. It was a cost-effective solution for smaller customers looking for efficient monitoring. Despite initial challenges with support and performance, we developed our own Nagios Core Monitoring Stack using Raspberry Pi hardware, ensuring reliable monitoring for multiple systems.

📈 IBM i Marketplace Survey: 2024 Insights

What development tools are IBM i professionals using for new apps? Results reveal 80% using ADTS (SEU, PDM, etc.), with a decline in RDi usage to 56% and VS Code gains traction at 37%, while Merlin holds just 1%. RPG remains top language at 89%, with minor fluctuations seen in other languages like COBOL and SQL.

Key Takeaway: RPG continues to be the go-to language of choice because free form RPG “looks and acts like other languages which also makes it easier for the new generations of developers to learn.

Security

📈 AAG/NG4i updates surge through 2023

The product now boasts over 180 checks, enhanced IBM i features, and improved Nagios XI integration. New HMC wizard and security scripts cater to CIO concerns. Multi-language support expansion is underway. AAG/NG4i aims to lead in IBM i and Power HMC monitoring, focusing on performance and usability enhancements. Demos are available for interested parties.

🔒 NSA releases Top Ten Cloud Security Mitigation Strategies

The National Security Agency and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency team up to provide crucial cloud security practices. With reports covering key areas like data protection and network encryption, cloud users are equipped to safeguard their information effectively. Director Rob Joyce emphasizes the importance of proper cloud implementation and adherence to security measures to prevent data breaches.

Resources

Your Ultimate IBM i Resource: Development, Analysis, and Administration Solutions at Your Fingertips

The IBM i References Pages Blog, is another reason why the IBM i community is so amazing. For Michael Mayer, it started as a way to keep track of and organize all the research and analysis he has done over the years.

As he puts it:

The goal is for this to be a one-stop discovery for almost anything you may need to help or enhance your IBM i job or analysis.

The blog was born from extensive research conducted over the years to aid in navigating the system without the benefit of IBM support contracts. Over the years, it has resulted in hundreds of Google bookmarks, encompassing a vast array of sites.

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