For over a decade, the IBM i community has looked to the annual marketplace survey to benchmark trends and plan for the future. The 2026 IBM i Marketplace Survey Results by FORTRA, representing the viewpoints of 320 IBM i professionals worldwide, reveals a significant shift in the landscape. While stability and reliability remain the platform’s…
The IBM i community recently welcomed a new member to its open-source family: Mapepire. Named after a South American pit viper (pronounced MAH-pup-ee), this tool isn’t something to fear. In fact, it’s a venomous strike against the legacy headaches often associated with database connectivity. It addresses the complexities of traditional ODBC and JDBC drivers, offering…
In the world of enterprise IT, the IBM i (formerly AS/400) is a powerhouse of reliability. However, it often exists as an island. On one side, you have the IBM i Administrators, the guardians of uptime and performance. On the other, the Security and Compliance Officers, the guardians of data integrity and regulatory standards. IBM…
IBM i security discussions usually focus on special authorities, exit programs, and object-level permissions. Very few discussions go deep into object ownership chains, even though they can silently bypass carefully designed authority models. Ownership chains exist by design. They simplify application execution. But in real environments—especially legacy-heavy systems—they create unintended privilege escalation paths that remain…
One of the reasons organizations trust IBM i is its stability. An IBM i system can run for months—or even years—without a restart. Still, certain maintenance tasks, configuration changes, or recovery situations require you to stop and start the system correctly. In this post, I’ll explain how IBM i starts, how users sign on, and…
Hey IBM i folks! IBM i is often described as a secure-by-design platform. This reputation does not come from object authority alone, but from a layered security architecture that allows administrators to intercept, inspect, and control how users and applications interact with the system. One of the most powerful—and often misunderstood—components of this architecture is…
If you are new to IBM i operations or if you want to strengthen your fundamentals, this post will walk you through the core operational areas every IBM i administrator must understand. Think of this as your practical foundation before you move into security, performance tuning, backups, and automation. In this first part of the…
In the world of IBM i, the “reboot” process is far more sophisticated than just turning a machine off and on. Understanding how the system manages its code across different “Sides” and “Modes” is the difference between a seamless update and a total system outage. These concepts form the backbone of safe PTF management on…
If you manage an IBM i environment, you know that keeping your system stable isn’t just a “good idea”—it’s a necessity. Whether your IBM i system runs critical business apps or backend services, keeping your system patched and reliable is non-negotiable. That’s where PTFs come in — and if you’ve ever hesitated before installing one,…
IBM i Access Client Solutions provides a Java based, platform-independent interface that runs on most operating systems that support Java, including Linux, Mac, and Windows™. IBM i Access Client Solutions consolidates the most commonly used tasks for managing your IBM i into one simplified location. The current version of IBM i Access Client Solutions is available to…
