Leave a ticket on the helpdesk if you cant find what you need or have a request for a new lesson or blog
This week I am helping a client migrate their trusty old AS/400 to a shiny brand-new Power System in the Cloud – disclaimer “they call it an AS400, not me” 😉 This glorious old machine has been quietly running IBM-i V7R1, unattended in the corner of a darkened office for a decade. The system admin …
VPN, in plain English A VPN is a private tunnel across the public internet. Think of the internet as a busy high street. Without a VPN, your staff walk that street carrying the company keys. Anyone standing nearby can watch. With a VPN they go through a locked corridor. Same destination. Far fewer strangers. That …
I am in the middle of helping a client lift a physical Power System out of the computer room and onto a cloud IBM i partition. Same workloads. Same legacy ERP system (RPG, CL and AS400 style physical files) that have paid the bills for years. The transition should be seamless to the end users. …
IBM i ACS 1.1.9.14 is now available – a security-focused update you should apply promptly. IBM released ACS 1.1.9.14 on 5 August 2026 (build 6320), and this is primarily a security-focused update, not a feature release. This might not look like an exciting feature-packed release, but it is important. Even though there are no new …
From AS/400 Fossils to Modern IBM i SQL: The Practical Path That Doesn’t Break Everything I’ve just knocked out a short series of practical lessons on dragging classic AS/400 databases into the 21st century with proper IBM i SQL [more] We’re taking those ancient DDS Physical Files and Logical Files and turning them into grown-up …
There is a special breed of IBM i programmer who will fight you to the death over the name of the box. Call it an IBM i Power system and watch their blood pressure climb. Mention Power Systems running IBM i and they start twitching. No, they insist, it is still an AS/400, always has …
As I like to tell IBM i clients: the goal isn’t to get rid of the AS/400 database. It’s to discover that you’ve actually been running one of the world’s best SQL databases all along. The Advantages of Modernizing an Old AS/400 Database to Modern SQL If you are still rocking physical files defined in …
The 3am Wake-Up Call You Didn’t Need: Service Account Password Expiration If your web services or overnight batch jobs have ever thrown a wobbly because a password decided to expire at the worst possible moment, you are not alone. On IBM i systems, password expiration is one of those security features that works brilliantly for …
Mapepire, a type of pit viper native to South America, is IBM’s new interface layer for IBM-i. Mapepire boasts a logo that’s arguably the best creation from Big Blue since the original IBM emblem. As for how to say it, IBM-i Mapepire GitHub says Mapepire is pronounced ‘mapəpɪə’ or ‘MAH-pup-ee’ which seems nonsense to me! I’ve …
Perhaps the question is really “Is using AI to write code, or at least using AI as a coding assistant, the Future of IBM i Development?“ Well, I reckon AI is absolutely going to be a big part of the future for IBM i development, but it‘s not (yet) able to wave a magic wand …
Hey there, esteemed IBM i beginners and learners! If you have already powered through my earlier post over at https://www.nicklitten.com/10-essential-ibm-i-commands-every-beginner-must-master/ then you are probably feeling pretty comfortable at the green screen by now. Excellent work! Today, as a direct follow-up, I am going to whip through ten more everyday commands that every new IBM i …
If you are just getting started with IBM i systems or you need a solid refresher on how the database really works under the hood, you have landed in the right place. Today we are going to walk through the complete hierarchy of IBM i data structures in a clear, step by step way. We …
