The iTech Blog

B2B Podcasts – Do You Know What You’re Missing?

Posted on November 20, 2019

There’s no doubt that podcasts have become the new media Goliath. Podcasting is seeing rapid growth year over year. According to Podcast Insights1, 51% of the US Population (approximately 144 million people) have listened to a podcast, with this number being up from 44% in 2018. Hundreds of new podcasts are being developed daily with no end to this growth trend in sight. Podcasting is a go-to source for entertainment, education, and news; mostly produced on for the traditional B2C consumer. However, there’s a growing trend of educational entertainment that…

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Tagged with: b2b podcast, IBM i, ibm i podcast, ipower hour

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POWER9 – Which is Better: Internal or External Storage?

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Most IBM i customers have an ERP package on their IBM Power server that runs their business. Typically, a small or mid-sized company can comfortably operate with one Power9 core activation, that provides a CPW of 13,125. The IBM Power9 model S914 has two processor options, a 4-core, and a 6-core. Which one do you get if you only need 1 core activation? The 4-core server is physically the same as the 6-core server, except for the processor and the other differences shown in the table below. Feature 4-core 6-core…

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What to Know About IBM i 7.3 TR7 and 7.4 TR1

Posted on October 21, 2019

IBM i 7.3 TR7 and 7.4 TR1 were announced during IBM Tech U and will be generally available on November 16, 2019. This refresh includes many enhancements to improve further the reliability, availability, and security of your IBM i environment. Some of the major enhancements are focused on DB2 Mirror for IBM i, enhancements to help developers modernize, increased security, and support for new hardware. I’m going to highlight some of the features that improve the security and administration of your system. There are also many enhancements for RDi that…

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It’s Domino Renewal Time

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We have some great news! As of just recently, iTech Solutions has become an HCL Business Partner. What does that mean for you? For starters, iTech can now review your existing IBM maintenance agreements for the following products: Notes Domino Connections Sametime And more! Why should we review your maintenance agreements before renewal? Most importantly, you need to ensure that you’re compliant. Let’s say your business has grown over the last few years and you’re 40% under the licenses you should have. Or perhaps your business has reduced in size…

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Five Reasons IBM i Shops Are Considering VTL Solutions

Posted on September 24, 2019

It’s plain and simple. You must execute backups daily. No excuses! It’s not just about being able to recover in a disaster; you also need to be able to recover a file that is accidentally overwritten or deleted. If you have high availability and you think you don’t need to back up every day, you really should reconsider your strategy. Replication ensures that your target and source data are in sync, but if you delete a record or several records you need, you can’t get them back with replication. Backups…

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iTech Solutions Helps May Trucking Company Drop CPU Capacity from 90% to 20% with a New POWER8 Machine

Posted on September 3, 2019

May Trucking, an iTech Solutions customer, was recently featured in an IBM Systems Magazine case study, Transporting to the Future. Jim Utsler of IBM Systems Magazine teamed up with Becki Wagoner, May Trucking Company’s vice president of strategic innovation and technology, to tell the story of how they modernized their infrastructure by moving to a POWER8 system. With the help of iTech Solutions, and other partners such as Group 33 Consulting and Profound Logic, May Trucking was able to successfully move from IBM i 5.4 on a Power Systems 520…

Introducing VERIFi by iTech Solutions

Posted on August 26, 2019

It is my pleasure to introduce to you a new product from iTech Solutions. We first developed this for our Managed Services (MSP) customers, and after so many great comments we decided to make it available to everyone. While our MSP customers get this report daily, this report on our new offering will be sent our weekly. Wouldn’t it be nice if you had an experienced IBM i System administrator give you a report each week on the status of your system? What is VERIFi? VERIFi is an iTech Solutions…

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As the Disk Spins: IBM Disk Drive Announcement for Storwize V5000 and V7000 Storage Systems

Posted on July 30, 2019

On July 2, 2019, IBM announced that 15K RPM hard disk drives would no longer be available for new orders of its Storwize V5000 and V7000 storage systems, US announcement letter 119-048. Why did IBM make this announcement and what does it mean for IBM i customers? Disk drives for IBM i are currently available in 3 formats: Hard Disk Drives (HDD’s) are mechanical spinning magnetic platters that are available in 3 speeds – 7,200 RPM, 10K RPM, and 15K RPM. 15K RPM drives are traditionally used with IBM i…

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Tagged with: external storage, IBM i, ibm storage, ibm storage solution, V5000, V7000

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Can your backup survive a hurricane?

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It’s that time of year again, hurricanes, tornadoes and severe thunderstorms are back again. Which means you’re at risk, especially if you haven’t done a recovery test of your backups recently. What are you waiting for, a natural disaster? To ensure that your recovery is smooth there are a few things you should keep in mind. Including making sure you have a backup, that you know how to recover and that you have a system to recover to if yours is no longer usable. If you don’t have these things…

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A Recap of POWERUp 2019 from the iTech team

Posted on May 30, 2019

Pete Massiello Well, it has been a hell of a week, which seemed to start even on the way to the airport with getting in a few last minute calls. So, how was my week at COMMON’s premier event, POWERUp 2019? Probably the hardest place is where to start. It seems like we have been here for a lifetime, and at the same time the days went by so quickly. Certainly, the highlight for me was seeing so many friends, customers, meeting new people, and spending time with the other…

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An Explanation of IBM i 7.4 DB2 Mirror for i

Posted on May 28, 2019

On April 23rd, 2019, IBM announced the newest release of the operating system IBM i 7.4. The announcement contained hundreds of updates to the OS and licensed programs. One new licensed program, DB2 Mirror for i was also announced. It provides continuous availability for IBM i applications. “Continuous Availability” is a new term, which previously we had High Availability. How is Continuous Availability different than High Availability? What are the software and hardware requirements for Db2 Mirror for i? Does DB2 Mirror for i replace all the Data Replication products? …

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How to tell if your Disaster Recovery System is a Boat Anchor

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Now that I have your attention, I want to discuss a serious topic; disaster recovery. In the event of an actual disaster, you want to be able to recover as quickly as possible to reduce the number of transactions that you lose, and the business you will lose as a result. The real question is: Have you ever tested your disaster recovery process? If the answer is, “no” or “not in a few years”, then your DR system might be nothing more than a boat anchor. You’d be surprised by…

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What You Need to Know About IBM i 7.4

Posted on April 23, 2019

If you remember in a statement about my predictions for 2019, I said that the next release of IBM i would contain some of the biggest enhancements ever put out by IBM for OS/400 or IBM i. Well, it is now announced and being unwrapped today, and IBM i 7.4 (formally known as iNext) comes out with Db2 Mirror for IBM i, Synchronous Replication for Continuous Availability as the biggest enhancement. This is a very very cool technology, not just cool, even better than very cool, this is crazy cool…

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Tagged with: 7.4, IBM i, ibm i 7.4, ibm i os, ibm i os upgrades

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IBM Offers Hardware Support Extension

Posted on April 17, 2019

POWER6 machines reached end of support on 3/31/2019, with the end of support for many POWER7 models following in September. Many companies are still running these models, and they are looking for options. In the past, IBM has not offered extended hardware support, but things have changed, and there is a new option available for those of you who won’t be able to move off old hardware before the end of support dates. IBM is offering Hardware Support Extension, which will allow you to purchase extended hardware maintenance for those…

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