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iPOWER Hour Podcast

iPOWER Hour Episode 20: The New Virtual Space and The Impact on Events & Engagement

Posted on June 25, 2020
 
In Episode 20 Pete Massiello and Laurie LeBlanc talk with iTech Solutions’ Richie Palma about navigating the new virtual space and the impact that it has had on events, customer engagement, and overall industry education.

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iPOWER Hour Episode 19: How to Promote IBM i to Your Business

Posted on May 13, 2020
 
In Episode 19 Pete Massiello and Laurie LeBlanc talk with iTech Solutions’ Richie Palma about How to Promote IBM i to Your Business.

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iPOWER Hour Episode 18: IBM i Technologies to Know About When Working Remotely

Posted on April 1, 2020
 
In Episode 18 Pete Massiello and Laurie LeBlanc talk about IBM i technologies to know about while working remotely and some of the best practices to follow.

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iPOWER Hour Episode 17: My Company is Moving off IBM i, Now What?

Posted on March 20, 2020
 
In Episode 17 Laurie LeBlanc talks to Ron Dolan and Richie Palma from iTech Solutions about if your company starts talking about going off platform, what you can do and what you need to think about.

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Should I upgrade to IBM i 7.3 or IBM i 7.4?

Posted on February 26, 2020

Laurie Leblanc

Laurie LeBlanc, iTech Solutions

One of the most frequently asked questions we receive regarding the IBM i OS is, should I upgrade to 7.3 or 7.4? The answer is: it depends.  When it comes to deciding whether you should go to 7.3 or 7.4 you have to take dependencies, features and life expectancy into consideration.

Identify which versions of IBM i your hardware can support

Before you decide, you need to verify which IBM i versions your hardware can support. There are dependencies between the hardware you are running and what OS level it can support.  If you are limited by your hardware, then you don’t have much choice in the matter.  We suggest you upgrade to the highest OS level that is compatible with your Power System.

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iPOWER Hour Episode 16: The Staying Power of Power Systems

Posted on February 19, 2020
 
Maybe you’ve seen the Power Roadmaps, or have even asked: “What’s the future of IBM i and Power Systems”? In Episode 16, Pete Massiello and Laurie LeBlanc answer this question and talk about the Staying Power of Power Systems and the future of IBM i. 

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iPOWER Hour Episode 15: FRS reduces their RTO from 48+ hours to 4 hours with iTech Solutions Group

Posted on January 22, 2020
 
In this episode, Pete Massiello and Laurie LeBlanc talk with Carl Novit, Vice President and owner of Foodservice & Restaurant Supply (FRS), about his experience with iTech Solutions and how iTech was able to reduce his recovery time objectives when doing his DR and HA.

Interested in learning more? Click here to read the full case study.
 

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iPOWER Hour Episode 14: The Next Generation of IBM i Professionals

Posted on December 19, 2019
 
In this episode, Laurie LeBlanc talks with some of the next generation IBM i professionals; Richie Palma from iTech Solutions, Steven McIver from O’Reilly Auto Parts, Marina Schwenk from Everbrite, and Ajay Gomez from Profound Logic. Listen as they discuss how they ended up working on IBM i, challenges faced on the platform and advice they would other young professionals just starting out in this industry.
 

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iPOWER Hour Episode 13: Women In Tech

Posted on December 3, 2019
 
In this episode, guest host Heather Dinho talks to some of the women on the team at iTech Solutions (Amy Upton, Laurie LeBlanc, Peg Tuttle and Yvonne Enselman) on what it means to be a woman in tech.
 

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My Company Plans to Migrate Off the IBM i – Now What?

Posted on November 20, 2019

Laurie LeBlanc, iTech

Laurie LeBlanc

Many executives talk about moving their business applications off the IBM i.  They think the platform is dead, courtesy of the people who have been saying this for the past 20 years.  While we know, the platform is open and offers businesses rock-solid availability, reliability, and securability.

They could also be thinking they will save money on hardware.  While that may be true, there will be more servers, requiring more space, more electricity, more cooling, and more human resources to support them.  In reality, they save nothing and perhaps spend more.  And they increase their risk of downtime and security vulnerability.

So, now that you have to deal with the board room decision, what should you do?

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Controlling the User Experience in IBM i Access Client Solutions

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Nathan Williams, iTech Solutions

With Client Solutions now being the only IBM-supported client software for IBM i, quite a few organizations have made the switch from the old iAccess products or are in the process of doing so. ACS is as flexible as the old application was rigid, and there are many different ways to configure it on a PC. One of the recurring questions we get from clients who are planning the switch relates to controlling what the end-user can see and use within the application. To address this,  I’d like to discuss a bit about how ACS does configuration under the hood and how administrators can have some control over what can be accessed within the application.

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What to Know About IBM i 7.3 TR7 and 7.4 TR1

Posted on October 21, 2019

Laurie LeBlanc, iTech

By Laurie LeBlanc

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 will improve developer productivity and allow you to modernize with additional support for Open Source languages and tools. I don’t plan to get into the details of those enhancements in this article,  but I will touch on them. You can get more details about all of the enhancements here.

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HMC Phone Home

Posted on May 29, 2019
all systems hmc settings

Last month, I talked about how you can make sure your system has the ability to report problems back to IBM in the event of a failure. That functionality can be invaluable for keeping your system running, but what happens if something goes wrong while the OS is still trying to start? What if something fails so far down the hardware stack that the system simply can’t be aware of it before the whole show grinds to a halt? That’s where an HMC has your back, and it can call home to IBM as well.

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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? 
  • When should I consider using DB2 Mirror for i? 

For the answers to these questions, and more, keep reading.

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Moving a Physical Adapter via HMC using Classic GUI vs. Enhanced+ GUI or HMC V8R8.7.0 and higher version

Posted on February 26, 2019

Manually Moving the PCI Fiber Channel Adapter/IOA from Partition B to Partition A

Note:  Not shown in this process/steps,  you will need to check and vary off, if needed, the resource using the physical adapter on Partition B, (i.e., tape library, tape drive), and then vary on the resource that will use the physical adapter on Partition A.

Using the Classic GUI

  • Sign into the HMC V7
    • Sign in

OR

  • Sign into the HMC V8 (V8R8.3.0 through V8R8.6.0)
    • Check Classic (V8R8.6.0 final support for Classic GUI)
    • Sign In
  • In the Navigation pane, in the left portion of the window, open: Systems Management > Custom Groups > All Partitions
    • In the Work pane, check the box under Select, for the H partition – options on the bottom will appear
  • On the bottom, select: Dynamic partitioning > Physical Adapters > Move or Remove. 
  • Next, in this example, check the box next to slot C12 (Description: 8 Gigabit PCI Express Dual Port Fibre Channel Adapter)
    • In options, use drop down button in Move to partition.
      •  Select A(1), then click the OK button.

Using the Enhanced+ GUI or HMC V8R8.7.0 and higher

  • Sign into the HMC V8 (V8R8.3.0 and through V8R8.6.0)
    • Check Enhanced+ (V8R8.3.0 initial support for Enhanced+ GUI)
    • Sign In

OR

  • Sign into the HMC V8R8.7.0 or V9
    • Sign in

The enhanced UI does not support dynamic logical partitioning (dlpar) move. The user must first remove the adapter from the current owning partition then add the adapter to the target. The operating system device needs to be “varied off’ prior to removing the adapter from the owning partition.

1. Remove the adapter from current partition.

Select Resources > All partitions.

Select the partition that owns the resource now.

Then, click on the Physical I/O Adapters:

Select the I/O adapter to remove.

Click Action > Remove Adapter. 

At the prompt “The selected adapter will be removed. Do you want to continue?” Click OK

Click the Save button at the top of the physical I/O Adapter panel to apply the changes.
This will remove the adapter from the partition. 

Note: The device would need to be varied off prior to removing the adapter. 

2. Add the adapter to the target partition.
Select the target partition 

Select Physical I/O Adapters:

Click Add Adapter. Select the adapter to add, then click OK:

Click the Save button at the top of the physical I/O Adapter panel to apply the changes

The IO adapter should now report in to the target partition. 

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