April 2021 Newsletter

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The results are in and the iTech Spring iAdmin educational event held April 20th & 21st was a huge success. We had over 700 people at the event, representing 48 US States, and 58 Countries. We packed the two days with IBM i education, breakout sessions, happy hours, live Q&A, and much more.  Wow, there was so much effort by the iTech team to pull this off, and we received so many thank you notes from attendees.  It was a full company event, and I am so thankful to the iTech team for doing such a great job.  Did you know we have done 112 webinar-styled events since January 2020, and already 30 webinar events in 2021?  Who else is helping you this much with your IBM i?  Oh, by the way, if you missed the event, you can catch the replays of each session here.

If you are reading this, it is probably because you are familiar with iTech at some level.  First, if iTech is your current IBM i business partner, we want to thank you for your trust in us. Some of you may know us at a limited level.  Maybe you read our informative technical blogs written by our IBM Champions, or tune in to our no-charge educational webinars.  Maybe you have contracted with iTech for our best in the industry technical support and services to help make IBM products that you purchased from another organization work more effectively.  We would like to thank you for showing this level of interest and confidence.

It is likely that you are familiar with iTech’s second to none technical capabilities for IBM i in North America.  We have provided our technical services to many of the world’s leading companies.  But today we are asking you to honestly consider the following business proposition:
Should our organization utilize iTech for our entire IBM i digital strategy; design, product, services, and consulting?

First, we want you to consider why a closer business partnership can be good for your core business, ultimately leading to the financial well-being and mission success of your organization. Over 95% of IBM i systems are used for mission-critical applications.  The IBM i’s availability is paramount and its functionality is critical. With the growing amount and complexity of data and the variety of usage growing each year, any downtime or lack of data availability when needed, or any significant outage or delayed availability can cost revenue of five or six figures – or more!  At its simplest, having iTech analyze, design, and implement improved systems could provide value starting at 5 figures and going upward.   It’s time to look at switching to iTech Solutions as your IBM Business Partner and reap the benefits.

New Announcements for IBM i

April 13th was IBM i announcement day packed with lots of goodies.  We did an overview of the announcements, giving my perspective on what was announced.  You can watch that here.

Here are some of the highlights:

• IBM i 7.2 Service Extension
• Query Supervisor
• System Limits expanded and additional tracking
• SYSTOOLs expanded examples
• New IBM I Services
• IBM DB2 Mirror Enhancements
• Save/Restore Improvements
• RPG Updates
• New version of Access Client Solutions
• New Mainstream SSDs
• Updated Enterprise SSDs
• New Fibre Adapter cards
• Smaller Enterprise NVMe PCIe4 U.2 800GB
• New HMC – CR2 Power9 based.
• Software update for x86 HMCs to support 950 code release.

iTech Website Makeover

April was a busy month, as the iTech Solutions website https://itechsol.com also got a makeover to a much cleaner and dynamic interface with the goal of making your web experience better.  This was phase one to get the bones updated, and we will be adding more content in the coming months, so come back often.

[New] Throwback Thursday

We have started another series in addition to our monthly 1 hour webinars, Podcasts, Sips and Tricks, and iBasics.  Throwback Thursday (#IBMiTBT) sessions highlight some of our best previously recorded sessions with Live Q&A at the end.

As April 30th is the last day of support for IBM i 7.2, we are starting with How to successfully upgrade to IBM i 7.3 and 7.4 on Thursday, April 29th.  You can register here.

Then to celebrate World Password Day, our next Throw Back Thursday will be Thursday, May 6^th with a replay of Psychology of a Bad Password presented by Steve Pitcher. You can register here.

iBasics: IBM i Education for the Beginner System Administrator

Wait, we have even more going on. I want to make sure you take advantage of our IBM i Admin Basics, which we refer to as iBasics. We started this in November, and it was originally a 14-week series, but we expanded this to be weekly through at least June. These weekly sessions will cover the basics of IBM i, helping new people be able to learn about IBM i System Admin. If you have someone in your company who would benefit from these, you can register for both upcoming and on-demand sessions at itechsol.com/ibasics. These will take place at 11 AM EST on Wednesdays each week, except for the Holiday weeks.

[ View All Sessions ]

We’ve heard a lot of comments and feedback from some of our seasoned IBM i attendees, including: “I didn’t know that there was a way to do that”, “Well, that was a lot simpler than I was doing it”, and my favorite, “I had no idea, you could even do that with IBM i”.  So, it seems even though the title has iBasics in it, there is education for everyone.

We plan on continuing to be there for you this year and beyond, eventually in-person, but until then virtually. When you see what we know, you see our experience, knowledge, and know-how you will want to make the switch to us as your Business Partner.   Is your business partner just sitting there eating donuts? Because I used to say he/she would come by with donuts every three years, but most people aren’t doing in-person meetings right now.  So, what exactly are they doing for you?  Come to the iTech side, just make the switch. It’s as easy as making a call or sending an email. It’s easy to switch.

Here is a reminder, as IBM i 7.2 goes out of Support April 30, 2021

IBM i 7.2, goes out of support on April 30th, 2021.  It’s time to upgrade.  We can help you upgrade your OS, or we can get you into a new Power9 with twice the performance than what you are paying for a few years of maintenance, which is a no-brainer.  For less than the cost of one year of Extended Support for 7.2, we can do an OS Upgrade to either 7.3 or 7.4.  Why are you waiting? People always ask me which release I should upgrade to.  IBM will always tell you to go to the latest, and I agree that is where you should strive to be, but in reality, you want to get on a supported release. So, if you can get to 7.3, but not 7.4, then by all means upgrade to 7.3 and be on a supported release.

Here’s a video we created talking about the importance of moving off of IBM i 7.2:

IBM i OS Upgrade Resource Page

We’ve also created an entire IBM i OS Upgrade Resource Page equipped with eBooks, blogs, podcast episodes, and videos to help with your IBM i OS Upgrade journey, no matter where you are in the process. Check out the page here.

Here are our upcoming webinars: 

View our full PDF May Calendar Here

Stay safe, wash your hands, wear that annoying mask, and take care of one another.  Hopefully, we will get our vaccinations soon and life will return to normal.  I got my first shot already and my second shot this week, so I look forward to seeing everyone when this is all over at the many conferences we will be attending.

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