Glad to have you back for this week's IBM i Pulse! Each week we will be taking a deeper look at this week's IBM i news. This week we are looking at the popularity of Node.js, Watson's compatibility with IBM i, and Watson's security abilities. But First...
Bob Losey gives a brief overview of Steve Will's webinar on the future of IBM i and it's future. Spoiler... the future is bright!
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/does-ibm-i-have-future-you-bet-part-2-bob-losey
JavaScript explodes on the Server Side with the Growth of Node.js
by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
Not long ago, JavaScript was considered a fringe important server-side language, now with the help of Node.js it has become one of the most important and vital languages for web development and much more. According to the Stack Overflow 2017 Developer Survey of 64,000 programmers, Node.js was the most popular of all the developer frameworks.
Node.js has well over 8 million instances online which has a lot of users thinking of Node.js as the future. In fact, 75% of surveyed users plan on implementing Node.js with in the next year. The rapid popularity of Node.js has several factors:
- Improves productivity
- Developers are more satisfied
- Increase in application performance
- Costs significantly less then legacy platforms
- Expanding market and increase in usefulness
Mark Hinkle, executive director of the Node.js Foundation, explains the expansion of Node.js; "It is moving beyond being simply an application platform, and beginning to be used for rapid experimentation with corporate data, application modernization and IoT solutions. Node.js use is beginning to rise in the Ops/DevOps sector and mobile as well."
Profound Logic sees the future with Node.js, that is why we created Profound.js to help bring your old legacy IBM i system into the modern era of user interfaces without disrupting your business!
For more information on how Node.js is becoming the next big server-side language, read the entire article below:
Source: http://www.zdnet.com/article/javascript-explodes-on-the-server-side-with-the-growth-of-node-js/
Watson to the Next Level: Alison Butterill and Jesse Gorzinski Discuss the Wizardry of Cognitive Solutions
by Paul Tuohy
Paul interviewed Alison Butterill and Jesse Gorzinski from IBM at this years COMMON European conference about cognitive solutions, Watson and how it can help an IBM i shop. Here are some of the highlight quotes:
What is cognitive solutions?
"Cognitive is a very different way of thinking than normal IT people have thought when processing data and looking for answers. Cognitive is so much more. It's sort of applying the logic of human brains, human experience to data and figuring out how to analyze, how to work with that data. So it's a lot of different aspects. There is natural language support. There is inference support―drawing inferences from seemingly unrelated pieces of information. There's also extending the experience and doing research into nontraditional data forms, things like social media and so on. Cognitive is really interpreting data in a different way, something we haven't done before." - Alison Butterill
What can Watson do?
"Watson actually has the ability to reason and draw conclusions from that data that are based on much the same criteria that the human brain would be using to base those decisions on. So it's very, very powerful technology... deep learning and machine learning and the ability to have models that react and learn, as new information is perceived, as new information comes in and also can learn from itself when results aren't necessarily optimal." - Jesse Gorzinski
How can Watson/cognitive solutions help my IBM i shop?
"One thing that IBM i shops typically do have is a lot of data, right, and you pair that with some of the capabilities that cognitive machines can now do, things like identifying patterns within that data at a large scale, right. Humans have a great ability to look at a sequence of numbers, a sequence of paragraphs from people identifying mood changes and pattern changes and things along those lines, but we can't do it the large scale... You can take that data and you can send it Watson through this interface called Watson Analytics. Watson Analytics is kind of what I call the nonprogrammer path, meaning you don't have to be a programmer to use it... Some of the important aspects of Watson Analytics are that it incorporates some of the capabilities that we've already talked about, the ability to ask questions for interest―for instance using natural language and having Watson just understand the question, understand how to render answers in a way that makes sense." - Jesse Gorzinski
Using the power of Node.js, Profound.js gives you immediate access to Watson and all it's cognitive behavior. This tool can help you identify patterns in your data or even just ask a simple question about your data.
Source: http://ibmsystemsmag.com/ibmi/trends/italk-with-tuohy/butterill-gorzinski/
Watson for i: Cyber security the Watson Way
by John Ghrist
IBM Chairman Ginni Rometty has been quoted that "cybercrime is the greatest threat to every company in the world." And in the last couple of years she has been proven right! From the private to the public sectors, there have been numerous cyber-attacks and cyber-crimes carried out across the world. Many companies have old and out dated software that is difficult or impossible to update. This leaves them vulnerable to these cyber-criminals.
This topic has become one of the most discussed IT topics today with 10,000 research papers published, 60,000 blogs written on the subject each month and over 75,000 software vulnerabilities out there... no one has time to comb through all that information. Fortunately Watson is here to save the day! Here are a few of the features that Watson can provide for your cyber-security needs. For the full list, check out the entire article below:
- Watson for Cyber-Security - "Watson can process and interpret the latest security data, including that portion of it that is unstructured using reasoning that mimics human thought, implementing the information that is most pertinent for security needs."
- User Behavior Analytics - "Recognizes the characteristics of regular system users and can detect anomalous behavior undertaken by the accounts of those users."
- Incident Forensics - "Lets analysts review each action taken by a suspicious account and compare it to the past actions of that and other users to assess threat levels and correlate it with other data to determine potential problems."
- Vulnerability Manager - "Looks for more than 70,000 known security problems and uses a PCI certified scanner to detect them while accepting input from other designated outside data sources."
November 15th-17th Profound Logic will be hosting our 2nd annual PLUS Seminar for their customers. Get the most value from your Profound Logic investment and assure your modernization success. Register here today!
One of our focuses for 2017 is the continued adoption of Node.js in IBM i shops. Click here to read our white paper on Why Node.js Is The Solution Your Company Needs.
Also, Profound.js 2.0 has been released! See how Profound.js 2.0 can help modernize your IBM i today!
And there, you're all caught up! Sounds like we have an interesting 2017!
