New features between Java 8 and Java 17

September 24, 2021 Roger Lacroix

Ondro Mihályi has just posted a blog item called: New features between Java 8 and Java 17
https://ondro.inginea.eu/index.php/new-features-in-java-versions-since-java-8/

It is very handy when you are trying to write backwards compatible code.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

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Adoptium Released Java 17 Builds

September 24, 2021 Roger Lacroix

The Eclipse Adoptium (previously known as Adopt OpenJDK) has released Java 17 builds for AIX ppc64, alpine-Linux x64, Linux aarch64, Linux arm32, Linux ppcle64, Linux s390x, Linux x64, Mac aarch64, Mac x64, Windows x32 & x64.

Eclipse Termurin 17.png

The mission of the Eclipse Adoptium Top-Level Project is to produce high-quality runtimes and associated technology for use within the Java ecosystem. We achieve this through a set of Projects under the Adoptium PMC and a close working partnership with external projects, most notably OpenJDK for providing the Java SE runtime implementation. Our goal is to meet the needs of both the Eclipse community and broader runtime users by providing a comprehensive set of technologies around runtimes for Java applications that operate alongside existing standards, infrastructures, and cloud platforms.

Downloads:
https://adoptium.net/releases.html?variant=openjdk17

GitHub Release Status:
https://github.com/adoptium/adoptium/issues/74?utm_content=180839560&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&hss_channel=tw-980259840

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

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Java 17 Released

September 15, 2021 Roger Lacroix

Oracle has just released Java 17.

Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) lets you develop and deploy Java applications on desktops and servers, as well as in today’s demanding embedded environments. Java offers the rich user interface, performance, versatility, portability, and security that today’s applicationsrequire.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

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IBM MQ Fix Pack 9.1.0.9 Released

August 26, 2021 Roger Lacroix

IBM has just released Fix Pack 9.1.0.9 for IBM MQ V9.1 LTS:
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/downloading-ibm-mq-9109

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

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IBM Announces IBM Semeru Runtimes

August 4, 2021 Roger Lacroix

IBM has introduced no-cost IBM Semeru Runtimes to develop and run Java applications.
https://developer.ibm.com/blogs/introducing-the-ibm-semeru-runtimes/
https://developer.ibm.com/languages/java/semeru-runtimes/

IBM Semeru Runtimes use the class libraries from OpenJDK, along with the Eclipse OpenJ9 Java Virtual Machine to enable developers to build and deploy Java applications that will start quickly, deliver great performance, all while using less memory.

    Key highlights of these runtimes include:

  • Provides a stable, no-cost environment for developing Java workloads
  • Available across a wide variety of hardware and software platforms, including on-premises, in public cloud, or on container orchestrators like Kubernetes and OpenShift
  • Includes commonly used JDK releases like the JDK 8 and JDK 11 Long Term Support (LTS) releases
  • Performance benefits from deep technology investment in Eclipse OpenJ9
  • Zero usage restrictions, so you can use these runtimes for development or in production

You can review the performance overview at: https://www.eclipse.org/openj9/performance/. It looks pretty impressive.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

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How Long it Takes for a Hacker to Crack Your Password

July 27, 2021 Roger Lacroix

Over at Komando’s web site, they have an article called: Use this chart to see how long it’ll take to crack your passwords.

A general rule is that your password should be at least 11 characters and use numbers, along with upper and lowercase letters. That combination will take hackers 41 years to crack.

Here’s the chart of password lengths, contents of password and how long it will take to crack it using brute force method:

Time it takes a hacker to brute force your password.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

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IBM MQ Fix Pack 8.1.0.8 for HP NonStop Server Released

July 23, 2021 Roger Lacroix

IBM has just released Fix Pack 8.1.0.8 for IBM MQ for HP NonStop Server:
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/fix-list-ibm-mq-hpe-nonstop-version-81#8108

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

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IBM MQ Fix Pack 9.2.0.3 Released

July 23, 2021 Roger Lacroix

IBM has just released Fix Pack 9.2.0.3 for IBM MQ V9.2 LTS:
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6474635

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

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IBM MQ V9.2.3 Announced

July 20, 2021 Roger Lacroix

IBM has announced IBM MQ V9.2.3:
https://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.wss?docURL=/common/ssi/rep_ca/1/877/ENUSZP21-0231/index.html

Highlights:

MQ 9.2.3:

  • – Streaming queues to make message data from existing flows available to Apache Kafka streaming applications, artificial intelligence (AI), and analytics applications, with zero impact to the existing applications or their messages and without a need for rearchitecting your message flows
  • – Broadened uniform cluster support for improved fault tolerance
  • – MQ Console remote queue manager support, enabling clients to manage their entire MQ estate
  • – Security enhancements
  • – A dead-letter queue (DLQ) handler included in the MQ client package to enable processing of messages on remote queue managers
  • – Additional channel attributes for Advanced Message Queueing Protocol (AMQP)

    • MQ Advanced 9.2.3:

  • – Native high availability (HA), delivered in 9.2.2 under an Early Access license, becomes generally available in 9.2.3. Native HA is for clients deploying container-based queue managers to IBM Cloud Pak® for Integration on Red Hat® OpenShift® using the MQ certified container.
  • – Replicated Data Queue Manager (RDQM) kernel module serviceability enhancements.

    • MQ Appliance 9.2.3 firmware:

  • – Streaming queues
  • – Broadened uniform cluster support
  • – Additional channel attributes for AMQP.

    • Planned availability for IBM MQ V9.2.3 is July 22, 2021 for Electronic software delivery.

    IBM MQ (aka WebSphere MQ) homepage
    https://www.ibm.com/products/mq

    Regards,
    Roger Lacroix
    Capitalware Inc.

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    Time Warp – AIX and MQ v6

    July 12, 2021 Roger Lacroix

    Last week, a customer emailed an interesting request. They have 2 AIX hub servers running WebSphere MQ V6.0 and they want to determine what applications are using the 2 MQ hub servers, so that they can upgrade to a newer release of MQ. That made me clean my glasses because MQ v6 went out of support in September 2012 (almost 9 years ago).

    They asked if either MQ Auditor and/or MQ Channel Connection Inspector (MQCCI) could obtain the IP address of the incoming MQ connection. I said yes, both can get the IP address and if they didn’t want any other information (i.e. queue names, MQ headers, message data, etc) then MQCCI would be the best/easiest solution.

    Yesterday, I drove over to my offsite facility to search for backup DVDs of MQ v6. I have 2 boxes of DVD backups, it took about 30 minutes to find 2 backup DVDs with MQ v6 for AIX. I figured at least one of them should be ok.

    So, I created a reservation on IBM’s CECC portal for AIX v7.1, uploaded and installed MQ v6 and, of course, I had to install IBM’s XLC compiler because for some strange reason, CECC does not include it for AIX (but they do for Linux on Power and IBM i).

    MQCCI was created and launched in May 2018, long, long after MQ v6 went out of support. So, when I tried to do a build, I got several errors about unknown defines (i.e. MQCD_VERSION_9). So, I added a bunch of “#ifdefs” to the code and bam, it compiled and linked successfully.

    I created a queue manager and I did a bunch of tests with MQCCI. Everything went smoothly, so I let the customer know that I have a build for them to test out.

    At this point in my life, I’m never surprised by the odd requests I get. 🙂

    Regards,
    Roger Lacroix
    Capitalware Inc.

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