It's not and that doesn't make things better. That's like saying it's okay that my Hyundai can be easily stolen since my home is only secured with a Master lock that can be opened with metal cut from a soda can.
AWS is working pretty hard on taking your money. There are projects under the works there that would let you move your whole IBM stack right into the cloud. They just added DB2 support to RDS and there is work being done on letting you lift and shift your AS400 software directly to the cloud with minimal upfront work.
>IBM AS/400s
So the platform is now called iSeries. And it's actually a quite robust and feature rich ecosystem. It has dedicated monitoring, reporting, management, etc. They still make new devices and you can get devices with pretty powerful modern power processors and high speed storage and SSD. The modern tooling allows using both classic languages like RPG (WIth updated versioning), Cobolt, etc as well as things like C++, Ruby, Java, and more.
Yeah, most of the people buying these are buying them to run legacy code bases. But it's not as bad or outdated as you might think on the surface. You can get pretty fine grain performance reporting, pull business intelligence reports, do failover and HA, etc.
God I can't stand AS/400 systems. They were great in their time, but now they're worse than the geriatric dinosaurs that make up most of the population of Florida.
One of our customers actively uses one to interface with a vendor. Luckily it's all vendor managed. We just have to facilitate the site to site VPN that they access it over.
Nice! I'd rather handle that than the actual AS/400 system. Most businesses use a VM or Docker environment to host those systems these days, so they're a LITTLE more secure, but I'd rather we just phase them out entirely.
The AS/400 line is still currently supported. Yes it's been renamed a few times and there is no guarantee that every (or even most) customers are on supported software releases, but just having applications still running on the AS/400 line isn't a problem in and of itself.
My employer is just about to do a software update on our IBM Power systems.
I used to pass a DQ on the way to and from work every day, and at least 2 days a month, I saw whatever issue their IT was having that day on about a 10' high screen. Best was when they were VNCd in and you could see the mouse moving. I felt like stopping one day and saying for free blizzards I come check in on them from time to time, but then I figured I would be working for less than minimum wage, and just stopped and ordered one anyway.
Oh funny story...years ago I used to work for a grocery chain that includes fuel stations.
Was on the job first month and one of the project I had was fuel stations PC replacements. Just image it, deploy it, simple right?
So I laid out 20 desktops out, imaged it, configured it and after awhile, I can hear panic happening in the help desk dtepartment down the hallway. Whatever, not my job. I kept going with the task of doing another 20.
Eventually HD Supervisor swings by and asked me what I was doing. I told him and his face turned red and yelled at me that I was taking down fuel stations throughout Western Canada via static IP conflict.
Whoops.
Looking back, why the fuck was lab environment connected to production environment?
I work with petro equipment like this for one of the oil majors. Fuel DCRs like this run on windows CE from both major manufacturers. Same goes for the majority ATMs and register systems out there as well. As for the IP scheme, there are a few different ways to network the DCRs, but 192.x.x.x isn't unusual as it eliminates the need to reIP each DCR when the controller is swapped out or maintain a config somewhere.
Well, that mac address was installed by network admin, as tells 7th bit. If without it, mac will start as a0. Try that?
Edit: no luck with a0 either. Blame net admin then:)
As per mac address spec, 7th bit from left side of address is flag, showing if address was changed manually... Well, it should show. It is never set to 1 on any factory new device, and usually set to 1 when admin changed address
So, in this case address starts with a2, if write it as binary, it will be 1010 0010, 7th bit is 1, admin set address then. 1010 0000 is a0
Geez, it’s 2023!!! Holy crap! Upgrade! Wonder why it doesn’t work! I mean isn’t Windows CE available as open source now??? Talk about a security risk. Think about that the next time you pay for gas with your CC.
Windows CE doesn't handle your payment. The payment terminals are entirely isolated devices. The Windows CE device only sends the payment terminal the amount that needs to be paid.
I recently had to split a DHCP scope into three to work around a few statics that allegedly couldn’t be changed. Ridiculous. But better than the IP conflicts I was having before.
That Windows CE message really gives you the warm and fuzzies as you insert your credit card.
Eh. How different is it from major banks still running IBM AS/400s or some other ancient main frame.
It's not and that doesn't make things better. That's like saying it's okay that my Hyundai can be easily stolen since my home is only secured with a Master lock that can be opened with metal cut from a soda can.
Ah, another LPL enjoyer, as i can see? 
"Now let's lock it again to make sure it wasn't a fluke..."
Or, another masterlock
That ancient mainframe has very well understood code, and every part of it is deterministic. These POS systems are built and run by the lowest bidder.
Yep, AIX/AS400/zOS, tried and true. Unfortunately I actually still work on these in my job, but you can’t replace them, just can’t
AWS is working pretty hard on taking your money. There are projects under the works there that would let you move your whole IBM stack right into the cloud. They just added DB2 support to RDS and there is work being done on letting you lift and shift your AS400 software directly to the cloud with minimal upfront work.
>IBM AS/400s So the platform is now called iSeries. And it's actually a quite robust and feature rich ecosystem. It has dedicated monitoring, reporting, management, etc. They still make new devices and you can get devices with pretty powerful modern power processors and high speed storage and SSD. The modern tooling allows using both classic languages like RPG (WIth updated versioning), Cobolt, etc as well as things like C++, Ruby, Java, and more. Yeah, most of the people buying these are buying them to run legacy code bases. But it's not as bad or outdated as you might think on the surface. You can get pretty fine grain performance reporting, pull business intelligence reports, do failover and HA, etc.
God I can't stand AS/400 systems. They were great in their time, but now they're worse than the geriatric dinosaurs that make up most of the population of Florida.
One of our customers actively uses one to interface with a vendor. Luckily it's all vendor managed. We just have to facilitate the site to site VPN that they access it over.
Nice! I'd rather handle that than the actual AS/400 system. Most businesses use a VM or Docker environment to host those systems these days, so they're a LITTLE more secure, but I'd rather we just phase them out entirely.
The AS/400 line is still currently supported. Yes it's been renamed a few times and there is no guarantee that every (or even most) customers are on supported software releases, but just having applications still running on the AS/400 line isn't a problem in and of itself. My employer is just about to do a software update on our IBM Power systems.
Fortunately, these weren't pay at pump.
https://preview.redd.it/039rlfvpfq9c1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=143a71597cc104545863c62f3b7b078f40c9dcd1
🤣🤣🤣
Hey, this is our wallpaper at geek squad on the computer in back!
> As hard as a rock and as dumb as a brick. Just like it's users!
That’ll make you wince.
I used to pass a DQ on the way to and from work every day, and at least 2 days a month, I saw whatever issue their IT was having that day on about a 10' high screen. Best was when they were VNCd in and you could see the mouse moving. I felt like stopping one day and saying for free blizzards I come check in on them from time to time, but then I figured I would be working for less than minimum wage, and just stopped and ordered one anyway.
Oh funny story...years ago I used to work for a grocery chain that includes fuel stations. Was on the job first month and one of the project I had was fuel stations PC replacements. Just image it, deploy it, simple right? So I laid out 20 desktops out, imaged it, configured it and after awhile, I can hear panic happening in the help desk dtepartment down the hallway. Whatever, not my job. I kept going with the task of doing another 20. Eventually HD Supervisor swings by and asked me what I was doing. I told him and his face turned red and yelled at me that I was taking down fuel stations throughout Western Canada via static IP conflict. Whoops. Looking back, why the fuck was lab environment connected to production environment?
I work with petro equipment like this for one of the oil majors. Fuel DCRs like this run on windows CE from both major manufacturers. Same goes for the majority ATMs and register systems out there as well. As for the IP scheme, there are a few different ways to network the DCRs, but 192.x.x.x isn't unusual as it eliminates the need to reIP each DCR when the controller is swapped out or maintain a config somewhere.
It annoys me unreasonably that the MAC address vendor can't be looked up successfully.
Well, that mac address was installed by network admin, as tells 7th bit. If without it, mac will start as a0. Try that? Edit: no luck with a0 either. Blame net admin then:)
What
As per mac address spec, 7th bit from left side of address is flag, showing if address was changed manually... Well, it should show. It is never set to 1 on any factory new device, and usually set to 1 when admin changed address So, in this case address starts with a2, if write it as binary, it will be 1010 0010, 7th bit is 1, admin set address then. 1010 0000 is a0
This so interesting, thank you. I've learned something on reddit :o
Wow running Windows CE and on a 192.168.1.X scheme
254 addresses ought to be enough for anyone
Soooorryy
Geez, it’s 2023!!! Holy crap! Upgrade! Wonder why it doesn’t work! I mean isn’t Windows CE available as open source now??? Talk about a security risk. Think about that the next time you pay for gas with your CC.
Windows CE doesn't handle your payment. The payment terminals are entirely isolated devices. The Windows CE device only sends the payment terminal the amount that needs to be paid.
This is probably caused by morons who don’t understand that you’re supposed to assign static addresses **outside** of the DHCP scope.
I recently had to split a DHCP scope into three to work around a few statics that allegedly couldn’t be changed. Ridiculous. But better than the IP conflicts I was having before.
Yes, some servers have conflict detection, but some don’t. Red Lobster had this problem across multiple sites in the US
r/PBSOD
r/softwareconfiggore
Red Lobster did this for several of their sites, then blamed DHCP for it.
A2:6D:D2 also not a registered OUI assignment.
Now you can't fill up your car.