When CIOs and IT leaders think about risk, they tend to focus on hardware refresh cycles, software licensing, or vendor contracts. But the single greatest vulnerability in the IBM i ecosystem today is not technology; it’s people.
For decades, IBM i (and its predecessors AS/400, iSeries, System/36) has quietly powered finance, manufacturing, distribution, and other critical industries. The technology itself has proven remarkably resilient. Many systems have run for over 20 years without major disruption. The problem is that the experts who know how to operate them are vanishing.
Why The IBM i Talent Pool Is Collapsing
The majority of IBM i administrators and programmers today are in their late 50s or 60s. Some have already retired, and many more plan to in the coming years. The pipeline behind them is dry. Young IT professionals aren’t learning RPG or IBM i operations in school. They focus on cloud-native platforms, Linux, and modern development frameworks.
Recruiters see the impact daily. Job postings for IBM i skills often remain open for months, sometimes even years. A 2023 Forta survey found nearly 80% of IBM i shops cite “skills shortage” as their number one concern. That isn’t a theoretical risk; it’s an urgent reality.
If your core operations still depend on IBM i, you’re running on a shrinking human support system that will only get harder to sustain.
The Cost Of Losing Institutional Knowledge
When a veteran admin leaves, they don’t just take a pension. They take:
- Custom Code Knowledge: Decades of RPG programs, often undocumented.
- Operational Shortcuts: Scripts and workarounds that keep nightly jobs flowing.
- Disaster Recovery Wisdom: How to actually failover when the manual doesn’t cut it.
Once that knowledge is gone, it’s difficult to replace. Companies often end up paying top dollar to contractors, sifting through incomplete binders, or discovering that no one knows how payroll or order entry works.
We’ve seen companies paralyzed because the only person who knew how to restart a stuck subsystem retired. That’s not just an inconvenience; it’s an existential risk.
What this means for you: unless you’ve formally documented and tested your continuity, you may be one retirement away from a business outage.
A Story From The Field
Not long ago, a manufacturing company contacted us after their long-time IBM i administrator retired unexpectedly. For years, he had been the only person who knew how to manage their custom RPG applications and handle end-of-month batch jobs. The IT director assumed the transition would be smooth since “everything was documented.”
When the first payroll cycle after his departure failed, the documentation was useless. The binders were outdated, critical scripts weren’t listed, and no one knew how to restart the subsystem. By the time they reached us, they were facing missed payroll, auditor scrutiny, and employee backlash.
We helped them stabilize operations and move their IBM i into a managed hosting environment, where a team, not one individual, ensures continuity. The director later admitted, “We thought our risk was hardware failure. It was really people failure.”
What this means for you: the most damaging outages often aren’t technical; they’re human.
Why Cloud And Managed Hosting Are Becoming The Default Answer
The technical case for cloud, disaster recovery, redundancy, and security has always been compelling. Today, the human argument is even stronger.
When CIOs come to us, the story is nearly identical:
- “Our programmer is retiring.”
- “We can’t hire IBM i expertise.”
- “We don’t want to know how it works; we just need it to work.”
By moving IBM i workloads into managed hosting, companies offload the people problem. Instead of betting continuity on one or two aging admins, they gain access to a dedicated team that has executed thousands of migrations and upgrades.
If you’re already struggling to recruit IBM i expertise, managed hosting provides long-term stability without relying on a shrinking talent pool.
Why Auditors No Longer Accept “Joe Knows How”
This shift isn’t just about convenience; it’s about compliance. Regulators and auditors are no longer satisfied with informal knowledge transfer. They expect testable, evidence-backed continuity plans.
A one-person IT shop can’t provide SOC reports, disaster recovery test results, or documented control evidence. Managed cloud providers can. They produce the audit-ready binders and repeatable processes that regulators demand. If you’re relying on an individual to satisfy auditors, you’re already out of compliance risk tolerance.
What CIOs Should Do Today?
To get ahead of the retirement cliff, take three steps now:
- Inventory your skills risk. Who knows what? How close are they to retirement?
- Pressure test continuity. Run a real failover. Document every step. Identify what lives only in someone’s head.
- Evaluate managed hosting. Even if you’re not ready to move, understanding options and costs today prevents last-minute panic tomorrow.
The Bottom Line For IBM i Shops
IBM i isn’t disappearing. Expertise is. Companies that act now can avoid the retirement cliff by securing continuity through managed services and cloud hosting. Those who delay are betting their business on a shrinking pool of 60-year-old admins.
That’s a gamble no auditor will endorse, and no CIO should accept.
FAQs About Dealing With the Shrinking IBM i Talent Pool
Why is it so hard to hire IBM i talent today?
Most IBM i experts are nearing retirement, and few younger IT professionals are learning RPG or IBM i operations. This generational gap has created a critical skills shortage, making recruitment difficult and costly.
What risks come with relying on one IBM i admin?
If your operations depend on a single admin, you risk losing undocumented knowledge, disaster recovery expertise, and custom code insights. When that person leaves, operations can stall, compliance can face challenges, and outages can extend.
Can documentation alone solve the IBM i knowledge gap?
Documentation helps, but it rarely captures the full picture. Informal scripts, operational workarounds, and recovery techniques often live in an expert’s head. Without redundancy in people and processes, documentation falls short during real-world failures.
Why are auditors pushing for more than verbal assurances?
Auditors now require evidence-backed continuity, not informal trust in one person’s knowledge. They look for SOC reports, recovery test results, and documented processes that a one-person IT shop cannot reliably provide.
What makes managed hosting a solution to the IBM i skills shortage?
Managed hosting replaces individual risk with team-based expertise. Providers bring migration experience, 24/7 operations coverage, and compliance documentation. That reduces business continuity risks while lowering dependence on scarce talent.
Is cloud hosting always cheaper than on-premise IBM i?
Not always. Cost depends on workload size, licensing, and infrastructure. The greater value lies in risk reduction, eliminating single-person dependencies, avoiding unplanned outages, and ensuring audit compliance.
How should CIOs prepare if they aren’t ready to move yet?
Begin by mapping critical IBM i dependencies and identifying skills gaps. Then, evaluate managed hosting providers and build a transition plan. Early planning prevents reactive, high-cost moves during unexpected retirements or outages.
Managed Hosting as the Solution to the Lack of IBM i Expertise
Avoid the inevitable struggles that will come with the loss of IBM i admins. Managed hosting can ensure continuity while getting you ahead of this growing problem. Start your conversation with us today.
