IT Services — IBM i Consulting
IBM i Consulting Built on 30 Years of Hands-On Expertise
Paragon has worked on this platform since 1996. The consultant we put on your system is a senior person who has run production IBM i environments — you get the one who does the work, not a scoping call followed by someone learning on your machine.
What we cover
End-to-End IBM i Support — Not Just Break-Fix
Every consultant on our IBM i team has spent years inside production environments — building systems, running migrations, and cleaning up the ones that went wrong. That is the only kind of person we put in front of a client.
Our approach
We Learn Your System Before We Touch It
IBM i environments are uniquely cumulative — code and customizations layer up over decades. A consultant who parachutes in and starts making changes without that history is a liability, not an asset.
Paragon’s engagements always begin with a structured discovery phase. We map your job streams, document your custom objects, review your security posture, and interview your key users before recommending anything.
That investment in understanding pays off: our recommendations are actionable, our migrations go smoothly, and our clients don’t call us back to fix what we introduced.
Consulting is often the starting point — from there, clients frequently move into IBM i cloud hosting, ongoing managed services, or custom software development, depending on what the assessment turns up. When an OS upgrade is part of the plan, we work from the same list covered in our IBM i OS upgrade checklist.
Flexible Engagement Models
We work on a project basis, retainer basis, or staff-augmentation basis — whatever fits your team and timeline. Many clients start with a focused assessment and expand from there.
Discovery & Documentation
We audit your existing environment (applications, jobs, security, performance, integrations) and give you a clear picture of what you actually have.
Recommendations
We deliver a prioritized action plan with risk ratings, effort estimates, and expected outcomes for each item.
Execution
Our consultants implement the agreed changes, whether that’s code, configuration, or architecture, with thorough testing and change documentation.
Knowledge Transfer
Every engagement ends with documentation and handoff so your team owns what was built.
Common scenarios
When Clients Call Paragon
IBM i consulting needs tend to cluster around a few high-stakes moments.
“Our Only IBM i Person Is Retiring”
Knowledge transfer and documentation before institutional expertise walks out the door. We map, document, and train — or transition to managed services.
“We Need to Upgrade the OS but We’re Afraid”
IBM i OS upgrades break things if you don’t prepare. We’ve done hundreds of them. We’ll tell you exactly what needs attention before you touch production.
“Our System Is Getting Slower Every Year”
Performance degradation is almost always fixable without new hardware. We identify the bottlenecks — jobs, queries, memory, disk — and eliminate them.
“We Need to Connect IBM i to a New ERP”
API development, file-based integration, database replication — we’ve connected IBM i to SAP, Oracle, NetSuite, Dynamics, and dozens of others.
“Our Security Audit Flagged Our IBM i”
IBM i has a sophisticated security model that’s easy to misconfigure. We’ve hardened hundreds of systems against external threats and internal access risks.
“We Have 30-Year-Old RPG We Can’t Read”
We document, untangle, and modernize legacy RPG — including fixed-format code with no documentation and no original developer in sight.
Who does the work
Thirty Years Is Only Worth Something If the People Who Have It Show Up
Paragon has worked on IBM i since 1996. Plenty of firms can point at a founding date. What matters is whether that experience is sitting in the room when your system is on the line.
Staff augmentation
Sometimes You Don’t Need a Project. You Need a Person.
A common version of this call: the developer who knew the order entry system left, the job posting has been open five months, and every candidate within commuting distance is either already retired or doesn’t exist. Meanwhile the backlog grows and the person covering it has another full-time job.
Paragon places senior IBM i people directly with your team — RPG and free-format development, system administration, security work, or general cover — on an agreed number of hours a month rather than a fixed-scope project.
They work in your environment, to your standards, inside your change process. The difference from hiring is that you’re not competing for a shrinking pool of candidates, and you’re not rebuilding the same single-point-of-failure you just lost.
Where It Usually Fits
Backfilling a departure. Cover from the week they leave, rather than the month you finally hire.
A retirement runway. Working alongside the person who’s leaving, while they’re still there to ask.
Clearing a backlog. The enhancement queue that never moves because everyone is busy keeping the lights on.
A skill you don’t have in-house. Security review, DB2 tuning, API work — needed occasionally, not worth a headcount.
Before you call
Whatever State It’s in, We’ve Seen Worse
Undocumented code from developers who left in the nineties. An OS three releases behind because the upgrade window never came. Special authorities handed out in 2004 to someone who no longer works there. None of this is unusual, and none of it changes the answer we give you — the assessment tells you where you actually are, and what you do about it is a separate conversation.
FAQ
Common Questions
Do you work on-site or remotely?
Both. Most IBM i consulting work can be done remotely through secure system access, which is faster and more cost-effective. For initial assessments, complex migrations, or situations requiring physical access, we can send consultants on-site anywhere in the continental US.
What IBM i OS versions do you support?
We support all currently active IBM i releases, including V7R1 through V7R5, and have experience with older versions going back to OS/400. We’ll meet you where your system is.
Can you work alongside our internal IT team?
Absolutely — this is the most common model. We typically work as an extension of your team, handling IBM i-specific work while your IT staff manages everything else.
Who will actually be working on our system?
A senior IBM i consultant, and generally the same one throughout the engagement. We’ll tell you who it is before work starts. We don’t run a model where one person scopes the project and someone more junior executes it.
How quickly can you start?
For urgent situations, we can typically begin a remote engagement within 24–48 hours. Project-based engagements require a brief scoping call and statement of work, which we can usually turn around within a week.
Talk to an IBM i Consultant Today
Tell us what you’re dealing with and we’ll give you a straight answer about whether and how we can help.
Schedule a free consultation Call 800-966-6725