Four Hundred Monitor, March 1

March 1, 2017 Dan Burger

If you put the IBM i community under a microscope, you might see a few little squiggly things that generally unseen by the naked eye. Those things would be database engineers. Seldom seen doesn’t mean they are of little consequence. DB2 for i is the heart of the system. If you run the system, you should make sure it’s heart healthy.

Back for its fourth consecutive year, the Women in IT conference is a professional development eye-opener for all IT pros. A look back at last year’s conference might inspire you to attend the upcoming repeat event. For additional events pertinent to IBM i professionals, check out the calendar in this week’s Monitor.

Top Stories From Outside The Jungle

(iTalk With Tuohy) The IBM midrange operating system—once known as OS/400 and now known as IBM i—has a built-in enterprise strength database. There’s no need for a separate database server and, in most implementations, there’s no database administrator. What most IBM i systems do need is a database engineer. Ask Scott Forstie. He’ll tell you what a database engineer is and what he can do for you.

(I Can) The Wisconsin Midrange Computer Professionals Association is presenting its fourth annual Women in IT conference March 24. It’s a free, gender-neutral professional development conference. It precedes the Spring Technical Conference for the WMCPA. Stacy Benfield attended the event last year and writes about her experience in this blog.

(Forbes) If you were buried in an avalanche of 2017 prediction stories and you tuned them out just to get some breathing room, take just a few minutes now to read what Forbes has to say about enterprise computing trends. Have you already decided which trends get your allocation of time and funds that will pay off for your business?

(CIO) Open source software is a bigger part of the IBM i community than many people realize. The mix of up-and-coming open source projects changes all the time, so here’s a snapshot of industry trends that are leading the innovation parade. These are not IBM i projects, but they are indicators of the innovation that open source is bringing to the enterprise computing arena.

Redbooks, White Papers, and Other Resources

(BCD) This archived online session focuses on building a Web strategy that leverages IBM i. It includes insights from a modernization project implemented by a sporting goods distributor. Highlights include moving into modernization in phases, creating ecommerce and warehouse applications, and overcoming concerns about performance, security, and skills.

(IBM) The latest IBM i Technology Refresh will be available March 15, but the overview from IBM is available now on the developerWorks website. The list of categories includes DB2 for i, systems management, hardware, and open source. If you are running i 7.3, follow this link.

(IBM) The latest IBM i Technology Refresh will be available March 15, but the overview from IBM is available now on the developerWorks website. The list of categories includes DB2 for i, systems management, hardware, and open source. If you are running i 7.2, follow this link.

(IBM) The IBM i announcements for the 7.2 and 7.3 TRs don’t mention the three upcoming RPG enhancements that will be available through PTFs at the same time as the TRs. The PTFs will be available individually, and they will also be part of the upcoming 7.2 and 7.3 DB2 group PTFs.

(IBM) Rational Developer for i is a modern, Eclipse-based development tool for IBM i. It includes a visual editor; integrated file management; search edit, compile/build and debug capabilities; analysis tools; and debugger tools. This presentation–by Eric Simpson, RDi developer, release lead, and install architect–includes information on the newest enhancements, as well as feedback and direction setting.

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

March 8 – Webinar – Application and database developers with a combination of current skills and tools will easily outperform developers working with 20-year-old skills and tools. This session title “Be the Best IBM i Developer You Can Be” promises a lot. It begins with the basics for new developers and follows that up with tips and tricks to reduce maintenance and enhance development agility. Jon Paris, Trevor Perry, and Ray Everhart share their knowledge. The session begins at noon Central Time.

March 14 -16 — Delavan, Wisconsin – A one-day Women in IT Seminar will take place in conjunction with the Wisconsin Midrange Computing Professionals Association Spring Technical Conference. The agenda includes sessions on IT careers, mentoring, and the business environment; a keynote address by Stefanie Chiras, vice president of Power Systems offering management; as well as an open discussion.

March 14 -16 — Delavan, Wisconsin – The Wisconsin Midrange Computing Professionals Association Spring Technical Conference is the largest conference in the Midwest. It features more than 50 informative presentations on current topics such as SQL, PHP, RPG, .NET and IBM administration. Keynote presentations by Tim Rowe, IBM i business architect for application development and systems management, and Stefanie Chiras, vice president of Power Systems offering management, are agenda highlights. A full session agenda is available online. In addition to the all-day technical session on Tuesday, there is a one-day event highlighting the opportunities for women in IT. The tech conference includes a vendor expo and is hosted by the LakeLawn Resort.

March 21-23 — Orlando, Florida – The RPG & DB2 Summit, hosted by System i Developer partners Susan Gantner, Jon Paris and Paul Tuohy, features three days of training that modernizes and expands IBM i development skills features three days of training that modernizes and expands IBM i development skills. An optional fourth day of hands-on workshops on March 20, provides an intensive dive into a choice of SQL, RSE/RDi, Service Programs or PHP sessions. The conference focuses on helping IBM i developers achieve continuous skills improvement based on current tips and techniques that can be implemented immediately. An early registration rate of $1,295 is available through February 17.

March 22 — Webinar – Building a responsive UI is not magic nor mystery. This online session “Making Rich Application Interfaces Responsive” provides tips for planning and building responsive applications. During this presentation, Profound Logic’s Brian May demonstrates techniques in the Profound UI Visual Designer and use custom CSS to make applications more responsive. Topics include using containers to organize related groups of data and using CSS Media Queries to control the data layout based on the size of a display. The session begins at 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time.

March 23 — Markham, Ontario, Canada – Jesse Gorzinski, IBM i business architect of open source technologies, will present two sessions at the monthly meeting of the Toronto User Group. Gorzinski’s session, at 5 p.m., will cover the latest updates on the open source offerings, the open source community, and how to participate in open source. Gorzinski’s 7 p.m. session will examine the multiple techniques to integrate Web serving in the open source world. Topics include: IBM i basics related to Web servers, PHP, Node.js, and Python; integrating new IBM i languages into existing Apache web sites; alternatives available in open source; and Web application design techniques for consistent good performance. The meeting takes place at the Savoy Conference Centre (Monte Carlo Inn) located at 7255 Warden Avenue.

April 10-12 — Framingham, Massachusetts – The Northeast IBM i User Group Conference features more than 70 educational sessions in six skills categories. It offers the opportunity to learn about new technologies, engage with vendors to discuss packaged software advancements, hear IBM i executives and lead developers discuss products and roadmaps for the platform, and gain knowledge that can benefit your company and your career. The user groups of the Northeast come from the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

May 2 & 3 — Markham, Ontario, Canada – The Toronto User Group’s annual technical education conference, TEC 2017, features IBM i-centric subjects that include: RPG application development, Web and mobile development, application modernization, accessing and optimizing DB2 data, performance management, and system management. The conference will take place at the SAVOY Conference Centre (Monte Carlo Inn) located at 7255 Warden Avenue in Markham. Early registration discounts are available.

May 7-10 — Orlando, Florida – The 2017 COMMON Annual Meeting and Exposition is the largest IBM i educational event of the year. It includes more than 300 sessions related to IBM i, as well as AIX and Linux. Open source, high availability, security, DB2, and application development are a few of the popular skill-building topics. The agenda includes all-day pre-conference workshops, open labs, and a wide variety of lecture-type sessions presented by subject matter experts. An early registration discount ($1,595 for members; $1,895 for non-members) is available through December 30.