Four Hundred Monitor, March 15
March 15, 2017 Dan Burger
What do you need from IBM i that you are not getting? If you have a thing or two in mind, IBM i Chief Architect Steve Will wants to hear from you. Here’s his phone number . . . Just kidding. The proper procedure is to use a request for enhancement. Learn more about that in today’s Monitor.
Along with an article about making change happen are a couple of articles on dealing with changes as disruptive technology and managed services reshape organizations and workforces. And speaking of change, did you see IBM’s surprising makeover at SXSW a few days ago?
Top Stories From Outside The Jungle
(You and i) Requests for enhancements are your opportunity to influence the future of IBM i. It’s a modernization of the old suggestion box idea. How do you catch the attention of the IBM i development team? Explain how your new feature will improve your business (or IBM’s business, or both).
(Zacks) Cloud computing, business intelligence (big data analytics), artificial intelligence, and robotics — will create far more disruption for capital and labor sources than most are imagining. This amount of disruption should not be taken lightly. Massive changes are coming to industry that will have deep impacts for economies and workers.
(InformationWeek) Organizations are reorganizing. They’re re-examining their structure, which includes people and processes. Although it often sounds like a plan to replace everything with new technology, the best planning leverages existing strengths, while shifting IT’s role from supportive to strategic. Making that plan is the tricky part.
(Computer Business Review) IBM and Lloyds Banking Group are on the verge of signing a contract which will outsource more than 1,900 jobs to Big Blue. The bank hopes to cut costs and become more technologically agile and responsive. Trade unions warn staff outsourced to IBM will be laid off within four years and replaced by offshore workers.
Redbooks, White Papers, and Other Resources
(IBM) You’ve never seen IBM like this. Check out what IBM had going on at the SXSW conference-festival-exhibition in Austin during the past couple of days. Watson and Bluemix performing at the Cloud Lounge? Oh, yeah.
(COMMON) During this 40 minute recording, Scott Forstie explains the new and enhanced DB2 for i features being delivered on March 31, 2017 to IBM i 7.2 and IBM i 7.3.
(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 16 — East Parsippany, New Jersey – At the next meeting of the North Eastern Systems Technology Users group, guest speaker Scott Forstie, DB2 for i business architect, will make two presentations: SQL Views for Dummies and SQL for Security Officers. The event begins at 5:30 p.m. and will be held at the Spice Grill located at 111 Route 46 East.
March 20 — Westbury, New York – The Long Island Systems Users Group monthly meeting will include three presentations by DB2 for i Business Architect Scott Forstie. At 3:30 p.m., Forstie will present SQL Views for Dummies. At 5 p.m. his topic will be SQL for the Security Officer. At 8 p.m., Forstie returns for a session titled ACS Run SQL Scripts and Other DB2 for i Tools Re-Invented. In between the second and third sessions, there will be time for networking, cocktails, and dinner. LISUG meetings are held at the Westbury Manor located at 1100 Jericho Turnpike.
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 21 — Costa Mesa, California – Open source tools for RPG ILE will be highlighted during the feature presentation at the regular monthly meeting of the OCEAN User Group. This presentation by IBM Power Systems Champion Liam Allen will include the use of the Relic Package Manager for contributing to open source RPG projects and the IBMiCmd plug-in for Notepad++. The meeting location is National University located at 3390 Harbor Boulevard.
March 21 — Eden Prairie, Minnesota – Emergency preparedness will be the focus of attention at the monthly meeting of QUSER, the local user group for IBM midrange professionals in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. The presentation, by subject matter expert Richard Dolewski, will include business continuity management, disaster recovery planning, and a home emergency plan. Actual regional disasters are discussed in this session along with a time-tested approach for helping enterprises stay in business and keeping families safe. The meeting begins at 2 p.m. and will be held at the HelpSystems offices located at 455 City West Parkway.
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.
March 23 — Manchester, New Hampshire – The New Hampshire Midrange User Group is hosting a one-day technical session on security presented by Robin Tatam, global director of security technologies at HelpSystems. The session agenda includes encryption, security for programmers, IBM i auditing features, and evaluating your own state of security. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. and the first session begins at 9. The event will be held at The Yard Restaurant located at 1211 South Mammouth Road.
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.
May 22-26 — Orlando, Florida – IBM Systems Technical University is a training and skills event featuring Power Systems, z Systems, and storage. Sessions are tailored for executives, business managers, data center managers, tech support managers, project managers, systems and application programmers, IT architects, and systems and database admins. Thirty-nine IBM i-specific sessions are on the agenda.
