Four Hundred Monitor, May 3
May 3, 2017 Dan Burger
Watson is a hive of activity with a swarm of across-the-board capabilities released rapid fire. One of the latest examples, Cognitive Visual Inspection, is designed to help manufacturers streamline their assembly line inspection process by finding and classifying faults in the manufacturing process. We have that story inside this week’s Monitor along with a few others that should be on your radar.
Did you know it’s been five years since IBM last recorded an increase in revenue on its quarterly financial reports? That’s one heck of a losing streak. How long can that continue? Plus stories on old programs, old programmers, and ERP upgrade options inside this issue of Monitor.
Top Stories From Outside The Jungle
(CBR) IBM has launched a new Watson-powered Internet of Things (IoT) solution designed to help manufacturers streamline their assembly line inspection process. The solution, dubbed Cognitive Visual Inspection, helps inspectors speed up the too long and expertise-based visual inspection process for rapidly finding and classifying faults in the manufacturing process.
(ZDNet) IBM has registered 20 consecutive quarters – five years – of revenue declines, but it could be about to turn the corner if its investments in “strategic imperatives” pays off.
(TNW) Despite the fact that three trillion dollars run through COBOL systems every day, they are mostly maintained by retired programming veterans. There are almost no new COBOL programmers available. So as retirees start passing away, the maintenance for software written in the ancient programming language starts passing away, too. Sound familiar?
(Dave Balser’s Blog) When your IBM i-based ERP system is no longer working, what are your replacement options? Take into account disruption, risk, retraining, and, of course, cost.
Redbooks, White Papers, and Other Resources
(IBM) This white paper explains how to access web services using IBM DB2 for i SQL queries and user-defined functions. The paper demonstrates how to combine these functions with the built-in SQL/XML support to create the HTTP request and process the HTTP response.
(IBM) The IBM Watson developer community lives here. Getting started tutoprials, finding tools, resources, documentation, and a question and answer forum – it’s all here.
(COMMON) During this 40-minute recording, Scott Forstie explains the new and enhanced DB2 for i features just delivered March 31 for users of IBM i 7.2 and IBM i 7.3.
(System i Developer) Programmers are always on the lookout for great productivity tips. As more IBM i developers shift to RDi as their primary development environment, they will need to get up to speed with Remote System Explorer, which forms the base of RDi. These “Favorite RSE Keyboard Shortcuts” by Susan Gantner will surprise you with the difference they make.
Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings
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 16 — Auburn Hills, Michigan – IBM i Web-based business intelligence will be presented at the meeting of the Southeast Michigan IBM i User Group. Guest speaker Jim Bainbridge from IBM Lab Services will discuss the DB2 Web Query tool. The meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. and will be held at the offices of Cooper Standard located at 2110 Executive Hills Court. Remote access to the presentation will also be available.
May 16 — Costa Mesa, California – IBM i memory tuning for performance will be the featured topic at the regular monthly meeting of the OCEAN User Group. Guest speaker is Dave Lewis, a member of the IBM i Performance Lab Services team. Networking begins at 5:30 p.m. followed by dinner and Lewis’ presentation. The meeting will be held at National University located at 3390 Harbor Boulevard.
May 18 — Parsippany, New Jersey – The North Eastern Systems Technology Users (NESTU) group is hosting a one-day educational opportunity featuring three sessions: Open Source ILE Concepts, Web Services Via RPG, and a topic yet to be determined. Guest speaker is IBM Power Systems/Cognitive Systems Champion Liam Allan. There will be two afternoon sessions and one in the evening. The meeting will be held at the Tandoori Flames restaurant located at 1557 Route 46 East.
May 22 — Bloomington, Minnesota – A one-day workshop featuring Rational Developer for IBM i is being hosted by QUSER, the local user group for IBM midrange professionals in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Guest speaker is RDi subject matter expert Charles Guarino. Topics include RSE navigation, views, preferences and the LPEX source code editor. The workshop location is the offices of Universal Hospital Services located at 6625 West 78th Street.
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 session are on the agenda.
June 13 & 14 — London, England – The International iPower Conference is a two-day event that features educational labs and hands-on workshops on day one and lecture-type sessions on day two. Session topics include security, SQL development, Watson analytics, cloud strategies, business intelligence, and in-depth examinations of IBM i and DB2.
