Four Hundred Monitor, July 12

July 12, 2017 Dan Burger

The Scout motto “Be Prepared” is good advice for all of us. But when it comes to advice applicable to IBM i, Chief Scout Steve Will has specific advice on preparations that will be useful when the time for platform re-evaluation comes around. This article adds to Will’s advice on this topic noted by Monitor on June 21.

This issue of Monitor also has articles on the delivery of open source PTFs, the positive and negative impacts of artificial intelligence on workers, the tape storage dynasty that remains a factor even in leading edge companies, plus the influence, guidance and consequences of the Cognitive Systems Executive Advisory Board.

Top Stories From Outside The Jungle

(You and i) An advance warning system is designed to alert individuals to various hazards and potential emergencies. Steve Will’s series of blogs on preparing for a platform re-evaluation is a good example. It’s always good to be warned, but it’s even better to be prepared. Here’s some advice on how to do that.

(Open Your i) The IBM development team recently released a PTF group level for open source PTFs. It includes SQLite embedded database; Nginx Web server; Node.js and Python improvements related to performance, stability and memory; and the Eclipse Orion cloud-based IDE, and other features.

(IBM Social Business Blog) The impact of technology on the future of work deserves to get more attention, especially in the tidal wave of artificial intelligence approaches shore. Will AI will be used to create a dystopian or utopian future: overly focused on controls, efficiencies, and risk mitigation . . . or intensely focused on deep empowerment, trust, freedom, and amazing tools?

(IBM Systems Blog) The death of tape as a data storage option has been greatly exaggerated. Based on the “old is bad, newer is better, and newest is best” song of the lemmings, you would be shocked to learn large-scale cloud services providers and global enterprises choose tape to store large volumes of data at an affordable price.

(IBM Systems Magazine) What is the Cognitive Systems Executive Advisory Board and why should you care? The group comprises approximately 20 executives from IBM client organizations including vice presidents, chief technology officers, and executive managers. These executives have deep experience running businesses workloads on AIX, IBM i and Linux OSes. Here’s a glimpse of how cognitive technologies are being shaped.

Redbooks, White Papers, and Other Resources

(Fresche) This archived webinar examines ways to address IBM i skills and staffing shortages. Topics of discussion include: improving ramp-up time to train new IBM i staff; addressing IT backlog and new development; increasing developer productivity and reducing application maintenance; expanding the skills of IT teams; and exploring staffing options to get IT projects done.

(Connectria) This recorded webinar on IBM i trends and directions presented by IBM i Chief Architect Steve Will discusses the strategy for IBM i on Power Systems, the IBM i roadmap, IBM i growth, and the IBM i place in cloud computing.

(IBM) The details of building cognitive applications with visual recognition are covered in volume three of a seven-piece collection of IBM Redbooks titled Building Cognitive Applications with IBM Watson Services. The series includes getting started, conversation services, visual recognition, natural languages classifier; language translators; speech-to-text and text-to-speech; and natural language understanding.

(Remain Software) This report examines how business changes influence IT and how application functionality can keep up with changing business systems. It also reveals the challenges faced by software development teams, how they relate to the competitiveness of your organization and what can be done to reduce the cost of IT.

(Seiden Group) This handout from Alan Seiden’s presentation titled “PHP for Batch Tasks on IBM i” includes tips for improving Web application performance. It focuses on front-end performance including topics such as request-response protocol, caching, creating favicons, the “KeepAlive” setting, compression to decrease file size, and tips for JavaScript and cascading style sheets.

(S4i Systems) Better Object Builder is a free and open source build system for the IBM i platform that is used to build native “QSYS” objects. It compiles objects that need recompiling ( i.e. new or changed source code) and understands the relationships between objects – so, if an item changes, then it and everything depending on it will be rebuilt.

(T.L. Ashford) This paper examines three approaches to automated data collection integration with IBM System i. It identifies the integration traps commonly experienced by business and examines a better approach using native IBM i labeling software specifically designed for the IBM i architecture.

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

July 20-22 — Costa Mesa, California – The OCEAN Tech Conference is featuring more than 45 sessions and more than 20 speakers over three days. Topics include SQL and DB2, systems management, RPG, RDi, open source, cloud and professional development. Standard sessions and a vendor expo take place on Thursday and Friday. Workshops and hands-on labs are scheduled Saturday. The list of presenters includes: Ted Holt, Scott Forstie, Jesse Gorzinski, Scott Klement, Alan Seiden, Charles Guarino, Aaron Bartell, and Mike Pavlak. The conference location is National University located at 3390 Harbor Boulevard near Orange County Airport.

July 20 – Webinar – IBM i Chief Architect Steve Will plans to discuss the IBM AS/400, cognitive systems, and everything in between during this one-hour online session. That’s not a misprint. Will recognizes the AS/400 is the foundation for the modern IBM i, but he’ll have a lot to say about how that historic system has evolved, the development strategies in progress, and ways that cognitive computing fits in with IBM i. The webinar begins at 10 a.m. Central Time.

September 19 — Schaumburg, Illinois – The 2017 Omni Technical Conference and Expo features IBM i on Power Systems education on important topics such as advanced RPG, DB2, SQL, application development, Web development, application modernization, security, modern toolsets, and systems administration. The conference will be held at the IBM Schaumburg offices.

October 2-4 — St. Louis, Missouri – The COMMON Fall Conference features technical sessions, workshops, certifications, networking opportunities, and a vendor expo. The session grid and speaker lineup has yet to be posted, but you can expect a mix of fundamental skills and new technologies. An early registration discount is available and hotel reservations can be made.

October 17-19 — Minneapolis, Minnesota – The twice-a-year, spring and fall, RPG & DB2 Summit returns to the upper Midwest for its next technical conference with an agenda that expands to cover new topics such as Python for RPGers, how to bring the power of Watson to RPG applications, and SQL aggregation. It also incorporates sessions that will introduce hidden gems in DB2 for i as well as anticipated Q4 2017 updates to the database. In addition to the three-day Summit, an optional fourth day of hands-on workshops October 16, provides intensive education into four technology areas — SQL, RSE/RDi, Service Programs or PHP. Workshop attendees choose one topic for the “deep dive.” An early registration discount is available through August 31.