Four Hundred Monitor, February 28
February 28, 2018 Dan Burger
Was that a deer in the headlights look you gave your boss after he asked if you could integrate Salesforce with the IBM i? If so, you might ask for a do-over after you read this article. This might be one of those times when you’ll be surprised what an i can do.
How about a simple user interface that makes things easy for the end user? Do you have one of those in mind? Chances are good some of you have a cramp in your development productivity due to a maintenance burden. What can you do about it? Monitor points to the answers this week.
Top Stories From Outside The Jungle
(Seiden Group) Customer relationship management (CRM), the discovery and storing of information about customers, is the darling of marketing departments everywhere. If you know CRM, you know Salesforce, the leading software in CRM. But did you know Salesforce can be integrated with core systems, such as those running on IBM i?
(InformationWeek) Making things as easy as possible for the end user is the best way to ensure successful adoption and use of any new communication tool. This sentiment is confirmed by the Spiceworks’ community of IT professionals that found 74 percent of IT managers emphasized the importance of a “simple user interface” when shopping around for a new platform.
(CBR) “Every business is turning to software for a competitive edge but a disconnect still exists between businesses and developers about the best approach,” said Eliot Horowitz, CTO and cofounder at MongoDB. “Developers drive innovation, bring new products to market and keep business agile, but only when they can devote their time to rapid iteration. If the technologies they are provided with are hindering their productivity and creating a large maintenance burden, developers are left coding with one hand behind their back.”
(iDevelop) Don’t let anyone tell you no one uses RPG for new development. Jon Paris and Susan Gantner will debate that until the cows come home. A large majority of IBM i shops still use RPG for their new development, according to the IBM i Marketplace Survey, and it’s nearly always in conjunction with other languages.
Redbooks, White Papers, and Other Resources
(Scott’s Island) Open source languages in IBM i environments are more common than a lot of people imagine. There are thousands of utilities, mostly designed for Unix, that run in the QShell and PASE environments. However, running these tools from your RPG and CL programs can be tricky. A free utility called UNIXCMD makes it much easier.
(IBM) In most sectors, it’s industry incumbents that are dominating. Not because they are doing what they’ve always been doing, or maybe it is. Many have always been in a process of reinventing infrastructure and assets into significant disruptive advantage. Based on the C-suite Study, IBM has identified 100 critical opportunities that can be applied to business strategy.
Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings
February 26 through March 8 — Six European cities – The IT Leadership Forum is an opportunity to meet and hear from leading IBM i experts, industry thought leaders, other IT executives and special guests from IBM. Discussion topics will include how IBM i shops are innovating for the future, overcoming modernization challenges and leveraging existing systems to build a solid strategy for IT. There will be an emphasis on prioritizing initiatives pertaining to security, improving agility and developing a forward-looking IT strategy. Key speakers include Alison Butterill, Trevor Perry, Mike Pavlak, Emmanuel Tzinevrakis, Donnie MacColl, and Pascal Polverini. The events are hosted by Fresche Solutions.
February 27 — Itasca, Illinois – A discussion on PHP 7 will be the highlight of the monthly meeting of the OMNI User Group. This session will explore multiple features of PHP 7, as well as highlight those features/functions from earlier versions of PHP that are deprecated in the latest version. Additionally, the session will examine migration strategies for moving from PHP version 5 to version 7. Details of how separate subsystems for version 7 and version 5 of the PHP engine on IBM i can be leveraged to perform a step-wise migration of your PHP application(s) will be included. Guest speaker is Erwin Early, a consultant for Rogue Wave Software. The meeting begins at 5 p.m. with registration and networking, followed by dinner at 6, and the business meeting and presentation at 7. It will take place at the Fox and Turtle Restaurant located in 400 East Orchard Street in the Itasca Country Club.
March 6 — Toledo, Ohio – A one-day seminar featuring the new Power9 hardware and Technology Refreshes for IBM i 7.2 and 7.3, along with an overview of Db2 Web Query and the backup to disk or the cloud is being hosted by DMC Technology Group. These topics will be discussed from 8:30 a.m. until noon. After lunch, there will be a Db2 Web Query workshop from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. The event will be held at the Inverness Club located at 4601 Dorr Street.
March 7 — Beachwood, Ohio – A one-day seminar featuring the new Power9 hardware and Technology Refreshes for IBM i 7.2 and 7.3, along with an overview of Db2 Web Query and the backup to disk or the cloud is being hosted by DMC Technology Group. These topics will be discussed from 8:30 a.m. until noon. After lunch, there will be a Db2 Web Query workshop from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. The event will be held at the Embassy Suites Hotel located at 3775 Park East Drive.
March 13 -15 — 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. The tech conference includes a vendor expo and is hosted by the Lake Lawn Resort.
March 19-22 — Las Vegas, Nevada – Think 2018 is a new IBM conference that highlights topics such as IT transitions to the cloud, data and analytics, application development, IBM research, the Internet of Things, IT infrastructure, mobile, security, collaboration, and Watson. Programs available for C-level executives, IT managers, developers, and academics.
March 19 & 20 — Dallas, Texas – IBM i Chief Architect Steve Will and a select group of CIOs will be discussing the potential of modern IBM i applications during the IBM i CIO Summit. The CIO Summit is an executive-level forum facilitating the exchange ideas in a confidential setting where they can talk candidly about the challenges they face and to learn what works for their peers. Conversation will be supplemented by brief talks on select topics such as staffing, how to attract young RPG developers, and IBM i direction. The CIO Summit is a free, by-invitation-only event open to a limited number of CIOs or IT directors whose IT staff includes developers.
March 20-22 — Dallas, Texas – The twice-a-year, spring and fall, RPG & DB2 Summit returns to the Southwest for its next technical conference with an agenda of in-depth sessions that covers new and traditional topics. In addition to the three-day Summit, an optional fourth day of hands-on workshops provide intensive education into popular IBM i development technologies.
April 23-25 — Framingham, Massachusetts – The Northeast IBM i User Group Conference features more than 70 educational sessions in seven 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 that combine to organize this conference come from the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
May 20-23 — San Antonio, Texas – PowerUp 18 (formerly the 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. Pre-conference workshops (May 19) are also planned.
