Four Hundred Monitor, March 14
March 14, 2018 Dan Burger
What does your IT budget say about your organization? Are you a comfortable fit in the status quo or are you budgeting for the future knowing that status quo and a one-dollar bill won’t even get you a cup of coffee?
And if your vision of the IT future includes open source, start gathering information by reading articles linked to Monitor. This week we have advice on setting up an open source project office and a comparison of the top two containers for transporting applications between systems. IBM’s Watson CTO also talks about AI ethics and responsibility.
Top Stories From Outside The Jungle
(CIO) The IT budget says a lot about its owners: whether executives have a roadmap for the future and whether they’re willing to pay for it, whether company leaders value innovation or whether they still see technology as only a behind-the-scenes function. So, what does your budget say about you, your IT department, and the organization’s vision for its future? How much of the budget reflects business-as-usual, and how much goes toward innovation and digital transformation?
(InformationWeek) An experienced open source expert offers some tips for how to succeed with open source software, starting with an open source project office. Such an office helps explain to employees how open source works and its benefits, while providing supporting functions such as training, auditing, defining policies, developer relations and legal guidance. Although the office should be customized to a specific organization’s needs, there are still some standard steps everyone will go through.
(CBR) Containers are rising like a hot air balloon in the cloud market. A CIO can hardly move for suggestions of one-shot-wonder tools to lighten the burden of IT infrastructure management. But when it comes to the battle of Kubernetes vs Docker, which program comes out on top? Touted as simplifiers of software update administration, both tools are great for transporting applications from one system to another without risking compatibility problems, missing files or unexpected errors.
(TechRepublic) IBM Watson CTO Rob High says, “One of the things we have to realize about AI—it’s relatively new to all of us. There’s a lot about it that we don’t all fully understand. Even as a technologist, we know where we’re trying to bring the technology, but on the other side there’s lots of people for which this technology is new. The experiences around that are going to be different. As with any new technology, it’s really important that we be thinking now about how we do that ethically and responsibly.”
Redbooks, White Papers, and Other Resources
(IBM) Full support for IBM i 7.1 will end April 30. What are the reasons for upgrading and why would you choose 7.3 over 7.2. Information on these topics can be found here.
(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.
(Remain Software) Open source and Eclipse expert, Wim Jongman, provides a technical summary about Git on IBM i. The video presentation explains source code management using Git and emphasizes the pros and cons of using Git on IBM i.
Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings
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.
March 20 — Costa Mesa, California – IBM Db2 and Google Web Services will be the featured topic at the regular monthly meeting of the OCEAN User Group. This presentation by IBM i OCEAN Board Member Sean Corpuz will include geolocation topics and shortening full URLs for use in emails. Registration and networking begins at 5:30 with dinner and the presentation at 6. The meeting location is National University at 3390 Harbor Boulevard.
March 20 — Itasca, Illinois – Useful plugins, preference settings, and a few tips that will enhance your Rational Developer for i experience will be the featured topics during the monthly meeting of the OMNI User Group. Guest speaker is Bruce Guetzkow, a senior programmer/analyst with Liebovich Bros. The meeting begins at 5 p.m. with registration and networking, followed by dinner at 6, and the presentation at 7. It will take place at the Fox & Turtle Restaurant at the Itasca Country Club, 400 East Orchard Street.
March 20 – Eden Prairie, Minnesota – Kim Greene explains MongoDB and its impact on our industry at the monthly meeting of QUSER, the local user group for IBM midrange professionals in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Greene is president of Kim Greene Consulting, a firm specializing services for the IBM Collaboration Solutions portfolio for IBM i. The meeting begins at 1:30 p.m. with the presentation at 2. A presentation on Power9 and a Q&A session follow. The meeting location is the HelpSystems offices located at 6455 City West Parkway.
March 21 — Westbury, New York – The Long Island Systems Users Group monthly meeting will include two presentations by Steven Wolk, CTO for PC Richard & Son. His first presentation is an introduction to Linux. The second session focuses on creating commands and program development for IBM i. LISUG meetings are held at the Westbury Manor located at 1100 Jericho Turnpike.
March 22 — Coppell, Texas – Many CIOs and IT professionals, while appreciating what the IBM i platform does for their organizations, have a slight inferiority complex about the platform, believing that the issues of deferred maintenance and skill replacement are unique to us. They aren’t. Any long-lived platform brings similar challenges, to be met head-on with confidence. At this session, you will learn how to discuss the challenges of long-lived systems in a way that that business people can understand, how to create a plan for moving forward with IBM i modernization if appropriate for your business, and to gain support for doing so. Guest speaker at this Metro Midrange Systems Association meeting is IBM Champion Alan Seiden. The event begins at 5:30 p.m. with dinner at 6 and Seiden’s presentation at 6:45. MMSA meetings are held at the IBM Innovation Center located at 1177 South Belt Line Road.
March 29 — Webinar – The Mid-Atlantic Group of IBM i Collaborators (MAGiC) will be hosting an online educational session on Rational Developer for i presented by Charles Guarino, a popular speaker on the topic. This presentation is available to all IBM i users, not just members of the local user group. It will take place between 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time.
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.
