Four Hundred Monitor, February 3

February 3, 2021 Jenny Thomas

Yesterday, everyone’s favorite soothsayer Punxsutawney Phil predicted winter will hang on for six more weeks, which can be good or bad news depending on your weather preferences. What a difference a year has made as we close in on the one-year mark of when Covid-19 changed the world. Even Phil has had to adjust. The yearly Groundhog Day ritual, which dates back to 1887, was held virtually in 2021 amid the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, we’ve all learned to adjust evidenced by our Calendar below, which is filled with webinars and virtual events. COMMON also has a new hybrid conference in the works, which you can find out more about in the Redbooks, White Papers, Blogs, and Other Resources section below.

Top Stories From Outside The Jungle

(Enterprise Times) A favorable look at the IBM i marketplace based on results of HelpSystems annual survey.

(Adweek) IBM hires a new senior vice president and chief marketing officer known for revamping the brand focus for major companies.

(Coindesk) Blockchain has gone to the farthest back burner as revenues continue to decline at IBM.

(Seeking Alpha) Making the case for buying vs. selling IBM stock.

(Built In) The Young Entrepreneur Council offers 12 cloud computing tips for growing your small business.

Redbooks, White Papers, Blogs, and Other Resources

(IBM) Watch this webinar on-demand to attend this roundtable webinar discussion – 10 Surprising Insights On Used IT – with IDC, IBM, Skytap, Celerity, and ChannelWorks featuring IDC research on the used IT marketplace. Learn why organizations are increasingly turning to used IT, the most important criteria in selecting a used IT equipment provider and how used IT may help accelerate your sustainability initiatives, plus more research insights.

(Precisely) This annual survey provides a revealing look at the current state of IBM i security. Take the survey to share your IBM i security challenges and get alerts to results.

(SEA) Get tips on the tools you need to collect and organize IBM i machine data, and why it’s important to do so in this free guide from Software Engineering of America.

(COMMON) COMMON is looking for ideas for its new hybrid conference NAViGATE, which will take place on May 24 – 26, 2021, in Columbus, Ohio. NAViGATE will also be simulcast virtually, so attendees and presenters have a choice of attending and presenting in-person or virtually. Share your topic requests or apply to present here before February 8.

(The Incredible i Show) Join Peg Tuttle and Tony Turetsky for their new podcast series as they sit down with IBM i users and professionals to chat about your favorite IT system. Hear from innovators, thought leaders, and everyday users about how they run the i in their shops and what this powerful platform has allowed them to accomplish in their business.

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

February 3 – Webinar – COMMON hosts the YiPs. Join this free session to discuss with fellow YiPs and a guest speaker how to negotiate a salary. Learn when and how to ask for a raise, how to calculate your worth to a company, and how to broach the topic with your superior. Join your fellow Young i Professionals to learn how to have these intimidating (but important) conversations.

February 8 – Webinar – IBM and ARCAD Software invite you to a Lunch & Learn series to discuss how to lead your IBM i into a modern DevOps world. In this session, you will learn how to: include RPG and COBOL development in an end-to-end CI/CD pipeline across all technologies; standardize on Git as common source code repository; and leverage collaborative tools such as GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket on IBM i.

February 9 – Virtual Meeting – The first meeting of the Central Texas IBM i User Group (CTXiUG) will be an online presentation by Simon Hutchinson, author of the web site RPGPGM.com. Simon will demonstrate a variety of tips, techniques, and ideas to take advantage of IBM’s Db2 for i new SQL features and functions to simplify many of your programming needs and daily tasks.

February 9 – Webinar – Deep dive into IBM i application modernization with a series of 30-minute sessions presented by Fresche Solutions. Registration is free. Today’s session is entitled “A Strategic Approach to Modernization” and will demonstrate why learn why it’s so important to have a comprehensive IT strategy and IBM i roadmap.

February 10 – Webinar – IBM and ARCAD Software invite you to a Lunch & Learn series to learn how to safeguard IBM i code quality. In this session, you will learn how to: automate the detection of quality flaws in RPG and COBOL code; make code quality checking a continuous part of your DevOps cycle; eliminate new security vulnerabilities.

February 10 – Webinar – IBM and ARCAD Software invite you to a Lunch & Learn series to get tips on how to shift defects left with IBM i test automation. In this session, you will learn how to optimize your development costs through test automation: generate unit test assets automatically; execute unit and regression testing as continuous part of your DevOps cycle; detect defects at the database level; identify the source lines to correct.

February 11 – Webinar – Deep dive into IBM i application modernization with a series of 30-minute sessions presented by Fresche Solutions. Registration is free. Today’s session is entitled “Transforming Your RPG or CA 2E (Synon) to Modern Languages” and will demonstrate how you can modernize applications at lower cost and risk than rewriting or replacing while building on the investment in your customized systems.

February 16 – Webinar – Ocean User Group presents “i for 2021 – Top Technologies & Strategies for Success,” a panel discussion moderated by Charles Guarino and featuring panelists Alison Butterill, Scott Forstie, Susan Gantner, Steph Rabbani, and Robin Tatam.

February 16 – Webinar – Deep dive into IBM i application modernization with a series of 30-minute sessions presented by Fresche Solutions. Registration is free. Today’s session is entitled “Improve Productivity with Automated Documentation and Impact Analysis” and will demonstrate the business value derived from application documentation, analysis and better understanding of your IBM i applications.

February 16 – Webinar – Join the Toronto Users Group for a discussion on “DevOps and CI/CD Pipelines in the IBM i World” featuring Donna Westmoreland, CTO of Midrange Dynamics. This webinar is free for TUG members.

February 18 – Webinar – Register to attend “Get Your Guard Up!” to learn how to protect your organization from cyberattacks, which are on the rise and projected to grow further in 2021. This remains true even on Power Systems, especially for Linux and IBM i IFS. Join this 1-hour session to learn how to identify vulnerabilities and secure Power Systems from costly security breaches.

February 18 – Webinar – Deep dive into IBM i application modernization with a series of 30-minute sessions presented by Fresche Solutions. Registration is free. Today’s session is entitled “Automatically Resize Your Database Fields” and learn how taking an automated approach to field resizing reduces the risk of human error, provides a detailed impact assessment for the resize project and eliminates the guess work while handling all aspects of the resizing task.

February 18 – Webinar – Register to attend “Get Your Guard Up!” to learn how to protect your organization from cyberattacks, which are on the rise and projected to grow further in 2021. This remains true even on Power Systems, especially for Linux and IBM i IFS. Join this 1-hour session to learn how to identify vulnerabilities and secure Power Systems from costly security breaches.

February 23 – Webinar – Deep dive into IBM i application modernization with a series of 30-minute sessions presented by Fresche Solutions. Registration is free. Today’s session is entitled “Grow Your Business with Strategic IBM i Web and Mobile Applications” and learn about business challenges that IBM i organizations are facing and how they’re overcoming them with strategic web and mobile applications (e.g. B2B/B2C order entry, invoicing, eCommerce and more).

February 23 – Webinar – IBM i Offering Manager Alison Butterill and IBM i Senior Technical Staff Member Scott Forstie will discuss cloud, AI, IoT and other cognitive technologies in this webinar presented by Ocean User Group. Alison and Scott will give a brief presentation and then open up the roundtable for conversation, questions and discussion.

February 24 – Webinar – Hear IT managers in the manufacturing and distribution industries explain how their companies use NGS-IQ to supplement the reports and views of data in their ERP software and see a brief demo in this free 30-minute webinar from New Generation Software.

February 25 – Webinar – Deep dive into IBM i application modernization with a series of 30-minute sessions presented by Fresche Solutions. Registration is free. Today’s session is entitled “Achieve Quick Wins with IBM i Web and Mobile Development” and will feature a demonstration on how Fresche’s IBM i web and mobile development solutions provide a low-risk, low-cost way to leverage your investment in IT.

March 2 – Webinar – Deep dive into IBM i application modernization with a series of 30-minute sessions presented by Fresche Solutions. Registration is free. Today’s session is entitled “Modernize IBM i Spool Files with Electronic Forms, Checks and Labels” and will show you how to automatically transform your forms, checks, labels and barcodes into professional, branded documents with Formtastic.

March 4 – Webinar – Deep dive into IBM i application modernization with a series of 30-minute sessions presented by Fresche Solutions. Registration is free. Today’s session is entitled “Speed Up Application Development with Automated Testing” and learn how Fresche’s end-to-end testing suite reduces risk by enabling developers to automatically test the UI, business logic and the database.

March 9 – Webinar – Deep dive into IBM i application modernization with a series of 30-minute sessions presented by Fresche Solutions. Registration is free. Today’s session is entitled “Gain Peace of Mind with IBM i Application Support and Services” and learn how you can maintain business continuity with an experienced backup for critical applications while reducing costs and mitigating risk with expert RPG, PHP and COBOL resources.

March 9-26 — Paul Tuohy, Susan Gantner, and Jon Paris host a free Summit Lunch & Learn Series focused on the latest IBM i development enhancements and tools. Each Lunch & Learn day includes bite-sized technical tips from Susan, Jon, or Paul; a demo of an IBM i development tool; and a live Q&A. Check out the topics and register free for select sessions or the whole series.

May 3-5 – Framingham, Massachusetts – Plan now for the 2021 Northeast User Group (NEUGC) Conference. NEUGC is the largest technical conference in New England for IBM i.

May 24-27 – Columbus, Ohio, and Virtual – NAViGATE is COMMON’s new Hybrid event, completely reimagined content that focuses on quick tips-and-tricks, business cases, lessons learned, and innovative technologies and solutions – education that can immediately impact your job and organization that is entirely new content. NAViGATE will feature more than 250 short-format sessions presented by industry experts, peers, and solution providers from the i community, plus an in-person tabletop Expo, and Virtual Expo, of leading solution providers. This conference will offer unique in-person and virtual networking opportunities for attendees to interact and share knowledge.

October 4-6 – Virginia Beach, Virginia – The 2021 IT Executive Conference was created with the needs of IT managers and decision makers in mind to provide content and insight on leading topics that impact business. With a focus on strategic issues, ITEC attendees will hear from, and network with, IBM executives, industry recognized experts and peers on how to maximize IT investments.

October 4-7 – Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Virtual – POWERUp 2021 will be COMMON’s first Hybrid conference and will offer an in-person experience and virtual access to our remote attendees. Join friends and colleagues in the COMMON community and enjoy the best in Power Systems and IBM i education over the course of four days. Choose from nearly 300 sessions, which cover a broad range of IT topic areas that will be delivered live in-person and virtually. POWERUp will also boasts the largest Expo of its kind so that all attendees can learn about all the great products and solutions available to this community from our vendor partners. This conference is structured to give you the pure education and professional connections needed to best enhance your career.