Dan Burger
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Agilysys Delivers Upgrades to Back Office and Customer-Facing Software
October 19, 2016 Dan Burger
… Read moreThe notion that what goes on in the IT departments of companies in the gaming industry translates into IT departments of every other business is not a long-shot bet. The gaming business–casinos and their tentacles that reach into restaurants and lodging–is as customer-focused as any business you can name. And, as many of you know, it’s a bastion of IBM midrange computing–an important niche in the IBM i ecosystem.
Developments here often fan out to other industries when business efficiencies and increased revenue generation opportunities have been demonstrated.
Agilysys, with its property management, inventory and procurement software Stratton Warren
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IBM i Open Source Roadmap Finds Perl
October 17, 2016 Dan Burger
… Read moreSupport for open source development on IBM i has been a big deal for the Technology Refresh program. Just last week, with the latest TR announcement, support for Perl was added along with support for the current version of Node.js, which is v6. In previous TRs, we have seen support for programming languages like Ruby and Python, plus tools such as the GNU Compiler Collection and Git. The PHP language, the Eclipse integrated development environment, and the Apache web server are pre-TR open source advancements.
Compared to Node.js, Python, Ruby, and PHP, there’s not much happening in terms of new
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Mobile Apps As Easy As RPG III
October 17, 2016 Dan Burger
… Read moreYou probably don’t know Chris Rushak. But the odds that you know someone like him are pretty high. In fact, you might be the person who has a lot in common with him. Rushak is an RPG developer with a boatload of experience coding green-screen applications from scratch. He’s done it for decades and is comfortable with his fixed-format RPG III skills. Those green-screen applications do the job just fine. But then came the request for a mobile application.
The business problem was an inability to accurately track inventory from the receiving area to the warehouse and then to production
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IBM i Tech Refresh Arrives; JSON And Perl In Spotlight
October 11, 2016 Dan Burger
… Read moreAfter the release of IBM i 7.3 this past spring, we’ve traveled six months down the road and it’s already time for a Technology Refresh. That’s TR 1 for the fresh-faced 7.3 and TR 5 for i 7.2, which was hatched in May 2014. For the record, let’s also note that i 7.1 debuted in April 2010 and the Technology Refresh program is now six years old. Here’s the latest stuff from the TR pipeline.
As always, there are added features to appreciate in this latest TR. After all, the software is guided by requests from the IBM i advisory
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IBM i Survey Gets Better As Numbers Grow
October 11, 2016 Dan Burger
… Read moreThe IBM i Strategy and Roadmap document lays out the plan for the future. That’s great. We need to see where we’re going. But the annual IBM i Marketplace Survey indicates whether IBM i shops are following the roadmap or charting their own courses. Now in its third year, the survey is our best view of the ecosystem. October is survey month and we encourage IT Jungle readers to get involved in this IBM i assessment.
The 2016 Marketplace Survey was based on the responses of 834 IBM i shops. That was more than three times the number that weighed
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Could IBM i And System z Share Easy Source?
October 3, 2016 Dan Burger
… Read moreHow far can really old, monolithic RPG code be extended? Some might say the end is in sight. Others might say if it ain’t broke, why fix it. It’s an application modernization dilemma. How much time is being devoted to application maintenance? Is the code worth saving as is, can it be modified as the basis of a modernization effort, or is it time for a total rewrite? These questions are on the minds of IBM midrange shops.
There are a variety of software vendors in the application modernization business with technology and products designed to help companies make decisions
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Two Fall Conferences Are Must-See IT
October 3, 2016 Dan Burger
… Read moreIn just a few weeks, the COMMON user group has two conferences offering IBM i education. It’s good to know there are still companies and individuals that value the development of IT expertise, innovation, and industry best practices. The evolution of IBM i skills has never been more important than it is today, but overall the attendance at technical conferences has remained at about the same level for the past five years.
COMMON has its Fall Conference scheduled for October 24-26 in Columbus, Ohio, and BeNeLux Power 2016–hosted by COMMON organizations in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg is set for
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PowerHA Implementations No Picnic; Help On The Way
September 28, 2016 Dan Burger
… Read moreEasy as pie does not describe the implementation process for PowerHA. It can be a mind-bender, even in shops where the staffing is adequate and the skills are current. So how about something a little easier to implement and why not make it applicable to all three operating systems that run on Power? It’s coming soon, even though the official announcement has yet to be made. Easier implementation should be a big boost to PowerHA.
At least that’s what Satya Sharma, CTO and IBM Power Systems Fellow, told me when we met last week at the Edge 2016 conference in
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IBM i Finds A Place At Edge Conference
September 26, 2016 Dan Burger
… Read moreThe IBM i community was born and raised with platform-specific tendencies. That was the way of the IBM IT world for many years. It’s not the way anymore. The strategy for IBM Power Systems, running i and AIX, is much more open. It’s OpenPower and OpenStack oriented. Its roadmap has cloud and cognitive computing highlighted. The IBM Edge conference last week left no doubt about that. So what’s left for i?
Power Systems general manager Doug Balog says there’s plenty. IBM continues to invest in IBM i, Balog says, using the stream of OS releases 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3 as
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IBM Preaches Cognitive, Cloud, And IT Consumption
September 26, 2016 Dan Burger
… Read moreThey say it’s not just about the technology. It’s really about the business. But that brings to mind an old adage from the car industry: You sell the sizzle not the steak. Right now the sizzle is cognitive computing. It has edged out big data and analytics in the one-upsmanship match of IT leadership and the next big thing. At the Edge conference last week, when IBM executives talked strategy and road maps, cognitive computing was on the tip of tongues.
Cognitive is a differentiator, an upper hand for IBM. Big Blue has not let the world forget about Watson,