Dan Burger
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It’s TR Time: What’s Next For The IBM i Database?
April 20, 2015 Dan Burger
… Read moreWeb application development depends on two document formats for the interchange of business data: XML and JSON. The smaller (lighter weight), quicker to transmit, and more efficient is JSON. XML has been a good choice and has served its purpose well. It continues to do so. However, the popularity of JSON indicates it is the new favorite in IBM i shops, just as it is on other platforms. JSON has done well enough to get noticed on the IBM radar. It showed up in the release of IBM i 7.2 in October and it’s certain to make some noise with
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Good Day, Good Way To Be A Consultant
April 20, 2015 Dan Burger
… Read moreEvery way I turn, I find consultants. People I’ve known for years have parachuted from full-time jobs working in the traditional employee-employer circumstances to what amounts to freelance contract workers. The professional career doesn’t seem to matter. People want to get into the consulting business. Partly because businesses want to hire consultants. There’s a demand. And IBM midrange shops are no different from businesses at large. Welcome to the new job market.
You can thank technology for making all this possible.
If you’ve kept up with the latest business-tested hardware and software, or even if you haven’t, there can be
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Relief for Third-Party Software Upgrade Paralysis
April 15, 2015 Dan Burger
… Read moreIn-house software development isn’t nearly as prevalent as it once was. The cost to produce and maintain code, together with the do-more-with-less-staffing rule in many organizations, has de-emphasized home-grown software. Commercial software from the IBM ISV community, as a result, is gaining ground. That doesn’t mean, however, that commercial software isn’t customized–sometimes highly customized. And when upgrading a customized software package becomes difficult, companies sometimes put upgrades on hold–sometimes for a long time.
That’s where change management software comes into play. Without it, new development and upgrades can easily become chaotic, which means it will also become expensive. All it
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IBM i Shops Can’t Help But Look At Linux
April 13, 2015 Dan Burger
… Read moreWhat’s it going to take to get IBM midrange shops interested in running Linux on their Power Systems boxes? The references to better resiliency, better security, and better virtual machine density, (the capability to run more virtual machines on Power) are all well and good, but that alone won’t get it done. It won’t turn the tide, which is heavily in favor of running Linux on X86.
Working with the ISV community and continuing to build Linux awareness is part of the strategy.
Linux has become a much bigger deal in the enterprise space than is widely recognized by people
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Cozzi Refines Data-Centric Ideas For IBM i Report Writer
April 13, 2015 Dan Burger
… Read moreWhen IBM invests in IBM i, the database is first in line. In terms of “people hours” nothing comes close to the work being done on the database. When new versions of the operating system arrive, it’s the database that gets the greatest number of enhancements. Same with the Technology Refreshes, in almost all cases. Members of the ISV community and the Large User Group of top Power Systems companies are usually quick to take advantage, but there’s a bigger picture.
The power of SQL and data-centric programming is gaining IBM i converts, maybe more so now than at any
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IBM i ERP Vendor Finds Success With SaaS
April 6, 2015 Dan Burger
… Read moreAs a topic of discussion, software pricing is an incendiary device. But a flame without fuel goes out quickly. And for a lot of companies, status quo means no open flames and don’t even think about throwing that wood on the fire. There’s another term for status quo. It’s called complacency. The opposite of complacency is not change; it’s investigate. In terms of software, that means taking a look at software as a service.
Software licensing, support, and maintenance costs can be pretty steep, particularly the up-front licensing charges, which are often a point of fixation for customers. There’s a
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Agilysys Adds Mobile Manager For IBM i LMS Customers
April 6, 2015 Dan Burger
… Read moreAgilysys develops one of the most industry dominate applications in the IBM i ISV territory. Its Lodging Management System (LMS) has been the standard of the gaming industry for as long as those businesses have been computerized. Casino resort operations around the world use LMS for much of their business operations. A new software release from a dominate software company is a bellwether event for IBM midrange market watchers.
LMS 7.3, the first major release since 7.2 in October 2012, is highlighted by the long overdue integration with Insight Mobile Manager, a dashboard application that allows hotel managers to quickly
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Cilasoft Introduces Single View Of Data From Multiple Systems
April 1, 2015 Dan Burger
… Read moreData aggregation, for many organizations, is more like data aggravation. Automating data consolidation from multiple files, even those that exist in different systems in different locations, has proved to be problematic, especially for businesses that run from multiple sites. When updating and aggregating data becomes a bottleneck, IT managers start searching for answers. Double the frustration when the distribution of data from one file to multiple files is also a factor.
Solving those issues was a priority for Cilasoft, a security and compliance software vendor with a long history in the IBM midrange market. Last week, Cilasoft unveiled CENTRAL
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IBM i Skills Shortage: Now You See It, Now You Don’t
March 23, 2015 Dan Burger
… Read moreA month ago when IT Jungle reported that CEO Mike Lawrie was blaming a lack of IBM i skilled professionals for a revenue shortfall at Computer Sciences Corp, the volume on this topic has been turned up considerably. That’s good. This is a discussion that needs to be heard. In the just-released IBM i Marketplace Survey, half the respondents listed IBM i skills depletion as a top concern. Much of this discussion is defined by whether a shortage exists or whether companies are doing a poor job with workforce management.
“There’s only a shortage if you need them and
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Midrange Dynamics Takes Aim At Database Changes
March 18, 2015 Dan Burger
… Read moreMulti-platform application development is often paired with modernization projects that are lighting up the project scoreboards in the IBM midrange. Companies rank modernization as one of their top priorities. Application modernizations are more business logic oriented and more frequently involve database programming as well. Midrange Dynamics, a provider of application development software and consulting services, has all this in mind with the release of a new product and an update to its reputable CMS.
MDRapid, the new database tool for deploying upgrades, and Midrange Dynamics change management (MDCMS) work in concert to curtail business application downtime and risk as