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iBoost Turbo-Charges Slow i/OS Batch Jobs
June 8, 2010 Alex Woodie
System i shops suffering from long-running batch jobs may be able to speed up those jobs by a factor of 10 with a new product from iBoost Systems. Called iSTREAM, the product uses command substitution techniques to split single-streamed batch jobs into multiple streams that can better utilize System i horsepower. The product–which was vetted by IBMers in Rochester, Minnesota, to ensure it doesn’t do anything untoward–is being distributed in the U.S. through iBoost’s new partner, Midrange Performance Group.
iBoost Systems was formed in the European country of Cyprus late last year to market and sell i/OS
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ARCAD Opens ALM Suite a Little More
June 8, 2010 Alex Woodie
Companies that use ARCAD Software‘s suite of application lifecycle management (ALM) tools are now able to mange the release and deployment of applications on open systems platforms, such as Windows, Unix, and Linux, as well as System i servers. The French company’s latest version 8.9 release also brings improved testing capabilities, as well as improved support for CASE tools.
In recent years ARCAD has focused on opening its suite of tools to provide its customers with ALM functionality beyond i/OS, where it has a solid reputation and hundreds of System i customers around the world. This includes last year’s
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Aldon Widens Reach of Report Manager
June 8, 2010 Alex Woodie
Organizations will be able to gather development-related data from a wider number of sources with the recently released Aldon Report Manager version 1.1. While the first version of the product that shipped last year was focused primarily on reporting from the i/OS environment, the new release widens the net considerably and allows IT compliance reporting for a range of operating systems, development tools, and change management tools.
Aldon issued the first release of Report Manager last fall as a way to bring a greater level of coherence to the reporting and compliance needs of development projects. Instead of trying to
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Glass i: Windows RPG for $50, 25 Users for $250
June 7, 2010 Hesh Wiener
The cost of business computing hasn’t fallen the way the cost of hardware has. The excuse is that a modern computer system does much more than data processing. But what if you only need the basics? What if you only want to write and run RPG programs? It turns out you can get this capability with a 50-dollar RPG package for Windows that will run on any Windows XP box. And if you want a centralized RPG system with 25 seats, you can get it for $250 plus the cost of the hardware. Here’s how to do it.
The thing
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Databorough Targets CA 2E Apps for Migration
May 25, 2010 Alex Woodie
Databorough this month unveiled a new suite of products aimed at helping System i shops migrate applications developed with CA Technologies‘ 2E, the 4GL programming environment originally created by Synon. Called X-2E, Databorough’s new product helps to automate many aspects of a migration, from analyzing and documenting existing 2E application designs, to migrating the code to Java, EGL, and C#.
Originally created in 1996, 2E is one of the most successful, if not the most successful, fourth-generation language (4GL) development environments on the AS/400 (i/OS-based Power Systems) platform. Thousands of end-user companies and ISVs have used 2E’s advanced model-driven
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Seagull Likes RPG Open Access for SOA
May 18, 2010 Alex Woodie
Seagull Software is developing I/O handlers for RPG Open Access that will make it easier for System i shops to integrate their i/OS applications using service oriented architecture (SOA) technologies, the software vendor says. The company, whose GUI development tools are used by some of the biggest i/OS ISVs, is taking a wait-and-see approach to using RPG OA to develop GUIs.
RPG Open Access is a new feature that IBM added with i/OS 7.1. The technology enables developers to, for the first time, entirely bypass the 5250 data stream, which has been used to generate green-screen interfaces for i/OS applications.
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Open Access for RPG Grabs Attention at COMMON
May 10, 2010 Dan Burger
RPG is king. If you don’t believe it, go to COMMON. OK, it is the big fish in the small pond scenario if you’re looking at the entire IT universe, but these are IBM i enthusiasts and for the majority of them RPG rules. If you are curious about the reaction to the tool IBM calls the Rational Open Access RPG Edition and that everyone else calls RPG Open Access, you wouldn’t be the Lone Ranger.
Educational sessions presented by IBMers and sessions presented by ISVs such as Profound Logic and looksoftware were filled with interested programmers. In some
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Reader Feedback on RPG Open Access Is No Panacea and As I See It: Depriving the Senses
May 3, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan
As you might have expected, IBM‘s decision to open up the RPG compiler and runtime to allow others to create custom data streams to other applications and devices has got a lot of people thinking and even more of them talking.
We told you all about Rational Open Access, RPG Edition two weeks ago, and then BCD Software and LANSA piped up with their opinion on ROA in last week’s issue. There’s been a lot of back and forth at the water cooler, on the newsgroups, and in the press about this, and it won’t subside any
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RPG Open Access Is No Panacea, Say BCD and LANSA
April 26, 2010 Dan Burger
For every up, there’s a down. For every left, there’s a right. Two people watch the same movie and one says it was everything I hoped it would be and more while the other says it’s a poorly done remake of a movie from 10 years earlier. The just-released IBM i 7.1 operating system, and in particular the feature known as Open Access, already has prompted opinions about what it is and what it can do.
Not everyone thinks it’s the greatest thing since Timex determined its watches could take a licking and keep on ticking.
Surprised? You shouldn’t be.
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RPG Open Access Spurs Development for looksoftware
April 20, 2010 Alex Woodie
The future of RPG got a lot brighter with IBM‘s announcement of Open Access for RPG, and looksoftware looks to play a key role in that future. The Australian software developer has been working with the new technology for the last 12 months, and last week it unveiled the fruit of that labor in lookserver for i, a new piece of i/OS software that will serve as the “handler” that allows RPG applications to bypass 5250 as they natively communicate with a range of new devices and interfaces.
Marcus Dee, the managing director of looksoftware, doesn’t mince words when