• How The Latest TRs Bolster App Dev For IBM i

  October 17, 2022 Alex Woodie

  From Merlin and VSCode to RDi and RPG, good IBM i boys and girls who do their own development will get new toys to play with before Christmas, thanks to a range of new features and functions unveiled by IBM last week as part of its latest Tech Refresh for IBM i.

  The introduction of the IBM i Modernization Engine for Lifecycle Integration, or Merlin, was the big attraction this spring with the launch of IBM i version 7.5 and 7.4 TR6 (it was later made available for IBM i 7.3). The offering, which combines a lightweight VSCode development environment …

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• Smart Modernization Is The Answer To IBM i Talent Shortage

  September 28, 2022 Jose Caso Jacobs

  When we are at the COMMON POWERUp 2022 conference a few months ago, we were amazed by the number of IT managers that approached us because of a shortage of IBM i programming talent. The dearth of programmers that are experienced with the business as well as legacy and modern programming techniques has pushed a lot of businesses up against the wall, with lost agility and in some cases delayed projects.

  As bad as that is, the situation could be worse. We have all heard the horror stories, where the executive suite or upper IT management push to switch away …

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• Why Infor’s IDF Is Important for Customer Innovation

  May 25, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Among the remaining large ERP vendors targeting IBM i, Infor appears to be the most committed to ongoing development on the platform. A key element of that strategy is the Infor Development Framework (IDF), which plays a big role in extending the functionality in its IBM i-based ERP systems to meet customers’ specific needs.

  The IDF features most prominently in Infor’s long-term strategy for the ERP XA (MAPICS), ERP LX (BPCS), and ERP System 21 product lines, says Robert Russel, the vice president of product development at Infor.

  “We’re starting to try to essentially get that technology embedded into …

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• API Operations Management for Safe, Powerful, and High Performance APIs

  May 18, 2022 Daniel Magid

  Now that API enablement for IBM i applications has become mainstream, IBM i users are starting to ask questions around how best to manage API operations. To get the most out of your APIs and to provide your API users with the very best experience, you must:

  • Ensure your APIs are up, running and providing rapid responses.
  • Protect your APIs from attacks, misuse and faulty calls coming from API end users.
  • Have a strategy for creating, deploying and maintaining your APIs over time.

  In other words, you need to make sure that your APIs deliver the same reliability, security, performance …

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• Database And Developer Enhancements In IBM i 7.5 And 7.4 TR6

  May 9, 2022 Alex Woodie

  IBM has made a number of enhancements to the Db2 for i database with the launch of IBM i 7.5, which becomes generally available tomorrow. It also is bringing new features for developers, including changes to Integrated Web Services (IWS), which will improve REST integration.

  Most of the new features added to Db2 for i are only available in IBM i 7.5, which will give users a reason to adopt it. However, there are a few enhancements added in IBM i 7.4 Technology Release 6, which doesn’t ship until May 24.

  As we previously reported, IBM i 7.5 expands …

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• Announcement Day: IBM Lifts The Veil On IBM i 7.5 And 7.4 TR6

  May 3, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Big Blue today announced IBM i version 7.5, the first new version of the operating system in three years. Among the big new features with this release are enhancements to Db2 Mirror, better security configurations, and new database features. A new modernization framework called Merlin and a new IBM i subscription option were also unveiled by IBM, which also announced IBM i 7.4 Technology Release 6.

  One of the big headlines with the IBM i 7.5 announcement is Merlin, which IBM says stands for the Modernization Engine for Lifecycle Integration. Merlin provides a lightweight, browser-based development environment for creating new …

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• Eradani Brings COBOL Into Its Microservices World

  January 19, 2022 Alex Woodie

  IBM i customers who need to connect their COBOL applications to Web services and APIs may want to check out Eradani, which is in the process of rolling out an update aimed at COBOL code. In the process of updating Eradani Connect, the company strengthened its entire platform, which will benefit RPG shops, too.

  Eradani Connect was designed to make it easy to connect IBM i applications to external APIs in a bi-directional manner. With its native wrap-around code for IBM i, the software allows customers to expose their existing applications using REST protocols and JSON data structures, thereby providing …

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• IBM i Community Predictions For 2022, Part 1

  January 10, 2022 Alex Woodie

  While the month and year ostensibly are just values in the date field, when the calendar flips over from December to January, things feel different. There’s a greater sense of hope and optimism for what the new year will bring. Coming off another calamitous year filled with COVID-19, perhaps it’s we need that even more so this year.

  It has become an IT Jungle tradition to ask members of the IBM i community at the start of the year for their predictions. This year is no different, and so we’ll kick off the first part of our (most likely) two-part …

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• New OpenLegacy Product Creates ‘Tech-Agnostic’ Services

  November 17, 2021 Alex Woodie

  OpenLegacy recently announced OpenLegacy Hub, or OL Hub, a new offering designed to help customers create technology agnostic digital services from existing legacy applications and infrastructure. The offering supports IBM i and z/OS assets, among other platforms that are commonly grouped under the “legacy” banner.

  Since it appeared on the midrange scene back in 2015, OpenLegacy has been looking to help IBM i and mainframe customers extend their existing systems in new and profitable ways. Led by tech veterans from IBM and Software AG, the Israeli company created a development environment that could analyze legacy programs, such as 5250 …

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• Guru: Flexible Interfaces

  November 1, 2021 Ted Holt

  The details are murky, it’s been eons ago. Probably the mid-1990’s. I was working on an AS/400 that ran a mixture of System/36 and native applications. I needed to call a program that had been written in the latest version of RPG from both S/36 RPG II and native RPG III (a.k.a. RPG/400) programs. I hope I’m remembering this correctly. It’s been so long.

  The problem I ran into was rooted in a numeric parameter. S/36 programs passed numeric parameters in zoned decimal format, whereas native RPG and CL programs used packed decimal. The called program defined the parameter as …

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