m-Power Gets New Interactive Reporting Templates

February 2, 2010 Alex Woodie

When it comes to adding new features to a software product, there are certain directions one can go that are sure to engender success. For starters, you can make it pretty. You can also make it easy to use, and allow it to work in real-time. Software vendor mrc says it’s accomplished all of these feats with a new class of “interactive” reporting templates in m-Power, its Web development tool for i/OS, Windows, Linux, and other servers.

m-Power is a Web application development tool that is used to generate J2EE-based Web portals, e-commerce sites, executive dashboards, business intelligence systems, and other applications. The tool utilizes a model-based development approach that takes advantage of programmers’ existing knowledge of their databases, thereby eliminating the need to learn new languages and syntaxes.

m-Power is no stranger to report generation, and has included reporting templates since it was first released back in 2004. But with the new interactive reporting template unveiled in January, mrc says it has never been easier to build powerful and graphical reporting applications.

Users can drill up and down against live DB2/400 data from a Web browser using the new interactive reporting feature in mrc’s m-Power.

One of the things that makes the new reporting capability powerful is the fact that it always uses the freshest data possible. Once the interactive reporting application has been created, it will query the underlying database whenever the report is accessed or the selection criteria is changed.

The new reporting feature allows users to start with very broad data, such as worldwide sales results for a whole year, and then drill down into specific periods with the mouse. The vendor also touts its “intelligence.” For example, if looking at sales data for a particular class of products, the software will automatically highlight other selection parameters within that product class that might be of interest to the user, mrc says.

All reports with m-Power are delivered through Web browsers, making them easy to use. And the new interactive reporting feature is also easy on the developer, according to mrc, which says developers can build a single interactive report in about 15 minutes.

m-Power’s template approach is what makes application development so fast, says mrc marketing director Steve Hansen. “We make application templates with all the powerful features built right in,” Hansen says via e-mail. “Customers literally just have to choose the template they want, point it at their data, make any adjustments they wish, and they have a new application.”

Brian Crowley, mrc’s director of development, says the interactive reporting class is one of the most functionally rich and intelligent templates the company has created for m-Power. “When you consider the power behind the application and the short and sweet build process, there’s really no equal,” he states in a press release.

A Web demo of the interactive template feature is running at http://www.crazybikes.com/mrcjava/servlet/CBB2E.R00090s. More product info can be found on mrc’s Web site at www.mrc-productivity.com.

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Do the Math When Looking at IBM i Hosting for Cost Savings

COVID-19 has accelerated certain business trends that were already gaining strength prior to the start of the pandemic. E-commerce, telehealth, and video conferencing are some of the most obvious examples. One example that may not be as obvious to the general public but has a profound impact on business is the shift in strategy of IBM i infrastructure from traditional, on-premises environments to some form of remote configuration. These remote configurations and all of their variations are broadly referred to in the community as IBM i hosting.

“Hosting” in this context can mean different things to different people, and in general, hosting refers to one of two scenarios. In the first scenario, hosting can refer to a client owned machine that is housed in a co-location facility (commonly called a co-lo for short) where the data center provides traditional system administrator services, relieving the client of administrative and operational responsibilities. In the second scenario, hosting can refer to an MSP owned machine in which partition resources are provided to the client in an on-demand capacity. This scenario allows the client to completely outsource all aspects of Power Systems hardware and the IBM i operating system and database.

The scenario that is best for each business depends on a number of factors and is largely up for debate. In most cases, pursuing hosting purely as a cost saving strategy is a dead end. Furthermore, when you consider all of the costs associated with maintaining and IBM i environment, it is typically not a cost-effective option for the small to midsize market. The most cost-effective approach for these organizations is often a combination of a client owned and maintained system (either on-prem or in a co-lo) with cloud backup and disaster-recovery-as-a-service. Only in some cases of larger enterprise companies can a hosting strategy start to become a potentially cost-effective option.

However, cost savings is just one part of the story. As IBM i expertise becomes scarce and IT resources run tight, the only option for some firms may be to pursue hosting in some capacity. Whatever the driving force for pursing hosting may be, the key point is that it is not just simply an option for running your workload in a different location. There are many details to consider and it is to the best interest of the client to work with an experienced MSP in weighing the benefits and drawbacks of each option. As COVID-19 rolls on, time will tell if IBM i hosting strategies will follow the other strong business trends of the pandemic.

When we say do the math in the title above, it literally means that you need to do the math for your particular scenario. It is not about us doing the math for you, making a case for either staying on premises or for moving to the cloud. There is not one answer, but just different levels of cost to be reckoned which yield different answers. Most IBM i shops have fairly static workloads, at least measured against the larger mix of stuff on the public clouds of the world. How do you measure the value of controlling your own IT fate? That will only be fully recognized at the moment when it is sorely missed the most.

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Article featured in IT Jungle on April 5, 2021