Four Hundred Monitor, March 21

March 21, 2018 Dan Burger

RPG is in the palm of her hand. She’s Barbara Morris and she leads RPG development at IBM’s Toronto Labs. Her fingerprints are on all RPG enhancements, so if you are interested in the DATA-INTO feature that just became available, you can do no better than to hear about it from Barbara. Check inside Monitor for the link to her interview with Paul Tuohy.

Also inside is a link to an IBM i security quiz. Find out quickly what you do and don’t know. Then check out the articles on IBM’s new microcomputer and the market pressure to make AI more accessible.

Top Stories From Outside The Jungle

(iTalk With Tuohy) Barbara Morris, the head of RPG development at the Toronto Labs, explains DATA-INTO, the latest enhancement to RPG. DATA-INTO is a new op code used to import a document ― say JSON or CSV or a properties file or anything that has hierarchical data ― into an RPG data structure. It just became available and is expected to be very popular.

(MCPress) Do you think you have a solid grasp of IBM i security concepts? Take this short test and find out how much you really know. The answers are at the end of this article. Even if you miss a few, you’ll learn some new facts about IBM i security.

(ZDNet) IBM has unveiled a computer so small it can slip through a salt shaker and could help prevent the $600 billion a year trade in counterfeit drugs, gadgets, and cash. The company announced the new microcomputer on Monday at its Think conference and predicts it will play a key role in a blockchain network designed to monitor fraud in global supply chains.

(ZDNet) While enterprises are viewing AI as the new imperative, it is increasingly a fact of life across the tools and applications enterprises are already using. With the growing attention, comes market pressure to make AI more accessible. Do organizations need the benefits of AI, not just for competitive differentiation, but survival?

Redbooks, White Papers, and Other Resources

(IBM) Data integration between systems of record and systems of engagement is the key to success for future business. This article explains how to develop and deploy web or mobile native applications quickly using Node-RED as the web application building tool. Node-RED is the open source that is contributed by IBM. You can build web applications using a graphical user interface (GUI) with drawing tools and minimize application code writing. Node Red provides a browser-based editor drawing tools and minimizes application code writing.

(IBM) A four-part blog series titled ‘What Reinventors Know’ is dedicated to reinventing enterprises with the help of IoT technologies. The series includes insights from the movers and shakers who are using artificial intelligence and the internet of things to uncover new opportunities and create new revenue streams.

(IBM) Full support for IBM i 7.1 will end April 30. What are the reasons for upgrading and why would you choose 7.3 over 7.2. Information on these topics can be found here.

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

March 21 — Westbury, New York – The Long Island Systems Users Group monthly meeting will include two presentations by Steven Wolk, CTO for PC Richard & Son. His first presentation is an introduction to Linux. The second session focuses on creating commands and program development for IBM i. LISUG meetings are held at the Westbury Manor located at 1100 Jericho Turnpike.

March 22 — Coppell, Texas – Many CIOs and IT professionals, while appreciating what the IBM i platform does for their organizations, have a slight inferiority complex about the platform, believing that the issues of deferred maintenance and skill replacement are unique to us. They aren’t. Any long-lived platform brings similar challenges, to be met head-on with confidence. At this session, you will learn how to discuss the challenges of long-lived systems in a way that that business people can understand, how to create a plan for moving forward with IBM i modernization if appropriate for your business, and to gain support for doing so. Guest speaker at this Metro Midrange Systems Association meeting is IBM Champion Alan Seiden. The event begins at 5:30 p.m. with dinner at 6 and Seiden’s presentation at 6:45. MMSA meetings are held at the IBM Innovation Center located at 1177 South Belt Line Road.

March 29 — Webinar – The Mid-Atlantic Group of IBM i Collaborators (MAGiC) will be hosting an online educational session on Rational Developer for i presented by Charles Guarino, a popular speaker on the topic. This presentation is available to all IBM i users, not just members of the local user group. It will take place between 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

April 23-25 — Framingham, Massachusetts – The Northeast IBM i User Group Conference features more than 70 educational sessions in seven skills categories. It offers the opportunity to learn about new technologies, engage with vendors to discuss packaged software advancements, hear IBM i executives and lead developers discuss products and roadmaps for the platform, and gain knowledge that can benefit your company and your career. The user groups that combine to organize this conference come from the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

May 20-23 — San Antonio, Texas – PowerUp 18 (formerly the COMMON Annual Meeting and Exposition) is the largest IBM i educational event of the year. It includes more than 300 sessions related to IBM i, as well as AIX and Linux. Open source, high availability, security, DB2, and application development are a few of the popular skill-building topics. The agenda includes all-day pre-conference workshops, open labs, and a wide variety of lecture-type sessions presented by subject matter experts. Pre-conference workshops (May 19) are also planned.

June 12 & 13 — Milton Keynes, England – The annual i-UG International i-Power conference features topics for everybody who works on or with IBM i and Power Systems. The topics include Web dev using open source tools, building IBM i LPARs, securable systems, GDPR compliance and many additional developer-themed sessions and workshops. IBM i development experts Susan Gantner, Jon Paris and Paul Tuohy are part of the stellar group of speakers. 2018 is the 30th anniversary for IBM i and the 25th anniversary for the i-UG. To celebrate, attendees, speakers and sponsors of the conference are invited to a free gala dinner, including entertainment, during the first evening of the conference.