Four Hundred Monitor, April 4

April 4, 2018 Dan Burger

It’s the 30^th anniversary of the IBM midrange platform and the celebration has begun. For now, the focus is on a new website and its growing repository of IBM i customer stories emphasizing innovative implementations from around the world. Monitor has found Steve Will’s blog on this topic and elsewhere in this issue of The Four Hundred, we have our own story about the 30 years of innovation.

Also inside Monitor are links to articles pertaining to the ruinous effects of poor data quality on machine learning, why email is the best social media for business, and fixes for IT management deficiencies.

Top Stories From Outside The Jungle

(You and i) Steve Will says it’s time to celebrate. No one would argue with the IBM i chief architect about that, right? But what are all the balloons and party cake celebrating? Thirty years of innovation on the IBM midrange platform, of course. Here’s what he has to say about the on-going party.

(Harvard Business Review) Poor data quality is the enemy of machine learning. While the caustic observation, “garbage-in, garbage-out” has plagued analytics and decision-making for generations, it carries a special warning for machine learning. The quality demands of machine learning are steep, and bad data can rear its ugly head twice — first in the historical data used to train the predictive model and second in the new data used by that model to make future decisions.

(ComputerWorld) Facebook and all the other social networks are turning into a distracting, time-wasting and manipulative “surveillance machine” that does more harm than good. It’s become clear that social networks exist to extract attention and personal information from you — the more, the better. So, let me explain why email is by far the best social network.

(CIO) Productivity killers have invaded your organization. From neglecting to prioritize key strategic initiatives to failing to adjust project estimates, weak IT management practices are threatening IT’s ability to get the job done.

Redbooks, White Papers, and Other Resources

(IBM) An IBM i website that celebrates 30 years of innovation includes customer stories that demonstrate how IBM i innovations spark current business advantages and are part of planning for future successes.

(IBM) The Think conference may be over, but the opportunity to watch keynote addresses, innovation talks and interviews remains for those who wonder what IBM and other IT leaders are thinking. Watson, cloud and IoT are prominent topics. There are dozens of videos to choose from.

(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) 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

April 12 — Mequon, Wisconsin – The monthly meeting of the Wisconsin Midrange Computer Professional Association will feature two sessions by guest speaker Erwin Earley, a consultant at IBM Lab Based Services Training. The first presentation on open source solutions begins at 4:30 p.m. The second presentation on Zend Server begins at 7:30. In between is dinner and networking with the members. The meeting will be held at Zarletti’s Italian restaurant located at 1515 West Mequon Road.

April 12 — Nashville, Tennessee – An overview of PHP 7 is the featured topic at this meeting of the Tennessee IBM Mid-Range User Group. This session will explore various features of version 7, as well as highlighting those features/functions from earlier versions of PHP that are deprecated in the latest version. The presentation will also examine migration strategies for moving from version 5 to version 7 of PHP and highlight how separate subsystems for version 7 and version 5 of the PHP engine on IBM i can be leveraged to perform a step-wise migration of PHP applications. Guest speaker is Clark Everetts, a senior professional services consultant for Zend products and services at Rogue Wave Software. The meeting, which begins at 5:30 p.m., will be held at the Shoney’s restaurant located at 2645 McGavock Pike.

April 17 — Bloomington, Minnesota – A one-day hands-on lab focused on free format RPG and RDi will be presented by Jim Buck. This combined lecture and lab will show attendees how to take a traditional subfile program and convert the disk I/O to SQL, then move the database I/O to a service program. This decoupling of the UI (5250 subfile) allows the service program to be used as a web service. The session will cover the process of developing an SQL/Service program-based CRUD application using free form RPG and RDi’s Remote Systems Explorer and Screen Designer. Buck’s career in IT has spanned more than 35 years. It includes instruction at the college level, IT positions in the manufacturing and healthcare industries. He’s a past president of the Wisconsin Midrange Computer Professional Association and has served on several teams developing IBM and COMMON certification tests. He has also co-authored several IBM i books with Bryan Meyers that are used by many companies and in colleges worldwide. The deadline to sign up for this training is March 30.

April 18 — 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.

April 19 — Parsippany, New Jersey – Guest speaker Steven Wolk will discuss the development of leadership traits and techniques at the regular monthly meeting of the North Eastern Systems Technology Users (NESTU) meeting. Topics will include leading more effectively, motivation that improves results, and recognizing good leadership skills in others. The event begins at 5 p.m. and will be held at the Spice Grill located at 111 US-46.

April 19 — Coppell, Texas – The basics of the Python programming language will be on the agenda during the monthly meeting of the Metro Midrange Systems Association, a user group for the Dallas and Fort Worth metro areas. Guest speaker Mike Pavlak will be explaining the details of topics such as installing and using Python on IBM i, extending its power using contributions from the larger open source community and exploring DB2 Data Access and IFS file system access as primary use cases for Python on IBM i. The event begins at 6 p.m. MMSA meetings are held at the IBM Innovation Center located at 1177 South Belt Line Road.

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.