Dan Burger
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Midrange Dynamics Expands IBM i and Multi-Platform App Dev Capabilities
November 18, 2014 Dan Burger
… Read moreSingle-platform application development is a weed that won’t be pulled out of the garden. It’s not going away any time soon. But multi-platform development has been increasing and continues to expand–often in individual silos, but increasingly seen in multi-team, cross-platform, unified development environments. The idea that development environments have specific strengths and weaknesses and each has its place if you can manage the integration is not a new idea, but it is more widely acknowledged.
Productivity and integration are the two key ingredients in modern development environments. You’ve probably heard arguments that developers are most productive using tools they’re most
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If Infrastructure Matters, What About i?
November 17, 2014 Dan Burger
… Read moreThe Institute of Business Value, which is sponsored by IBM, has been turning out reports on its IT infrastructure research. Earlier this year in a report titled, The IT Infrastructure Conversation, it revealed less than 10 percent of organizations surveyed believed their existing IT infrastructure is prepared to meet the demands of mobile technology, big data, cloud computing, and social media. That doesn’t bode well for IBM’s plans to lead down those roads. But on the other hand, it presents an opportunity to sell a lot of infrastructure, particularly infrastructure that is enterprise strength and up to
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IT Operational Budgets Slowly Climbing, Says Computer Economics
November 17, 2014 Dan Burger
… Read moreThe IT spending calculators have been hot and cold in 2014. Spending is up compared to 2013, but overall growth is a little too flat to make everyone happy. You’ll find some folks with smiles on their faces though and some projects that needed to get done have found the road to completion. The early outlook for 2015 is once again indicating the sun will shine if you look in the right places, but overall the IT community won’t be dancing in the streets.
Some of the right places to look, according to forecasters at Computer Economics, are innovations
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Microsoft Loves Linux. Who Would Have Thought That?
November 17, 2014 Dan Burger
… Read moreThere’s no shortage of open source software in the IBM midrange community. Examples can be found if you are enthusiastic about looking for them. And IBM likes to nuzzle up to open source as much as possible. One reason is because it can differentiate itself from Microsoft and unload the proprietary insults at the campus in Redmond. So even though there is a pretty strong hatred for Microsoft in the IBM i community, the news that Microsoft is embracing open source–on some of its server side components–is interesting in that it indicates the impact open source is having on the
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Dispatches From The IBM i MSP Frontier
November 10, 2014 Dan Burger
… Read moreThe managed service provider (MSP) business that serves the IBM i community is almost entirely IBM business partners with strong ties to the IBM i platform. Just a month ago, Doug Balog, general manager of IBM’s Power Systems business, told me there are more than 200 MSPs focused on i and there’s “a shift of i clients looking to go to MSPs.” Most of the MSP growth, he noted, comes from expanding business that the BPs established years ago.
If you are a frequent reader of IT Jungle, you know I like to check in from time to time
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College RPG Needs A Technology Refresh
November 10, 2014 Dan Burger
… Read moreWhat’s being done about the shortage of young IBM i talent? Of the U.S. colleges teaching RPG and other IBM i skills, the number of graduates with more than a lunch box full of job-ready skills might not fill a single school bus. The IBM Power Systems Academic Initiative has made some progress, but it is really just a trickle when a steady stream is what is needed. The IBM i roadmap should take this a lot more seriously.
One of the things that the Academic Initiative is doing to help is updating the RPG curriculum that it offers to
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IBM i App Dev Progress: It Doesn’t Just Happen By Itself
November 10, 2014 Dan Burger
… Read moreSome cynics would say IBM i application development progress happens at the approximate speed of a glacier. The reliance on the green-screen interface has that effect on people that have never stepped into that environment. But progress is taking place despite the cynicism. The widespread use of mobile devices accessing business applications deserves a lot of credit for accelerating application development across the board and that does not exclude IBM midrange environments. You didn’t need to be told that, but decision makers at your workplace might need to be told.
The shift in interest and new trends in application development
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IBM Builds Infrastructure Resource Site
November 10, 2014 Dan Burger
… Read moreTom Rosamilia, the senior vice president in charge of IBM‘s Systems and Technology Group, knows what’s the matter. It’s infrastructure. Infrastructure matters in the new age of computing, he is fond of saying. The new age of computing, from the Rosamilia perspective, includes cloud, mobile, analytics, and social. And the inclusion of all these technologies will most assuredly require infrastructure upgrades for companies that are currently in the previous ages of new computing.
IT Jungle recently reported on an IBM survey of IT executives that identified 90 percent of those executives believed their existing infrastructure was not preparedness for
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ARCAD Software Takes On Database Modernization
November 4, 2014 Dan Burger
… Read moreIf you’ve seen IBM‘s Redbook on modernization for i-centric customers, it’s clear the direction Big Blue recommends includes the DB2 for i database as an integral part of the modernization process. In application-first environments, which dominate in IBM i shops, database modernization is, at most, an afterthought. That’s changing, and ARCAD Software, known for its application change management software, is changing, too. Its latest release covers DDS to DDL conversion, data integrity checking, and field renaming.
Philippe Magne, CEO and chairman of ARCAD, explains the rationale behind this extension of enterprise modernization capabilities. “It is the DB2 database
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ARCAD Software Takes On Database Modernization
November 4, 2014 Dan Burger
… Read moreIf you’ve seen IBM‘s Redbook on modernization for i-centric customers, it’s clear the direction Big Blue recommends includes the DB2 for i database as an integral part of the modernization process. In application-first environments, which dominate in IBM i shops, database modernization is, at most, an afterthought. That’s changing, and ARCAD Software, known for its application change management software, is changing, too. Its latest release covers DDS to DDL conversion, data integrity checking, and field renaming.
Philippe Magne, CEO and chairman of ARCAD, explains the rationale behind this extension of enterprise modernization capabilities. “It is the DB2 database