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An Investment In APIs For IBM i From Remain Software
June 24, 2020 Alex Woodie
Application programming interfaces (APIs) are not new. But API creation and consumption has surged in recent years as developers adopt more modular and extensible architectures for new and modernized applications. IBM i developers are getting into the act, too, which is leading vendors like Remain Software to cater to them with new tools, like its recently announced API Studio.
A recent survey by API marketplace provider RapidAPI concluded that almost 67 percent of developers expect their API use to increase in 2020 compared to 2019. The company’s CEO, Iddo Gino, said the survey results confirm what the company has seen …
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How GraphQL Can Improve IBM i APIs
March 9, 2020 Alex Woodie
IBM i shops are embracing APIs as a method for accessing data and programs, just like the wider IT world. As RESTful Web services overtook SOAP-based ones in popularity, IBM i shops moved with them. Now a new approach to Web services, dubbed GraphQL, is gaining traction in the wider IT world, and leading IBM i developers are right there again.
GraphQL, if you’re not familiar, is a relatively new language and runtime for exposing and consuming APIs. The software, which was originally developed in 2015 by Facebook to streamline delivery of content in complex environments, essentially provides an abstraction …
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IBM i Clouds Proliferating At Rapid Clip
October 2, 2019 Alex Woodie
Summer has come to a close, but what a season it was for cloud computing and IBM i. We had two major public cloud vendors, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, delivering IBM i on Power Systems (although Azure’s IBM i service is delivered via Skytap), adding to IBM’s service, which was unveiled earlier in the year. But how much better will it get?
IBM i customers who were frustrated at the lack of public IBM i cloud options a year ago now have three to choose from. In early September, Skytap and Microsoft Azure publicly announced their joint offering to …
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Guru: Application Tracing With The QTRC APIs
May 20, 2019 Dawn May
The IBM i operating system is extensively instrumented for diagnostic purposes to help IBM resolve issues should they arise. Instrumenting your application for diagnostics is also possible in a manner very similar to what IBM has done in the operating system.
STRTRC and the QTRC APIs
The operating system includes a trace facility called QTRC. This trace facility is a set of APIs (QTRC APIs) that allow you to instrument your application to collect trace data. This trace data can be whatever you may find helpful for debugging applications in a production environment, where using a debugger is …
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Rest4i Eyes Digital Transformation Via API
March 21, 2018 Alex Woodie
A new company headed by IBM i software veterans is beginning to turn some heads with a new product aimed at helping IBM i shops with digital transformation strategies. Rest4i, as the outfit is called, says its LXR framework turns IBM i into a lean, mean REST API-serving machine.
Stuart Milligan, who headed the UK software firm Databorough before it was sold to Fresche Legacy (now Fresche Solutions) way back in 2013, says LXR (pronounced “Lexer”) is the result of four years of investment and development in a “pure IBM i REST API solution.”
Milligan describes LXR as …
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BCD’s Nexus Portal Shows Mobile and API Capabilities
December 6, 2017 Dan Burger
Development in IBM i focused organizations — transitions from green-screen to browser-based applications and from monolithic to modular code — cannot ignore the portal piece of the puzzle. It’s the portal that provides secure, organized access to enterprise information for employees, vendors and customers using all types of devices connected to the Web.
Because so many BCD Software customers are interested in mobile access to data and real-time interactions, the development team got to work on making its Nexus portal more useful and convenient for the tablet and smartphone contingents that crave enhancements to their remote gateways.
“Our development efforts …
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One IBM i Route Into the API Economy
September 27, 2017 Alex Woodie
The so-called API Economy is emerging as a legitimate engine for driving the growth of commerce around the world. But with mostly monolithic apps written years ago, the IBM i installed base isn’t well positioned to be a major player. However, there are alternative pathways into the API Economy for IBM i shops, if they know where to look.
The API Economy refers to the idea that, by exposing bits and pieces of our internal systems out to the world through well-defined application programming interfaces (APIs) – which usually manifest REST-based Web services, although SOAP and XML files will work …
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Investing In IBM i: Adventures In Venture Capital
August 28, 2017 Dan Burger
The IBM i community was stirred last month when Vision Solutions, the dominant software vendor in the high availability arena, was acquired by a private equity company that believes the IBM i market is worthy of an investment estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars. That’s some serious cash. In addition to buying software, intellectual property, and a significant customer base, this private equity firm’s deal commands attention among IBM i observers who have seen investments lead to consolidation of software and service providers.
For now, it looks like a trend without end for a handful of vendors …
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Rocketing Ahead With An API Engine
June 26, 2017 Timothy Prickett Morgan
The history of computing is governed by a plethora of opposing forces, with the polar opposites interweaving and interleaving to create more general trends that undulate and cause the waves we ride on top of or get swamped by. There is a tendency toward abstraction and the desire to get closer to the iron to wring the absolute most performance out of a specific system, for instance. Humans don’t think in binary or assembler – well most humans don’t but there are always a few genius weirdos – so the speed of execution is sacrificed for the speed of the …
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HelpSystems Acquired By Private Equity Giant H.I.G. Capital
August 31, 2015 Alex Woodie
HelpSystems is set to be acquired by H.I.G. Capital, a Florida-based private equity and alternative assets investment firm with more than $19 billion in assets. Terms of the deal, which is not yet finalized and is subject to regulatory approval, were not disclosed. It will be the fourth sale in 10 years of HelpSystems, the Minnesota software company that has since become the biggest provider of systems management tools and utilities for the IBM i server.
So who is the company now behind HelpSystems, which has grown its influence over the IBM i market following a long string of