• ARCAD Hooks Cross-Reference Tool into LPEX Editor

  August 19, 2020 Alex Woodie

  IBM i developers won’t have to leave the comfort of RDi and the LPEX editor to engage in application cross-referencing tasks, thanks to the recent integration between the ARCAD Observer cross-referencing software with LPEX.

  According to ARCAD Software, the new LPEX integration will bring “massive productivity benefits” to IBM i developers in the form of context-sensitive “where used” impact analysis, as well as dependency information, all delivered directly from within the LPEX editor.

  LPEX integration is a new feature delivered in late June in ARCAD Observer version 12.1. The company, which has offices in France, New Hampshire and Chicago …

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• Red Hat’s Ansible Automation Comes To IBM i

  August 3, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Big Blue is now supporting IBM i with Ansible, the open source configuration management software developed by Red Hat. By including IBM i and AIX as a supported target in Ansible, companies that run IBM i will be able to remotely configure and manage IBM i and AIX servers using the same Ansible tools and techniques that they use to manage mainstream X86 and cloud server environments.

  Ansible was created back in 2012 by Michael DeHaan, the author of the Cobbler provisioning server and co-author of the Fedora Unified Network Controller (Func) framework for remote administration. It’s been widely adopted …

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• Guru: Creating PDF Documents With Python

  July 27, 2020 Mike Larsen

  I’m often asked to create reports for my business partners. The format of the report depends on who made the request. If the financial team made the request, I may produce an Excel file. The CEO may want to report quarterly sales to their shareholders. In that case, I may produce a PDF using the company letterhead.

  In a prior article, I showed how to create Excel files using Db2 tables. Now I’m going to show how to create PDF documents using Db2 tables.

  This story contains code, which you can download here.

  I always start by making …

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• ARCAD Generates APIs From 5250 Screens

  July 22, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Many IBM i shops want to modernize their 5250 applications by developing REST-based Web services and API extensions, but they face difficulties getting started. These organizations may want to check out ARCAD Software’s latest offering, ARCAD API, which takes much of the pain and complexity out of the API generation process.

  REST-based APIs have become a standard method for exposing data and business logic to the outside world. There’s an abundance of ways that APIs can be used–pushing data to Web or mobile users, for example, or pulling data from a cloud-based CRM system. Just about any higher-level application function, …

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• Thoroughly Modern: Why You Need An IT Strategy And Roadmap

  July 14, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  What makes a modernization project successful? Is it the right software and tools? Having the right people on the job? Completing the project on time and on budget? Some might argue that all of the above contribute to the overall success of these initiatives. But the experts at Fresche will tell you that building a comprehensive strategy and roadmap is the most important part. It’s the secret sauce that ensures that the project provides business value and that requirements are mapped out before you start. After all, failing to plan is planning to fail.

  Businesses today are facing increasing pressure …

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• Unit Testing Gets A Boost With ARCAD

  June 8, 2020 Alex Woodie

  “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” The famous management consultant Peter Drucker said those words to relate his philosophy on achieving business success. He didn’t know it at the time, but they would also apply to software development, including the testing of software, which is an area that ARCAD Software knows a thing or two about.

  ARCAD Software has been a leader in IBM i testing for many years. It started with Verifier, the company’s flagship regression testing tool, which forms a part of its suite of DevOps tools for IBM i. Verifier helps developers ensure that …

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• Guru: Introduction to the Administration Runtime Expert

  June 1, 2020 Dawn May

  Business-critical applications must be up and running reliably without failure. When something unexpected occurs, you must identify the cause and correct it quickly. Whether you’re a developer launching a new application, enhancing an existing application, or maintaining a legacy application, or an administrator managing the infrastructure, we all want to find ways to make our jobs easier, and unexpected surprises are not fun. I expect the relentless push to do more with less is only going to intensify while the tolerance for failure keeps dropping. Yet identifying points of failure can be tricky as complexities scale.

  IBM i offers a …

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• Seiden Group Offers PHP Migration Service

  May 27, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Change is in the air when it comes to PHP on IBM i. The free Zend distribution of PHP that has been adopted by thousands of IBM i shops over the years is going away, and it’s being replaced by a new community distribution that’s installed via RPM. But how can you move existing PHP apps to the new environment? Seiden Group has a potential solution.

  As we told you last week, the Zend Server Basic environment will stop being offered by Perforce (the company that now owns Zend Technology) or distributed with the IBM i operating system on …

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• Welcome To The ‘Riehl’ World: Live, Hands-On IBM i Training

  May 18, 2020 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops don’t have a ton of options available when it comes to online IBM i education these days. If you’re in the market to improve your skills, one of the outfits that should be on your shortlist is The 400 School, which is one of the few places left that offers hands-on IBM i education, according to the company’s founder and president, Dan Riehl.

  Riehl has had the kind of IBM midrange career that younger folks arriving on the platform today can only dream of. He has founded companies, written books, worked as a security consultant and …

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• ILEditor 2 Gives IBM i Shops A New Development Option

  May 6, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Liam Allan recently unveiled ILEditor 2, a new integrated development environment (IDE) for IBM i. The new IDE sports a fresher look and better performance compared to the first version of ILEditor, as well as an extensible plug-in system, which should also deliver better code coverage.

  For many years, members of the IBM i community have expressed frustration by the high price, size, and performance of Rational Developer for i (RDi), which is IBM’s flagship development tool for the IBM i community. While the IDE’s performance has improved in recent years, members of the community still bemoan the …

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