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  • Fresche Plan: Guidance Leads To Growth

    December 4, 2017 Dan Burger

    Without wings, an airplane has no chance to fly. A legacy-based IBM i shop is like an airplane without wings. During the past few years, more companies have recognized that IT modernization is necessary. It’s a complex problem with many moving parts and deserves a strategic approach for best results. At the same time, the transition has become an easier problem to solve.

    Tools have evolved and much of the manual labor that was once required has been automated. And service providers have stepped up to handle work that companies are ill-equipped to take on themselves. Companies that are quick …

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  • Mainframe And IBM i Share App Dev Testing Tool

    November 29, 2017 Dan Burger

    The integration of disparate IT systems is on the priority list for many companies aggravated by the duplication of effort and the cost tooling for each development environment. It’s fueled the rise of DevOps and the big picture view emphasizing speed and collaboration. For IT environments that share mainframe and IBM i platforms, we have uncovered software that allows applications written in COBOL, PL/I, EGL, RPG and Assembler to share a single tool for testing programs.

    The tool is called XaTester and it’s available through IBM and the company, Xact Consulting, that created it. Xact Consulting is an international …

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  • Should Spark In-Memory Run Natively On IBM i?

    November 6, 2017 Alex Woodie

    There’s a revolution happening in the field of data analytics, and an open source computing framework called Apache Spark is right smack in the middle of it. Spark is such a powerful tool that IBM elected to create a distribution of it that runs natively on its System z mainframe. Will it do the same for its baby mainframe, the IBM i?

    So, what is Apache Spark, and why should you care? Great questions! Let’s introduce you to Spark.

    Spark came out of UC Berkeley’s AMPLab about five years ago to provide a faster and easier-to-use alternative to MapReduce, which …

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  • Java On IBM i: A Developing Situation

    October 16, 2017 Dan Burger

    IBM i developers in the Java camp have some changes in store as Java 9 replaces Java 8. First of all, there will be no IBM i support for Java 9. This break in tradition may come as a surprise for many IBM i developers, but not for those Java-holics who have been closely watching the Java 9 news. There are a couple of reasons IBM has decided not to support Java 9 on IBM i, even though IBM currently supports Java 7 and Java 8 and it has supported every Java release seemingly since Moby Dick was a minnow. …

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  • Guru: Error Handling in SQL PL, Part 2

    October 16, 2017 Ted Holt

    In the previous episode of this exciting, action-packed series, I introduced you to the exception-handling methods that IBM has built into SQL PL. The cliff-hanger has lasted four months now, much too long. It’s high time I explained RESIGNAL, as I promised I would. I will explain SIGNAL while I’m at it.

    Before I start the syntax lesson, I need to explain a bit of philosophy. I use the hit-the-ball-drag-Harry method of exception-handling when I embed SQL in RPG and COBOL programs. That is, I execute a command, test the SQL state, execute a command, test the SQL state, …

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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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  • The Cognitive Systems/500 2018 Edition

    June 12, 2017 Timothy Prickett Morgan

    With the Power9 processor not coming to the IBM i and AIX platforms until sometime early in 2018, rather than right now as many of us were led to believe would be happening, we have some extra time on our hands. So we should all – including the executives who run IBM Systems and its subordinate Cognitive Systems division (formerly known as Power Systems) – take this opportunity to take a hard look at how the IBM i platform is packaged and priced and how a modern integrated platform should be architected.

    The IBM i customer base needs the Cognitive …

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  • Native Open Source: Why It’s Time for IBM i

    April 19, 2017 Alex Woodie

    When you think about open source software for IBM i, chances are good you envision PHP applications or Ruby code or even Node.js, all of which were adapted from other platforms to run on IBM i. But there’s a new movement afoot to spur more development of open source software that runs natively on IBM i.

    Make no mistake about it: getting PHP, Ruby, Python, Node.js and the others to run on IBM i is a good move by IBM. The work Big Blue has done to bring these technologies to IBM i – much of which is delivered …

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  • S4i Systems Embraces Open Source Project

    April 17, 2017 Dan Burger

    Open source development on IBM i bodes well for the platform and all those who look to the future as well as recognizing the value of the past. RPG development isn’t threatened by open source options. It’s stimulated by open source. The modernization of RPG, C, or COBOL investments gets a boost from open source. There are people writing applications on IBM i that would not be within shouting distance of the platform if open source language options were not available.

    When Web services, mobile applications and other Web technologies become more closely aligned with i, the community benefits. The …

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