• DevOps Means Using The Tools You Already Have Better

  April 24, 2024 Jeff Tickner

  In this world, there are always more than two ways to skin a cat, but the best way to skin any cat is the way you already know how to do it.

  The same is true of application development from within a DevOps toolchain. When modernizing development processes on IBM i, the most efficient thing to do, always, is to make use of enterprise tools already in place within the organization and integrate these into a cohesive IBM i workflow that shepherds code from idea to production all along the way.

  It may seem obvious to say so, but trust …

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• Rocket DevOps Gets Update for Free Format RPG, VS Code, and DORA

  April 24, 2024 Alex Woodie

  The latest release of Rocket’s change management tool for IBM i brings several new capabilities, including improved support for VS Code and Free Form RPG. Rocket DevOps version 10.3.1 also brings better code testing capabilities and will help companies comply with new regulations, such as the EU’s Digital Operations Resilience Act (DORA).

  Rocket Software added support for the browser-based development environment VS Code last fall with the launch of Rocket DevOps version 10.2.2. Customers will find the new release of Rocket DevOps improves on that initial VS Code support, says Puneet Kohli, the president of the Rocket’s Application Modernization Business …

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• What’s Up with Open Source on IBM i?

  March 27, 2024 Alex Woodie

  Open source software has become a steadfast component of the IBM i stack. But what open source software are IBM i shops using today? Results from Fortra’s recent IBM i Marketplace Survey provide answers.

  It may seem odd now, but open source hasn’t always been a staple of the IBM i server’s software diet. Until PHP arrived on the platform two decades ago, proprietary software was the only option for IBM i shops.

  But today, IBM i shops have hundreds of open source products to choose from. Thanks to the IBM i server’s openness, just about any product that can …

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• IBM i Job Outlook for 2024 Not Great, But Not All Bad Either

  January 17, 2024 Bob Langieri

  First, the good news: Salaries for IBM i and RPG developers and programmers continue to go up. Average salaries of new hires of senior developers in 2023 have been getting $120,000 to $130,000. I predict this going up 6 to 10 percent in 2024, to $127,000 to $143,000. Some with specialized skills will get 10 to 20 percent more.

  This is why it’s important to add to your skills. IBM i salaries still pale compared to other more popular platforms and skills. Hiring is still very slow in the IBM RPG world as companies are doing more with less! Hot …

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• Fall 2023 IBM i Tech Refresh Brings Something For Everyone

  October 11, 2023 Alex Woodie

  As expected, IBM yesterday unveiled its fall Technology Refresh (TR) for IBM i, with updates starting to become available on November 17. IBM announced no new products as part of the fall 2023 TR cycle, but it did spread the love around by giving just about everybody something to cheer about in IBM i 7.5 TR3 and 7.4 TR9.

  Lots of different products that make up the IBM i environment will see some pretty meaningful enhancements with this release. If you spend a lot of time in Navigator for i or ACS, you will see new stuff. We haven’t had …

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• Eradani Debuts DevOps Suite for IBM i

  October 4, 2023 Alex Woodie

  It’s been five years since Dan Magid, the former CEO of Aldon and an executive with Rocket Software, has been involved in the IBM i change management and DevOps business. But with next week’s launch of Eradani DevOps at COMMON’s NAViGATE conference, the longtime change management expert is getting back into the game. This time, however, Magid is taking a decidedly different approach.

  What makes Eradani DevOps stand out from other change management tools on IBM i is its focus on open source tools. The folks at Eradani have realized that application developers in the mainstream IT world have pretty …

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• Rocket DevOps Now Supports VS Code

  September 25, 2023 Alex Woodie

  IBM i developers who prefer to code within VS Code can now get all the goodness of automated change management and CI/CD with Rocket Software’s DevOps offering, which now supports the popular browser-based development environment, among other new features.

  VS Code, which is short for Visual Studio Code, has rocketed to popularity in the IBM i community over the past couple of years. That popularity is due in large part to Code for IBM i, the Liam Allan-developed plug-in that brings ILE language support to Microsoft’s open source IDE.

  Allan, who is known to despise IBM’s full-fledged Java-based IDE, …

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• The First Step In DevOps Is Not Tools, But Culture Change

  September 25, 2023 Andrew Clark

  The combination and automation of application development and IT operations, commonly known as DevOps, is itself like the processes it automates – it is a process of continual change through iteration and improvement. And so, like most things in life (other than vacation, maybe), it is a journey – not a destination.

  When people think about a DevOps roadmap journey, they are typically thinking about putting in some kind of DevOps tooling like git or Jenkins; this is really not the place to start – the first step on the DevOps roadmap, for most companies, is actually a culture change. …

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• ARCAD’s Deal with IBM for DevOps In Merlin Is Exclusive

  September 20, 2023 Alex Woodie

  When IBM launched Merlin in 2022, it touted the browser-based environment as a new way to deliver functionality to the IBM i installed base and potentially to distribute third-party solutions. But right now, the only third-party vendor IBM is working with when it comes to Merlin is ARCAD Software, which has exclusive rights to supply the DevOps components within Merlin, according to executives with both companies.

  IBM introduced Merlin with great fanfare in May 2022 as a potentially transformative technology. Not only was Merlin the first browser-based integrated development environment (IDE) from IBM, providing an alternative to the powerful but …

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• Merlin Subscriptions Picking Up, IBM and ARCAD Say

  September 13, 2023 Alex Woodie

  Hundreds of IBM i shops have adopted Merlin since it was released last year, according to IBM and ARCAD, which jointly developed the development and code management tool. The addition of a subscription offering in early 2023 significantly bolstered sales activity, the companies say.

  “In this last six months or so, we have really seen it tick up, which is exactly what we are expecting,” says IBM i Product Manager Alison Butterill, on the Merlin adoption curve.

  Sales were a bit slow coming out of the gate for Merlin, the novel, browser-based environment for application development and change management on …

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