• Smart Modernization Is The Answer To IBM i Talent Shortage

  September 28, 2022 Jose Caso Jacobs

  When we are at the COMMON POWERUp 2022 conference a few months ago, we were amazed by the number of IT managers that approached us because of a shortage of IBM i programming talent. The dearth of programmers that are experienced with the business as well as legacy and modern programming techniques has pushed a lot of businesses up against the wall, with lost agility and in some cases delayed projects.

  As bad as that is, the situation could be worse. We have all heard the horror stories, where the executive suite or upper IT management push to switch away …

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• Why Infor’s IDF Is Important for Customer Innovation

  May 25, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Among the remaining large ERP vendors targeting IBM i, Infor appears to be the most committed to ongoing development on the platform. A key element of that strategy is the Infor Development Framework (IDF), which plays a big role in extending the functionality in its IBM i-based ERP systems to meet customers’ specific needs.

  The IDF features most prominently in Infor’s long-term strategy for the ERP XA (MAPICS), ERP LX (BPCS), and ERP System 21 product lines, says Robert Russel, the vice president of product development at Infor.

  “We’re starting to try to essentially get that technology embedded into …

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• Infor Touts Stronger Roadmap For IBM i ERP

  May 4, 2022 Alex Woodie

  It may not be fashionable in some circles to have ERP software that runs on IBM i, since containerized microservices running in the cloud are all the rage. But since it was fully acquired by Koch Industries last year, Infor does not care. That change of heart is at the center of a renewed focus on continued development of its IBM i ERP systems.

  For many years, Infor actively pushed many of its IBM i customers to move to other platforms, including cloud-based ERP systems. While it didn’t sunset any of the IBM i products (it has around a dozen …

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• Log4j Security Hole Found In OmniFind Text Search Server

  March 14, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Who would have thought that a logging utility written in Java and available for more than two decades could cause so much trouble? But that is the nature of the Log4j security vulnerability, which has been installed in all kinds of systems software and which had a Log4Shell vulnerability that was discovered by Chinese computing giant Alibaba on November 24 last year and that was revealed to the world on December 9 as a zero-day vulnerability.

  There are several areas of the IBM i software stack that use the Log4j logging utility, which is one of the many Apache open …

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• EvolveWare Sees Growing Demand for Application Rehoming

  January 24, 2022 Alex Woodie

  The COVID-19 pandemic has acted like an accelerant for IT modernization, as companies seek a better technical base upon which to launch new digital initiatives, often from the cloud. At EvolveWare, which specializes in migrating applications, 2021 brought a flood of business migrating applications off legacy systems, including big iron systems from IBM, and 2022 looks to be just as busy.

  Miten Marfatia founded EvolveWare back in 2001 to address what he predicted would be a surge in application modernization in the new millennium. Marfatia had put quite a bit of thought into the company’s business model, and figured there …

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• Guru: Flexible Interfaces

  November 1, 2021 Ted Holt

  The details are murky, it’s been eons ago. Probably the mid-1990’s. I was working on an AS/400 that ran a mixture of System/36 and native applications. I needed to call a program that had been written in the latest version of RPG from both S/36 RPG II and native RPG III (a.k.a. RPG/400) programs. I hope I’m remembering this correctly. It’s been so long.

  The problem I ran into was rooted in a numeric parameter. S/36 programs passed numeric parameters in zoned decimal format, whereas native RPG and CL programs used packed decimal. The called program defined the parameter as …

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• Eradani Drives Simplification with API Tool Update

  September 15, 2021 Alex Woodie

  Eradani has always sought to simplify the application programming interface (API) enablement process as much as possible for its IBM i customers. And with the launch of Eradani Connect version 4.1, which features a new GUI, pre-built templates of APIs, and a catalog for the REST-style Web services created with the tool, the Northern California company is taking the simplification mantra to new levels.

  The world is chock full of Web services. Whether it’s real-time weather data, a shipping services, an ecommerce application, or a tax calculator, somebody somewhere is providing information over the Internet. These external APIs generally are …

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• Modernize Your IBM i Using Other People’s Code

  September 8, 2021 Daniel Magid

  IBM i users are moving their applications to the leading edge quickly by connecting their RPG and COBOL code to the exploding number of publicly available APIs. In just the last few months here at Eradani, we have worked with customers who are providing the latest in shopping experiences by connecting their applications to Shopify, Wix, and Amazon. We have helped customers automate logistics and provide real time shipping information using APIs from UPS, USPS, Project44, Shipengine, and many others. Some of our finance industry companies are using APIs to get vehicle information and property information for loan documents and …

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• Altova Updates Db2 for i Support Across Product Line

  July 14, 2021 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that use data and development tools from Altova will be happy to know that the software vendor has added support for the latest release of Db2 for i among several of its tools.

  Altova is a Beverley, Massachusetts, company that develops a series of software tools and utilities for developers. The company is arguably best known as the creator of XMLSpy, an IDE that allows developers to create XML-based Web services using standards like WSDL; it later added support for JSON data and the modern SOAP protocol.

  In 2010, Altova added support for IBM i in MissionKit, …

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• So You Want To Do Containerized Microservices In the Cloud?

  June 30, 2021 Alex Woodie

  As a modernization consultant working in IBM’s Rochester, Minnesota, lab, Amy Anderson gets to hear from some of the most tech-savvy IBM i shops in the world. Her job requires her to know where shops are now, listen to where they want to go, and chart a path that takes them there. That can sometimes be quite a challenge, especially considering the rapid pace of technological change at the moment.

  “One of the things that we’re seeing now is the whole industry now is focused on modernization,” Anderson said during her session at the recent NAViGATE conference hosted by COMMON …

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