Re: Casino switches to AIX

From: Mike Eovino
Microsoft ... clustering can get you the reliability you need.

Yes, and clustering is the predominate architecture taught in CS departments at universities around the world. Computer Science has become the study of distributed architecture and management of disparate technologies. As an industry, we're in a can of worms.

My suggestion is to return to native languages and record-level I/O. Let the classic task dispatching in the native virtual machine manage workloads. There's nothing more efficient or more reliable or scalable, easier to configure or to manage.

For IBM i developers and consultants who may be struggling to compete against "modern" user interfaces and architectures promoted by Microsoft, you might consider Web portals. I'm the author of one that runs in the native virtual machine under IBM i, to disclose my bias.

A good Web portal covers at least three (3) essential elements for application deployment. Authentication, Access, and Authority. The three "A"s. Authentication via user profiles (either portal based, or IBM i based). Access via configurable environments and library lists, menu systems, and mechanisms for toggling between currently active applications. And Authorization via configurable options and an API which can be used by any application to check secured options against user or group authority.

One strategy I'm aware of for fortifying against Windows application is to crank out a number of database maintenance applications, using your IBM i database, and deploying them within a Web portal. Let users get a feel for the new user interface and runtime environment. Then with their approval, begin migrating applications in that direction. I've come up with a model for RPG / HTML based database maintenance that eliminates just about any concern that may have been expressed against Webfaced 5250 applications.

Nathan.