Aaron, do you really find ASP.Net that complicated ? :-)
The language/syntax itself? I haven't touched it in awhile. I am
more talking about a fairly common approach to "modernization" that I
see in IBMi shops which is generally as follows:
- Hire a .NET developer or train existing staff
- Setup an initial/new Windows server to sit outside the firewall, and
maintain that machine with patches.
- Setup IIS on that machine and maintain it with patches.
- Setup a separate Windows server to host MSSQL and maintain machine
with patches.
- Work through many iterations of determining the best way to
communicate with the IBMi/DB2/RPG. Usually a mix is decided on.
- Setup ODBC for SQL to DB2 and SQL to RPG communication or spend time
researching what other type of DB connection should be made (what's
the latest and greatest this year?)
- Setup web services on IBM i using CGIDEV2/RPG-XML Suite/IWS
- Setup Apache or IWS (Websphere) to facilitate previous point and
maintain with patches.
At this point you have tripled your servers (2 windows, 1 IBM i),
double or tripled your development staff, double or tripled your
maintenance of machines, have extra licensing to be concerned about,
have two sets of knowledge to maintain (Microsoft and IBMi) and send
people to conferences for, etc.
Will many shops get a solution working with Microsoft front-ending
IBMi? Yes. Will they be paying much more in the long run - most
definitely. Will they have troubles maintaining a large solution when
fixes/features need to go out? Without a doubt. Will they move
slower than their competitors in the long run because their
"modernization" solution is too complex? Yes.
I look forward to seeing you at the next QUSER meeting
(
http://www.quser.org/) by Minneapolis where I will be speaking about
a simpler stack (i.e. OpenRPGUI + ExtJS).[grin] The stack I am going
to be teaching on isn't perfect, but in the long run it is a heck of a
lot less complex than significant adoption of Microsoft front ending
IBMi.
Microsoft is brilliant at making at making smaller projects simple.
But then you need to grow the project and everything just keeps
getting bigger and more complex vs. simply scaling well. Before you
know it you have hired somebody just to keep track of VMWare
instances.
Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com
http://mowyourlawn.com/blog/
On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 9:06 PM, Richard Schoen <richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Aaron, do you really find ASP.Net that complicated ? :-)
It's quite easy to build effective interfaces into the iSeries with .Net for client apps, web apps or web services.
Probably quite a bit easier that J2EE, PHP or CGIDEV2 in my opinion.
However I do like your description of how you see it :-)
Regards,
Richard Schoen
RJS Software Systems Inc.
Where Information Meets Innovation
Document Management, Workflow, Report Delivery, Forms and Business Intelligence
Email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Web Site: http://www.rjssoftware.com
Tel: (952) 736-5800
Fax: (952) 736-5801
Toll Free: (888) RJSSOFT
midrange.com
