Hi,
Nathan
I'd like you to start thinking in terms of running many food
importers impeccably, instead of just one. Because if you don't,
somebody else will, and the applications that you're supporting in
the S/36 environment will probably be retired within a few years by
another vendor that understands the cloud computing business model
and technology associated with it.
Steven
Unless we do a nice modernization, in some of the ways under
discussion. That is why the 4GL issues and comparisons are on the
top of the plate, as they keep you in elegant land, without forcing
tons of work, or sacrificing anything you now have.
This system ran two importers at one time, but as happens, company A
buys out company B. Simply put, this is here to run our company, not
to become a marketing tool
Nathan
I recently became acquainted with a Canadian company that is signing
up dental offices throughout Utah. They are running cloud services
based who knows where? But "where" doesn't matter. The point is that
they understand the economies of scale of the cloud services
business model, and that dental offices are eager to get rid of
their in-house systems because they are not in that line of
business. Dentists want to use technology, not manage it. Managing
technology is not their core competence.
Steven
I know from PC utility software that cloud software is mediocre
compared to home base software. And subject to various
difficulties. I think many companies that go the route you mention
end up "bitten".
Nathan
If you were to buy a model 720 today and connect 20-40 concurrent
users to it you'd probably run your CPU pretty much all day long at
1-2% utilization. We need to start thinking in terms of hosting
hundreds or even thousands of users on 720's.
Steven
You can not create environments artificially. And the "come to the
cloud" model has severe concerns and deficiencies. We put our backup
in the cloud a year or two ago, but only for redundancy to home
base. For many businesses, other than web shopping and such, the
cloud is a huge point of potential failure. One major solar flare,
(and other scenarios) and your business can be down for weeks, never
to recover (as those who were home base hum along nicely). This may
not be a major problem for a dental office, who can muddle along by
hand on a one-by-one patient basis, but for a complex warehouse,
inventory and invoicing business ... oops.
One time, a company had messed up the Y2K stuff because one 64K
program did not compile right .. and it came close to a full
disaster, as it was their invoicing programing. Eventually I walked
over with the streamlined version of the program that I had created
in the other company. (Memory a bit hazy, 1999,). One program down
and the company was basically out of business for a week. For the
cloud, you could multiply potential disruptions by 1000. Smart execs
are going to be very leery of not being able to run a business in the
home spot.
Nathan
Regarding PC integration, there has been an on-going discussion on
Linkedin about various ways to generate Excel spreadsheets under IBM
i. The number of alternative solutions actually surprised me. We
use RPG to generate Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, email, PDF
documents, HTML reports. For our daily backups, we generate
encrypted .zip files and FTP them to an offsite linux server,
instead of backing up to tape.
Steven
You do that all natively now, sans utility, with simply RPG ? I'm
not surprised, I grant that it has improved greatly. In my case I
might have to do some upgrades for all that functionality, or a lot
of learning. I tend to use a Client Access export for Excel (no
special utility but a little care) but am looking at tools like NGS
that automate that whole feature more or less into the users hand.
Backup is not a problem, since we have a smallish system and redundancy.
On the others, I think I will take a look at the LInked thread, if I
am a member. I know the direct PDF document creation was recently
enhanced (I am on 7.1), I would be curious as to the de minimis level
(OS, language, data) etc. of HTML reporting. In other words, does it
require DB2 and external data ? Does it require RPG-ILE ? If so, a
utility is more sensible on my end. If not, I should ramp up my skills.
One the email, there should be a good interconnectivity between
Outlook and the RPG, not just sending out an email from iSeries. I
am considering the GoAnywhere product for some help on this (also
security, logging, FTP, etc.) rather than try to learn 8 skills and
implement lots of code for one app. (e.g. We are implementing an EDI
style transfer shortly, and that looks to be a GoAnywhere sweet spot,
since it puts a shell around the native iSeries functions and helps
with the PC-iSeries integration).
Nathan
You may not be thinking in terms of mobile computing now, but get
and iPad or an iPhone and your outlook will change. ERP vendors are
adding handheld applications to their legacy suites. More and more
organizations are demanding them. Before you can use tooling to
generate mobile applications, your first step must be to externally
define your physical files, and learn how to create SQL views.
Steven
Yet it seems that lots of SQL style tools (including 4GL tools) will
work with their own data dictionaries, and/or will read a DDS or IDDU
describing my data, so why should I overhaul my system, if that is
the case ? An interesting review would be to go tool-by-tool, 4GL
and 4GL, and discuss what they expect from the iSeries, especially if
they need DB2. Remember, Open Access needed external screen files
from RPG-ILE, one real oops.
Nathans
I have to admit that IBM is investing a lot more in cross-platform
languages and interfaces and related tooling, but it is not too hard
to learn how to create HTML templates, and scan and replace field
markers, using RPG. You'd probably be surprised just how well suited
RPG is for generating formatted output, whether that be HTML, XML,
JSON, or whatever.
Steven
Sensible, if we had a greater need. :) . And if I didn't have a lot
to do to externalize this and that. And if there were not 4GL tools
that might do all this better and simpler.
Nathan
I noticed this week that our daily backups include over 3,000 HTML
templates which we use in more than 400 web applications.
Steven
I don't think we have the number of web applications, even
potentially, to justify much new study and development in HTML, XML,
JSON, CGI, JAVA, PHP, etc. There is a danger that we will end up
with a system that is the jambalaya, and then when the new programmer
comes in, it is all a puzzle, after we spent 6 figures to do .. something.
My OCL code alone can cause conniptions to those a bit more vanilla.
So it sounds like you have one of those semi-enterprise places, where
the web programming skills are abundant, and pieces are replaceable
through human resources. That is simply a different environment.
What you say is fine in your environment, but it does not necessarily
apply well in mine. My goal is to keep the system functioning
solidly, the budget gentle, the system relatively simple, and yet,
work into .. some modernization. (e.g. We have a section of the
business in Filemaker that needs to come over to the iSeries.)
Steven Spencer
Bayside, NY
midrange.com
