The iSeries: The Once and Future King

[J.Pluta]

The iSeries: The Once and Future King

Let's try to be precise here, Chris. I said "migration tools", not "conversion tools". There's a difference. Conversion tools are used to change a program but keep it on the iSeries. Migration tools are intended to move iSeries programs off of the iSeries. Are you saying that RIO is a migration tool, Chris? Please, be VERY clear about this. You have a tendency to change your wording (and mine), so be VERY sure of what you're saying. CW: If you come back and tell me that many of those 30+ customers are using your PCS tool than you have my apology, but my guess is that most are customers of your PDF conversion tool. You needn't answer- this is kind of like playing liar's poker with a guy who has a 3,6 in his hand. Excuse me? You said "yet I have never seen or heard from a single site that owns a product of yours in over 15 years of doing this." That's a pretty clear statement, Chris, and wasn't qualified by any product. I prove you wrong, and your immediate reaction is to start backfilling. And even though you clearly owe me an apology even if ALL of those clients are CPYSPLFPDF customers, indeed several of the names on that list are PSC/400 clients. Feel free to apologize any time. Joe

[MCWebsite.Staff]

The iSeries: The Once and Future King

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[David Abramowitz]

The iSeries: The Once and Future King

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Joe Pluta wrote: Legacy is good; legacy plus new technology is better. I would hate to take anything out of context in a large comprehensive article but my take on this sentence is: hear, hear. Dave

[Guest.Visitor]

The iSeries: The Once and Future King

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Joe, I have always shared your enthusiasm for the iSeries (i5) and native development. I have yet to see an application in the Java world that could not be replicated natively on the iSeries. The problem is IBM needs to turn around and preach to the congregation not the choir. True they are spending mega bucks in advertisements, but I have yet to see one marketing rep in our company that is promoting the iSeries as a complete solution. Why? A move to Java, Websphere e-Commerce, Portal would require new hardware sales. Now isn't the real profits there for IBM. I share yours and everyone's enthusiasm for the native iSeries development, I will simmer down my optimism for IBM's announcement until they make them a reality.

[J.Pluta]

The iSeries: The Once and Future King

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Well, it's not a bad sentence to stand on its own. In fact, that's really one of the four big issues: iSeries is good, SMB is good, legacy is good, ISV is good. Great messages, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the year. Joe

[J.Pluta]

The iSeries: The Once and Future King

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What do YOU expect to see from the marketing types? Remember, they're trying to make money, so I don't necessarily blame them for pushing high-ticket solutions. Even the Harley salesman will try to sell you the biggest bike he can. But there are a couple of issues here. First, what ARE the marketing reps proposing? And what are their names? I'll be happy to pass that information along to the powers that be. If they're proposing non-iSeries solutions where the iSeries is clearly the correct choice, then there needs to be some education. Remember, this whole thing is a completely new direction for IBM. Also, as I've learned over the years, IBM is not one big organization with common goals. There are factions and for the longest time the anti-iSeries faction was clearly in charge. Word may not have filtered down through the ranks that the iSeries is back in town. Second, though, the marketeers may well promote the iSeries WITH WebSphere and Java as a web-based front end. Whether we like it or not, browser interfaces are a requirement for many business that might not have even considered one a year or two back. And in that environment an iSeries with WebSphere is a great option. You just have to know enough to be able to provide input to your management team as to where WebSphere fits in your organization. For example, if you just need browser access to a couple of apps and a little bit of data, then WebSphere Express and a thin-veneer Java application calling RPG programs works great. WebSphere Express is cheap and gets you on the web, while using only a tiny bit of Java. At the same time, it gets your foot in the Java door for future development. Or, you can use just RPG-CGI. It's a technological dead end, but if your browser needs are minimal and your Java skills non-existent (with no desire to learn any), then it's a possibility as well. But you need to be able to present that to management as well. Joe

[charles400]

The iSeries: The Once and Future King

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Two weeks ago my boss and I had lunch with our new IBM representative. We were discussing Websphere Portal, which IBM is pushing very hard. She asked what we were running in our shop. I was astonished that any IBM rep would not have done this homework before a meeting. We just upgraded to a nice big i5 through a business partner last year. In any case, we explained the ERP configuration on our i5. In response she said, "i5... is that like i/2? I've think I've heard of them..." Good Lord. From anybody but IBM I would have expected this. The sure sign of a platform in trouble is when the vendor selling it doesn't know what it is. I hope IBM's own people are learning from their own literature.

[J.Pluta]

The iSeries: The Once and Future King

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Charles, I suggest you contact IBM directly. I suspect that if you were to relate this story to Mark Shearer, Peter Bingaman or Malcolm Haines, you would find yourself with either a new rep or a newly educated rep. The fact that the rep didn't know anything about your company shows that perhaps this wasn't a particularly savvy rep. If I were you, I'd probably be looking for a new one. In any event, if you find your rep's lack of knowledge to be a problem, rather than take the time to complain here instead take the time to shoot off an email to one of the folks I mentioned above. It's sure to do more good than telling me . Joe

[David Abramowitz]

The iSeries: The Once and Future King

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charles400 wrote: Two weeks ago my boss and I had lunch with our new IBM representative This in and of itself is a vast improvement, and harkens back to an earlier time. Once was. . . .when you knew your CE; your SE; and your sales rep by sight and by name. Your sales rep would pop in on you periodically just to see how things were going. About 15 years ago sales reps started to disappear to "regional centers" which as time passed grew to wider and wider regions. My last three clients had reps no closer than 1,300 miles away at best, and in one case over 2,500 miles away. CEs and SEs have disappeared, and the hardware repair guy may change on each call. Those shops that still have some stroke might receive a more personalized service, but in my expserience they are few and far between. Dave

[Guest.Visitor]

The iSeries: The Once and Future King

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Apologies in advance for what is a lengthy and bitter post. I think it's too late. I think it'll work, and I think it'll be great. For about 30 people. I think that there is no way IBM is going to win over a mass of new converts, particularly when it comes to RPG, and AS/400 technology in general. True, IBM has enhanced the ILE RPG language significantly, and actually brought RPG forward. There's even something of a migration path (although third-party tools seem to do a more thorough job than IBM's). True, IBM has done some remarkable things with DB2/400 in V5R3. True, you can code in C. True, you can try to code in C++. The problem is that while they were building a better mousetrap, people started figuring out how to either live with the mice, or have moved on to different locales where the mice don't exist. In my opinion, IBM has done absolutely nothing for the RPG community at large in terms of providing people with ***reasons to move to ILE RPG***, other than "it's better." I've been on the iSeries as long as you have, Joe. However, what I've seen several times is this: IBM's pitch: "It's better. See? Really! It's better! Look at it! Do you code RPG? Look what we have for you-- and it's ILE, it's free and it makes RPG coding easier! And look-- you can integrate Java, and CL, and COBOL and C. And look-- the database is slicker. You can do some superb stuff with journalling. And it's FASTER. How about it, huh?" And the RPG coders and the DBAs and the techie application designers scratch their heads and say, "Wow! It IS better." And these poor saps with big grins on their faces, go back to their bosses. These people are excited at the prospect of learning or implementing new technology on their favorite platform that will make their job easier. However, their bosses aren't interested. They're happy with their twenty-year old OPM RPG apps. The code works, it costs a lot less to maintain than developing new code, especially in what is essentially a new language. These bosses say things like: "How much is it going to cost me to use ILE?" "Why would I want to do this-- just because my staff thinks it's 'neat' or 'cool'?" "How long will this take me to realize any benefit?" "Oh, HELL, no." "You guys are nuts, and IBM is nuts for thinking I'd fall for this." "There's no benefit in employing new technology on the AS/400. The 400 will be dead in a few years anyway." I'm not just making this up-- I've heard these sentences from several "managers", many times. I suspect I'm not alone, either. Worse, I've heard people out-and-out lie regarding the stability or usability of the ILE environment on the 400. They'll make up the most egregious nonsense to keep people from learning or using "new stuff". My current client has a pack of team leaders who "search and destroy" any attempts by their staff to use or even learn ILE. I've only managed to get ILE in as production code because it meets project requirements that OPM RPG can't, and... well, I'm a consultant. I don't answer to those team leaders. There's a disconnect-- people can't see the value in investing in new techology, or get over the fear of new technology. As a result, the AS/400 evolves, but the shops don't. And IBM has absolutely nothing, repeat nothing, that will show a high-level manager in pictures (because after a certain level in Corporate America, nobody has time to read) that the overall cost of ownership for an AS/400 is competitive. In fact, I've seen eyes glaze over as soon as the words "Cost of Ownership" were used. And vendors are exploiting this disconnect. If your company has a project requirement which includes technology that you don't associate with the AS/400, like serving web pages, boom! There's a vendor out there who's ready to say: "The 400? Well, I know we've got someone who's done some work with it..." "The 400? Isn't that a dead box?" "The 400? Well, if I knew you were made of money, I would have raised my price 50%! Ha-ha-ha!" The vendor wants to make a sale. And his comments aren't unethical, he's just doing the best he can with what he knows. As an aside, most techie guys think you need x86 box with Apache to run a web server; never mind Apache runs on the AS/400, most of them don't know or care. (The amount of head-scratching when non-AS/400 people do when they learn all of the 400's capabilities would make you think there's a lice festival somewhere.) And the sales pitch sticks and suddenly people are saying, "There's a guy who wants to sell me a Linux box, with mySQL, and he says it'll be GREAT. He says I can retrieve four million rows in 2 seconds! And it'll cost me 10 grand to put the whole thing together? Wow. Neat. Cut a PO!" And then reality dawns: "Who's going to do this work? Hmmm... well, it could be the guy who's been on the AS/400 and written about half the apps in our system and maintained the other half... trouble is, he spits up hairballs and threatens to quit when someone says 'UNIX' or 'PC' within thirty feet of him. We could hire a consultant, but that's knowledge drain... maybe we can just get some kid out of college, pay him peanuts, and work him like a dog. Yeah, that's what we'll do." So, they hire the guy, and because everyone's busy and nobody "trusts" anyone else's technology, nobody gets cross-trained. The result? Silos. Everyone works in their little camps. Their attitudes are summed up as follows: "Stupid UNIX punk," says the AS/400 geezer, "_my_ stuff works." "Stupid AS/400 fossil," says the UNIX guy, "_my_ stuff works." The problem isn't the AS/400. The AS/400 is a superb box. Always has been, always will be. And also, the problem isn't the UNIX box. I've used 'em, and I like 'em. So, if the problem isn't the platforms, what is it? The problem is diversity. Many shops are multiplatform these days. And IBM has done a superb job of social engineering on the village scale, with their loyal bands of AS/400 folks, fighting for their machines. However, IBM has completely dropped the ball with regard to scaling the social engineering-- the AS/400 is an island, just like the Mac. Too little. Too late. Sorry, I don't believe it.

[J.Pluta]

The iSeries: The Once and Future King

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Yeah, it's long and bitter. And it's an inaccurate broad brush of the industry. Sorry, Doc, but I've SEEN the companies where new is good. I installed my web application architecture at a company up in Wisconsin, you betcha, and they're off to the races. It really depends. Some companies may not like change. An ISV with an investment in reselling his legacy code is different than an end user shop trying to add new functions. And these days, few companies can afford an internal skunk works like the ones we had at SSA. If you want that kind of job, you may have to work long hours for peanuts. But if you're willing to do that, you can find a job where you just play with new things and learn how to do them. But for the most part, what companies want is EVOLUTIONARY change, not REVOLUTIONARY. And the new goal of combining legacy systems with new technologies is just that: evolutionary change. Anyway, I wish you the best. Joe

[TheQuigs]

The iSeries: The Once and Future King

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Some have used the term Legacy to imply something old, outdated, and largely dysfunctional. I'm beginning to think that legacy is really anything that works as intended and fulfills its intended purpose. (Perhaps at times it could use some extensions and enhancements. But it's largely functional and, as it sits, it does most everything it was originally intended to do.) Thanks for a great article. I'll be circulating it around our department and anywhere else I can.

[J.Pluta]

The iSeries: The Once and Future King

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Thanks for the compliments! And yes, that's exactly the issue: legacy systems are those that have been working. They're the sort of thing for which we came up with, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!" This by no means is meant to say that we don't integrate it with newer technology -- we've been doing that for years! How many people took their green screen order entry and updated it to accept EDI orders? But that was adding functionality. The "old is bad" crowd, the attention deficit disordered in the IT industry, would have you believe that everything written in RPG is by definition bad. But you want to know something? Over the last four years I have repeatedly challenged any Javaphile to write an MRP Generation in Java, and not one has taken me up on it. Whereas I'm reasonably confident I could STILL write one in RPG today, even though I haven't touched a manufacturing package in a few years. On the other hand, we have to be careful not to back into a defensive "RPG is the only one true way" position. RPG is great for a lot of things, but for example formatting HTML ain't one of 'em. But that's what Java is for. That "thin Java veneer" I talked about is all you need to build robust, powerful web applications, with 99% of your actual application code written in RPG. Joe

[Guest.Visitor]

The iSeries: The Once and Future King

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Doc, You sound like a man scorned who thinks all women are out to get your money and treat you bad. While I believe your experiences are real I'm not sure I believe they are universal. There are many shops, including the one that I run, that are very progressively using the iSeries as the company's information backbone. While it's true that we don't exploit the deep crevaces of ILE (we only use free format, not modules, procedures, etc.) we use it to serve up web pages. A lot. In fact, any new user facing development is done via web pages. We do NOT use Websphere and, it seems, that IBM now understands that Websphere isn't the answer to everything. Also, there are many large companies doing similar things. Nearby companies to my own such as Countrywide Funding, Amgen, Disney, Columbia Studios, etc. (to name only a few) all rely upon the iSeries to run their business and serve up web pages. IBM is investing BILLIONS on the iSeries and one thing IBM doen't do is waste billions of dollars. My bet is on the iSeries. It may never become the Windows XP of the computer world but as a niche it'll do just fine. chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer.

[Guest.Visitor]

The iSeries: The Once and Future King

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I'm sorry that my previous post was so long. My points were actually pretty small, buried under a ton of rubble. To sum up, here they are: 1. IBM has treated the legacy AS/400 codebases as a waste of time and money for too long. 2. Other vendors are supplying solutions that meet immediate needs far better than IBM. Vendors have learned to exploit the gulf that's come up between the AS/400's users and IT management. 3. This isn't a case of EVOLUTIONARY v. REVOLUTIONARY. It's a simple case abandonment by IBM. While my criticisim of IBM's new ideas may be too broad with regard to the industry, I think the counterarguements are two narrow. For example, Joe's sold his (most excellent) tool to a shop in Wisconsin. However, just because one shop in Wisconsin is using your product, does not mean that you're getting full industry exposure either. You have a tool that you're marketing to AS/400 shops. In other words, the AS/400 is your market. Your customers are interested in keeping and modernizing their 400's and their 400 applications. Chuck, I work in integrated shops that use the 400 in a variety of ways. Without exception, all of these shops have had their 400's for at least 10 years, and most of their systems were migrated to the 400 from the S/38. Other systems arrived on the scene after the AS/400 became marginalized by IBM. I have yet to see a non-400 shop embrace the AS/400. By "embrace," I mean "buy a new AS/400 for core business applications". Even in buyout situations, I've yet to see the 400 become the main system. Also, where is the next generation of AS/400 jockies going to come from? Just curious. IBM doesn't seem to be too interested in that, either. Again, I think it's too little, too late. I hope I'm wrong.