Change control: is it a tool or is it an attitude? Maybe it's a little of both.
Written by David Shirey
Last month, we talked about some of the myths that seem to surround change management. Now let's take a few moments and talk about what a change control system should be.
Every IT shop has some sort of change-management system. And it's often more a burden than a help. Why? Because of a number of change management myths that we hold near and dear.
Written by David Shirey
The single most unheeded dictum, which seems to come from every successful entrepreneur-turned-billionaire, is to not be afraid of making mistakes. In fact, many people proudly declare that mistakes are the only way you make progress, and they attribute much of their success to their ability to make mistakes. Interestingly enough, this never seems to have worked out for me, but they're the rich ones, so they must know.
A famous editor once said, "You know how when you tighten a bolt on your engine the front bumper falls off?" That started me thinking of writing about how difficult it can be to modify an existing application. Oh, all right. It was her idea from the beginning. So what.
Written by David Shirey
In the beginning, an application was written from scratch. And it was beautiful to behold. It did what it was supposed to do, and the logic flow was as clean and as clear as you could reasonably expect it to be. And it lived happily with a dozen unicorns, a handsome prince who liked watching romantic comedy movies, and a beautiful princess with long hair and a diaphanous gown.
But then, somebody decided that some changes needed to be made to it. So they modified the code to show the customer AR Tariff code. And suddenly, one of the unicorns disappeared and was replaced by a hippo.
Integrated Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) provides the ability to innovate while reducing overhead costs, thus improving time to delivery, quality, value, and predictability.
Written by Olenka Van Schendel
The classic definition of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) derives from the notion of "software as a product": identifying distinct and cyclical phases of requirements management, software architecture, development, testing, maintenance, change management, project management, and release management.
Most importantly, and to dispel a common misconception, the scope of ALM is broader than the simple software development lifecycle (SDLC).
With the fervor of SOA activity, you need to know how to derive the most value and how an incremental approach addresses planning, development, and deployment challenges.
Enterprises of all sizes are increasingly recognizing the importance of implementing service-oriented architecture (SOA) in order to accelerate software reuse and provide real-time responsiveness to customers. The ability to overcome obstacles, including managing several independent IT systems and expanding product lines and business applications spread throughout the enterprise, makes it easy to understand the popularity of SOA deployments.
For instance, in an effort to reduce costs and improve efficiency, many companies have started outsourcing business processes offshore to countries like China and India. These offshore workers are taking the place of individuals who know how to traverse through complicated legacy transactions. The carriers sending work offshore are looking for a solution that can be sent to the business process outsourcing (BPO) provider to get them up and running as quickly as possible.
SOA is a key enabler in propelling business process integration (BPI) initiatives within an organization.
We have been talking seriously about SOA for two or three years now. But is SOA a good solution for the short term? Isn't it a time bomb for the future?
A bank in France started to set services in place in 2002. At that time, they had about 15 services related to their CRM system. Progressively, following their approach of creating services, by 2005 they had several hundred services used by all the development teams. This is a good story for evaluating an SOA initiative. Digging into the different project teams, talking with project managers and developers, it appears that there were so many services—too many, as a matter of fact—that it was impossible to use and manage them in an efficient manner! Re-use of services and versioning became a nightmare. As a result, the whole system had to be reconsidered.
In today's complex IT world, choosing the right change management system is crucial.
As your business needs evolve, a greater volume of software changes—possibly over several platforms and certainly under a tight schedule—are required to support your business objectives. Structured software change management, and the productivity tools it brings to the table, becomes a requirement not only for the IT staff, but for other departments within your company as well.
If your business is thinking about modernizing your legacy IBM i (also known as AS/400 or iSeries) applications, you will want to read this white paper first!
Download this paper and learn how Node.js can ensure that you:
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More than ever, there is a demand for IT to deliver innovation.
Your IBM i has been an essential part of your business operations for years. However, your organization may struggle to maintain the current system and implement new projects.
The thousands of customers we've worked with and surveyed state that expectations regarding the digital footprint and vision of the companyare not aligned with the current IT environment.
Get your copy of this important guide today!
2022 marks the eighth edition of the IBM i Marketplace Survey Results. Each year, Fortra captures data on how businesses use the IBM i platform and the IT and cybersecurity initiatives it supports.
Over the years, this survey has become a true industry benchmark, revealing to readers the trends that are shaping and driving the market and providing insight into what the future may bring for this technology.
Brunswick is the leader in bowling products, services, and industry expertise for the development and renovation of new and existing bowling centers and mixed-use recreation facilities across the entertainment industry. However, the lifeblood of Brunswick’s capital equipment business was running on a 15-year-old software application written in Visual Basic 6 (VB6) with a SQL Server back-end. The application was at the end of its life and needed to be replaced.
With the help of Visual LANSA, they found an easy-to-use, long-term platform that enabled their team to collaborate, innovate, and integrate with existing systems and databases within a single platform.
Read the case study to learn how they achieved success and increased the speed of development by 30% with Visual LANSA.
Progressive Web Apps allow you to reach anyone, anywhere, and on any device with a single unified codebase. This means that your applications—regardless of browser, device, or platform—instantly become more reliable and consistent. They are the present and future of application development, and more and more businesses are catching on.
Download this whitepaper and learn:
When it comes to creating your business applications, there are hundreds of coding platforms and programming languages to choose from. These options range from very complex traditional programming languages to Low-Code platforms where sometimes no traditional coding experience is needed.
Download our whitepaper, The Power of Writing Code in a Low-Code Solution, and:
Business users want new applications now. Market and regulatory pressures require faster application updates and delivery into production. Your IBM i developers may be approaching retirement, and you see no sure way to fill their positions with experienced developers. In addition, you may be caught between maintaining your existing applications and the uncertainty of moving to something new.
In this white paper, you’ll learn how to think of these issues as opportunities rather than problems. We’ll explore motivations to migrate or modernize, their risks and considerations you should be aware of before embarking on a (migration or modernization) project.
Lastly, we’ll discuss how modernizing IBM i applications with optimized business workflows, integration with other technologies and new mobile and web user interfaces will enable IT – and the business – to experience time-added value and much more.
Having trouble getting management approval for modernization projects? The problem may be you're not speaking enough "business" to them.
This Developer Kit provides you study-backed data and a ready-to-use business case template to help get your very next development project approved!
IT managers hoping to find new IBM i talent are discovering that the pool of experienced RPG programmers and operators or administrators is small.
This guide offers strategies and software suggestions to help you plan IT staffing and resources and smooth the transition after your AS/400 talent retires. Read on to learn:
Have you been wondering about Node.js? Our free Node.js Webinar Series takes you from total beginner to creating a fully-functional IBM i Node.js business application. In Part 2, Brian May teaches you the different tooling options available for writing code, debugging, and using Git for version control. Attend this webinar to learn:
In this session, IBM i security expert Robin Tatam provides a quick recap of IBM i security basics and guides you through some advanced cybersecurity techniques that can help you take data protection to the next level. Robin will cover:
Don't miss this chance to take your knowledge of IBM i security beyond the basics.
In today’s threat landscape, upper management is laser-focused on cybersecurity. You need to make progress in securing your systems—and make it fast.
There’s no shortage of actions you could take, but what tactics will actually deliver the results you need? And how can you find a security strategy that fits your budget and time constraints?
Join top IBM i security expert Robin Tatam as he outlines the five fastest and most impactful changes you can make to strengthen IBM i security this year.
Your system didn’t become unsecure overnight and you won’t be able to turn it around overnight either. But quick wins are possible with IBM i security, and Robin Tatam will show you how to achieve them.
Malicious programs can bring entire businesses to their knees—and IBM i shops are not immune. It’s critical to grasp the true impact malware can have on IBM i and the network that connects to it. Attend this webinar to gain a thorough understanding of the relationships between:
There are a number of ways you can minimize your exposure to viruses. IBM i security expert Sandi Moore explains the facts, including how to ensure you're fully protected and compliant with regulations such as PCI.
DB2 Field Procedures (FieldProcs) were introduced in IBM i 7.1 and have greatly simplified encryption, often without requiring any application changes. Now you can quickly encrypt sensitive data on the IBM i including PII, PCI, PHI data in your physical files and tables.
Watch this webinar to learn how you can quickly implement encryption on the IBM i. During the webinar, security expert Robin Tatam will show you how to:
Despite the many options IBM has provided to protect your systems and data, many organizations still struggle to apply appropriate security controls.
In this webinar, you'll get insight into how the criminals accessed these systems, the fallout from these attacks, and how the incidents could have been avoided by following security best practices.
You will learn the steps you can take to avoid the mistakes made in these examples, as well as other inadequate and misconfigured settings that put businesses at risk.
When it comes to creating your business applications, there are hundreds of coding platforms and programming languages to choose from. These options range from very complex traditional programming languages to Low-Code platforms where sometimes no traditional coding experience is needed.
Download our whitepaper, The Power of Writing Code in a Low-Code Solution, and:
Have you been wondering about Node.js? Our free Node.js Webinar Series takes you from total beginner to creating a fully-functional IBM i Node.js business application.
Part 1 will teach you what Node.js is, why it's a great option for IBM i shops, and how to take advantage of the ecosystem surrounding Node.
In addition to background information, our Director of Product Development Scott Klement will demonstrate applications that take advantage of the Node Package Manager (npm).
Watch Now.
The Biggest Mistakes in IBM i Security
Here’s the harsh reality: cybersecurity pros have to get their jobs right every single day, while an attacker only has to succeed once to do incredible damage.
Whether that’s thousands of exposed records, millions of dollars in fines and legal fees, or diminished share value, it’s easy to judge organizations that fall victim.
Join this webinar to learn about the biggest errors made when securing a Power Systems server.
This knowledge is critical for ensuring integrity of your application data and preventing you from becoming the next Equifax. It’s also essential for complying with all formal regulations, including SOX, PCI, GDPR, and HIPAA
Watch Now.
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Robot automates the routine tasks of iSeries backup and recovery, saving you time and money and making the process safer and more reliable. Automate your backups with the Robot Backup and Recovery Solution. Key features include:
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Managing messages on your IBM i can be more than a full-time job if you have to do it manually. How can you be sure you won’t miss important system events?
Automate your message center with the Robot Message Management Solution. Key features include:
- Automated message management
- Tailored notifications and automatic escalation
- System-wide control of your IBM i partitions
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Robot automates report bursting, distribution, bundling, and archiving, and offers secure, selective online report viewing.
Manage your reports with the Robot Report Management Solution. Key features include:
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- View online without delay
- Browser interface to make notes
- Custom retention capabilities
- Seamless product integration
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For over 30 years, Robot has been a leader in systems management for IBM i.
Manage your job schedule with the Robot Job Scheduling Solution. Key features include:
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