Planet i

I just found out about a great new service provided by force.com (the owners and operators of Salesforce.com the CRM system). They will work with you to convert your Lotus Notes applications to their force.com cloud based application framework.  See: http://www.salesforce.com/campaigns/lotusmigration/?d=70130000000FMnb.

The link above has an amazing demo that shows how easy it is to move your Lotus notes applications to force.com's cloud.  You get much more functionality than you had with Lotus Notes and you get rid of all of your expensive Lotus notes admin and support people and remove one more obstacle to eliminating the old aging iSeries from your company.

No machines, no administrators, gauranteed availability, backups, security, and all via your browser.  No client software!  The total cost is a fraction of what you pay for Lotus Notes.

You get much more.  You can actually integrate multiple Lotus Notes application and add workflow or management reporting capabilities that you could not do with Notes itself.  Additionally, virtually anyone can learn to use force.com's easy form based admin facilities which unlike Lotus Notes are written in simple English that anyone can understand. 


Force.com has folks to assist with a conversion or you can do it on your own. Move your apps to force.com and use a simple more robust email system of the many available or host that on the web with many of the Internet based service providers offering advanced email services and eliminate yet one more hassle from your IT organization.

Just for the naysayers out there.  I am not employed by or represent or get compensated in anyway by force.com.  In fact I have not spoken to their sales team but am sharing this amazing bit of news that I just discovered.  You can search YouTube for several videos that demonstrate how easy and robust this is.  Just search on "Lotus Force.com".

Read the original at Bob Cancilla on IBM i.

I just found out about a great new service provided by force.com (the owners and operators of Salesforce.com the CRM system). They will work with you to convert your Lotus Notes applications to their force.com cloud based application framework.  See: http://www.salesforce.com/campaigns/lotusmigration/?d=70130000000FMnb.

The link above has an amazing demo that shows how easy it is to move your Lotus notes applications to force.com's cloud.  You get much more functionality than you had with Lotus Notes and you get rid of all of your expensive Lotus notes admin and support people and remove one more obstacle to eliminating the old aging iSeries from your company.

No machines, no administrators, gauranteed availability, backups, security, and all via your browser.  No client software!  The total cost is a fraction of what you pay for Lotus Notes.

You get much more.  You can actually integrate multiple Lotus Notes application and add workflow or management reporting capabilities that you could not do with Notes itself.  Additionally, virtually anyone can learn to use force.com's easy form based admin facilities which unlike Lotus Notes are written in simple English that anyone can understand. 


Force.com has folks to assist with a conversion or you can do it on your own. Move your apps to force.com and use a simple more robust email system of the many available or host that on the web with many of the Internet based service providers offering advanced email services and eliminate yet one more hassle from your IT organization.

Just for the naysayers out there.  I am not employed by or represent or get compensated in anyway by force.com.  In fact I have not spoken to their sales team but am sharing this amazing bit of news that I just discovered.  You can search YouTube for several videos that demonstrate how easy and robust this is.  Just search on "Lotus Force.com".

Read the original at Bob Cancilla on IBM i.

Usually this website does not delve into PC software but one free (noncommercial) image manager program is worth noting. It is called IrfanView and can easily overlay graphics on your IBM i screen...

Visit site to read full content and more

Read the original at ile rpg programming: tips and techniques.

Usually this website does not delve into PC software but one free (noncommercial) image manager program is worth noting. It is called IrfanView and can easily overlay graphics on your IBM i screen...

Visit site to read full content and more

Read the original at ile rpg programming: tips and techniques.

Usually this website does not delve into PC software but one free (noncommercial) image manager program is worth noting. It is called IrfanView and can easily overlay graphics on your IBM i screen...

Visit site to read full content and more

Read the original at ile rpg programming: tips and techniques.

I was participating in a discussion in LinkedIn about RPG Open Access and using RPG as a language to implement modern UI's.  Someone threw the old My IBM i based machine is less expensive and more reliable than a Windows Server Farm (i.e. Server farm's are bad).

It is time to look closely at your IBM i or OS/400 based machines and their cost and availability.  We live in a global economy today where 24 x 7 x 365 is a fact and necessity, not something we talk about that we might want someday. 

Well the sad fact is that IBM has never delivered true 24 x 7 x 365 capabilities with its IBM i operating system and the embedded DB2 database bundled with the machine.  If you need to make change like adding a field to an existing database table you must shutdown all subsystems or applications that might open the file so that DB2 can get an exclusive lock on the file to be modified.  If the file is of any significant size adding the field and reloading the file can take several hours during which time your system must be unavailable. 

Even with the best 3rd party data replication software you still have this downtime.  In fact with replication software running for disaster recovery you will experience at least 45 minutes of downtime when you lose a machine before you are operational and with most software its more like 8 hours.

Someone claimed that you can apply maintenance or update programs on IBM i but not on Windows without shutting down a machine.  Well, if you are running ILE service programs on iSeries or IBM i you have to shut down too. 

Quite frankly, Windows, Linux, and Unix server farms have proven themselves in the largest imaginable high availability situations where an IBM i machine cannot begin to compete. 

Is IBM i a good OS?  It was!  It has not been kept current nor has it been modernized by IBM to meet current requirements.  Same goes for the IBM i version of DB2.  There are 3rd party databases particularly in the UNIX Linux world that can continue running while you make file changes like adding a field or reformatting a field.  With databases like Computer Associate's DATACOM/DB you have been able to add or remove fields, or even extend the size of a field without shutting down you applications since the mid 1980's. You still can't do that with any version of DB2.

Bottom line, its time to look objectively at IBM i based machines and compare it to Windows, Linux, and Unix.

Today it probably makes a lot more sense to run multiple machines than a single iSeries or IBM i.  It is probably a lot more cost effective too.

Read the original at Bob Cancilla on IBM i.

I was participating in a discussion in LinkedIn about RPG Open Access and using RPG as a language to implement modern UI's.  Someone threw the old My IBM i based machine is less expensive and more reliable than a Windows Server Farm (i.e. Server farm's are bad).

It is time to look closely at your IBM i or OS/400 based machines and their cost and availability.  We live in a global economy today where 24 x 7 x 365 is a fact and necessity, not something we talk about that we might want someday. 

Well the sad fact is that IBM has never delivered true 24 x 7 x 365 capabilities with its IBM i operating system and the embedded DB2 database bundled with the machine.  If you need to make change like adding a field to an existing database table you must shutdown all subsystems or applications that might open the file so that DB2 can get an exclusive lock on the file to be modified.  If the file is of any significant size adding the field and reloading the file can take several hours during which time your system must be unavailable. 

Even with the best 3rd party data replication software you still have this downtime.  In fact with replication software running for disaster recovery you will experience at least 45 minutes of downtime when you lose a machine before you are operational and with most software its more like 8 hours.

Someone claimed that you can apply maintenance or update programs on IBM i but not on Windows without shutting down a machine.  Well, if you are running ILE service programs on iSeries or IBM i you have to shut down too. 

Quite frankly, Windows, Linux, and Unix server farms have proven themselves in the largest imaginable high availability situations where an IBM i machine cannot begin to compete. 

Is IBM i a good OS?  It was!  It has not been kept current nor has it been modernized by IBM to meet current requirements.  Same goes for the IBM i version of DB2.  There are 3rd party databases particularly in the UNIX Linux world that can continue running while you make file changes like adding a field or reformatting a field.  With databases like Computer Associate's DATACOM/DB you have been able to add or remove fields, or even extend the size of a field without shutting down you applications since the mid 1980's. You still can't do that with any version of DB2.

Bottom line, its time to look objectively at IBM i based machines and compare it to Windows, Linux, and Unix.

Today it probably makes a lot more sense to run multiple machines than a single iSeries or IBM i.  It is probably a lot more cost effective too.

Read the original at Bob Cancilla on IBM i.

If you work in an I5/OS environment long enough you will inevitably find a situation where a Program Temporary Fix (PTF) is required. Staying current on PTFs can save a lot of headaches and ensure...

Visit site to read full content and more

Read the original at ile rpg programming: tips and techniques.

If you work in an I5/OS environment long enough you will inevitably find a situation where a Program Temporary Fix (PTF) is required. Staying current on PTFs can save a lot of headaches and ensure...

Visit site to read full content and more

Read the original at ile rpg programming: tips and techniques.

If you work in an I5/OS environment long enough you will inevitably find a situation where a Program Temporary Fix (PTF) is required. Staying current on PTFs can save a lot of headaches and ensure...

Visit site to read full content and more

Read the original at ile rpg programming: tips and techniques.