SQL Server & Visual Basic Vs As400 & RPG 2

[Skittle]

I have worked in IT for 16 years or so straight from school. For most of those years I have worked on traditional green screen in house developed systems ( eg, RPG on AS400's ).

Over the last year I have felt it is time to update my knowledge a bit with regard to what is popular in the market place. This seems to be Visual Basic, SQL Server, C and .NET. I have had a go at Visual Basic, ASP and SQL Server and soon will have a go at .NET.

The thing I don't understand is, why are AS400 jobs now so rare and SQL Server/Visual Basic jobs so popular? From what I have seen so far, the AS400/Iseries with RPG is far superior in efficiency than SQL server and VB.

I can only assume the price range of AS400/Iseries machines and lack of 'glamour' in RPG is a factor. Would anybody agree with this?

Is it a case that the big organisations with AS400's now have fairly static systems and the only development that is taking place is taking place on sundry systems attached to AS400 or similar green screen machines?

 

[lespaul]

We are in the process of converting all our green screen RPG/AS400 applications to Delphi apps using ODBC connections to the AS400. I'm not one of our RPG programmers (I do the Delphi conversions). I think it's because the Windows enviroment is very comfortable to most users and the green screens portray an "older" technology.

We are getting ready for a move to a new building, and the manager of the IT department's vision is to have one of the most technologically advanced courts in the country and old green screens don't have that perception.

Leslie

 

[Skittle]

Interesting.

This means you will still have the AS400 as the core.
If your site is typical of the country, I guess the As400's are top be the static data warehouses and the front end will be lots of smaller windows based servers.

 

[jmd0252]

The problem is,, the AS400 is not viewed as a glamorious, gee whiz, watch me make the mouse move, click and watch something happen gizmo. It just sets in the corner,,, writting A/P checks, producting A/R reports, telling the owner how much profit he has, doing the weekly payroll machine. IBM never did a really good job at selling the AS400. And when they did,, there was not any "come back". The business never came back, because the machine just ran like the old faithful timex watch. It very seldom broke, it did everything ask of it,, but it wasn't "pretty". Green screen apps, are not glamorious,,, but they work like crazy.

 

[jsteph]

I've worked quite a bit with AS/400 and one huge problem is Pricing--it's nearly $40,000 for a small AS/400 (E270 I think was the model I last dealt with). Compare that to a fully decked out Dell poweredge dual xeon which will rival or beat it's performance.

Of course, the pc server will not rival the stability of the 400. I think in 3 years straight of working on a project with a 400--a box that was also used as the firm's core business machine, the development machine, and the training machine--it NEVER crashed. All the while neophytes doing dumb things and cutting edge developers trying dangerous things, it just kept humming along.

BUT...many shops can and do make the tradeoff--it's worth $30,000 to put up with a few crashes, and have an easier, more intuitive interface, more programming/admin talent pool, cheaper upgrade path, etc, etc.

Try upgrading a harddrive on a 400. Let's see...$200 per hour for IBM to come in and configure it (or you lose support/warranty) and God knows what for the piece of hardware itself.

IBM is also very arrogant when you want to do these upgrades, or even buy a system. I'm working now with a P670 (the successor to rs6000). This is a half-million dollar box, and IBM took weeks to get back to us with info about an Informix upgrade--we were calling every other day. Similar arrogance with as/400 questions, issues.

You can't beat the rock solid stability of the 400, and I could even put up with the ugly, non intuitive interface. (Oh, it's simple: all commands are in sets of 3-letter abbreviations--except when they're 4-or 5-letters (!!)), but I can't get past the poor marketing and support.
--jsteph

 

[donttreadonme]

I wouldn't really say the p670 is the successor to the RS/6000.

IBM renamed the RS/6000 line to the eserver pSeries; and the p670/p690 are the LPARable Regatta series of machines that carry the pSeries branding.

I worked on a p670 for 6 months and have 4 years on the IBM SP2 and a total of 9 years on AIX. I am biased about IBM vs. others I admit.

 

[iSeriesCodePoet]

If you don't like the ugly green-screen, you do webfacing. I hear of a trend to convert to PC servers becuase it is "cheaper". But sometimes they don't look at the big picture. One of our companies bought a huge PC SQL server setup. Within a short time into the porject they bought a huge iSeries instead (about 3+ terabytes of data) it could do the webserving, DB, and business logic about 10 times faster than the PC server could in tests... and this is in 1 box not many. Sure the upfront cost is more, but the TOC is much smaller because you don't have as many "critial flaws" that you have to install right away. And the system is mountain solid.

iSeriesCodePoet
iSeries Programmer/Lawson Software Administrator

http://www.koldark.net

See my progress to converting to linux.

http://linux.koldark.net

 

[donttreadonme]

What would be the choice of language to learn if I wanted to switch from 9 years as a Unix admin to being a programmer?

My interest would be to work for a medium to small company and if needed I would do networking, etc. in addition to programming.

I think that adding programming to my skill set would make me more valuable and more jobs would be available. But which language would be most worthwhile spending the time to learn? I do light C programming now for utilities and tools and have done SQL and some light RPG and OCL in my job two companies ago.

Thanks.

 

[harebrain]

Is it a case that the big organisations with AS400's now have fairly static systems and the only development that is taking place is taking place on sundry systems attached to AS400 or similar green screen machines?

More likely it's the case that management has caught on to the benefits of n-tier architecture. Let the monster machine run the DBMS and serve the data to diverse applications. By removing the application logic from the database machine, you continue to get a ROI on the big machine which otherwise might be overtaxed running the new applications demanded.

 

[jsteph]

Skittle,
To get to your core question--about why are AS/400 Jobs so rare. I think what you said about big organizations with static systmes is fairly accurate.

I think that even if there were an increase in 400 sales as backends, nobody wants to do RPG programming for the core apps because it's so clunky. Why not relegate the 400 as a backend server for a db2 database or web serving? I doubt very much that anyone would want, say, a brand new order-entry system that was green-screen or some screen-scraper.

In my opinion, they'd jump at the chance to have a nice windows screen that gives the best of both worlds--the stablility of the as/400 backend, and the flexibility of the windows gui. Who cares if the windows client crashes every now and then? The data's still safe on the 400.

And in my opinion, IBM badly executed the WebSphere package. It's huge, complex, and a massive resource hog. Not that IIS isn't, but in the shop I was in previously, which was an IBM partner, it took years for anyone to become even semi-proficient in WebSphere. Also we had to immediately upgrade the 400 when we first installed it because it was such a pig. There were all sorts of bugs, problems, compatibility issues with certain client pcs. Not that other web-serving systmes don't have that, but they're more mature now, and it's hard for IBM to play catch-up, and they're losing possible true Websphere installations as a result. (I say 'true websphere installations' because I heard that IBM counts *every* new 400 as a 'websphere installation', even if it goes unused).

My advice is to stay on your current path--VB, .Net, SQL server, etc. There may be a glut of those skills now, but when things heat up again, they will be the skills that are in demand, not RPG.
--jsteph

 

[donttreadonme]

I worked with WebFear for 4 years starting with version 3 and up to version 5. It is a massive resource hog! to say the least. IBM keeps making changes to it and version 4 was A LOT better than 3 and 5 was looking to be better than 4.

It is a complex application and if you run WebSphere you need to have someone devoted to it F/T.

As far as RPG, I have done some light RPG coding and having to place the damn character in just the right column, and all of those templates! Gad!! Be that as it may, RPG excels in what it is intended for and for large corporations and some medium-sized companies, the 400 performs the tasks needed.

As I stated above, I am an IBM/AIX/RS6000 bigot, however, Microsoft is not the end all, be all solution for the data center. They might like to think they are and that they can do everything a Unix or 400 server can, but Microsoft, as much as they would like everyone to think and they may believe themselves, SQL Server, Windows 2000 (or whatever version is out as the newest - shoot, is XP or 2000 newer?) and Intel architecture is NOT enterprise capable.

To run A/R and A/P with RPG coding on an AS/400 with DB2 databases is much more efficient than using Windows with VB coding on Intel machines and SQL Server for a large orgainization.

And if you want the employees to have their nice little PC's (so they can browse the internet with graphics and waste company time, money and resources) then have the 400 in the back and write some stupid app using VB to connect via ODBC or JDBC or however you want.

 

[iSeriesCodePoet]

I agree. The finacial application we use is also on Unix and NT, we are on iSeries. From what I gather, they have one machine for webserving, one for applications, and one for DB and an administrator for each. I am the sole person (with backups) who maintains our one system that does all three. And well. I am sure on Unix they can join the applications and web, but you still have two machines. You can't beat the iSeries. Stability beyond belief, very secure, and a true "application server".

And don't tell me the iSeries is old technology. It can run java, xml, perl, php, apache, RPG, COBOL, C, and C++. With java, you can run tomcat or Webshpere or whatever java server engine you want that is written in java. RPG is fast and easy to program. No, it dosn't have to be position based anymore. It looks similar to java and c now using free-format. RPG does CGI, XML, and many other things quite easily. I will defend it to all ends. Yes, hardware costs more, but it also has a lower chance of failure.

iSeriesCodePoet
iSeries Programmer/Lawson Software Administrator

http://www.koldark.net

See my progress to converting to linux.

http://linux.koldark.net

 

[dpcharle]

One thing Microsoft bigots fail to realize is that from just one iSeries server, hundreds of users (or more) are logged on, accessing any number of applications - RPG green-screened, web-faced, e-mail, etc. Yes, an iSeries is expensive.

But in the Microsoft world, it plays out like this...
- We need e-mail. Solution: Buy a $4,000 server to support Exchange.
- We need A/R, A/P. Solution: Buy another $3,000 to support those apps.
- We need a separate server to be our PDC. Whoops: another few grand for that.
- We need this 3rd-party software package, and that 3rd-party software, and another software package... And to save money, let's host them all from one server. But, oh no!! Why is my response time so slow??? I guess we'll need another server to split up some of these apps. And because it's Microsoft, let's reboot them once a month/week/day, just to keep things running smoothly (while the 400 has been chugging non-stop since the last upgrade 2 years ago.)

Now what's more expensive? Exaggerations? Yes (partly). But you get the picture.

Besides, green is pretty.

Sadly though, at my workplace when our IT manager retires, those who will probably step in have inclinations towards throwing out the iSeries, and replacing it with 3rd-party software hosted on Microsoft servers. They've already started down this path. Perhaps my RPG co-workers have a few last-gasp measures left. Has anyone actually used the Web-Facing tool, or CGIDEV2 to convert their existing RPG/IV apps? And how tough is it to master these utilities - especially CGIDEV2?

 

[iSeriesCodePoet]

That is one thing in my company I am not worried about... yet. Over the entire corporation (we are pretty big, but very few have ever heard of us) there is probably about 60 iSeries (or AS400s). So, we won't be getting rid of them anytime soon.

As far as your later question. I have heard mixed results with WebFacing. CGIDEV2, I have never even tried so I can't say anything about it. Now, if you check out the archives on midrange.com, you might find some good information (and way too many opinions ;-)). You can even subscribe to the lists and ask your questions, there is over 2000 members and many with over 20 years experience. (

http://www.midrange.com)

iSeriesCodePoet
iSeries Programmer/Lawson Software Administrator

http://www.koldark.net

See my progress to converting to linux.

http://linux.koldark.net

 

[VeteranRPG]

(Saturday, December 20, 2003) I have been writing RPG programs since 1976 - for the same company - started on a Burroughs batch card system, migrated to a System/38 in 1981, migrated to AS400 in 1997, and migrated to iSeries in July 2003.

Started building the network in 1997 with the AS400 - today we have a server-farm with a separate server each for Exchange-2000, shared-folders corporate data, marketing, CRM, backup, FTP in the DMZ, and several more servers planned for a future Citrix environment development.

Over the years I have created thousands of 5250 green screen apps which are now on the iSeries fully integrated between financial, payroll & HR, numerous management apps and they all run rock-solid. These apps are all mission-critical to our company, and are still the driving force despite the accumulation of the other windows servers and an Exchange-2000 email system.

Recently experimenting with webfacing in V5R2 with WDSC V5 and finding it is a huge logistical hassle, and the results of webfaced applications are SUBSTANTIALLY INFERIOR in performance, quality, ease of use, maintenance and debugging problems than the straight 5250 DDS with green screens. Also there are severe limitations with webfaced apps - no ability to type-ahead, no interface with system messages or output queues, and several taken-for-granted features of Client-Access (Help, DUP, Recorded Keystrokes (Macro - .mac), Next-Line Tab, rapid Page Scrolling of subfiles - to mention a few) are not supported. Pressing a menu option or command-key too quickly or repeatedly can bounce you out of the browser session - very unstable. The 5250 Client Access is much improved for the iSeries in V5R2, rock solid, and amazingly fast. All of our users (100+) love the transition from the AS400 which was very slow - a batch report program that required 2 hours on the AS400 now requires only 3 or 4 minutes on the iSeries, and most other reports are instantaneous within mere seconds.

Initial review of our webfaced environment by our users is 100% dissatisfaction - and some key users indicating they would quit their jobs if forced to used the webfaced applications instead of the reliable and user-friendly green screen applications.

This whole webfaced environment seems to be a very half-baked concept which is being pushed and promoted by those who have no appreciation with or history of the 5250 green screen reliability. OS400 is so superior to Microsoft SQL and IIS and the whole Windows server-farm environment. It is really sad to see Corporate America pushing toward pretty and unstable and leaving behind the big iron mainframe (midrange) reliability of rock-solid systems, beginning with the System/38, then AS400 and now the iSeries platform.

Similar to other threads on this topic, our old AS400 ran continuously for months without a reboot, sometimes over a year, always rock-solid and continued to process the company mission-critical applications without any problems.

In contrast our Exchange server needs to be rebooted at least once a month, sometimes more often because some service or something gets hosed and there is no way to fix other than a reboot. Our old AS400 was retired a few months ago only because it could not run any OS version higher than V4R5. Our new iSeries on V5R2 is 31 times more powerful and promises to be even better.

In the meantime, the green screens in our company will still be around for awhile - maybe 5 years or more, because, the truth is, despite all the hype, webfacing just doesn't have all the abilities to run the established green screen apps correctly and efficiently. It is a concept that is definitely not fully developed, and is still is full of bugs (The Webfacing Studio Development program on my PC continues to hang with "Collecting Statistics" - and I have a new Dell Xenon 2.4ghz processor with 2gb RAM, OS - XP-Professional-ServicePack-1) - and this program is a HUGE resource hog - over 1.5gb just for the program code. Where is the stability of SEU or even PDM? I don't have the time - hours and sometimes days required to debug and decipher cryptic browser windows run-time errors caused by webfacing. It just doesn't make any sense.

Have also looked at HATS - it is a mediocre screen scraper and does ok with system messages and almost ok with output queue interface (which webfacing does not support) but also is new and still being developed by IBM, and most of the above functions not supported by webfacing also apply to HATS.

Bottom line - regardless of what the sales people or seminar speakers say (most likely they haven't been in the trenches dealing with source code like I have), Webfacing is definitely not easy or by any means a slam dunk to convert existing green screens - it adds another very complex and unstable layer of procedures and code to be maintained to the list of burdens which must be supported by the company computer techie . . . I think it needs several more years of development and refinement before it can be considered a viable and acceptable alternative to the traditional green screens. Currently there are just too many bugs and problems and features not supported.

If you are serious about webfacing, it will generally require a full time position for an experienced techie, who must also be knowledgeable in 5250 DDS programming and the apps to be converted.

So, as of this writing, our Webfacing attempt is a failed project, and it won't be long before it gets put aside because it just doesn't work as advertised, and cannot be supported in our company with our limited resources, because there are too many problems and features of 5250 that are not supported.

In our company, Client Access 5250 green screens are pretty because they work, are efficient and 100% reliable.

Webfacing is unstable, does not support many standard 5250 green screen features, is very complex and cryptic and difficult to support, and not realistic to support at this time.

So, IBM, if you want to encourage 5250 Client Access green screen environments to move to webfaced environments, reliable and bug-free tools must be provided to accomplish the task, which will support all the current popular 5250 features.

 

[chiph]

VeteranRPG -

I agree with everything you said. I used to work at an AS/400 shop (I wrote VB5 programs that used APPC and TCP/IP to communicate with the AS/400). The iSeries just run day-in and day-out, very much a turn-key system. Being a software development shop, we needed to IPL about every 2 months, a little more often than most people, but it wasn't a frequent occurrance.

That being said, the green-screen vs. the web-interface (or a thick-client like I used to write) debate is somewhat pointless - they each have their place in a business.

Green-screens are best for data entry -- you want something where the folks using it can just type heads-down, hour after hour, without looking up to see that their email client has popped up and the system didn't receive their last 200 keystrokes.

Web interfaces and fat-clients are used for knowledge-workers (can't put pie-charts up on a 5250) and occasional users. IOW: the folks who spend more time thinking than typing.

One of our most successful products was an Excel add-in that allowed the user to type in a formula that would retrieve live info from their AS/400. This was a "best of both worlds" application, as the users were heads-down users of Excel, and they still had the ability to generate charts & graphs. They just ate it up -- took them about 10 minutes to grasp the ideas behind it, and then you just stayed out of their way.

Chip H.


If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

 

[harebrain]

VeteranRPG in a long-winded (so you'll pardon the extensive quote) message said:

This whole webfaced environment seems to be a very half-baked concept... OS400 is so superior to Microsoft SQL and IIS and the whole Windows server-farm environment...

So, [this] is a failed project, and it won't be long before it gets put aside because it just doesn't work as advertised, and cannot be supported in our company with our limited resources...

Put aside? How about offshored? Your outfit is playing to the competencies of the offshore competition. If you think about it, the whole migration seems designed to make the labor suitable for offshoring. The handwriting is on the wall...

 

[Skittle]

chiph,

I would like to try getting data from the AS400 to a PC via VB but have never really found a book or article that can get me started via anything other than ODBC.

Can you recommend a route?



Dazed and confused

 

[chiph]

Skittle -
Start with the Rochester redbooks regarding APPC and Client-Access programming APIs. You can also use TCP/IP, but the tough thing is writing a TCP/IP listener service. It's been 5 years or more since I've done it, so I'm sure things have changed. A quick Google search reveals:

http://www.mcpressonline.com/mc/1@113.Gh0mbE9cilq.0@.214a304b

Chip H.


If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first