“If we were to do nothing at this point, at the end of 2009 COMMON would suffer an 800,000 dollar loss,” said Dufault. “Needless to say, an 834,000 loss, even though we have an incredibly healthy reserve… that would put us in a real untenable position.”

He explained that the plan for the 2010 conference would include the following changes:

• 15 session rooms (instead of the 20+ at the conference this year).
• Cut the total days of educational sessions from five to four, which cuts the number of sessions from about 500 to ~320
• Cut Expo from three days to two
• Cut out one evening social event (unless sponsorship is found)
• Reduce the size of the final “main event” (unless sponsorship is found
• Reduce lab rooms down to one
• Suspend subsidies for guest program
• Suspend Communication and Networking volunteer budget
• Suspend Leadership and Advocacy volunteer budget
• Reduce the budget for the volunteer Strategic Education Team
• Create a volunteer registration rate, no more free passes for volunteers
• Speakers with one session will be eligible for volunteer rate, and speakers with two-five sessions would get 25% off registration
• and more…

Dufault shared that even with the cuts that are planned, the projected loss would still be about $582,000 in 2009 and a lost of $139,000 in 2010.

This news was a lot to take for the members, and the feel of the meeting had already been a bit melancholy as Dufault made a gesture of remembrance for Al Barsa Jr. that he was barely able to complete and which left much of the room struggling to keep composure.

Members stepped up to the microphones and asked a host of questions, expressing thanks to the board and the COMMON staff for setting up the meeting and being so honest with them. Some shared suggestions of means to growing the interest in the meeting through college recruitment and expanded outreach efforts. Others clarified the cuts to volunteer perks and asked that the board open up more to get the community involved in coming up with more creative ideas. One Orlando, Fla., resident and COMMON member lambasted the cuts, pointing out that you can’t grow your revenue while making cuts. Some expressed concern that the value of the program would diminish with the cuts to sessions, and thus, less people would attend. All of this left members and myself thinking about what could be done differently to attract more attendance and improve the chances of the organization’s survival.

Earlier in the day I had attended the first-timer’s social meeting, which was a chance for fist-time attendees to give their feedback on the meeting and share their suggestions for improvements to the program. One thing that some people expressed was that some of the technical sessions were too advanced, and they felt lost.

Time for my two-cents: Perhaps COMMON’s education committee could take this advice and work to create specific learning tracks that would be more attractive to first-time attendees. In a coordinated effort between speakers, attendees could start at a introductory level and take classes on a specific topic area through an advanced level. Some speakers taught a series of classes this year that aimed to accomplish this, but because of scheduling and perhaps a lack of emphasis on the marketing side that this was being done, some new attendees may have missed out on this. If COMMON wants to recruit more attendees, perhaps creating these one or two-day mini-courses on a specific topic would be beneficial.

The other thought I have is a question: Is this IBM’s fault? Did their rebranding efforts and lack of effective marketing vision for the platform cause dwindling interest in educational activities around the IBM i? (What do you think?)

The last attendee to step up to the mic was Justin Porter, the cheerleader and representative to the COMMON board from YiPs (and a name you should get used to seeing in the IBM i community). Porter gave an uplifting and passionate short speech about educational outreach, encouraging IBM i professionals around the country to reach out to local colleges and universities and spread the word of i. Not a bad idea.

Scott Klement has been vlogging (that’s video blogging) from the event all week, and his video from yesterday includes the key part of Dufault’s presentation, and his own personal reaction to the announcement.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/94zuNoS5Sx0" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

What do you think? Will you be able to attend COMMON with these changes? If you haven’t attended COMMON, why not? What would make attending worthwhile for you?

The first is Zend PHP Server, which takes DB2 400 to the Web. Mike Pavlak demonstrates Zend PHP tools: Zend Core, Zend Studio for Eclipse, and Zend Platform.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/KC1m7voz398" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Halcyon Software’s John Dominic, Channel Manager, shared the Systems Management Suite enterprise console interface and the message communicator product that allows two-way communication from a mobile device to the AS/400.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/1PbfPiaJFI8" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

(When Halcyon wasn’t using their flat-screen to show how their products worked, they were challenging attendees to ski jumping on a Wii Fit that the winner got to take home).

New books with hot AS/400 programming and administrator topics
I was able to sit in on Carol Woodbury‘s session “A Step by Step Approach to Object Level Security,” and was immersed in the maze of setting up adopted authorities on the AS/400. The presentation was based on Chapter 16 of Woodbury’s new book, IBM i and i5/OS Security and Compliance: A Practical Guide from 29th Street Press.

Speaking of books, in the past, Search400 has offered book chapter downloads, but we’ve been lacking this valuable content of late. I met with Merrikay Lee, President of MC Press, and we’ve set a plan to restart this feature, and one of the first books we’ll be taking a look at is the newly released IBM i Programmers Guide to PHP.

Managing legacy systems efficiently
In many ways, the concerns of AS/400 programmers and admins revolve around the legacy applications. Either you’re using a legacy app that still does what you need it to do, or you’re working on bringing that functionality forward with today’s technologies, such as PHP. On Tuesday, I had the chance to sit down with Steve Kilner, CEO of vLegaci. He shared some interesting statistics about legacy application management that would be of interest to any CIO with a AS/400 system:

• 80-90% of lifetime software cost is maintenance
• Maintainers of software spend 40-60% of their time trying to understand the programs they work with

Kilner founded his company with the goal of helping AS/400 shops make software maintenance more cost effective and productive. I admire the effort, because despite all that is new and glittery in the world of IBM i, legacy applications exist and may be taking time away from programmer’s abilities to develop new applications that would use the system to its full advantage.

ISV name changes and new product announcements from IBM and ISVs
Quickly, here are some of the announcements that were released today from ISVs and IBM:

• BOSaNOVA, Inc., change their company name to 10ZiG Technology. 10ZiG will continue to offer the same products which include a wide-range of thin clients, Q3 security encryption products, and System i Connectivity Solutions.
• Quadrant Software released version 2.5 of its document management, workflow and imaging solution, IntelliChief. This release builds upon previous versions and adds more capabilities including performance metrics, workflow document matching, enhanced Web-form use, improved notifications, multiple document handling viewer improvements, document attachment options, and updates that support MS Server 2008 and MS SQL 2008 and MS Vista.

As promised, on Tuesday IBM unveiled their new products around dynamic infrastructure. The new POWER Systems announcements were:

• Power 520 and 550 servers, the 4.7GHz and 5.0GHz POWER6 processora, which allow companies to save up to 91% on energy use and reduce floor space by 92%.
• BladeCenter JS23 and JS43 blades for 64-bit applications on i, AIX or Linux OSes. A 4.2 GHz POWER6 processor delivers performance and scalability improvements. BladeCenter JS23 with four cores delivers twice the performance of an HP 860c Itanium blade according to industry benchmarks.

Also, to support enterprise IT energy savings initiatives, IBM has designed a prescriptive Energy Management Adoption Model to provide clients with concrete steps to improve the energy efficiency of their infrastructure. The entire enterprise infrastructure is included: IT, Facilities/Property and other business assets. As part of this model, IBM announced enhancements to its energy management portfolio including enhanced integration between IBM Tivoli Monitoring for Energy Management and Tivoli Business Service Manager, enable unified energy management of IT and non-IT infrastructure assets, consolidating energy information across a facility into a customizable energy dashboard and a free 60 day trial of IBM Tivoli Monitoring for Energy Management.

The exhibit hall closed at 3 pm, but the sessions continue Wednesday and Thursday.

COMMON educational session tidbits
I attended a session at 8 AM (without coffee) on “Taking Advantage of Capacity on Demand” for POWER Systems. The session was led by Mark W. Olson, an IBM Power Systems World Wide Product Manager out of Rochester, Minn. I didn’t know what I was getting in for — maybe I should have read the abstract:

This session digs into how IBM’s Capacity on Demand offerings really work for the Model 570 and 595 processors and memory starting with how they are ordered all the way through how they are paid for. Topics include temporary and permanent activations of processors and memory, contractual requirements, pre-pay or post-pay, trial capacity, how to enable, and more.

On the bright side, if you want to know if you should get the daily or minute-based capacity on demand offering from IBM, just ask me and I’m a fount of knowledge. The session was likely useful for those considering paying for more capacity for their 570 or 595 Power Systems, but it didn’t answer what I consider the first step question, which is: Do I really need more processing power, or are there other tweaks to performance I can make? Again, no fault of Mark’s, just my own lack of reading comprehension.

I asked Olson about how cloud computing offerings might compete with limited capacity of System i on POWER6. He shared the story of a trial arrangement with a customer in which the customer’s POWER System has all the cores enabled and pays a flat fee for an agreed upon base percentage utilization, and a premium for higher use periods. Olson said that the company is working toward a “pool” solution in which the customer could take advantage of available processor power regardless of specific partition or machine dedication. The question that I asked in my head is why would IBM do that when they can make more money charging for capacity? In answer to my own question: competition. In a world in which it’s all too easy to spin up an Amazon EC2 instance of an SQL server, CIOs may start feeling economic pressure to get off an expensive licensing scheme.

Next I wandered into Paul Tuohy’s award-winning “Considerations for Succesful ILE Implementations” session. I was half there to meet Tuohy in the flesh, and half there to learn a little more about ILE. First, Tuohy is a great speaker and I learned so much that I can’t possibly repeat it all here. Here are some highlights:

• Although ILE looks more complicated, it’s easier to maintain.
• Legacy RPG code was great… 15 years ago. Now it’s an “unmaintainable load of crud.”
• Programmers do things out of habit. ILE is an unlearning process.
• DB2 now does things for you that you used to have to code: this is a good thing, take advantage of it. Resist pressure to move to SQL server.
• When writing ILE, accept that you’re not going to get it 100% right. The good news: ILE is easy to change.
• When embarking on an ILE project, make sure you have the right tools. WebSphere Development Studio Client (WDSC) is essential. If you’re not using it, it’s the equivalent of doing your word processing operations in Notepad…
• You DEFINITELY NEED a change management system. Really. Don’t try to do it on your own, or go without. It will cost you more in the long run.

IBM rolls out new blades, servers, and virtualization technology for System i
IBM held a press conference with Ian Jarman, Power Systems Software Manager, in which he went over much of Jeff Howard’s opening session presentation from yesterday, filling in the details for us journalists. Some highlights:

• Blades are growing.
• Expanded virtual tape support allows backup of tapes connected to BladeCenter S.
• Solid state disk technology: Bridge memory and traditional hard disk drives in a “hybrid” technology deployment in POWER Systems, and the IBM i has built-in virtual storage that can exploit SSD. This works by automating placement of objects on SSD drives.
• PowerVM has been shipped with 65% of POWER6 systems. This is 55% more than with POWER5.
• Linux on POWER is growing (see product demo of PowerVM Lx86 tool).
• DB2 WebQuery enhancements are coming with BI extension to Query400 which will dramatically improved Web-based queries.
• XML support is coming in DB2.

RPG to Web products
I managed to get another product demo from the exhibit hall, this time from Richard Milone of CNX who demonstrated the Valence Web application framework.

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Business Intelligence for i and Query400 report enhancement products
I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention a couple of the new product announcements released today.

• Key Information Systems, in partnership with Systech Solutions and Talend announced the general availability release of their Smart i appliance, which was the foundation for the Fashion Institute of Design and Marketing’s IBM/COMMON Innovation Award winning effort. Smart i is a stand-alone BI appliance in a rack mount or blade server IBM chassis that brings business analytics to small and medium-sized businesses.
• BCD released version 1.6 of Clover, BCD’s real-time IBM i Web reporting and querying tool. The new version of the tool imports query definitions from IBM Query/400 and outputs them as real-time Web reports, graphs and spreadsheets.
• inForm Decisions announced the release of their iDocs SmartRouter software module that can direct or redirect output, burst, sort and group reports and forms based on spool file attributes or spool file content.
• Vision Solutions announced the release of iTERA HA 6.0 and MIMIX HA 6.0 including advanced autonomics coupled with full-featured high availability enhancements. New features of iTERA HA include library auto-discovery, environment configuration, journal creation, data and object synchronization, and automated mirroring, auditing and monitoring. Additionally, Auto Action Messages allow users to define and automatically trigger corrective action routines when specific messages are generated, and enhanced audits that provide deeper examination of objects.

First place runner Hany Elemary of Profound Logic Software (right), and event organizer, ringer and marathon runner Dan Kimmel (left), RJS Software and COMMON Treasurer finish up the last portion of the course near the Truckee River before heading to the finish line.

I stood somewhere close to the 4k marker and cheered on the participants while visiting with a couple of attendees who had volunteered to help monitor the course. As we were walking back, I found out I was talking to IBM i educator, Jim Sloan, who shared that his newest CL programming book was published in January. For my networking purposes, this was perfect, and we discussed getting a chapter excerpt for publication on Search400.com so you to get a preview of this resource. Based on some of the reader questions I receive, I know some of you may find this book really helpful.

Speaking of resources, I needed to see what sessions I should check out at the meeting, and started looking through the ambitious schedule of 500 educational events. Some at COMMON have used the term “technical information fire hose” to describe the event, and I have to say, it’s a fairly accurate analogy. I sat down to plot my course for Monday and discovered that there are two dozen concurrent sessions during each time block to choose from!

So far, the meeting has been a great opportunity to put some faces with names and to learn more about what people are doing in this community. I had the opportunity to meet with Philip Roestamadji and Alex Roytman of ProfoundLogic Software to discuss their new educational initiative, Profound Logic Software TV. The pair explained that the videos on the site will focus on summarizing and clarifying trends, ideas and technology for the IBM i based on the knowledge and information they have gained in conducting their business. The site emphasizes viewer interaction, with a request for viewer input on current and future content (including special requests). I cynically wondered what was in it for them, and it pretty much comes down to feeling good about sharing what they know with others. We’ll be sure to follow their activities, and let you know how you can get involved if you’re so inspired.

COMMON 2009 Annual Meeting opening session
The opening session featured awards and announcements from COMMON and IBM. I haven’t received the official press annoucements yet, so I’m going to hold off on telling you about the individual winners because I don’t have information about name spelling or company affiliation yet. The COMMON/IBM Power Systems Innovation awards went to companies who had some impressive achievements, and I hope to get the chance to follow-up and share more details about their stories soon. Briefly the award winners in the four categories are:

• Educational Excellence: Metropolitan Community College, Omaha, Neb.
• Energy Efficiency: United States Bowling Congress, Arlington, TX
• Web Solutions: Allied Beverage Group, Carlsbad, N.J.
• Business Solutions: Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, Los Angeles, Calif.

Jeff Howard, IBM POWER Systems Marketing spoke in place of Ross Mauri, IBM General Manager, POWER Systems, who was stuck in Chicago due to weather delays at the airport. Howard shared IBM’s Dynamic Infrastructure initiative, walking attendees through the ways that IBM i fits into the campaign’s vision for a smarter planet — sharing the POWER systems virtualization, energy efficiency, business resiliency, and management tools.

Howard also previewed the hardware releases the company will announce on Tuesday (BladeCenter JS23 and JS43 Express and Power 550 and Power 520 updates)… stay tuned.

Keynote: The power of data in Las Vegas style cops and robbers problems
The keynote at the end of the opening session was delivered by Jeff Jonas, IBM Distinguished Engineer and Chief Scientist, Entity Analytic Solutions, IBM Software Group. Jonas captivated the audience with discussion of next generation data management, mixing humor and humility with highly technical descriptions of how different data bits can be connected to find unknown relationships, solving real problems including fraud in casinos to terrorist actions.

Exhibit floor demos
Exhibitors at the show were happy to work with my amateur camera skills to record a couple of product demonstrations for you to check out if you’re missing the conference. (Really, I’ll get better at the zoom thing, I promise.)

First, I met with AdventureTech Group’s president, Doug McDaniel, and director of sales, John Patsch. They explained the features of iSafari, a Web-enablement tool.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/EThekrtj9Ys" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Next, on the PHP side, I met with Marcel Sarrasin of BCD who demonstrated the company’s WebSmart PHP tool.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/3RknKLkW84I" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

]]> http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/iseries/common-2009-annual-meeting-off-to-a-running-start/feed/ 0 http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/iseries/discount-available-for-rpgdb2-summit/ http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/iseries/discount-available-for-rpgdb2-summit/#comments Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:54:53 +0000 Mark Fontecchio http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/iseries/discount-available-for-rpgdb2-summit/ The Young i Professionals have teamed up with System i Developer to offer a $200 discount to the RPG & DB2 Summit next month. With the discount, the cost of the show will be about $1,100, or $900 if you’ve been to a previous RPG & DB2 Summit.

The show is April 15-17 in Orlando. More details on the discount are at the YiPs site, and more details about the RPG & DB2 Summit schedule are at the System i Developer site.

]]> http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/iseries/discount-available-for-rpgdb2-summit/feed/ 0 http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/iseries/yips-update-conference-call-tomorrow/ http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/iseries/yips-update-conference-call-tomorrow/#comments Thu, 12 Mar 2009 03:02:14 +0000 Mark Fontecchio http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/iseries/yips-update-conference-call-tomorrow/ The Young i Professionals will hold a conference call tomorrow to update the group’s work in open source applications and so-called sandbox applications it has made available to IBM System i users on its site, such as SugarCRM.

The conference call will take place at 2pm Eastern, 1pm Central. For more details on how to dial-in (anyone can dial-in), visit the YiPs post on the event.

]]> http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/iseries/yips-update-conference-call-tomorrow/feed/ 0 http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/iseries/is-it-common-for-system-iers-to-run-5k/ http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/iseries/is-it-common-for-system-iers-to-run-5k/#comments Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:13:51 +0000 Mark Fontecchio http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/iseries/is-it-common-for-system-iers-to-run-5k/ Hat tip to David Vasta, who pointed me to the site of the COMMON 5k charity walk/run, which will take place during COMMON’s annual meeting in Reno in April.

Proceeds from the COMMON Cares charity run will go toward the COMMON Education Foundation and a local Reno charity to be named later. Here’s a good summary of the event:

This run/walk is for everyone – whether you’re a seasoned runner, an early-riser, trying to get back into shape, or attending COMMON for the first time and just want to make new friends, consider taking part in this first-ever 5K charity race.

With the numerous sessions, Exposition activities, and networking events on the agenda, finding the time to exercise will be challenging. In addition to starting out the conference feeling energized, you will be supporting two wonderful charities.

It’s always good to try to get some exercise in, even if you’re traveling. Just ask these mainframers who went for a jog at SHARE.

And if you’re just not into exercising, maybe you could just donate during COMMON Cares’ blood drive at the Reno show.

]]> http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/iseries/is-it-common-for-system-iers-to-run-5k/feed/ 0