Move to the Cloud?

Is it time to put your old trusted IBM i based war horse out to pasture and move to the cloud?  Most of the major traditional IBM i or OS/400 based software vendors have versions of their software that run on modern Linux or Windows platforms.  There are now vendors such as Logica in the UK who offer secure reliable cloud based platforms to host these applications and more importantly guide you through the migration from your IBM i based version of software that is probably a few releases back from the vendor's current software running on modern systems.

Are you running WebSphere applications?  Should you be?  Proprietary (and expensive) application servers like WebSphere have given way to Apache Tomcat.  You should be able to run your Java based apps on Tomcat with an improvement in productivity and a major reduction in cost.

I personally recommend moving your applications to a cloud based hosting company, engage professionals to help manage migration to your existing vendor or a new vendor's software.

It is sort of ironic that today many IBM i based companies who originally selected the AS/400 as a turnkey machine, complete with hardware and software to run their business now have a highly customized and extended set of applications that has grown their IT staff from zero to many.

What are you IT folks telling you?  That RPG will be here forever that IBM will keep the IBM i OS forever?  Are they telling you that you are sitting on a powder keg that can explode at anytime WHEN not IF IBM withdraws support for IBM i and the RPG programming language? 

I've been working with European companies who put the best interests of their companies first over their own careers.  They are with very few exceptions working to modernize and move to Linux or Windows based system and many are doing so in a combination of public and private clouds.

Clouds are pretty amazing.  You can buy additional capacity when you need it to handle peak period demand on your systems.  All reputable cloud vendors have automatic load balancing and replication to multiple physical data centers so that if there is a local outage your systems automatically switch to the remote site.  In fact if you are a geographically distributed organization you will most likely have applications running on systems in many locations.

There is no system maintenance!  It is the responsibility of the cloud vendor to keep both their hardware and software current with the latest vendor fixes and insure that they have stable reliable operating environment.  Translate that to read you do not need system support people.

The total cost of cloud based operations is a fraction of what you will pay in terms of hardware, software, and people to maintain and support your own Power Systems IBM i based environment.

There was a linkedin topic that reports that going rate for an IBM i system administrator is $90k per year plus in most parts of the United States.  So figure about $120k total cost.  That is a lot of money for any company, but especially smaller companies with small IBM i based machines!  This is a totally unnecessary expense in a cloud based environment.

Some cloud vendors can offer IBM i based systems so that you can move your systems to the cloud immediately and eliminate the costs associated with owning your own systems.  You can then work with the vendor or other vendor to begin migrating to a Linux or Windows based solution for long term strategic systems.

There is absolutely no reason to own your own hardware or operate your own data centers and infrastructure today!  You can save thousands to millions of dollars running your systems in a cloud.

Call or email me (see:  http://www.rjcancilla.com/ContactUs.html).

How do your employees feel about your AS/400?

My wife was shopping in a major well known jewelry store this past week.  The employees apologized profusely for the difficulties in looking up her account and resolving an issue.  The system was an old AS/400 (IBM i on Power) based system running.  It was using a 5250 based user interface and the employee and her manager were totally frustrated in the difficulties of performing what should have been a simple task of looking up a customer and reviewing recent sales to the customer!

I checked into a hotel that was using an IBM i based system.  We had a price quote that was not matching the information that the desk clerk had in his 5250 based system.  He asked his manager to help and they still couldn't find the information we had.  Since we had a printed confirmation they honored the rates that had been quoted, but they had to call corporate to get help entering the overrides into the system.

I began moving the company I was working at the time to the web via Java and WebSphere and subsequently WebSphere portal back in 1995 and implemented our first web based applications in January of 1996 when the web was opened for commercial use.  Many AS/400 customers have yet to move to the web.  They are still using green screen 5250 terminal based applications written in RPG.

I call these companies AS/400 companies and it really doesn't matter that they may be running the latest version of IBM i on IBM Power system computers.  The reality is they are stuck in 1987 or prior.

The real issue is customer and employee frustration or satisfaction.  In today's world of instant messaging, video conversations, movies about everything, and the ability for computers to connect to each other around the globe, to be stuck with a green screen menu based system with all of its training requirements and complexity is nuts.

Where is the benefit?  What is the cost of supporting these old systems?  What are you paying the RPG programmers that maintain these systems? 

Isn't it time to move into the 21st century?  Isn't it time for systems that work for you instead of holding you back? 

Visit us at www.rjcancilla.com and see how we can help.