When IBM unveiled the Developer Roadmap for its iSeries line of server computers, many state and local government IT decision makers envisioned their teams of RPG and COBOL programmers sitting idle. Under the "Better Architecture" and "Better Portability" headings of the IBM plan, an arrow showed the two programming languages transforming into Java. It looked simple on the page, but a move to Java would represent a significant programming model change, requiring developers to learn both a new language and a new programming paradigm. Turning experienced OS/400 application developers into productive Java programmers would take an abundance of time, energy, and budgetary resources that midrange IT departments lack. Historically, enterprise customers chose AS/400 and iSeries servers for their midrange computing environments because the platform offered a lower total cost of ownership than larger mainframe environments. Also, a good supply of developers and technical personnel existed to support the product line. A number of changes have occurred during the past 10 years, however. One change was the rapid adoption of the Microsoft Windows operating system by mid-size businesses. IBM has 250,000 customers for the iSeries, but only 2,500 new customers were added in the last year. In addition, IBM estimates that as many as 10 percent of its customers may have already migrated to other platforms. A second change is a shift in the curriculum of computer science courses. Schools increasingly focus less on teaching students programming languages such as RPG and COBOL than on newer languages such as Microsoft Visual Basic, C++, and Java. The average RPG developer today is near retirement age, and a dearth of developers with the skills needed to fill these positions exists. Finally, during the last five years IBM has been trying unsuccessfully to persuade its customers to migrate to WebSphere. The iSeries Community viewed Java as inferior to RPG from a productivity standpoint, and WebSphere was deemed too complicated and cumbersome. However, when IBM issued its iSeries Roadmap in 2004, it also changed its pricing and software bundles so that customers purchasing an iSeries server must also buy WebSphere. Furthermore, according to the 106-page pricing guide that IBM released in August 2004, if customers do not move their traditional applications from 5250 “green screen” terminals to a graphical user interface, they will pay substantially more for their iSeries server. The iSeries Community refers to the higher price as the "5250 tax." With the Java/WebSphere solution, customers can face significant costs for training, software, and the hardware upgrades many computers will need to support the new development environment. Add the cost of IBM consulting services to achieve this transition successfully, and the change represents a large investment with few apparent benefits attached. Many customers are seeking a greater degree of choice in their plans for the future of their midrange environments. To help these customers define a viable roadmap for the future, Microsoft and several partners formed the Midrange Alliance Program (MAP) with the goal of returning the power of choice to iSeries customers and partners. An industry consortium of independent software vendors, hardware providers, and system integrators, MAP launched a roadmap of its own in January 2005. Instead of advising iSeries shops to “rip and replace” their systems as some roadmaps urge customers and software companies to do, this roadmap is about respect for developer skills. In addition, it’s about delivering new business value and productivity from customers’ existing midrange servers, minimizing risk and costs to ensure a smooth transition forward, and giving customers choice in development tools, languages, middleware, hardware, and services. The Midrange Alliance iSeries Roadmap offers three options designed to optimize the current investments of iSeries shops: | • | IT decision makers can leave the organization’s data and applications on the iSeries platform and use Microsoft .NET programming tools to write new applications that run on Windows. Tools from two MAP members, ASNA and Fujitsu, plug into Microsoft Visual Studio and allow iSeries shops to continue utilizing the skills of their developers. Because Visual Studio supports 26 languages, programmers with skills in the Visual Basic environment and other languages such as C# or C++ can work alongside RPG and COBOL developers. | | • | RPG code can be moved from an iSeries server to Microsoft Windows Server 2003. ASNA Visual RPG for .NET and ASNA Monarch can recompile RPG applications to Visual RPG .NET so they can be run on Windows servers. Applications can be modified using Visual Studio with RPG. Organizations can then choose to either leave their data on the iSeries servers or migrate it to Microsoft SQL Server 2000. | | • | MAP offers a complete migration to the Windows platform through .NET connected software. This can be done in a number of ways. The Infinite .NET product from California Software offers users the ability to move RPG and 4GL code to C++ and then convert the data files to SQL Server 2000. The migration, which even allows batch processing and print calls to be moved, normally takes about 90 days to complete. During this time, organizations can re-architect their application if needed. These improvements typically result in a significant application performance boost after migration. Other MAP members such as ML Software offer a mixture of software and services to convert RPG and COBOL to C#. A number of service partners, including EDS, Covansys, HCL, and BORN, can also provide guidance and services to help customers migrate. |
Hardware does matter when replacing or enhancing an iSeries server. Microsoft and MAP recommend a Fujitsu PRIMERGY Server as the preferred server because of its high availability, advanced mainframe-like software for management and reliability, and favorable price-to-performance ratio. Backed by the full support and commitment of Microsoft, the Midrange Alliance Program provides partners and customers with many resources to help them choose and implement the iSeries plan that benefits them the most. All three options presented in the MAP roadmap help iSeries shops modernize their data systems while continuing to use applications, programming skills, and business processes in which they’ve invested years or even decades.
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