Peterborough, NH, 28 April 2017 – ARCAD Software, leading vendor in DevOps and Modernization solutions for IBM i, today announced a strategic partnership with GitHub, builder of a web-based collaboration platform used by more than 21M software developers, to advance code sharing and reuse on IBM i, and shorten software delivery schedules.

Available as an integrated solution, ARCAD and GitHub modernize development techniques on IBM i and address the shortage of skilled resources faced by IBM i shops today.  ARCAD brings to GitHub the specific analysis, build and deploy technology needed for efficient business application development on IBM i, and GitHub enhances the ARCAD DevOps suite with modern collaborative tooling used by the world’s largest community of developers.

With GitHub, source repositories can be shared in the cloud, or privately on-premise, using the GitHub Enterprise option. Members can follow each other, rate each other’s work, receive updates for specific projects and communicate publicly or privately.

Philippe Magne, ARCAD CEO, details his company’s strategy around GitHub and the importance of this tooling to IBM i customers: “In the past IBM i shops have been quite isolated from other development cultures, due to the very specific nature of IBM i technology.  It has created a kind of silo. This is a real danger for IBM i customers, who are now struggling to find staff with the skills to maintain their business-critical applications”.

The partnership helps safeguard companies’ investment in IBM i by extending the lifetime of in-house developed software.  GitHub boosts developer productivity through collaboration, and ARCAD accelerates the delivery of new software features and functions through continuous integration and deployment.  End-users on IBM i can therefore expect a rapid ROI and shorter development timescales.  From a longer term perspective, the combined tooling improves software quality and opens IBM i software maintenance to a new resource pool.

Highly strategic for IBM, this announcement follows the inclusion of two other application modernization modules from ARCAD within the IBM configurator, allowing IBM hardware BPs to deliver IBM i systems including ARCAD’s application modernization solutions by default.

“As leaders in our respective domains ARCAD and GitHub are connecting traditional IBM i development and the new standards”, added Magne.  “GitHub is tooling that developers across the globe are already familiar with.  The combination is already proven at some of the largest IBM i customers worldwide.  We are seeing a paradigm shift in development that will guarantee the IBM i community a new generation of resources in the future”.

 

About GitHub

GitHub is a web-based Git hosting repository where developers can work together on projects. With innovative collaboration layers like the GitHub flow, GitHub has now become the foremost online hosting site for programmers collaborate on open-source projects.  Available also in on premise form, “GitHub Enterprise”, user companies can host local private repositories to manage code for their own proprietary projects.

Philippe Magne, ARCAD Software CEO, explains the growing popularity of Git on IBM i:  “The genius of Git is in its distributed branching model, which encourages you to have multiple local branches that can be entirely independent of each other. Managing these individual lines of development is extremely fast on everything from small to very large projects.  But raw Git lacks a GUI and some basic tools that IBM i developers are used to, like visual source compare and merge.  GitHub have added this collaboration layer and outstripped their competitors to become the world’s largest development community today.  The future young generation of developers on IBM i will come from this community”.

“The way software is developed has fundamentally changed since the advent of open source. You have to keep in mind that at least one other developer has already solved the problem you are coding right now.  There is no point in reinventing the wheel.  Better to multiply forces and have 1000’s of other developers improving your code”, states Magne.

GitHub allows developers to change, adapt and improve software from its public repositories for free, but it charges for private repositories, offering various paid plans.

Magne concludes: “For many years at ARCAD we have pushed for application source code to be considered as a high-value company asset.  “Protect your software assets” was our motto.  Having a single source repository for all of your assets is highly strategic, and it’s possible with GitHub today.  Companies use multiple languages – the best for purpose for server-side or web or mobile development.  So if you can’t have a common language, what else can be standard?  The answer is tools.  With ARCAD and GitHub you can have all your developers use the same tools for SCM, build, and deploy, whatever language they develop in.  This reduces risk and cost in development right across the board”.

 

About ARCAD Software

The ARCAD Software group is leading international vendor in DevOps and Modernization solutions for IBM i, with subsidiaries in Europe, USA and Asia, supporting 1000+ installations worldwide. Since 1992, ARCAD has built on its specialist IBM i expertise to develop an integrated solution range for Application Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Modernization, Release Management and DevOps, distributed by IBM worldwide. ARCAD subsidiaries DROPS and DOT Software specialize in multi-platform application deployment and test automation solutions, across IBM i, Linux, UNIX, Windows, z/OS. ARCAD technology integrates with Rational Developer for i (RDi), Rational Team Concert (RTC), GitHub, JIRA, and also open source tools Git, SVN, and Jenkins.

Contact: Olenka Van Schendel, VP Business Development, ovanschendel@arcadsoftware.com