HCL – Lunch & Learn 2021 – Optimize your IBM i applications for growth – APAC time zone

ARCAD Software invites you to a Lunch & Learn series to explore the latest techniques in DevSecOps and Modernization on IBM i.  Gain valuable education from expert IBM i practitioners to leverage your application assets, tune your DevOps processes and grow your customer base. Maximize your solutions revenue and kick-start your application development plans for 2021 and beyond!

Why attend?

As an IBM i customer, you have a head start thanks to your proven application assets and the performance and reliability of the platform.  Yet to maintain your competitive advantage and innovate at the speed of the business, you may face some key challenges ahead – in particular, how to:

  • Deliver innovation to customers faster
  • Future-proof applications for a new generation of developers
  • Keep applications highly available 24/7
  • Eliminate wastage in the software delivery cycle
  • Safeguard against new security risks

Each 30-minute session contains a business and technical element.  All APAC sessions start from 2pm in Singapore time (7am BST).

Register now!

Series #1 – IBM i Application modernization

Many legacy IBM i applications are burdened by areas of code that are over-complex or are monolithic and difficult to maintain.  These ‘hotspots’ generate unnecessary technical debt and can drain the revenue of your business.

As well as its impact on everyday maintenance cost, an insight into application ‘health’ is essential before embarking on any modernization, reengineering or even migration project.

In this session, you will learn how to:

  • Analyze the ‘health’ of your source code using a set of specific metrics
  • Isolate risky or expensive areas of code
  • Gain a real-time, 360 degree view of progress with graphical dashboards
  • Create a viable remediation plan within your budget

Core applications on IBM i often rely on column-based RPG or the Synon 4GL– however skills in these languages are increasingly rare.  The new generation of developers struggles to understand these languages and their ‘secret codes’.  Further, some newer IBM i technologies are inaccessible from a CASE tool environment.

To future-proof these key applications, they must be converted into a modern language that is easy to learn by new and traditional developers alike.

In this session, you will learn how to achieve a guaranteed, risk-free conversion to modern Free Form RPG and SQL – using automated tools and/or expert turnkey services:

  • 100% automated conversion of RPG or Synon applications to modern Free Form RPGand SQL
  • Guaranteed non-regression through automated testing
  • Secured DevOps framework for the conversion process
  • Optional Modernization as a Service (MaaS) – with a fixed price guarantee

Series #2 – DevSecOps for IBM i

Most organizations develop in multiple technologies, across multiple platforms, on premise and cloud.  Many have already established DevOps pipelines based on enterprise or open source tools such as Git, Jenkins and Jira, or all-in-one toolstacks such as Azure DevOps.

To stay competitive and leverage your IBM i application assets, it is vital to bring back-end IBM i systems into the same tight feedback loop and manage software delivery with the same DevOps tools and framework as on distributed systems.

In this session, you will learn how to lead your team to DevOps maturity:

  • Include RPG and COBOL development in an end-to-end CI/CT/CD pipeline across all technologies
  • Standardize on Git as common source code repository
  • Share automation tools such as Jenkins, CloudBees CI, GitLab CI, Azure pipelines, …
  • Leverage collaborative tools such as GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket on IBM i

As you add new members to your team, code quality can suffer, putting your enterprise at risk of technical debt.  Security vulnerabilities can creep into source code as IBM i database logic is exposed to external applications and devices.  Further, if coding defects reach production, they can cause costly downtime and damage the reputation of your business.

The golden rule is to ‘shift left’ – the earlier a defect is detected, the less its impact and cost.

In this session, you will learn how to combine static code analysis, developer-side unit testing and functional regression testing to automate a secure ‘quality gate’ for your IBM i applications:

  • Automate the detection of quality and security flaws in RPG and COBOL code
  • Generate, execute and manage unit tests automatically
  • Make code checking and unit testing a continuous part of your DevOps cycle
  • Catch defects at the database and source line level, interactive or batch

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The presenters

Andrew Ireland

Andrew Ireland

Global Alliances Manager & DevSecOps Business Manager, ARCAD Software

Andrew Ireland is ARCAD Global Alliances Manager and DevSecOps Business Manager. With over 30 years’ experience in both technical and commercial roles. During that period he gained experience in application development, CASE Tools, AI and a understanding of best practices around modernization of legacy applications. The last 10 years he has been helping organisations move toward an agile DevOps environment including integrating their legacy solutions.

Adrian Tully

Senior Solution Architect, ARCAD Software

Starting as an RPG programmer in 1988 on the System 36 on a dumb terminal, Adrian TULLY has more recently managed a team of engineers for HSBC global bank delivering DevOps tools across an international customer base. With 15 years’ experience in application life cycle management, he joined ARCAD Software in 2020 as Senior Solution Architect to bring his expertise about DevOps, Six Sigma, lean methodology and process improvement to the solutions we provide.