IBM i Lunch & Learn series 2021

IBM and ARCAD Software invite you to an 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!
Why attend? 
IBM i software vendors have a head start thanks to their proven application assets and the performance and reliability of the platform.  Yet to maintain their competitive advantage and innovate at the speed of the business, ISVs 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 

Watch the replay 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.

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
  • Create a viable remediation plan within your budget

RPG skills are in short supply, and the future generation of developers struggles with the older column-based variants of these languages and their ‘secret codes’.

In this session, you will learn how to:

  • Future-proof your IBM i applications thanks to 100% conversion to modern Free Form RPG
  • Onboard a new generation of developers with modern RPG syntax
  • Identify common areas of code as candidates for Web services

Many core business applications on IBM i have been developed using the CA 2E CASE tool – expensive to maintain and unable to exploit the advances of the IBM i platform itself.  Moving off-platform is a high-risk and prohibitively expensive.

Instead, by converting CA 2E Synon to modern Free Form RPG, you can eliminate risk and exploit the latest functionality and performance advantages of IBM I.

In this session, you will learn how to:

  • Automate the conversion from Synon to modern Free Form RPG and SQL
  • Guarantee non-regression with test automation
  • Retain the competitive advantage of your custom IBM i application assets

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.

In this session, you will learn how to:

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

As your IBM i development team grows, code quality can suffer, putting your enterprise at the risk of spiraling technical debt.

In this session, you will learn how to:

  • Automate the detection of quality flaws in RPG and COBOL code
  • Make code quality checking a continuous part of your DevOps cycle
  • Eliminate new security vulnerabilities

Application defects that reach production cause costly downtime and can damage the reputation of an ISV.  The earlier a defect is detected, the less its impact and cost.

In this session, you will learn how to optimize your development costs through test automation:

  • Generate unit test assets automatically
  • Execute unit and regression testing as continuous part of your DevOps cycle
  • Detect defects at the database level
  • Identify the source lines to correct

“IBM Systems Europe is proactively engaged in assisting Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) in the AIX & IBM i market protect their install base and investments on the Power platform. We focus on providing tools, education and development resources to help these ISVs extend their solutions with current AI, Open Source and Cloud capabilities from IBM. 

Our ISV Lunch & Learn session with ARCAD Software is a key element in this educational initiative, a unique vision into the role and importance of DevOps and Modernization in the future of IBM i”.

Simon Porstendorfer, ISV Ecoystem Leader Europe – Cognitive Systems at IBM

Missed our last webinar? Watch it on replay!

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 modernisation of legacy applications. The last 10 years he has been helping organisations move toward an agile DevOps environment including integrating their legacy solutions.

Ray Bernardi

Ray Bernardi

Senior Solution Architect, ARCAD Software

Ray Bernardi is a 30-year veteran involved in the System 38/AS/400/iSeries/IBM i development and currently is a Pre/Post Sales technical Support Specialist for ARCAD Software, international ISV and IBM Business Partner. Ray has been involved with the development and sales of many cutting edge software products throughout his career, with specialist knowledge in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) products from ARCAD Software covering a broad range of functional areas including enterprise IBM i modernization and DevOps. In addition, Ray is a frequent speaker at COMMON and many other technical conferences around the world and has authored articles in several IBM i publications on the subject of application analysis and modernization, SQL, and business intelligence.