Talsco Weekly: News, Data, Careers & Modernization for IBM i

Welcome to another edition of Talsco Weekly

News: Infor to stop developing on-prem software for IBM iSeries.
Data: IBM Mulls Using DataMigrator as Cloud Warehouse Pipeline.
Hiring: IT hiring: 5 challenges with emerging technologies.
Modernization: There are Unicorns on the Mainframe.
Career: A subtle mistake about how to aquire useful career skills.

News

Infor to stop developing on-prem software for IBM iSeries "ERP vendor Infor is to end development of on-premises and containerized versions of its core product for customers running on IBM iSeries mid-range systems. "Born from a cross-breeding of ERP stalwarts Baan and Lawson, Infor was developing an on-premises containerized version of M3, dubbed CM3, to help ease migration for IBM hardware customers and offer them options other than lifting and shifting to the cloud."

Data

IBM Mulls Using DataMigrator as Cloud Warehouse Pipeline There is a big push in the IBM i market to leverage Datawarehouse and cloud platforms. "IBMers are playing around with an update to a little-known ETL tool called DataMigrator for i." What does the update do? "It makes it easier for IBM i shops to move transactional data to cloud-based data warehousing platforms." "DataMigrator for i (as most users call it) was originally envisioned to create, populate, and maintain database tables on Db2 for i, usually from other Db2 for i instances, but also external data sources. The software has the capability to performs bulk loads as well as real-time updates of data via changed data capture (CDC) functionality based on IBM’s remote journaling technology."

"While the IBM i server can function as a data warehouse – most IBM i shops prefer to use it strictly as a transactional machine." - Doug Mack

"The reality is that many IBM i shops are adopting cloud data warehouses, such as Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, and Azure SQL Warehouse. Accommodating this reality makes good business sense."

Hiring

IT hiring: 5 challenges with emerging technologies "As the pace of innovation quickens, companies of all sizes are racing to adopt the latest emerging technologies. IT teams are the technical trailblazers within most firms, making them the first to leverage new technologies. However, we face an ongoing and potentially prolonged talent shortage, both in IT and beyond, which threatens to leave our technical teams depleted for years to come." Wait a second. Am I reading this right? As technology advances, which it is at an breakneck speed, it makes it more difficult to find, hire and secure talent? Correct. This article highlights some valuable insights that are often overlooked. Key takeaway:

"Remember, it is people, process, and technology – not the other way around. These challenges offer a stark reminder of why emerging technologies are rarely, if ever, silver bullets. If you don’t have the right people with the right skills to leverage new technology, then no amount of technical or process innovation will be able to compensate."

Modernization

There are Unicorns on the Mainframe Unicorns on the IBM i Are you familiar with the Unicorn Project? It is new to me as well. It's a novel about Developers, Digital Disruption, and Thriving in the Age of Data.

"At first glance, you might think that the book would advocate removing older legacy platforms like the mainframe, but that is not at all the case. The book is about modernizing, improving the developer experience, and eliminating technical debt. All of these goals are possible and part of the modern mainframe."

While the book is about the Mainframe, it could easily have been written about the IBM i platform. The book focuses on the premise that: Note: When reading this replace mainframe with IBM i.

"Modernizing the application development space is absolutely necessary and in line with the message in “The Unicorn Project.” The most business-critical applications run on the mainframe, so updating and modernizing them is essential to becoming a high-performing organization."

The Unicorn Project Five Ideals

The First Ideal: Locality and Simplicity - "the degree to which a development team can make code changes in a single location without impacting various teams."
The Second Ideal: Focus, Flow, and Joy - "To boil it down into a couple of words: developer experience."
The Third Ideal: Improvement of Daily Work - "This ideal is about paying down technical debt that has built up over the years and re-architecting your applications to be more efficient."
The Fourth Ideal: Psychological Safety - "This is the idea that people should feel safe to speak up about issues, concerns, and problems."
The Fifth Ideal: Customer Focus -"This ideal highlights the idea of “context and core. Core is what customers can and are willing to pay for—the center of your business. Context is the systems that customers do not care about—backend systems like marketing or HR".

This seems like a framework that could easily be implemented in the IBM i market.

Career

A subtle mistake about how to aquire useful career skills "What Is The Best Way To Acquire a New Skill? "In a recent conversation with an IBM i Developer. I asked him how he picks up a new skill. He said “I look for a problem to solve.” "This article by Cal Newport outlines a method on how to do this. "When reading through this, think about how this approach is a form of the apprenticeship model which centers around using a new skill to solve a problem."

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