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AO Education

AO IBM i Advanced Modernization Workshop

This workshop is intended to provide the IBM i professional, specifically the RPG programmer, with an overview of the newest capabilities which have been provided in the RPGILE language and elsewhere in IBM i to allow for vastly improved productivity, agility and performance for the development of systems.

In addition this workshop will provide methods and techniques to allow for the gradual low-risk modernization of existing applications to take advantage of all the developments and advancements of the IBM i platform, the DB2 database and the RPGILE language.

The following sections briefly outline the topics to be covered during the approximately 48 hours that the workshop will last. From experience of this type of workshop, it is not really possible to say which topic/s will be covered in which session. This depends largely on the feedback and involvement of the students attending, as we tailor every workshop based on the actual coding and design practices in use at the particular installation.

As the workshop is designed to build progressively from one session to another it is essential that the successful applicant be committed to the full workshop. As there will also be requirements for additional exercises and additional reading outside the workshop sessions it would be advisable to provide for about 3 hours of time between sessions to accommodate this “homework”.

AO Roadmap

Why Multi-Tier Architecture?

With the maturing of programming models and the need for absolute AGILITY in the business environment, it has become of paramount importance to separate the database layer (Model), the User Interface/User Experience (View) and business unique logic (Controller), to facilitate very rapid response to maintenance requests.

In old style heritage applications, all three these elements were present in large, monolithic programs, which made maintenance quite complex, slow and error prone. This approach also caused business unique functionality, which very often provided competitive advantage, to be “lost” in the code, due the sheer size of these programs. These programs, although providing tremendous functionality, have become extremely difficult to maintain.

Another fundamental consideration is that single instances of discrete functionality should be available for re-use. In heritage applications a lot of duplication of core business rules occurred (for example, VAT calculations, handling fee calculations, etc.), simply due to constraints in early programming models. Identifying all these occurrences and maintaining them cohesively is extremely time consuming and error prone.

Separating the database functions, leveraging latest database technology (data validations, constraints, triggers), from delivery channels (UI/UX) and encapsulating business unique rules delivers a highly AGILE application, whilst unleashing the “hidden” value of the investment in heritage systems.

As a result of this separation and encapsulation process, IT development teams can become dramatically more responsive to business changes, supporting their business in becoming more AGILE and competitive.

Open Access (AO) – The Future

It is very important to understand that with the AO technology and Roadmap we believe that two initiatives hold incredible promise for the platform: ROA (Rational Open Access for RPG) and the OA Metadata Open Standard.

By enriching the underlying Metadata, attributes such as standard icons, behaviour, URL’s, fonts, colours, etc. can be gradually added to the Metadata and gradually populated throughout the database and be dynamically used to improve the UI/UX, including reporting, etc. Again this provides for dramatic improvement in productivity, facilitating a much more AGILE delivery platform.

The AO Product and Roadmap facilitates the leveraging of the Open Access philosophy.

The Roadmap

Migrate ISAM data to SQL engine, one file, one library, one database or one system at a time (we have DELIBERATELY followed this approach to allow installations to become familiar and confident with the process). No LVLID changes!!!
Phase 1 above continuously focuses to provide a gradual, non-disruptive process. AO Foundation handles the data duplication dynamically below the covers and facilitates running parallel databases concurrently, mirroring DDS to DDL and DDL to DDS to each other. That means that both the ISAM and SQL constructs are in sync all the time.
AOF then generates a single (or multiple) data dictionary, which facilitates the GRADUAL clean-up of the metadata and resulting tables and also facilitating the enrichment of the new sanitised metadata ala OA Metadata Open Standard and exposing that gradually into the production database.
AOF exposes long file and field names with minimum fuss as aliases, which immediately changes the perception of the database to the outside world, as it now LOOKS modern to non-technical users who could not relate to our short file and field names. It is amazing how something so small can change perceptions so dramatically.
The gradual consolidation and sanitising of the database will continue as long as users feel there is additional ROI to be gained.
The AO product provides standard IO Server and Trigger generators out of the box, which allows customers to GRADUALLY change their access methods.
A separate, parallel project is then launched, to gradually modernise those application functions that generate the bulk of the transactions, removing database relationship code and dropping those relationships into the DB2 engine. The same process is repeated with validation code. This reduces the actual code that needs to be maintained by about 80%, depending on coding standards and techniques.
AO gradually facilitates the full implementation of true multi-tier architecture.
AO facilitates the true recovery of those business rules that can be best described as “competitive advantage”, allowing these discrete business rules to become re-usable components.
AOF facilitates the implementation of leveraging ROA on all UI/UX interfaces, providing multi-channel (any delivery channel) delivery to all re-constructed applications.

AO Open

Provides a native IBM i based environment for delivery of a rich user interface or micro services for access from any device, anywhere, at any time.

AOO delivers a native device-agnostic user interface (also known as “delivery channel”) with dynamic, adaptive multi-channel user interface or micro services rendering. This enables easy support of rich, thin (or fat) user interfaces on mobile devices, browsers and potentially any future disruptive technology. Developers can then rapidly (but gradually) convert entire green screen applications for improved end user productivity, focusing on maximum ROI achievement.

Database: The foundation of true Preserve and extend legacy applications with a database modernization approach

Through native database modernization, it is possible to implement a solution with minimum disruption using a low-risk, gradual, iterative process to ensure no loss of business continuity and to support parallel databases during the process. This iterative, gradual and non-disruptive process allows implementation without the use of surrogates, without Level ID changes (in Phase 1) or necessarily access to source code (for maximum ROI and value, you will need the source code if you want to completely modernize your application). This can be achieved with minimal risk or down time.

The final result is a modern application architecture with a clear separation between the database, the user interface and business unique application logic. This means that companies can reclaim their agility, regain their competitive advantage and respond more rapidly to changes in the business environment.

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AO Foundation

The core migration and management engine that delivers a fully functional and modern DB2 database, key for leveraging business analytics, cloud and mobile computing.

AOF automatically assist with the migration of the legacy ISAM-like database engine (with Record Level Access {RLA} or “native IO” DDS supported by CQE) constructs to the native SQL database engine (DDL and DML supported by SQE) incorporating sound risk and SDM/MDM management principles.

The migration process includes the complete recovery of all structural metadata and metadata (with or without underlying source code), and provides tools, processes and guidelines on how to “sanitize”, consolidate and gradually start improving and enriching the metadata.

Central to the AO modernization roadmap and process, is our central Metadata Repository, or data dictionary, which forms the foundation of leveraging your heritage application components and artifacts.

Sanitize, consolidate and reduce heritage code base by up to 80%, reducing code complexity and improving code readability and maintainability.

AO™ controls and guides the process of moving database validations and relationships out of the underlying heritage programming language (RPG code) and into the database engine with full central management. This may translate into an up to 80%+ reduction of the heritage code base, thereby reducing complexity and improving code readability and maintainability. A more expressive internal architecture facilitates improved application extensibility and agility. The remaining code represents the business-unique logic. These are the “gems” of business functionality which represent the application’s true competitive advantage. AO™ gradually facilitates the componentization of these discrete business rules, and leverages NATIVE, RPG rendered HTML to provide generic UI components for device agnostic user interactions. These are used by programmers to seamlessly blend the back-end application modernization processes for use with the new UI. AO™ then facilitates the introduction of multi-tier architecture (or Model-View-Controller – MVC) in modernized applications. This achieves separation of code in the database (M), user interface (V) and business logic (C) resulting in improved application agility and maintainability.

Full or modular packaging options are available:

Database: The foundation of true modernization

We (IBM i users) have probably the most advanced commercial implementation of the DB2 database at our disposal, yet most installations continue to use it primarily the way we used to do things in the early 1990’s. As a result, most of the advances in the database engine on this wonderful platform have passed us by.

By utilizing the massive improvements in the underlying database engine technology (data validations, constraints, triggers), we can reduce your code base by on average 80% (depending on coding standards and techniques) and at the same time facilitate dramatic potential performance improvements, whilst providing a sound foundation to gradually improve the underlying rendering of that functionality, based on ROI.

This foundation facilitated by using AO Foundation and the SQL engine, is then used to gradually start to sanitize your heritage database, consolidate the database and underlying Metadata and then to start an enrichment process of the Metadata, using the new Open Access (OA) Metadata Open Standard.

It is extremely important to recognize that if your installation has not yet adopted the SQL (DDL/SQE) engine as your primary DB2 for i interface and is still primarily using the ISAM (DDS/CQE) engine for database access, you are using the leading high volume commercial OLTP platform severely shackled and constrained.