Dave Odom wrote:
especially for a Utility?
Dave:
Utility?
Are you asking if stuff like "green" initiatives can help reduce the
burdens we place on 'Utilities' as a whole? or are you asking about
the use of up-to-date hardware and maybe IBM i with decent apps to
help a 'Utility' business?
I've worked with a newspaper and a cable company on System/38, and
later System/38 and AS/400s in governmental utilities areas such as
storm drainage, water, sewer, land usage, emergency services, etc.,
in municipal, county and state governments.
But it's not clear exactly what you're asking about. It seems mostly
the second area.
One of the most fun projects was in combining geo-coded databases
that marked hazardous materials, power lines, gas lines, etc., over
municipal maps. This was specifically used to assist fire and other
emergency response units -- firemen already think their job is
hazardous enough without getting early warning of what they're
rushing into.
In a couple cities, similar info was fed to 9-1-1 emergency centers
for call dispatches, as well as basic occupant info when calls came in.
Of course, Utilities Billing and all related elements were what
everything was based around. My experiences with those were from
early '80s to the mid '90s. I suspect that much has changed. I think
we did okay, considering our databases couldn't even be called "DB2"
back then, and interaction with PCs for displaying graphics used a
lot of 'PC Support' rather than 'iSeries Access' nor even sockets.
Tom Liotta
midrange.com
