RE: Best way to provide conversion data

Now that I know what you meant, I suppose you're right.

The PHB was a 30-something CFO who was into spreadsheets, radio buttons and
scroll bars. The IT director was over 60 and uninterested in yet another
conversion. The Look Software solution allowed him to tell the CFO that he
had found a Windows based system for less than $30K and not even have to
change servers.

Paul Nelson
Cell 708-670-6978
Office 409-267-4027
nelsonp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx


-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jerry
Adams
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2014 2:05 PM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: Best way to provide conversion data

PHB obviously. You'll burn in @#$% for that, obviously.

Jerry C. Adams
IBM i Programmer/Analyst
There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolong warefare.
-Sun Tzu
--
NMM&D
615-832-2730


-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Paul
Nelson
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2014 11:04 AM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: Best way to provide conversion data

Does your current software do what it needs to do? There are lots of
modernization tools out there. One of my old clients went with
www.looksoftware.com

He fooled management into thinking he switched to a Windows based system.

Paul Nelson
Cell 708-670-6978
Office 409-267-4027
nelsonp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx


-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rick
Mason
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2014 10:59 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Best way to provide conversion data

Hi Buck,
Unfortunately the people making the decisions see any kind of IBM system as
'OLD" and out of date. To be honest...I am tired of trying to explain
that it is not the hardware that needs updating (Power7 720).....it is our
current software that is the issue...it is green screen and again...the
peeps want the look and feel of a "Windows" environment.
The same thing happened 8 years ago when a worked at a hospital, the vendor
presented a lot of "Pretty" screens but when things were converted off of
the AS400....they had more server related issues than ever before......they
realized maybe they should have given it a touch more thought.

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 11:52 AM, Buck Calabro <kc2hiz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 10/7/2014 10:58 AM, Rick Mason wrote:

We are evaluating replacing one of our AS400 applications with a

different

platform....not sure which one yet.

If you aren't sure which one yet, then why not replace the AS/400 with
a new POWER 8? It'll run all that old AS/400 stuff as well as all the
new web stuff you can think of!

This particular application has one library but many files that
drives

the

different application modules. Other than the dspfile command...is
there a better way to provide the vendor our files with field

information

and what data the file holds?

Having done many conversions TO the midrange platform, the things I
find most useful are some sort of data dictionary, a list of the main
tables in the application along with their relationships (primary and
foreign
keys) and an 80-80 list of the first 50 records like CPYF
OUTPUT(*PRINT)
OUTFMT(*HEX) might produce.

Also, if this vendor is selected.......when they request our data
for conversion.....should the entire library be sent to them or should

the

files be sent individually? FTP I presume??

Generally speaking, a conversion won't be using every one of your files.
That is, they won't be taking your database and writing a new Windows
(for example) front end to it. They'll be taking your data and
converting it and importing that to their database. And when I say
'data' I don't mean the entire library, I mean your customer file,
your product master file, your sales history file and so on. The
important ones, probably fewer than 50 all told.

Only your chosen vendor can tell you what they need and how to get it
to them. In my vanity, I will say that I believe the better vendors
will take any format you can provide. I got a lot of raw tables -
packed decimal and all but I also got a lot of CSV files where the
data is viewable in a spreadsheet program like Excel. Sometimes those
files are small enough to email around, sometimes FTP is better.
Unless they are a midrange vendor they won't be able to use a SAVLIB on a

tape.

--buck
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Thanks
Rick
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