What is LANSA

What is LANSA

LANSA's integrated software suite, from LANSA

LANSA’s software suite contains four flagship products, and a set of ancillary products, that can be deployed individually to solve specific requirements or woven into an entire infrastructure. Think of each product as a building block that is not only optimized for a specific task but that is also a big step forward in deploying a new platform.

The only IDE you will ever need for Windows or System i

Visual LANSA is the name of our Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for building, modernizing and integrating business applications. Visual LANSA has followed a twenty-year product evolution path that has proven its superiority over other application development tools and methodologies. Today Visual LANSA is used by thousands of developers, spread across different industries and countries around the world, who are all in pursuit of the same objective: maximum productivity and simplicity throughout the entire software development life cycle.

The fastest and most certain way to modernize your System i applications

RAMP is a complete process for rapidly modernizing legacy software systems. Before the advent of RAMP, users of System i, iSeries or AS/400 servers facing application modernization challenges were forced to either throw it all away and start again or continue to build upon, and be limited by, their legacy 5250 business systems. Now RAMP offers the perfect balance between those two extremes. By providing an application development framework that combines functionality from green-screen applications with new visual components in a rich graphical user interface, RAMP addresses your immediate tactical needs and sets you on a path of evolution without limits.

Flexible integration of business processes, systems, applications and data

LANSA Integrator, is a versatile and extensible integration server that is used by programmers to exchange data in any format or via any protocol and can also be used to remotely call functions in other systems. LANSA Integrator enables integration of Application-to-Application (A2A) and Business-to-Business (B2B) transactions through XML and Java services. LANSA Integrator allows bi-directional XML – and other data formats – to be exchanged between you and your trading partners, regardless of platform. LANSA Integrator appeals to developers with LANSA, RPG, COBOL or Java skills and is regarded as the Swiss army knife of the integration world.

LANSA Composer is a Business Process Integration (BPI) tool that gives business analysts a top-down view of end-to-end business processes. LANSA Composer provides connectivity between different systems in the same way as LANSA Integrator, but differs by including a graphical mapping tool and a process orchestration engine. These additions make LANSA Composer a highly visual and code-free tool that any business analyst or expert user can operate. The purpose of a BPI tool like LANSA Composer is to automate manual processes and eliminate rekeying of data by reducing the amount of paper, email, fax and human interaction required to complete a given business process.

ERP extensions, middleware, reporting and eCommerce

Alongside these flagship offerings, LANSA has products in areas ancillary to the main LANSA platform like end-user reporting (LANSA Client) and middleware (LANSA Open for .NET). We have also created specific application products where we saw a market need for an out-of-the-box solution e.g. an open-source ERP package, an eCommerce store, an EDI gateway, an AS2 compliant secure communications server and a Product Information Management (PIM) solution for on-boarding to the Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN).

LANSA your one-stop shop

What is RPG Smart Pages

The theme running throughout our suite is that all products are built on, and share the underlying services, of the LANSA platform. We, along with our vibrant business partner community, have broadened our value proposition beyond tools and technology into application solutions so that LANSA can be your one-stop-shop

What is IBM i Access for Web

What is IBM i Access for Web

IBM i Access for Web offers browser-based access to IBM i. IBM i Access for Web enables end users to leverage business information, applications, and resources across an enterprise by extending the IBM i resources to the client desktop through a web browser.

See the Customer Comments on IBM i Access products!

IBM i Access for Web...
is system based; there is no code running on the desktop.
is implemented using Java Servlet technology.
uses industry standard protocols - HTTP, HTTPS and HTML.
is lightweight, requiring only a browser on the client.
runs batch commands, provides access to database, integrated file system, printers, printer output, and messages, and a 5250 interface.


V5R4 iSeries Access for Web is supported on systems with V5R4 and V5R3 i5/OS TM. V5R3 iSeries Access Family (5722-XW1) customers can acquire V5R4 iSeries Access for Web and stay at V5R3 i5/OS. Refer to Ordering/Upgrading.
V5R4 and V5R3 iSeries Access for Web servlets are supported with these web application systems. Refer to the service pack PTFs page for PTF requirements:
Web application system integrated with i5/OS (V5R4 only)
WebSphere Application Server (WAS) - Express V6.1 for i5/OS, WAS V6.1 for i5/OS, and WAS V6.1 Network Deployment for i5/OS
WAS - Express V6.0 for OS/400 and WAS V6.0 for OS/400
WAS - Express for iSeries V5.1 and V5.0
WAS for iSeries V5.1 and V5.0 (Base and Network Deployment Editions)
Apache Software Foundation's Jakarta Tomcat (included with the IBM HTTP Server)


In addition to the above, the IBM i Access for Web portlet code can be used with any of the following portal systems:
IBM Workplace Services Express V2.6 and V2.5
WebSphere Portal for Multiplatforms V6.0
WebSphere Portal for Multiplatforms V5.1.0.1
WebSphere Portal Express for Multiplatforms V5.0.2
WebSphere Portal Express Plus for Multiplatforms V5.0

what is websmart

More details on IBM i Access for Web to follow...

unzipping a file on the iseries

as400 iseries Java ajar tool

The ajar tool is an alternative interface to the jar tool that you use to create and manipulate Java(TM) ARchive (JAR) files. You can use the ajar tool to manipulate both JAR files and ZIP files on the as400.

If you need a ZIP interface or UNZIP interface on the iseries, use the ajar tool instead of the jar tool.

The ajar tool lists the contents of JAR files, extracts from JAR files, creates new JAR files, and supports many of the ZIP formats just as the jar tool does. Additionally, the ajar tool supports adding and deleting files in existing JAR files.

The ajar tool is available using the iseries Qshell Interpreter. For more details, see ajar - Alternative as400 Java archive.

Parsing An Excel Spreadsheet with as400 RPG and Java

Scott Klement has an article on how to do this on the as400 here...

In the May 15, 2003, issue of Club Tech iSeries Programming Tips, some information was presented on how to use the Jakarta-POI/HSSF Java classes together with an iseries RPG program to create an Excel spreadsheet. In this tip, the same open-source Java classes will be used to do the opposite: to extract data from an existing Excel spreadsheet.

http://www.easy400.net/hssfcgi/documentation/17840.html

The downloadable as400 source code for this tip contains an RPG service program and Java .jar file that work together with the HSSF classes to make parsing an Excel document a snap. All you have to do is provide a as400 rpg subprocedure for character cells and a subprocedure for numeric cells, and the service program will call them back for each cell in the workbook

Typical settings for MS OLE DB Provider for IBM DB2

Example settings for configuring MS OLE DB provider for DB2 for as400 iseries

Affiliate Application
Alternate TP Name
APPC Local LU Alias
APPC Mode Name              QPCSUPP
APPC Remote LU Alias
APPC Security Type          Program
Auth Encrypt    False
Cache Authentication        False
Client Application Name 
Connection Pooling          False
Data Source                 myas400.mydomain.com
DateTime As Char            False
DateTime as Date            False
DBMS Platform               DB2/AS400
Default Qualifier
Default Schema              MYDATA (note, this is the library name containing the files to access on as400)
Defer Prepare               False
Derive Parameters           False
Extended Properties  
Host CCSID                  37
Initial Catalog             MY400
Integrated Security
Mode                        ReadWrite
Network Address             myipaddress
Network Port                446
Network Transport Library   TCPIP
New Password
Package Collection          SQLPKG (library to contain the packages created for pulling/pushing data from/to this box)
PC Code Page                1252
Persist Security Info       False
Principle Name
Process Binary as Character false
Rowset Cache Size           0
Units of Work               RUW
Use Early Metadata          False
Locale Identifier           1033
Mode                        3
Protection Level            1
Connection Pooling          false

More as400 settings to follow

i:ASP Data Balancer and IBM's iSeries servers

IBM is continuing its push into SSDs (solid-state drives), announcing flash drives for server and storage platforms as well as new software for allocating data among different types of drives.

Enterprise SSDs allow for faster access to data but cost far more, per bit, than spinning HDDs (hard disk drives). IBM is clearly committed to the emerging technology, as are EMC and other enterprise storage vendors. IBM, though, doesn't believe SSDs will make up more than 5 percent of any average company's total storage capacity.

For the foreseeable future, SSDs will be used as part of tiered storage architectures alongside HDDs, said Charlie Andrews, director of marketing in IBM's Dynamic Infrastructure group. For that reason, the company offers a variety of software to help store "hot" data in SSDs and "cold" data on HDDs. Its latest announcement, the IBM i:ASP Data Balancer, automatically shifts different bits of data to the most appropriate tier in a storage system. The software uses an algorithm that draws upon information such as how often each bit of data has been used, Andrews said. The i:ASP Data Balancer is designed for IBM's iSeries servers, part of the company's Power
line.

From http://www.macvideo.tv/editing/news/index.cfm?newsId=116293&pagType=samechandate

Striving for Optimal Journal Performance on DB2 Universal Database for iSeries

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/SG246286.html?Open

Journaling is an inherent feature of OS/400 on the iSeries that has been around since the early releases of the System/38. The system employs journals to ensure data integrity and recoverability and this support can further be extended to reduce the duration of an abnormal system end. Journaling also serves as the cornerstone upon which many data replication and data warehouse refresh schemes are built.
The aim of this IBM Redbook is to provide you with an understanding of the factors which influence journal performance on the iSeries and to help you identify which hardware options and software settings you can employ to minimize this impact. We will also share with you some ideas on how to minimize the impact of journaling on your iSeries from an application point of view.
We also explain the remote journal function on the OS/400, which offers a reliable and fast method to transfer journal entries to a remote iSeries server. We performed tests concerning remote journal performance and tested this function in different environments

IBM eServer iSeries - The Laughing Boardroom

Came across this....funny

Getting a dump of the iseries 5250 Data Stream Commands

Dumping the Iseries 5250 Data Stream

To dump the dynamic screen manager APIS ( DSM ) 5250 data stream commands:

Create a physical file somewhere in your library list called QSNDEBUG with record length 2000.
DSM will dump 5250 data stream commands to QSNDEBUGF found in the library list

Free Iseries Accounts Available

Just found a link to a site that offers free as400 / iseries / ibm i system developers accounts, which will come in very handy. (Especially for me as I dont have access to an as400 at the moment!).

Innovative Systems are the developers of FROG

What you get:
One user profile
Personal Library
50MB of storage

You will need to use TN5250 or something similar to access it, and I havent tried it yet, but will request a logon later and report back on success...

The config of the box is:

IBM iSeries Model 170
V5R3 with the latest CUM PTF package
700MB memory
36GB disk (non-mirrored)
All programming language compilers

The guest account request page is accessed by clicking
here

Any programming or technical questions be directed to the
forums at Code400.com

AS400 / ISeries Freeware / Shareware

A list of AS400 / ISeries Freeware / Shareware

• Some of the iSeries 400 (AS/400) API's can be a little tricky to use. As a service to the community a number of programmers have contributed to this list with small examples written in RPG/400, ILE RPG or CLP.
• Bar Code Check Digit Calculation -
  Modulo 10 self check digit calculation (UPC)
  Interlaced 2 of 5
• Bryan Dietz AS/400 Freeware Page
  ShowIP - Display the IP address of connected TELNET sessions.
  WrkOdbcJob
  WrkRmtWtr
  Traceroute
  PortScan
  NStat
  DSPARP
  IPCONNSTS
  How to install Save Files
  
• http://www.5-10.com/
  CASE - Computer Aided Software Engineering
  RPG Trace
  Convert RPG 3-->RPG 4
  Copy Spool to PC, Excel
  Client Access Keyboard Map Tips
  Command Default Change
  Reorganize Remove Deleted Records
  Unattended Backup
  Viruses can effect the iSeries 400
  EndJobs
  Monitor Internet Servers With AS400
  Open Query Select
  Display Journals
  Hello World! static and CGI web page
  Email Server
  Menus - Application manager
  Submit Jobs
  Calendar & Date conversion
  Card File
  Show Pictures of Items from iSeries 400
  Barcode Check Digit Calculation
  Run Query file
  Printing Overlays
  Integrating DB with wysiwyg Text
  Most Common Bug
  FTP Batch
  RPG Nest
  BSC SDLC file transfer
  Loan Payment Calculation
  

More as400 freeware to follow

Accessing iSeries files from within an Oracle application

Accessing iSeries files from within an Oracle application: "We recently had an in-house contractor accessing iSeries files from within an Oracle application. One or two record requests took 10-15 seconds; a 50-record request took 10-15 minutes.
His code showed that he was requesting the records via primary key. But a trace at the iSeries level (actually, just using OpsNav to show current SQL) showed that not all the WHERE clause entries were being passed to the iSeries optimizer and he was doing full table scans.
Eventually, we narrowed it down to the fact that he had defined a work variable used in the WHERE clause as VAR CHAR, a common practice in Oracle. Once that was changed to plain CHAR, the individual requests were processed in less than a second; the request for 50 records was returned in less than two seconds. "

Slow Running Batch Jobs on as400 Iseries

1) Is it a job running in a separate as400 iseries batch memory pool? (WRKSBS and check whether
the second column of Qbatch is a number such as 5 which is a pool on the
WRKSYSSTS screen and appears to have jobs running in it. Sometimes the
system is shipped with these jobs running in pool 2 (*Base) and this is not
so efficient, they can be affected by other work such as ODBC.)

2) If batch as400 jobs have been separated into pool 5 or whatever, is Expert
Cache turned on? It should be. If so, F11 on WRKSYSSTS will show *Calc next
to the pool. If it shows *Fixed, change it to *Calc, but only if you are
sure that all the work in that memory pool is the same type (i.e. all batch,
or all interactive.)

3) Have the files used by the batch program been getting bigger? They may
need purging. Or they may contain 'hard deleted' records, if so you need to
do a RGZPFM on them to speed things up.

4) Does the batch program use SQL to access the files? If so, you may need
indexes creating over the files. You can run the database monitor to find
out.

5) Which model of iSeries are you running on? On some models there is a
'governor' program that kicks in when the workload reaches the 'knee' of the
response time curve, and slows everything down using an interrupt called
CFINTxx - you can only see this in action on WRKSYSACT. This is more likely
to happen with interactive than batch though.

6) Have you done a RCLSTG recently? Maybe some data got corrupted.

7) Any duplicate records in the files? Sometimes the software doesn't handle
this well.

8) Sometimes you can speed up a batch job by removing logicals and
recreating them afterwards.

9) Ensure you use Visual Explain in Iseries Navigator to investigate any problems jobs with logical indexes that may need to be created on the as400 iseries

An Introduction to PHP

eServer Magazine: "Misconceptions about the iSeries and AS/400 servers have been around almost as long as the platform itself. Some outsiders continue to view the iSeries server as old technology incapable of allowing users to do anything new and interesting.
Of course, as users of the server and readers of this magazine should know, the truth is that the iSeries server supports a range of cutting-edge technologies. But even those who know the iSeries server may be unaware of everything it can do and every new and useful tool it can support.
Enter PHP. This versatile scripting language (its a recursive acronym for Hypertext Preprocessor) can be used to simplify many iSeries programming tasks."

Getting Started
To run PHP on the iSeries server, the HTTP Server (powered by Apache) and OS/400* PASE are needed. OS/400 PASE is an environment that matches AIX* system calls to low-level OS/400 system level calls so that AIX programs can run on the iSeries server. You must download source code from the PHP Web site.

Users remain loyal to iSeries, despite entreaties by Microsoft - Computerworld

Microsoft Corp. and several partners last month teamed up in hopes of enticing IBM iSeries users to extend or migrate their applications to Windows and .Net. But while some iSeries users have shown interest in Microsoft technology for their Web applications, several said last week that they have no intention of moving off their iSeries servers anytime soon

http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardware/story/0,10801,98826,00.html

CVS Respitory on as400 Iseries II

Well got the samba mount to our development as400 working. I could see the as400 IFS from the linux samba mount.

So I setup a directory called repository,at /home/cvs.
Set the access level and access mode of directory /home/cvs/repository: chmod 770 /home/cvs/repository
Set setgid bit on directory /home/cvs/repository: chmod g+s /home/cvs/repository
(last two done via qshell)

Unfortunately the samba mount does not play very nicely with CVS. When i tried to initialise a new repository using the command:
cvs -d /mnt/cvs/repository init

I got an input/output error and the linux box lost the connection to the as400.

Thinking that there must be a way to get this working I did some reading and discovered (Columbus style, as I wasnt the first) NFS.

So I set up NFS on the 400, by first adding this to /etc/EXPORTS:
/home/cvs RW=198.26.21.122,root=198.26.21.122,anon=-1

then starting NFS:
STRNFSSVR SERVER(*ALL)

Then on the linux box, I setup the mount in /etc/fstab so it kicks in on reboot:
198.26.21.122:/home/cvs /mnt/cvs nfs rw

ok, fine and dandy, did reboot and did an ls in /mnt/cvs and hooray, as400 IFS.
Then to setup the cvs repository:

cvs -d /mnt/cvs/repository init

this also ran fine and dandy.

The next step on the linux box was to modify xinetd service to enable pserver protocol

Logged in as root.

Create a file named cvspserver in directory /etc/xinetd.d with this content:

# default:
off # description: An cvs server.
service cvspserver {
disable = no
socket_type = stream
protocol = tcp
user = root
wait = no
server = /usr/bin/cvs
server_args = -f --allow-root=/home/cvs/repository pserver
log_on_success +=USERID
log_on_failure += USERID
}

Open /etc/services and verify that these two lines are present. If they are not, add them:
cvspserver 2401/tcp # CVS client/server operations
cvspserver 2401/udp # CVS client/server operations

Restart xinetd service:
service xinetd restart

did all that, then as instructed, setup the user environment

Open the file /etc/profile. You should to see these lines in the file:
USER='id -un'
LOGNAME=$USER
MAIL="/var/spool/mail/$USER"

Add one line after the environment variable MAIL.
CVSROOT=":pserver:$USER@localhost:/home/cvs/repository"

In the file, you should also see a line like this:
export PATH USER LOGNAME MAIL HOSTNAME HISTSIZE INPUTRC

Modify it and add CVSROOT into the export list like this:
export PATH USER LOGNAME MAIL HOSTNAME HISTSIZE INPUTRC CVSROOT

Test the installation by local users

Developer 1 log in as cvsdev1.
Make sure the environment variable is correct by typing this command:

echo $CVSROOT

It should return a result like this related to the user name:
:pserver:cvsdev1@localhost:/home/cvs/repository

I did get an error at this point related to dodgy characters in my etc/profile file. This was caused by downloading the file to windows, (i USE WinSCP), and editing using wordpad which introducing dos style line breaks. To fix this I opened the file in vi, and then did :set ff=unix to change the file format

logged off and tried echo $CVSROOT again, and got the correct result this time!

Then tried to login to cvs (had previously used useradd to create cvs, and 2 other users)
CVS login
was prompted for password but when i entered my linux login, got
cvs [login aborted]: connect to localhost(127.0.0.1):2401 failed: Connection refused

I think this is related to the cvs pserver setup. Ive tried a few things but havent got to the bottom of it on as400 yet.

CVS Repository on the Iseries

One of the things that I have been trying to do this week is

• Get CVS setup on a PC. This is now down with Mandrake 10 installed, which comes with CVS (dont know what version) and SAMBA installed
• Setup a mount to a shared directory in the IFS of our development as400. Also done. We created a share of a folder on our dev 170, and then used set up a SAMBA mount to fstab to this share, so that it was done every time the machine is restarted:

//127.0.0.1/cvsserver /mnt/my400 smbfs username=user,password=password,dmask=777,fmask=777