October 12th Evening Meeting at Houston Arboretum on Woodway
"October is Tips Month!"
Come and here several tips. Watch here for the listing.
"Nominate Member for 2007 Board!"
October meeting will be voting for the 2007 Board. Submit member names for a position or yourself! Submit here.
September 14th Luncheon Meeting at IBM
"Service Oriented Architecture"
by Dan Hattenberger of IBM
There has been a lot of industry interest in Service Oriented Architecture.
What is it? Why should anyone be interested in it? How does it apply to my company? Dan will present an overview of the concepts of a Service Oriented Architecture, the reasons for adopting SOA, and discuss ways in which you might get started. Following the presentation, we will leave plenty of time for an open discussion where we can explore how SOA might apply to specific attendee situations.
Dan Hattenberger is an e-business Architect for IBM Developer Relations Technical Consulting in Austin, Texas, providing education, enablement, and consulting to IBM business partners. Dan has programming experience developing process control systems, applications and databases for IBM. He has been working with IBM Business Partners since 1988, and most recently has been involved in numerous discussions with System i partners in the Application Innovation Program. Dan is a certified e-business Solution Designer, Solution Technologist, and an IBM Certified Database Associate.
August 10th Evening Meeting at Houston Arboretum on Woodway
"Architecting Modernization"
by Trevor Perry
The Information Technology industry is undergoing continual transformation. Traditional legacy application development remains popular, and maintenance of legacy systems remains a major portion of IT work. At the same time, new technologies, methodologies, hardware and software appear at light speed. While vendors develop sales pitches for related offerings, there are few sources to help you understand the big picture. IT executives are asking questions like "Why do we need middleware?", "How do we optimize our IT?", "How do I retain my legacy investment?", "Which is better, J2EE or .Net?", "Where do we start?", and so on.
These questions relate to the modernization of the enterprise. Trevor's presentation outlines a framework to understand Enterprise Modernization and focus on a higher level of IT strategy. He answers these questions with relevance to a company's needs, applications, platforms and direction. Trevor will give you the details of several customer modernization efforts, showing you how to take advantage of the introduced framework. These stories of practical efforts will equip you with an approach that can be adopted to suit your own company and IT organization.
Tip by Chris Pando
July 13th Evening Meeting at Houston Arboretum on Woodway
"Continuous Availability and Disaster Recovery"
by Bob Ruet Strategic Account Manger for Lakeview Technology MIMIX ...presentation...
Bob works
with large customers and prospects in the South-Central region of the
Increasing business demands continue to drive requirements for systems to be highly available. This presentation and discussion will include a review industry trends in information availability and various technology approaches to Continuous Availability and Disaster Recovery.
A continuous availability solution should be more than an insurance policy
against the rare unplanned event or disaster. It should also deliver daily value
to the business by eliminating costly planned downtime as well.
An active/active infrastructure provides a second real-time copy of your
application and database—one that’s always active and available for use.
The following topics will be included in the discussion: remote journaling, switching and failover, automated approaches that reduce staff time and ensure data integrity, RPO/RTO
Terry Barton with Fleetpride will go over her recent case history using MIMIX.
June 8th Luncheon Meeting at IBM
"Web Enabling Legacy Applications"
by Greg Johnson, Mincron
Come hear and see what was done to Web Enable using Web Facing with WebSphere. Find out just how easy it can be and what the pitfalls can be. See what neat stuff you can do. ...presentation...
May 11th Evening Meeting at Houston Arboretum on Woodway
"Integration?"
by Nikhil Roy with Stone Bond Technologies
As the leader in
next generation e-commerce, workflow and integration technology, Stone Bond
Technologies provides software solutions that help energy companies improve
their bottom line by streamlining interaction among disparate software
applications. Stone Bond’s software suite, Enterprise Enabler® is
a commercially proven technology that significantly compresses delivery times
and implementation costs.
Mr. Roy is responsible for all Stone Bond implementation projects as well as Customer Service and Training. He stays in touch with customer needs by periodically being “hands-on” on select client projects. Prior to coming on board with Stone Bond, Mr. Roy served as a .Net Architect, software developer, and consultant for information technology firms.
Early in his career, after graduating with a BS in Computer
Science from State University of New York at Old Westbury, he founded and was
chief .NET architect for eSoftware Solutions, particularly for its flagship CRM
software product. Mr. Roy’s entrepreneurial experience and his mastery on many
technologies give him a valuable business/technology balance.
"iSeries: Let's Discuss This 18 Year Old Dead Product"
by Randy Lakner with Sysco
It has been almost 18 years since IBM announced
the AS/400 and the product line is as unique and different in 2006 as it was in
1988. Almost since its inception the product has been declared a dead product my
many people in the industry. So, let’s discuss this 18 year old dead product.
Randy Lakner has 32 years of experience in the IT industry. His career has spanned many years with IBM in several technical and consulting roles to his current position as Manager of Enterprise Architecture for SYSCO Corp. Randy has been involved in evaluation and implementation of leading edge technologies for most of his career. He has a unique ability to understand and explain how technologies have practical applicability in business applications. Randy’s vast experience and broad range of knowledge have allowed him to become highly respected in IT and business communities.
"Generic Support Command"
by John Toman with Sysco
GENSUP
- a spin-off of an almost identical command originally written by Bob Cozzi on
the System/38. John will show how this little jewel can save you time in
running commands based on a generic list of object names.
John Toman began his programming career in 1976 using COBOL on an IBM/360, after being promoted from computer operator. John's career includes the IBM/4300 series using CICS; the S/38 and AS/400 using RPG (III/IV/ILE). John has held various positions through the years from programmer/analyst to project leader to independent consultant. John has been working for SYSCO Foods for the past twelve years recently transitioning from RPG to Java and web application development, primarily supporting the eSYSCO web order entry system.
April 13th Evening Meeting at Houston Arboretum on Woodway
"What do Users want?"
by Doug Smith
We think users are as fascinated by the wonderful technology of the System i5 as we are, but we couldn't be more wrong. Users don't care about our beloved box, with it's robust operating system, integrated database, business language, legacy code or best of breed package applications. Doug Smith will present a list of 8 things users really want, and asks the hard questions of how well we are meeting their needs today and offers specific recommendations on improving our customers "SOI" (Satisfaction On Investment).
March 9th Luncheon Meeting at IBM
"Come learn how Single Sign-On in a Single Day is truly possible!"
by Jack McAfee, PowerTech, Inc.
There are three groups of people that are affected by having more than one user profile and password: (1) end users; (2) administrators; and (3) application developers to benefit from implementing Single Sign-On. more
February 9th Evening Meeting at Houston Arboretum on Woodway
"IBM January Announcement Information"
Come and here what is new and what is happening to the iSeries and IBM.
"Will you be the last i5 programmer standing? - Part 1"
by Kenneth H Werner
Without answering if there will be any US IT jobs in 2010, YES or NO, discuss possible changes that will help people see the road ahead (and label some things said about the end of IT as total war stories) or help people plan for a change in careers, if necessary. ...
January 12th Evening Meeting at Houston Arboretum on Woodway
"Introduction to WebSphere Business Integration on iSeries"
This introduces you to the importance of business process integration and what IBM WebSphere Business Integration (WBI) is, and how WBI products can be used to solve business problems. Additional information is provided on WBI specifically for the iSeries platform..
"What's GNU on the iSeries? - Put Open Source software to work for you."
by Jeff Yanoviak, Sirius Computer Solutions
Come and discover the wealth of free software and utilities available from the Open Source community and how you can deploy them on your iSeries to address your business needs.