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Case Studies
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INFINITE Corporation enjoys significant industry experience and many client engagements. |
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IBM is the world’s largest IT consulting firm, the largest system
manufacturer and the second largest software company. The midrange
market which is encompassed by the AS/400 and iSeries platforms is a
significant component of IBM’s services, software and hardware business.
In recent times, customers have asked for solutions to meet their desire
to provide proven applications on open platforms such as Linux.
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The situation
Significant numbers of IBM midrange customers have sought the counsel of
IBM Global Services in an attempt to provide their AS/400-based software
on alternative platforms such as AIX or Linux. While many of the IT
professionals are very pleased with the stability of the platform and
the solid performance of the applications, their end-users, customers
and trading partners have sought alternatives.
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Desire for open platforms drives project
IBM is a provider of IT consulting services to midrange clients on a
global basis. While we are the manufacturer of the AS/400 and iSeries
platforms, we are compelled to meet client objectives. Customers have
requested our assistance in helping guide them through a process to
allow them to execute their software on Linux and AIX. In order to meet
these objectives, we looked at several options. We could rewrite the
applications from the beginning, we could migrate the software using
certain tools, or we could begin looking for applications that would
meet the client’s needs but could be deployed on multiple platforms.
For budgetary and time constraint purposes, the rewrite option was quickly
dismissed. There were clear benefits by building a new system, including
the ability to incorporate new capabilities into the system that their
current system didn’t provide. The tools option seemed as if it would
create more problems than solutions and new applications seemed to be
best solution.
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New Applications Prove Too Time Consuming
Where we really felt that new software that could run on Linux or AIX
might be the best plan, the more we began looking at possible
alternatives, the more we didn’t believe we could implement them in time
to meet the client goals. Another major problem is that while several of
the systems we compared provided capabilities the client desired, some
of their inherent system capabilities weren’t there. We felt that
customization to provide some core elements would lead to high
programming costs, the inability to maintain system support and might
not meet our time constraints.
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Looking at Migration Tools
We began searching our data and realized that INFINITE Corporation had
jointly developed its products with IBM teams. We looked at their
BABYiSeries and a competitive product. In evaluating the two companies,
we had developed an extensive list of requirements. Some of them are
listed below:
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The tool must have the ability to produce RPG/400 object code that can run
on Linux |
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The tool must be able to run database triggers on Linux |
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The tool must be able to run native AS/400 software under Oracle on Linux |
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The tool must have its own or be able to function with a third party GUI
product |
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The tool must provide the ability to run as many as 500 concurrent users. |
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The decision
BABYiSeries was really the only choice. The INFINITE Corporation Business
Services team assisted in a proof of concept migration that met all of
our primary criteria. Their delivery was timely and the functionality
was obvious. BABYiSeries was our choice.
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| AT INFINITE Corporation, OUR GOALS ARE SIMPLE: |
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TRADEMARKS
Copyright © 2010 INFINITE Corporation. IBM Midrange,AS/400,
OS/400 and System/36 are registered trademarks of the IBM Corporation.Windows,
Internet Explorer, Visual Basic,VB Scripting are registered trademarks of
Microsoft. INFINITEweb, INFINITE BI, INFINITEiSeries, INFINITE 36 are registered trademarks of INFINITE Corporation. All other
product and brand names are registered trademarks of their respective companies. No part of this document may be reproduced without written permission of INFINITE Corporation.
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