There are many ways to approach modernizing IBM i applications. They all depend upon your organization's technical background, culture and history. For today's article I'm focusing on using .Net as a modernization platform, however there are many other ways to approach modernizing your apps as well.
The modernization concepts described in the article can most likely be employed using your favorite language and platform as well based on your team's experience level and desire for a particular technology stack.
I have been writing applications using C# since .Net was introduced. Over the years I have used .Net to integrate to IBM i from Windows, Linux and even MacOS. If you have been wanting to create apps for your IBM i that utilize C# and .Net, read on to learn about the possibilities.
In today's development world, C# is the predominant language in the .Net ecosystem and to a lesser extent VB. All kinds of applications that connect to, augment and provide ancillary services to IBM i can be created quickly with .Net.
Desktop Apps - Desktop applications created using WinForms and XAML are a popular way to create apps running primarily on the Windows desktop. An example of a Windows desktop application is the IBM i PDM/SEU replacement component that I wrote recently called: Work with IBM i - Programming Development Manager for Windows (PDM). This tool is a Windows based replacement for the PDM and SEU tools on IBM i. It sports a built-in editor and can also be hooked up to VS Code for use with Code for i, RDI, Notepad++ and any other external editor you want to use. I'm also working on adding an IFS manager to the utility right now as well. Check it out and let me know what you think. It's FREE to use.
Console Apps - These are Windows, Linux or MacOS command line apps that you may want to schedule to do specific work that connects to IBM i via ODBC, JT400, SSH or other web services. I can think of things such as data transfer, exporting or importing data from Excel, XML, JSON and other formats. Other examples include: SFTP file upload upload/download from IBM i to a desktop or server directory, integration to Office 365 to send and receive email, integrating information to SharePoint and OneDrive documents and folders, generating reports with tools like Jasper or Crystal Reports, performing system monitoring activities, connections to web services and more. The automation opportunities for console apps are endless. Console apps are also a nice way to create apps that can be integrated to process automation scripts or other pipelines. Or they can be scheduled to run using the Windows job scheduler or other scheduling tools. Console apps can also be integrated with PowerShell, Bash, Python, PHP or BAT files and other scripting languages to create cohesive automation processes.
Windows Services - A windows service by its definition is an application that is integrated to the Windows service bus and can be started and stopped using the Windows Service Manager. Many of the IBM i integrated applications you would create for a Windows console app can be easily turned into a Windows Service. A service app doesn't have to be scheduled because the service is always on and processing data from your IBM i system on a regular basis.
Web Applications - .Net supports several web application types that can be created using the ASP.Net framework. From simple HTML applications to complex React or Blazor-based web apps, .Net can help you easily build highly capable applications to enhance and modernize your existing IBM i applications. Imagine a web-based order entry system capturing real-time orders augmenting your old, tired 5250 screen-based systems. .Net web applications can also be self-hosted with a built-in web server component or served up using Apache, NGINX or Internet Information Server (IIS) on Windows or Linux servers and cloud-based hosted VMs.
Web APIs - Web APIs are the universal communicator for the Internet. The ASP.Net platform allows developers to create new web services and web APIs very quickly, allowing value to be unlocked quickly from their IBM i applications and data. Web services are a safe way to make IBM i data available in a useful manor to vendors and customers. Web APIs can connect directly to IBM i data or be hosted in a cloud environment where the IBM i securely refreshes data without exposing the IBM i system directly to the web.
Mobile Apps - Let's say you have employees in the field and want to make information available to them in real-time on their phones or tablets. Or maybe you need them to be able to work offline. A mobile app is the best way to go. By using .Net to create mobile applications and services you can modernize your business and streamline your paper-based processes by providing an app to allow real-time work to get done. There's often a large return on investment (ROI) to be had by creating a mobile application for your organization to gather information more efficiently without re-keying or entering data into an old green screen app. And you can eliminate the paper and shipping costs associated with old-style paperwork.
Single Pane of Glass - Dashboard - Picture this - A customer service representative receives an inbound call or email with a status request. The customer wants to check their order shipment status. The rep first navigates to the CRM system to get the customer number. Next they are required to navigate to the green screen Order Entry System to look up order and shipment numbers on separate screens. Then they log in to the UPS or Fedex web site to check on a shipment status. Finally, the service rep needs to compose an email response or generate and print some correspondence to physically send out to the customer or vendor. This conundrum is referred to as swivel-chair processing, where an employee has to navigate between several applications to get a single answer to a business question. This is a huge time waste for customers and employees, forcing companies to have larger service staffs than needed. Imagine if employees could spend time servicing customers rather than attending to mundane questions that could be answered online. Everybody wins.
.Net is a great platform for creating integrated desktop or web-based applications that provide dashboards to display real-time metrics reporting using a single form, single pane of glass or 360-degree view. This approach to providing real-time information to customers, vendors and employees allows users and managers to interact with related information from one or more systems via a single dashboard in real-time at the press of a button instead of swiveling between many apps to answer a single question.
Middleware - When you need to create components that queue data or push transactions between systems, .Net is a great platform to build those apps on. Imagine syncing real-time data between DB2 and other databases, queueing up and processing transactions via Kafka, ActiveMQ, RabbitMQ or other message queuing components and then processing the data via your IBM i system.
Intersystem Communications - Perhaps you have a few systems that need a real-time service bus between them to exchange information. Creating a pipeline to communicate between those systems in real-time can be accomplished using .Net and the various communication mechanisms such as HTTP, WebSocket, gRPC, RPC, WebHook and other methods. As an example, imagine committing a source member in a Git DevOps pipeline and having it trigger a process back on IBM i or one of your other systems to ingest and compile the source changes. DevOps automation is just one of many places where intersystem communications can allow systems to work together in a real-time fashion.
Desktop Automation - Imagine pressing a function key from a 5250 screen or web app and having it launch a new link in your desktop browser. Or your customer service system auto-generates a new word correspondence document from a template on your IBM i business system and you want to auto-launch it in MS Word or Office 365 for editing before sending it out. Or you want to transfer files securely between your desktop and an IBM i folder without needing to set up insecure Windows file shares. And maybe you want to transfer print files to your user desktops directly from a print queue without the need to physically print the documents. Desktop automation with .Net is a great way to make all of this desktop automation happen.
RPA - Robotic Process Automation - Microsoft Power Apps and Power Automate are tools that can be used on the desktop and in the cloud to write automation scripting that can interact with web and desktop applications, send/receive database information, compose and send or receive email messages, ingest and process Excel, XML and JSON files, perform secure file transfers and more. If your company is using Office 365 you probably already have a FREE desktop license available to you and you may not even know it yet. This tool is a must-learn for any automation your team is doing today.
Artificial Intelligence-AI - Many organizations are just getting started trying to put GenAI and tools such as ChatGPT to use in their organizations. .Net Copilot has been introduced for Windows and other Office services. And ChatGPT is being used by many to start embracing AI into their organizations and business processes to augment user-driven processes. If your organization is thinking about AI, Microsoft Power Automate and other products are being infused with AI automation. I would love to hear your thoughts on AI and IBM i.
If your team needs help with process modernization discovery, training, mentoring and integration services, reach out and let's talk about your business automation pain points. Your team will be on track to streamlining and modernizing your IBM i processes in no time.
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