How To Use Legacy IBM i For Business Intelligence Solutions
How can you use legacy IBM i for business? Legacy apps are software designed to meet specific business needs. Their limitations include increased costs, maintenance difficulty, and weakened security.
Hence, it will be difficult for you to meet the business requirements of today’s world. You should strongly consider following application modernization strategies.
It will enable you to renovate legacy apps effectively. But can these strategies help you modernize legacy apps for IBM i for business?
What Does IBM i For Business Mean?
IBM i is an integrated operating environment. Initially, it was created to run on IBM’s Power Systems and Pure Systems for minicomputers and enterprise servers.
Right now, companies worldwide are using it for running mission-critical business applications. It offers exceptional security and business resilience.
Also, IBM i is highly scalable. The system grows with your business. Besides, it offers flexible licensing and support options. That’s why more companies are choosing IBM i for business applications.
What Is Business Intelligence?
Business intelligence (BI) is a technology that converts raw data into actionable insights. It presents all the information in user-friendly views, such as reports, dashboards, charts, and graphs. As a result, you can quickly uncover key insights and make informed business decisions.
Also, it helps you quickly analyze the performance of your business. Finally, it enables you to identify issues, spot market trends, and find new opportunities.
IBM i For Business: What Are The Constraints To Using Legacy Applications For Business Intelligence Solutions?
Legacy applications are older and outdated software. Developers design them to meet specific needs. However, you cannot update them due to the outmoded technology.
Also, in most cases, you cannot connect legacy applications to modern platforms. It can lead to significant issues. Let’s take a look at them.
Costly Maintenance: Legacy applications are outdated. Therefore, they are very expensive to maintain. There are several reasons. For example, you will likely experience a need for more specialized support in the future. Therefore, you must pay extra money to engage external consultants to maintain your app.
Unable to Meet Business Goals: Legacy applications are ancient. Hence, they can’t help you meet your growing business needs. For example, legacy apps are not as highly scalable as modern software. They were designed to handle a relatively lower number of users and resources. You will likely face significant downtime if you have a growing number of clients. Therefore, you can’t meet your business goals with legacy applications in today’s world.
Issues with Compliance: Developers built legacy applications to ensure organizational compliance. They were designed to follow industry regulations and federal laws. However, the government passes new laws every year. As a result, rules frequently change over time. As legacy apps are difficult to update, you will face significant issues in complying with the new standards.
Weakened Security: Legacy applications have outdated security protocols. Hence, they are vulnerable to thousands of common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs). Also, they lack modern security infrastructure. For example, many legacy apps don’t support real-time security monitoring protocols. Therefore, cybercriminals can easily intrude into your system. As a result, it can lead your business to complete catastrophe.
Companies around the world are modernizing their legacy apps because of these issues. Consider upgrading your apps for IBM i for business with modern technologies.
It will provide several advantages, including enhanced security and reduced maintenance costs.
IBM i For Business: What Are The Techniques For Modernizing Legacy Apps?
There are different approaches to modernizing legacy apps. Let’s find them out.
Should I Expose Business Functions As Callable Services?
Callable services refer to business functions, like discounting calculations, maintaining customer details, and getting orders.
Legacy applications perform business functions that suit your company’s operations. But they can’t make the functions available to other applications. This is where callable services come into play.
You can retain and make business functionality available to other applications by turning legacy applications into callable services.
You can use this technique to examine legacy applications and identify the business functions that are potential services. Hence, you can effectively create web services with modern software development tools to meet business requirements. Also, you can reuse the functions in other applications. Therefore, the technique gives you flexibility. It can be beneficial in the long run.
Should I Migrate The Application For IBM i For Business?
Migration is an important technique. It applies modernization to business functions rather than a whole legacy application. It enables you to move discrete blocks of functionality in the legacy application to other apps.
For example, if you are working on a legacy ERP application with multiple modules, including finance. Using the migration technique, you decommission the finance module in the legacy ERP application. You can use the module in another application to manage finance.
Could I Re-Host The Application For IBM i For Business?
Re-hosting refers to the technique of moving legacy applications to another platform. It doesn’t cause any change to business functions. Therefore, you can retain all the crucial aspects of your app. The operation of your legacy applications and their environments will remain unchanged.
However, the underlying parts of the system, like operating systems and middleware, will be new. This technique is suitable for moving away from old hardware and unsupported operating systems.
Should I Outsource The Application For IBM i For Business?
In outsourcing, you engage an external company to manage the day-to-day operations. Hence, you can maintain or enhance your apps for IBM i for business.
The external company deals with everything. The technique gives you several advantages. For instance, you no longer need to staff both operations and development. Hence, you can focus on other aspects of your company and grow your business.
Should I Rewrite The Application For IBM i For Business?
Consider rewriting the legacy application by using the latest technologies. By using the newest software development tools and deployment options, you can revamp your app to meet current business goals.
For example, you can change the design pattern to the Model-View-Controller (MVC). It will enable you to modernize the application architecture effectively.
However, it might be impractical to rewrite large legacy applications. It will cost you a lot of time and money. Nonetheless, programming language conversion can be a great starting point for evolving your app for modern technologies.
Can I Replace The Application For IBM i For Business?
Another technique is replacing the application with a new one. For example, you can purchase a new commercial off-the-shelf financial software rather than the general ledger application.
It is one of the simplest and easiest ways of modernizing apps. The new software will retain the data of the legacy application. Therefore, you will not face any hassle.
However, there are some inherent risks. For example, your business operation might get disrupted during the changeover. Also, new systems often take much longer than expected to develop. Hence, you might have to spend a lot of time and money. It can result in increased costs.
Besides, software manufacturers choose their preferred technology for developing the software. Therefore, you will face several limitations. For example, you can’t utilize your set of technology to extend the application features.
How Do The LANSA Tools Support Modernizing IBM i Legacy Systems To Integrate With BI Tools?
LANSA offers tools for modernizing IBM I legacy systems. Let’s take a look at them.
Create New Applications
Visual LANSA is a low-code application development platform. It enables you to build new websites and apps quickly. It offers several notable features. For example, it supports an active repository engine.
Here, you can house all the app elements in a single repo. As a result, you can define business rules in one location. You can apply them to all your application modules and components.
Also, it supports low-level code compilation. Hence, your app can deliver high performance on different platforms, including Windows and IBM i. Besides, it supports cross-platform development.
Therefore, you can perform deployment on PCs and smartphones without changing your code. On top of that, it can be super easy to learn and use. Overall, it is an excellent tool for modernizing apps for IBM i for business.
Combine New And Old Applications Using RAMP
RAMP stands for Rapid Application Modernization Process (RAMP). It is an incremental modernization approach for IBM i for business applications. It focuses on addressing functionality shortcomings while working on modernization plans.
Therefore, you can enhance your system with the latest technologies without operational interruption.
RAMP delivers tactical solutions in parallel with long-term strategic modernization. It enables you to avoid duplication of effort and throw-away quick fixes.
Also, it combines the existing 5250 screens into one web-enabled framework. Therefore, you can create the applications the way you want without throwing everything away.
Secure Access To IBM i Resources From .NET Applications
LANSA Open for .NET is a Visual Studio plugin. It allows direct access to IBM i (AS/400, iSeries) resources within your .NET applications. It helps you unite your IBM i business applications with Microsoft’s developer platform.
It provides several key advantages. It helps you extend IBM i data and resources to Windows web applications. Also, it is faster and more secure than ODBC.
You can use it to safely open up enterprise data on the IBM i. You may not have to worry about security or data integrity risks.