Welcome to AS400 Modernization

This course will cover all the basic questions, and hopefully answers, you may have asked while looking at modernizing your old AS400 and iSeries applications.

Despite that fact that 5250 Green screen is old fashioned, clunky, ugly and pre-internet, modern businesses are still using at! The ugly old green-screen interface is recognizable as the IBM i System style and sadly leeds to management believing their modern IBM i Power System is an old machine from the 1980's.

Over half of all big businesses run IBM i Power Systems for their core business applications. These businesses spends big $$$ on a modern IBM Power System yet the majority of these still use an old fashioned 5250 terminals as their customer facing screens.

The 5250 Green Screen looks like this:

Why do some many business use this old fashioned, out-dated, unattractive way to display their critical business data? Some IT department's cite speedier responses and ease of typing in the older 5250 terminals than over the superior client experience of a web UI.

Unfortunately this leads to a mentality of -- If it ain't broke, why fix it?

This same green screen might look like this in a web Screen:

Which screen do you think offer more information, in a clearer way to your end users?

Why Choose a Power System if you don't intend to use its full Web Functionality?

We already know that IBM I applications have enormous business benefits:

This last point "legacy support" means that some businesses will upgrade their IBM Systems so smoothly, so quickly they hardly notice anything has changed. Suddenly they are on a new model of Power System and apart from things running faster the users notice no changes.

Some IT Departments are hesitant to touch LIVE code if it's working smoothly. The saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" can lead to software asset stagnation but some people also are scared that if you try to improve old software, you might screw it up.

People don't like change!

If you have invested a lot of effort in implementing the old way something is running, and it's been working for years, it's accepted. Now a new way comes along, claiming to be better, but it's an unknown and many view upgrades as an attack on the way they had been doing things and maybe a criticism on the home grown applications. In some people's minds this translates to an attack on them.

"This works fine the way we do it, I don't see why we have to change it.".

This inevitably leads to "if it ain't broken don't fix it" when faced with upgrade/improvement.

This problem is exacerbated by IT department members using the wrong name for this modern Power system - you are NOT using an old AS400 or iSeries machine! Stop calling the IBM i System by an old name! #rantover

From AS400 Green Screen to IBM i Web

The majority of US business say they intend to modernize the interface for a rich client experience, so where do we start?

We have to ask some core questions:

So, let's dive into this modernization course and cover the basics, answer some obvious questions, and some not-so obvious questions!