Interesting!   Just when you think kids are fully consumed with I-this and I-that, they go ahead and throw us a curve ball.  I am not by any reason saying that I- is anything but awesome.   I have an I-Pad and I LOVE it.  All disclaimers aside, back to the matter at hand.   For those us of who grew up with and have spent our careers working with the mainframe, we fully appreciate and understand the continued relevance of the mainframe as a computing platform.   But sometimes you wonder what the rest of the IT world really thinks about the mainframe.   For the past 20 years, all we hear is how outdated the machines are and they will soon go the way of the Dodo bird.

Here is a very interesting read that just came out in Forbes Magazine.       Give it a read and let me know what you think.   http://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerkay/2012/01/30/kids-see-a-future-in-mainframes/

Coming off a very successful gig at the House of Blues in Vegas, the band is taking the show international.  On November 14 – 17, GT Software will be heading to Konigstein Germany to both exhibit and present at the IBM IMS Technical Symposium.

On Tuesday morning, Don Spoerke will present “Fast and Easy IMS Modernization and Integration”, highlighting how Ivory can provide simple to sophisticated integration solutions for IMS without coding or hassles.   Then, on Tuesday night, the GT House Band will co-host a Rockin’ the Mainframe party with IBM.   If the 1000 or so people in Vegas are any indication,   jeder wird eine gute Zeit haben. The band will be giving out the highly sought after Rockin’ the Mainframe shirts.  Click here for more information.

I have seen things in Las Vegas that I have never seen anywhere else.   But the “Sin City” has its good side too.   Take next week for example.   GT Software will be heading out to Las Vegas for the IBM Information on Demand Conference at the Mandalay Bay.

Drive innovation and business optimization with the best in technical and business education.

Choose from three technical forums that give you in-depth education including hands-on labs and usability sand boxes, and the thought-provoking forum for Business Leadership.

Information Management Forum

We are heading back down to Orlando next week for the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2011.   The theme for this event is Re-imagine IT: Leading from the front.

Join 7,500 senior IT executives – including 2,000 CIOs – at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2011 and come away with new ways to:

• Re-imagine a business structure in which information users are simultaneously creators and consumers
• Re-imagine information technology through a process of “creative destruction”
• Re-imagine the evolving role of the IT department as a whole

GT Software will be participating in the IT Solution Center.   Come visit us at Booth 634 and see the latest offerings from GT Software.

Learn more here.

Over the past several years, I’ve had the opportunity to see what a lot of different organizations are doing to create mainframe web services.     Something that just baffles my mind is how many people are creating web services by hand coding them…..and think that it’s the only way.

You must be kidding me?   I didn’t think people actually wrote code for anything anymore.  Heck, even COBOL, that “ancient” language has tooling to generate the code for you.  So why are you still coding your mainframe services?

Deep breathe, stop ranting.  Good.  Let’s get back to web services, one of the more recent things to come to the IT world.   Certainly, there would have to be a slick interface for creating these web services.   There must be a better way.  NEWS FLASH — THERE IS!   If you want to create simple or complex SOAP, REST or JSON services without writing any code, you must explore Ivory Service Architect from GT Software.   Web services of any level of granularity, done.  Our customers have quit coding and so should you.

I can’t think of anything an organization has that is more important than their data.     We spend so much time and effort making sure it is up to date, clean, and secure.  But data isn’t information if it is impossible to get to.   I can’t even begin to tell you how many folks I’ve talked to that are frustrated by not being able to get at mainframe data in a timely or cost effective manner.   Sure, we have data warehouses, data marts, extract files and a myriad of other custom solutions.   Imagine having to ask a developer to write a COBOL program to grab some data from a VSAM file, write it to a flat file, FTP to somewhere else, load it into another database……then it’s ready to use.   WOW!  How long did that take?  How much did that cost?  Is the data even relevant anymore?  Was it worth it?

It doesn’t need to be that hard!  Imagine your Excel spreadsheet, Crystal Report, web app, or other application pulling datafrom any mainframe database in real time.   Imagine the data being minutes old, not hours or days.  Imagine being able to get the information yourself and not rely on others.

We know where your data is, we know how to get to it, and we certainly know how you can get to it too!..    Click here to learn how you can make mainframe data access quick, timely, and cost effective.

Being called a champion is a great accomplishment. But when you can say you’re the two-time or back to back champion, it sets you apart from your peers. Congratulations goes out to our own Dusty Rivers for being name IBM Champion for the second year in a row by IBM for his innovative leadership within the data management community. An IBM Champion is an IT professional, developer or educator who leads and mentors those in the IBM technical community and helps them make the best use of IBM solutions and services.

“On behalf of IBM, it is with great pleasure that we recognize Dusty as a 2011 IBM Champion,” said Beth Flood, IBM Champion Program Manager. “Thank you for your leadership and contributions to the data management community. You continue to be among a very small group to be chosen for this recognition.”

Rivers, a Principal Technical Architect for GT Software, has an extensive 33-year background in global mainframe systems integration…

Read the full press release here.

JavaScript Web Designers Can Now Easily Integrate with the Mainframe Using Ivory Service Architect

ATLANTA, June 20, 2011 – GT Software, a global provider of mainframe integration and data access solutions, today announced that its flagship product, Ivory Service Architect, now supports JSON as an option for web service processing.  

“This latest enhancement makes Ivory Service Architect easier for developers to use, and opens the door for JavaScript web designers to access the IBM mainframe — enabling more people than ever before to leverage mainframe applications and data,” said Wes Young, Senior Vice President of Sales for GT Software.

“This reinforces Ivory Service Architect’s position as the most cost-effective, flexible mainframe integration tool on the market today.”

Read the full press release here.

The film features one hundred people, who each present the IBM achievement recorded in the year they were born. The film chronology flows from the oldest person to the youngest, offering a whirlwind history of the company and culminating with its prospects for the future.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39jtNUGgmd4&feature=share