I HATE THE AS400 AND THE PEOPLE THAT WORK ON THEM, I HATE THE AS400 AND...
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I have been working on an existing project that pulls data out of the AS400 based on SSN# and sends this data to another application via DDE. The old way was to use an ODBC driver. The program failed quite a bit so when it was investigated why it was failing, there were known problems with ODBC drivers and the AS400. So here is where I entered the picture. It was suggested to me to use the IBM SDK and access the AS400 that way. The SDK is written in C. So we wrapped what we needed in classes and it worked after a lot of struggle. Now let's go forward about 6 months. I am asked to simply pass some extra data along. No problem, right. After trying to get some queries working, I discover, actually not me cause I know nothing about the AS400, that the AS400 I am querying has no data. That's right somebody cleaned it out. So now I have to do my testing on the production database which just does not seem right. I have a couple of questions for whomever is familiar with the AS400. Why are the table names so cryptic, as a client first name might be found in table, PHXDTAS, and column, PBC123? I am used to using Oracle and I just don't get this one. We are currently moving our Windows application to the web, and are using the AS400 as the backbone. The windows app uses Oracle and it is so easy to pull data from the database. The web developers are having trouble doing some queries, but management insists they use the AS400. Why does it seem like management love the AS400 so much and will not even think about alternatives? Wayne
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I have been working on an existing project that pulls data out of the AS400 based on SSN# and sends this data to another application via DDE. The old way was to use an ODBC driver. The program failed quite a bit so when it was investigated why it was failing, there were known problems with ODBC drivers and the AS400. So here is where I entered the picture. It was suggested to me to use the IBM SDK and access the AS400 that way. The SDK is written in C. So we wrapped what we needed in classes and it worked after a lot of struggle. Now let's go forward about 6 months. I am asked to simply pass some extra data along. No problem, right. After trying to get some queries working, I discover, actually not me cause I know nothing about the AS400, that the AS400 I am querying has no data. That's right somebody cleaned it out. So now I have to do my testing on the production database which just does not seem right. I have a couple of questions for whomever is familiar with the AS400. Why are the table names so cryptic, as a client first name might be found in table, PHXDTAS, and column, PBC123? I am used to using Oracle and I just don't get this one. We are currently moving our Windows application to the web, and are using the AS400 as the backbone. The windows app uses Oracle and it is so easy to pull data from the database. The web developers are having trouble doing some queries, but management insists they use the AS400. Why does it seem like management love the AS400 so much and will not even think about alternatives? Wayne
I've worked with AS400's before as a PC developer, so I know what you're feeling. But it is a totally different environment and philosophy on the AS400. The AS400 is actually a very good machine, but I prefer working on PCs because that's where my experience has been. One recommendation that I would make is look into a product called Connx from SolutionsIQ (http://www.solutionsiq.com) and also Attunity Connect at http://www.attunity.com (used to ISG Navigator). With these products you can take the cryptic names and use your own that make sense. HTH Phil Boyd MCP "I took the road less traveled..."
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I have been working on an existing project that pulls data out of the AS400 based on SSN# and sends this data to another application via DDE. The old way was to use an ODBC driver. The program failed quite a bit so when it was investigated why it was failing, there were known problems with ODBC drivers and the AS400. So here is where I entered the picture. It was suggested to me to use the IBM SDK and access the AS400 that way. The SDK is written in C. So we wrapped what we needed in classes and it worked after a lot of struggle. Now let's go forward about 6 months. I am asked to simply pass some extra data along. No problem, right. After trying to get some queries working, I discover, actually not me cause I know nothing about the AS400, that the AS400 I am querying has no data. That's right somebody cleaned it out. So now I have to do my testing on the production database which just does not seem right. I have a couple of questions for whomever is familiar with the AS400. Why are the table names so cryptic, as a client first name might be found in table, PHXDTAS, and column, PBC123? I am used to using Oracle and I just don't get this one. We are currently moving our Windows application to the web, and are using the AS400 as the backbone. The windows app uses Oracle and it is so easy to pull data from the database. The web developers are having trouble doing some queries, but management insists they use the AS400. Why does it seem like management love the AS400 so much and will not even think about alternatives? Wayne
Hi, I work with 400s day in and day out. I love them. I hate them. Like the other poster said, the AS400 is a rock solid, very nice machine; on the 400 that is. From the PC side, things get difficult real quick. I feel your pain :) As for accessing data on the 400, I would suggest IBM's OLEDB driver (supplied with Client Access) and using ADO for the data manipulations. I've had relative success with this. The Toolkit/SDK provided by IBM along with Client Access allows you to do some neat things, but I'm not sure I'm brave enough to try direct DB access with it... As for the cryptic names, the thing to remember is that all names (libraries, files, columns, etc) are limited to 10 characters. If this an older system which happened to use old RPG, then you will most likely find everything limited to 6 characters as that was all the old style RPG could handle. Most 400 shops use naming conventions to alleviate the problem of short names. Talk to the 400 people and see if they have one, might make things a bit easier. Here's a link you might find useful: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/pubs/html/as400/v4r5/ic2924/index.htm?info/RZAIKOVERVIEW.HTM It's the ISeries information page. It has some pretty good info. Steaven :)
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Hi, I work with 400s day in and day out. I love them. I hate them. Like the other poster said, the AS400 is a rock solid, very nice machine; on the 400 that is. From the PC side, things get difficult real quick. I feel your pain :) As for accessing data on the 400, I would suggest IBM's OLEDB driver (supplied with Client Access) and using ADO for the data manipulations. I've had relative success with this. The Toolkit/SDK provided by IBM along with Client Access allows you to do some neat things, but I'm not sure I'm brave enough to try direct DB access with it... As for the cryptic names, the thing to remember is that all names (libraries, files, columns, etc) are limited to 10 characters. If this an older system which happened to use old RPG, then you will most likely find everything limited to 6 characters as that was all the old style RPG could handle. Most 400 shops use naming conventions to alleviate the problem of short names. Talk to the 400 people and see if they have one, might make things a bit easier. Here's a link you might find useful: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/pubs/html/as400/v4r5/ic2924/index.htm?info/RZAIKOVERVIEW.HTM It's the ISeries information page. It has some pretty good info. Steaven :)
As for accessing data on the 400, I would suggest IBM's OLEDB driver (supplied with Client Access) and using ADO for the data manipulations. I've had relative success with this. Relative, ouch, that word scares me. The Toolkit/SDK provided by IBM along with Client Access allows you to do some neat things, but I'm not sure I'm brave enough to try direct DB access with it... It wasn't too bad, I found some sample code and broke it into about 6 classes. The guy that attempted to do this before me, who happend to be a C programmer, made it one big class. Boy, that helps, might as well just use the SDK straight. :confused: Thanks for the info. Wayne
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I have been working on an existing project that pulls data out of the AS400 based on SSN# and sends this data to another application via DDE. The old way was to use an ODBC driver. The program failed quite a bit so when it was investigated why it was failing, there were known problems with ODBC drivers and the AS400. So here is where I entered the picture. It was suggested to me to use the IBM SDK and access the AS400 that way. The SDK is written in C. So we wrapped what we needed in classes and it worked after a lot of struggle. Now let's go forward about 6 months. I am asked to simply pass some extra data along. No problem, right. After trying to get some queries working, I discover, actually not me cause I know nothing about the AS400, that the AS400 I am querying has no data. That's right somebody cleaned it out. So now I have to do my testing on the production database which just does not seem right. I have a couple of questions for whomever is familiar with the AS400. Why are the table names so cryptic, as a client first name might be found in table, PHXDTAS, and column, PBC123? I am used to using Oracle and I just don't get this one. We are currently moving our Windows application to the web, and are using the AS400 as the backbone. The windows app uses Oracle and it is so easy to pull data from the database. The web developers are having trouble doing some queries, but management insists they use the AS400. Why does it seem like management love the AS400 so much and will not even think about alternatives? Wayne
Wayne, You are a sad individual in need of help :rose: . I am also in the same boat with you, sinking fast. I am porting a standard sockets-based server from UNIX to AS400, using what passes for a C++ compiler on the AS400. The AS400 is a very professional piece of stone-age computing. The sooner it goes the better - expect that an MVS system comes in to replace it! Maybe Chris should impose a $10m fine for everyone who starts a thread about either AS400 or MVS or the UK election. :rolleyes: Old Simon
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Wayne, You are a sad individual in need of help :rose: . I am also in the same boat with you, sinking fast. I am porting a standard sockets-based server from UNIX to AS400, using what passes for a C++ compiler on the AS400. The AS400 is a very professional piece of stone-age computing. The sooner it goes the better - expect that an MVS system comes in to replace it! Maybe Chris should impose a $10m fine for everyone who starts a thread about either AS400 or MVS or the UK election. :rolleyes: Old Simon
LOL Sounds like you are in a lot worse shape than me. At least I get to work on a PC. :-D Wayne
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LOL Sounds like you are in a lot worse shape than me. At least I get to work on a PC. :-D Wayne
Oh, I have 3 PCs with Windows 2000, 7 UNIX (LINUX, AIX, Tru64, SUN, HP-UX), AS400, VAX/VMS and AXP/VMS. Did I mention the Tandem system they are ordering for me? X| Old Simon
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I have been working on an existing project that pulls data out of the AS400 based on SSN# and sends this data to another application via DDE. The old way was to use an ODBC driver. The program failed quite a bit so when it was investigated why it was failing, there were known problems with ODBC drivers and the AS400. So here is where I entered the picture. It was suggested to me to use the IBM SDK and access the AS400 that way. The SDK is written in C. So we wrapped what we needed in classes and it worked after a lot of struggle. Now let's go forward about 6 months. I am asked to simply pass some extra data along. No problem, right. After trying to get some queries working, I discover, actually not me cause I know nothing about the AS400, that the AS400 I am querying has no data. That's right somebody cleaned it out. So now I have to do my testing on the production database which just does not seem right. I have a couple of questions for whomever is familiar with the AS400. Why are the table names so cryptic, as a client first name might be found in table, PHXDTAS, and column, PBC123? I am used to using Oracle and I just don't get this one. We are currently moving our Windows application to the web, and are using the AS400 as the backbone. The windows app uses Oracle and it is so easy to pull data from the database. The web developers are having trouble doing some queries, but management insists they use the AS400. Why does it seem like management love the AS400 so much and will not even think about alternatives? Wayne
I can appreciate your feelings. I currently have a problem with one of my companies clients, who use an AS400 for all their data. We have an application which queries the data, which works fine for at least 3 weeks against a SQL Server mirror of the AS400 DB (Same Table and Column names), but after about 25 - 30 minutes against the AS400 (through ODBC) it crashes(apparently in the ODBC driver according to the crash addresses?) and it's driving me Insane :(( But as far as I know, the AS400 is a well proven, and stable platform for data storage, I don't think it's possible to say the same about Windows as yet, which may explain the management decision, I guess the data access just dosn't work well cross platform? Just my opinions :cool: Martin
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I have been working on an existing project that pulls data out of the AS400 based on SSN# and sends this data to another application via DDE. The old way was to use an ODBC driver. The program failed quite a bit so when it was investigated why it was failing, there were known problems with ODBC drivers and the AS400. So here is where I entered the picture. It was suggested to me to use the IBM SDK and access the AS400 that way. The SDK is written in C. So we wrapped what we needed in classes and it worked after a lot of struggle. Now let's go forward about 6 months. I am asked to simply pass some extra data along. No problem, right. After trying to get some queries working, I discover, actually not me cause I know nothing about the AS400, that the AS400 I am querying has no data. That's right somebody cleaned it out. So now I have to do my testing on the production database which just does not seem right. I have a couple of questions for whomever is familiar with the AS400. Why are the table names so cryptic, as a client first name might be found in table, PHXDTAS, and column, PBC123? I am used to using Oracle and I just don't get this one. We are currently moving our Windows application to the web, and are using the AS400 as the backbone. The windows app uses Oracle and it is so easy to pull data from the database. The web developers are having trouble doing some queries, but management insists they use the AS400. Why does it seem like management love the AS400 so much and will not even think about alternatives? Wayne
Having programmed on the S/38 and AS/400 for seven years, I can tell you that both are light years ahead of *anything* MS has *ever* produced. Things that we take for granted as Windows developers (and to an extent OS/2) just doesn't happen on an AS/400 - rebooting every few hours, reinstalling operating systems, incompatible system applications, etc. Anyway, the AS/400 still remains the only affordable, object oriented O/S that I would truly trust my mission critical systems to. BTW, getting data from the AS/400 can be as easy as using an ODBC driver such as one from Showcase or Wall Data. It's no harder than retrieving data from any other ODBC data source. Therefore, you're probably dealing with people that don't know what they're doing or simply don't want to help you for whatever reason/agenda.
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Having programmed on the S/38 and AS/400 for seven years, I can tell you that both are light years ahead of *anything* MS has *ever* produced. Things that we take for granted as Windows developers (and to an extent OS/2) just doesn't happen on an AS/400 - rebooting every few hours, reinstalling operating systems, incompatible system applications, etc. Anyway, the AS/400 still remains the only affordable, object oriented O/S that I would truly trust my mission critical systems to. BTW, getting data from the AS/400 can be as easy as using an ODBC driver such as one from Showcase or Wall Data. It's no harder than retrieving data from any other ODBC data source. Therefore, you're probably dealing with people that don't know what they're doing or simply don't want to help you for whatever reason/agenda.
One of the main problems I am having is communication. When I do talk to the AS400 group, they might as well talk in Russian, they know a lot about the AS400 and how and where to retrieve data from it using their tools. But when I come to them with a relatively simple SQL statement, they are clueless. Granted I am totally ignorant of AS400 operations, so they probably think the same of me asking silly questions. :confused: Wayne
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One of the main problems I am having is communication. When I do talk to the AS400 group, they might as well talk in Russian, they know a lot about the AS400 and how and where to retrieve data from it using their tools. But when I come to them with a relatively simple SQL statement, they are clueless. Granted I am totally ignorant of AS400 operations, so they probably think the same of me asking silly questions. :confused: Wayne
That's why you need to go to them and make it simple. Basically, you need to know the database names that contain the data you need as well as any documentation of the fields. From that point, you just explain that you'll need an ODBC driver to access their data. Another alternative is the PC Support APIs. Now, realize that I haven't used the AS/400 in several years. However, when I did, there was a set of APIs that among other things enabled you to access data on the AS/400 from the PC using a C interface. The first option is your best bet since you can use the standard mfc db classes or straight odbc. However, if you don't have the driver, it doesn't come cheap and it will require that the 400 guys pull their fingers out and install it on their end. Having used both of these routes (as well as coding my own APPC) I would try this option first.
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That's why you need to go to them and make it simple. Basically, you need to know the database names that contain the data you need as well as any documentation of the fields. From that point, you just explain that you'll need an ODBC driver to access their data. Another alternative is the PC Support APIs. Now, realize that I haven't used the AS/400 in several years. However, when I did, there was a set of APIs that among other things enabled you to access data on the AS/400 from the PC using a C interface. The first option is your best bet since you can use the standard mfc db classes or straight odbc. However, if you don't have the driver, it doesn't come cheap and it will require that the 400 guys pull their fingers out and install it on their end. Having used both of these routes (as well as coding my own APPC) I would try this option first.
They did go the ODBC route, I am just not sure how much they spent, but they probably just used the one from IBM. This is where I was hired and I was told to work on this project. One of the programmers here told me the trouble with the ODBC driver so the solution was to use the SDK from IBM. We wrapped classes around this SDK and it does work once you get the right SQL statement. So the problem lies here, I am probably average on the SQL ladder but it seems the AS400 group doesn't know SQL at all. I have also discovered the hard way that the AS400 has a very finite amount of SQL that it accepts. Thanks for the info. Wayne
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They did go the ODBC route, I am just not sure how much they spent, but they probably just used the one from IBM. This is where I was hired and I was told to work on this project. One of the programmers here told me the trouble with the ODBC driver so the solution was to use the SDK from IBM. We wrapped classes around this SDK and it does work once you get the right SQL statement. So the problem lies here, I am probably average on the SQL ladder but it seems the AS400 group doesn't know SQL at all. I have also discovered the hard way that the AS400 has a very finite amount of SQL that it accepts. Thanks for the info. Wayne
The AS/400 has pretty good SQL support. There's a DB2/400 section in the link I posted earlier (the iseries information site, very good). Here's the direct link to the SQL reference: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/pubs/html/as400/v4r5/ic2924/index.htm?info/db2/rbafzmst02.htm I get some web errors with IE 5.5 on the site, but it still comes up. Again, I agree with the other poster. Talk to the 400 group. They may not be able to help with sql statements, but they can surely give you library, file and field names. You could even ask them to print out the DDS for the files you're using. The print out may not make too much sense, but it will have field names, sizes, etc (which you could also get through sql metadata). Also, if they have it installed, the AS/400 has a pretty good interactive SQL builder. You may want to ask them to let you sign on and try it out via the command: strsql It has "prompting" for files, fields, etc. Steaven
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The AS/400 has pretty good SQL support. There's a DB2/400 section in the link I posted earlier (the iseries information site, very good). Here's the direct link to the SQL reference: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/pubs/html/as400/v4r5/ic2924/index.htm?info/db2/rbafzmst02.htm I get some web errors with IE 5.5 on the site, but it still comes up. Again, I agree with the other poster. Talk to the 400 group. They may not be able to help with sql statements, but they can surely give you library, file and field names. You could even ask them to print out the DDS for the files you're using. The print out may not make too much sense, but it will have field names, sizes, etc (which you could also get through sql metadata). Also, if they have it installed, the AS/400 has a pretty good interactive SQL builder. You may want to ask them to let you sign on and try it out via the command: strsql It has "prompting" for files, fields, etc. Steaven
Thanks for the info. I am at the end of the project and am just glad to get it out of my hair. Just venting. Wayne