Enterprise Modernization Podcast

An interesting listen for anyone interested in learning more about IBM’s enterprise modernization strategy as it relates to System i and z application development: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/podcast/spotlight/st-100907.htm It’s also a good link to send your manager or CIO if you’re trying to convince them that moving to the new tools is worthwhile.

The podcast is an IBM developerWorks interview with Hayden Lindsey. Hayden is the IBM vice-president for enterprise tools and compilers (this includes the Toronto System i application development tools area). He’s also an IBM distinguished engineer (i.e he’s very smart and technical!)

He even mentions RPG 5 or 6 times in the podcast!

Be nice and share … or at least backup!

Your RSE connections, filters, user defined actions, and custom compile commands that is.

In order to use the RSE most effectively you will have created (or still need to create) lots of connections, filters, filter pools, user defined actions, custom compile commands (I’ll call these “artifacts”). Now, how much of a super hero would you be if you then shared all that hard work with your team members so they didn’t have to redo all the setup you’ve already done? Even if you don’t want to be a super hero, you should still at least backup all your hard work.

This capability was designed into the RSE from the start, and is the reason you see a prompt for “Profile” at the top of every dialog that creates these RSE artifacts. If you switch to the team view in the RSE you will see these profiles:

Most likely you will only have two profiles: a Team profile and your own profile that you named when you created your first connection. The profiles are stored in a workspace project called “RemoteSystemsConnections”. Under each profile are all the RSE artifacts owned by that profile. There is no special connotation with the name of the profile (Team profile is just the same as ABC profile). Profiles are just groupings of RSE artifacts.

If you copy this entire project (using the workbench export / import actions) to a new workspace then all associated RSE connections, filters, etc… will show up in the new workspace. Alternatively you can copy over only a single profile. Use either the General > File System or General > Archive import / export options.

From the RSE team view there are actions on profiles to make them Active / Inactive. All RSE artifacts owned by active profiles are shown in the RSE. RSE artifacts owned by inactive profiles are NOT shown in the RSE. So another use of profiles is to hide RSE artifacts related to projects you only work on once in awhile.

Say for example you only have to update the accounts receivable application once every couple of months. Then create a profile called “AccountsReceivable” and create all RSE artifacts (connections, filters, UDA) for the accounts receivable project under that profile. You can then easily hide them from the RSE when not needed by making the profile Inactive.

Again, this capability was originally designed to share RSE artifacts in a team environment and is documented in the online help under: WebSphere Development Studio Client for iSeries > Developing iSeries server applications using the Remote System Explorer > Sharing team-managed development resources. But it can also be used for simple backup, or copying between your own workspaces (or recovering RSE artifacts from a corrupted workspace). The help mentions synchronizing the project with an SCM repository (CVS, Subversion, IBM Rational ClearCase) which is ideal for sharing ongoing changes, but you can also just use the export / import way.