ASNA Monarch Migration Suite
Migration Target Language: C# or RPG
Experts at persisting your business's IBM i RPG applications
ASNA Encore lets you choose the migration target best for your business
ASNA Encore RPG: One project, two migration paths, one executable
ASNA Monarch is the only IBM i RPG migration solution that provides two target migration languages:
Microsoft C#
C# is .NET’s versatile, high-level, type-safe language. It is one of the top five languages on GitHub and used by more than 6.5 million developers around the world.
ASNA Encore RPG
ASNA Encore RPG is also a high-level, type-safe language for .NET. It has an RPG-like syntax and is a superb bridge to .NET for green-screen RPG programmers. An Encore RPG project can be converted to C# with ease.
How can a migrating an RPG application to RPG be a solid, strategic choice in the face of RPG programmers retiring? See this article for why using RPG as an initial migration target language can indeed be a good strategic choice for many IBM i shops.
Figure 1. ASNA Monarch is the only migration solution to migrate to C# or RPG
All shops want their migration project to produce C#; but not all shops want C# immediately. Some want to use Encore RPG as a stepping stone into application migration for their RPG/C# programmers.
Encore RPG is an absolute game-changer with IBM i RPG application migrations. With it, RPG programmers can use their guiding hand to introduce the C# team to the application. Later, when the RPG programmers retire, the migrated application can easily be converted to C#. Figure 1 shows the three possible Monarch migration translation workflows.
Encore RPG is similar in syntax to ASNA Visual RPG. The big difference is that Encore RPG produces either a .NET Core executable or a corresponding C# project that targets .NET Core.
ASNA Visual RPG (AVR) produces fat Windows clients and ASP.NET Webforms projects. It targets the original .NET Framework. While Encore RPG is syntactically very similar to Visual RPG, Encore RPG and Visual RPG are two separate products with two separate purposes. Encore RPG is exclusively for the Monarch Core application domain. There isn’t an upgrade path from Visual RPG to Encore RPG.
Remember too, that if your shop’s C# programmers are champing at the bit to get started, Monarch can take you to directly to C# and those C# programmers won’t ever see a line of Encore RPG.
No other IBM i RPG migration option offers you these flexible and powerful language choices.
The natural evolution of RPG
Encore RPG implements all ILE RPG and RPG/400 idioms. With either its RPG migration path or its C# migration path, Encore RPG is the natural evolution of RPG to .NET Core.
Encore RPG features:
- Targets .NET Core instead of .NET Framework
- Uses Microsoft ASP.NET Razor pages instead of .NET Framework ASP.NET Webforms
- Syntax is the same as that of ASNA Visual RPG (ie, expressive RPG for .NET)
- It is trivial to convert an Encore RPG project to C#
- Empowers effective collaboration with your RPG and C# programming teams
A new time, a new day
Although Monarch Core and Encore RPG both have some new code, many of their core facilities are ports from our mature and proven .NET Framework-based migration suite. With .NET Core under it, and C# easily available, Monarch Core is a superb, long-term solution for your business—no matter what your desired target migration language is.
We’re very proud of what we’ve done with Monarch Core. Integrating Encore RPG into Monarch gives managers never-available-before migration options. These options mitigate risk, facilitate effective interaction between your RPG and C# teams, and ensure that your business will never be without its line-of-business RPG application—even when it turns into C#!