ASNA Pipeline 2023 - Quarter 1

This issue’s big news is that Visual RPG for .NET 17.0, which works with Visual Studio 2022, is now generally available (see the Current ASNA supported products section below). This edition also includes AVR Classic upgrade advice, info on the latest IBM i Midrange Survey, and a cool way to take an AVR ASP.NET site offline.

Upgrading tips for RPG 4.x to Visual RPG 5.1

We've had several questions lately about upgrading from ASNA Visual RPG (AVR) 4.x to Visual RPG 5.1. This article presents a handful of tips you can use as you plan for an upgrade from AVR 4.1 to 5.1.

Fortra (aka Help Systems) 2023 IBM i Midrange Survey

The Forta 2023 IBM i Midrange Survey has been published and you can get your copy here.. (Help Systems was renamed Fortra last fall).

Except for a handful of relatively minor changes, if you read last year's survey, you've read this year's survey. A few changes we noted were:

In 2022, 76% of the respondents said they also use Windows in their environment. In 2023, that number jumped to 82%. In 2002, 35% said they also use Linux in their environment; in 2023 that number jumped to a whopping 57%.
A weird 4% increase in using on-premise verus cloud/hybrid environments. adoption. In 2022, 78% were on-premises only; in 2023 82% report being on-premises only. Doesn't conventional wisdom dictate that interest in moving off-premise should be growing, not shrinking?
Cyber security is again in the top spot for respondent's "top concerns." Interestingly, though, for the first time in several years, "modernizing applications" beat "high availability/disaster recovery" to the the #2 spot in "top concerns."
25% of respondents report using Git as their favorite open source product, which is also the percentage of respondents who report 100% of their developers are using Rational Developer for i (Coincidence? I think not!). The Venn diagram of SEU coders using Git is two free-standing circles.
Alas, RDI use remains highly fragmented amongst respondents. Am I the only person who think's IBM should throw RDI away and get seriously behind Liam Allan's Code for IBM i?
21% of 2023 respondents say they have plans to move some or all of their applications of of the IBM i platform–9% say they are moving all apps off within five years. Liars figure and figures lie, so you can spin this many ways. The survey’s positive spin on this is, "Over time, there isn’t a strong drive for people to move from IBM i as only 4% of respondents plan to migrate all applications from IBM i within 2 years." However, it could also be spun as, "Over five years," 9% are leaving the platform." It would be interesting if respondents had been asked why they are leaving. Our guess? It’s not the box, it’s the programmers–actually the lack thereof. See IBM i's Crisis Decade for details.

New ASNA.com site has launched!

Our new website at ASNA.com has gone live. It provides all the same facilities as the old one, but it is much cleaner and easier to use.

Please note that your previous ASNA.com login credentials do not carry over. You need to create a new account at the new ASNA.com to download products.

How to take a Visual RPG ASP.NET site down gracefully

There is a little-known, but highly effective way to temporarily take an ASP.NET site for maintenance or updates. This trick is very low friction and doesn't require that you start and stop the Web server and it gives uses good feedback. Read about this offline technique here.

Windows 8.1 end-of-service

Windows 8.1 reaches Microsoft end-of-service and it is no longer be a supported ASNA platform for any of our products.

Current ASNA supported products

The big product news is that ASNA Visual RPG 17.0 for Visual Studio 2022 (aka the Oscar family) is now generally available. Microsoft changed how project templates are managed in Visual 2022 and some of those issues have kept us from releasing Wings and Mobile RPG. We’re working on those and will have news soon on their availability.

Important notes: The ASNA Mike family (which supports Visual Studio 2017) retires on June 1st, 2023. This includes:

Visual RPG for .NET 15.0

DataGate 15.0 (for IBM i, SQL Server, and Windows and Servers)

Browser Terminal 15.0

Wings 9.0 and Mobile RPG 9.0

Monarch 9.0

After June 1st, 2023, the products above are no longer supported. This means that we’ll no longer provide tech support, fixes, enhancements, or upgrades to these products. If you have any issues with the product versions above you’ll need to upgrade to either the Nancy family (for Visual Studio 2019) or the Oscar family (for Visual Studio 2022) to get them resolved.

Visual Studio 2022 v17.0/11.0 .NET-GA Release date: 2023-03-29 Family: Oscar

Visual RPG .NET-17.0.10.0
Visual RPG .NET Windows Deployment-17.0.10.0
Monarch-11.0.11.0
Monarch Framework-11.0.10.0
Monarch Nomad-17.0.4.0
Synon Escape-11.0.3.0
DataGate for IBM i-17.0.1.0
DataGate for SQL Server-17.0.10.0
DataGate Component Suite-17.0.10.0
DataGate WebPak-17.0.10.0
DataGate Studio-17.0.11.0
DataGate Monitor-17.0.4.0
Browser Terminal-17.0.10.0

Visual Studio 2019 v16.0 .NET-GA Release date: 2023-03-01 Family: Nancy

Visual RPG .NET-16.0.81.0
Visual RPG .NET Windows Deployment-16.0.80.0
Wings-10.0.86.0
Mobile RPG-10.0.85.0
Monarch-10.0.84.0
Monarch Framework-10.0.80.0
Monarch Nomad-16.0.79.0
Synon Escape-10.0.55.0
DataGate for IBM i-16.0.32.0
DataGate for SQL Server-16.0.80.0
DataGate Component Suite-16.0.80.0
DataGate WebPak-16.0.81.0
DataGate Studio-16.0.95.0
Browser Terminal-16.0.81.0

Visual Studio 2017 v15.0 .NET-GA Release date: 2022-06-08 Family: Mike

This family retires on June 1, 2023. See the comments above for more detail.

Visual RPG .NET-15.0.97.0
Visual RPG .NET Upgrade Assistant-15.0.71.0
Visual RPG .NET Windows Deployment-15.0.95.0
Wings-9.0.101.0
Mobile RPG-9.0.101.0
Monarch-9.0.95.0
Monarch Collector-3.1.010.0
Monarch Framework-9.0.74.0
Serengeti-15.0.36.0
Synon Escape-9.0.32.0
DataGate for IBM i-15.0.53.0
DataGate for SQL Server-15.0.86.0
DataGate Component Suite-15.0.89.0
DataGate WebPak-15.0.101.0
DataGate Studio-15.0.77.0
DataGate Monitor-15.0.71.0
Browser Terminal-15.0.101.0

Visual RPG Classic 5.1-GA Release date: 2023-03-28 Family: AVR5.1

AVR Classic-5.1.17.0
AVR Classic Deployment-5.1.17.0
AVR Classic Examples-5.1.0.0
DataGate for IBM i-17.0.1.0
DataGate Monitor-17.0.4.0

Visual RPG Classic 5.0-GA Release date: 2019-10-31 Family: AVR5.0

AVR Classic-5.0.30.0
AVR Classic Deployment-5.0.30.0
DataGate for IBM i-11.0.26.0
DataGate Monitor-11.1.17.0

Email: info@asna.com
General Info: 800-289-2762
Technical Support: 800-984-4847
License Keys: 800-321-2762

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