Conference Tracks
The dynamics of today's IT marketplace are creating opportunities and risks
like never before. Many options are available -- but only a few will turn out to
be strategically viable, and the wrong choices can lead to business or career
failures. Avoiding new technologies in today's environment is not an option,
given the upside potential that many business competitors will achieve. How do
you leverage the Internet -- safely? When do you expand your use of AS/400 --
safely? Will Unix or NT alternatives prove to be better options, and if so,
when? How should you address the Year 2000 crisis? How do you negotiate the best
deals for today's AS/400, where discounting is now common practice? This track
discusses the key issues and opportunities facing executives with AS/400s for
the next few years.
Benefits
- Formulate a strategic five year plan based on a pragmatic and impartial
perspective of AS/400 vs. Unix and NT.
- Find out what IBM's five-year strategy is and how it will affect your
AS/400 investments.
- Negotiate the best possible deal by learning techniques to maximize your
negotiations with IBM -- based on hundreds of AS/400 accounts.
- Ensure your company's survival by understanding the Year 2000 problem and
the processes to solve it with AS/400 technology.
Sponsored by: 
A unique attribute of the AS/400 has always been its integrated relational
database. While providing leading-edge capabilities for the S/38 in 1980,
today's DB2/400 competes with very strong cross-platform databases such as
Oracle at the high end, and Microsoft's increasingly popular SQL Server at the
midrange and low-end. In addition, DB2/400 seems to be a stepchild in the IBM
database family, as IBM's marketing focuses on its cross-platform DB2 Common
Server. Given this environment, how long can users rely on DB2/400 to manage
their business data? Should users expect DB2/400 to be endowed with features of
"Universal Database?" Should users deploy new data warehouse solutions
on AS/400? Is the AS/400 finally ready for broad client/server deployment? What
are the best methods of database interoperability and data replication? What
methods of high-availability are available for AS/400 users?
Benefits
- Make the right decisions for your requirements based on an unbiased
perspective of DB2/400 vs. Oracle and SQL Server.
- Ensure success with data warehouse technology by learning when to consider
DB2/400 and AS/400 in a decision-support or data warehouse architecture.
- Enable your organization to make more timely decisions by discovering
methods for AS/400 data access and replication in heterogeneous environments.
Over 70% of AS/400 applications are written in RPG. Many AS/400 developers
and users are dealing with Year 2000 issues, conversion to RISC, client/server
reengineering, application development tool choice, and application selection
and replacement. At the same time, AS/400's many independent software vendors
are making their own strategies for the future, that may or may not include
AS/400 as a strategic platform. This track will assist AS/400 developers and
users in developing application strategies and tactics.
Benefits
- Make effective purchasing decisions by obtaining a strategic outlook of
enterprise vendors and their AS/400-based solutions over the next five years.
- Learn about alternatives to RPG development, and how to make the right
decisions for your requirements.
- Ensure your company's survival by tackling the Year 2000 crisis
The trends of client/server computing and network-centric computing are in many ways opposite technologies, colliding in today's IT organizations. Companies must make the difficult decisions about which trend to follow and how to do it, and which
trends to ignore. New networking technologies available to AS/400 users cross the gamut -- from thin clients and web servers, to the Integrated PC Server running NetWare and eventually NT, to NT running SNA Server. In addition, the combination of AS/400 and NT Server is becoming a popular combination -- to IBM's dismay. This track discusses various networking and Windows integration technologies, and user recommendations and strategies for each.
Benefits
- Understand what the battle between Microsoft's NT Server and Novell's NetWare for network operating system services means for your company.
- Save valuable research time by gaining an understanding of how network-centric computing will affect your AS/400 environments.
- Find out about IBM's strategy with the Integrated PC Server and NT, and formulate a strategic five year plan for NT integration
Special Event
AS/400 Roundtable Discussions
Thursday, 1:30-2:30 p.m.