An article I came across written by Dan Burger.
Whether you are being overwhelmed by compliance regulations and the costs of tweaking IT systems to accommodate audits or are concerned about projects that lack the type of management controls to keep them on time and under budget, Aldon's just-released report management solution is worthy of a closer look. Viewing and tracking application development is browser based and includes the capability to drill down for specific details.
If you know what it's like to depend solely on the green-screen views of the IBM AS/400 (iSeries, System i, and IBM i) to attain information on the application development process, the thought of "there must be a better way" has likely occurred to you. Queries are complex and time consuming even with sophisticated filters, reporting engines, and the capability to ultimately present them in spreadsheets.
Aldon Report Manager not only simplifies this reporting, but it presents the information in a browser that is much more convenient for picky end users such as auditors and managers--people who are not necessarily on friendly terms with the green screens.
Aldon Report Manager is a new--just released today--module for the Aldon Lifecycle Management (ALM) system. ALM is a suite of products that provide process automation, management capabilities, software configuration and change management, and distribution and release management in multi-platform environments.
For those who worry about how this upsets the applecart that has been loaded with familiar procedures before a new product arrives, there's no cause for sleepless nights.
"We haven't eliminated any of the things that companies have done in the past," says Modi Ronen, director of solutions engineering at Aldon. "We haven't touched anything on our core repository database. We created a Web interface application that looks like a Web 2.0-type of application that allows people who are not green-screen friendly to browse the data they are interested in. It should appeal to managers and executives who have to manage green-screen apps or databases, but who are not exactly happy with the 5250 screens."
A major benefit that comes with Report Manager is that it can merge data that is extremely difficult to do with green screens. It provides some sophisticated views on top of the data to allow unique overviews of application releases.