Today, IBM has released several products geared towards development on IBM POWER systems (notably, the POWER7). IBM is targetting customers running on Sun hardware and especially Oracle applications. Now customer will be able to migrate from Solaris/SPARC to POWER/AIX with new compilers and development tools for C/C++ and COBOL. New compilers (priced separatly or packacked with RDp) are available for Fortran, C/C++, COBOL and RPG.
Here's a summary of the announcements:
Rational Developer for POWER Systems 7.6
- C/C++ development tools for AIX
- COBOL development tools for AIX
- RPG and COBOL development tools for IBM i
The C/C++ development tools have lots of new features:
- Remote access to files, processes, and shells
- Rich editor support (content assist, outline view, color tokenizing,…)
- Integrated build support with error feedback
- Remote debugging of C/C++ code
- Debug core files for postmortem analysis
- Call and type hierarchy views
- Language aware searching
COBOL on AIX has long been a neglected area. IBM returns to this arena with a vengeance as competitors have been dominant in this space for a long time. The COBOL tools feature:
- Eclipse based Edit, Compile, Debug
- Remote or Local Projects
- Rich edit support (outline view, content assist, syntax checking, color tokenizing, and more)
- Integrated build support with error feedback
- Remote debug
- Exploiting of IBM i & z skills
Finally the i development tools, for which the product has the largest base of current users have several significant features:
- Lightweight, modern, development tools for RPG, COBOL, CL, and DDS
- Integrated file access, search, edit, compile and debug
- Rich editing features such as outline view, content assist, formatting, color tokenizing
- Visualize program structure with Application Diagram debug batch, interactive, and Web applications and Web services with a common visual debugger
- Visual DDS design tools: Screen and Report Designer
All of the features above integrate with Rational Team Concert for Power, which is also being focused on in this launch. With this release of POWER7 and i/OS 7.1, the PDM/SEU tools have NOT been rolled forward. This means you will NOT be able to take advantage of the new processor features unless you are using RDp. PDM/SEU remain at their 6.1 revision level and will not advance!
IBM is offering a 10% discount by purchasing Rational Developer for POWER with the new Rational compilers. The two main products are the COBOL Development Studio for AIX, and C/C++ Development Studio for AIX.
IBM Rational Compilers
- These new sets of compilers are designed to take advantage of the new processor features. There are over 100 new optimizations introduced in the last 5 years.
- Compilers perform in-depth code analysis
- Generates code that exploits the best features on all POWER systems (5/6/7)
- Support multicore parallel development using OpenMP (open-multiprocessing) API meaning automatic parallelization by the compilers
For AIX, the new compilers include:
- XL C/C++ for AIX 11.1
- XL C for AIX 11.1
- XL Fortran for AIX 13.1
- PL/I for AIX 2
- COBOL for AIX 3.1
To take advantage of your new processors, you'll need to upgrade or purchase these compilers. Simply recompiling your existing applications with the new compilers. The COBOL compilers are Oracle Tuxedo Oracle DB certified.
Also, the HATS development team has issued a new point release to address some hot topics in the user community:
HATS 7.5.1
- New support for the Safari on the Apple iPhone and iPod touch
- Added support for rich client to deploy within Lotus Notes 8.5.1
- Ajax to support automatic refresh and disconnect (no more applet needed)
- Simplified, customizable web services definitions
- Single-sign on to WebSphere Portal with JSR168 portlets to credential vault
Planned GA will be May 26th for HATS 7.5.1
Want more information?
Come and hear more this Friday April 16th at 11AM! We'll give a brief demo and talk more about what's in store.
Labels: aix, HATS, IBM, iSeries