Since IBI support for VM is ending in the future, (if you're on VM you need to be talking to them) we're looking to move to a different environment. All my WebFOCUS focexecs contain tons of Dialogue Manager code. We're being told Modify and DM won't work on LINUX server. Is this true?

Thanks,

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sakeenan,

Sue
I've never used Linux, but I'd be very surprised IB would support LINUX without 2 of the most major and essential components.

Whilst you may have to change some of the DM to use the LINUX naming conventions etc. it should work.

Call tech support for full clarification.

Thanks Alan for the response. It makes sense to me that Modify would not work in a server environment, but not Dialogue Manager, especially since it's coded throughout the WebFOCUS manual on creating reports. I can possibly rewrite the programs using Maintain and just update a few records at a time, since the only reason I was using Modify in the first place was WebMaintain couldn't handle the number of records being updated at once. (Hi Mark ), but not using DM is a show stopper.

Thanks,

I would fully expect non-screen based modifies to be supported.

How many records were you trying to put through a maintain? I regularly run 60,000 through on a small windows server.

Shame about VM, I used to like it.

My programs are non-screen based modifies called from WebFOCUS Maintain or from an HTML form.

I was trying to update approx 1200 records in a hub/sub environment and the program would abend occasionally, so the code was rewritten using Modify and has been running fine for three years. The hub then was WinNT and now it's LINUX on VM.

I must say I've grown to like VM. It took me a while to get used to it, but it sure is nice not to have to deal with JCL anymore.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sakeenan,

Well I would follow the old adage, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Good luck with your changeover anyway.

Thanks, but it won't be me dealing with it, since I'm retiring at the end of the year, if not sooner.

We run almost all of our stuff on Linux (both RedHat on HP and Suse on Z/OS) with no problem and it includes some Modify and is strewn from here to eternity with Dialogue Manager. Shouldn't be an issue.
Are you issuing O/S commands from Dialogue Manager? There may be some issue with that, but that's not something we've done.

We're using DM throughout our applications and we're running WF 7.1.3 on Linux RedHat. We only have one simple Modify program running behind the scenes, and it works fine. We don't use Maintain.

Like Darin Lee all of our WebFOCUS runs in Suse Linux on Z/OS. I have hundreds of programs that contain batch MODIFY that run with no problem. The part of MODIFY that is not supported is CRTFORM. All other syntax seems to work just fine.

Is your WebFOCUS environment running in the LINUX virtual machine on a IBM VM operating system? If so, and not on VM itself, may be a mute point.

I have worked with WebFOCUS on Linux. The issue is not whether MODIFY or Dialogue Manager work in this environment. The WebFOCUS server supports MODIFY and Dialogue Manager, regardless of the platform. It does NOT support CRTFORM or -CRTFORM. Those are components of FOCUS, not WebFOCUS.

Regarding OS commands, when I worked on migrating applications to Linux last year, prefacing the commands with UNIX worked, prefacing them with LINUX did not work. This may have changed since then. But, I would be careful regarding these.

Thanks for all the responses.

We're in a hub/sub environment running WebFOCUS on a LINUX box which is sitting on VM and we're also running core FOCUS on VM. All the data resides on VM on sink machines. WebFOCUS interacts with VM to get the data. Since IBI is removing support for VM ( Those in the meeting were told Sept, 2009 for WebFOCUS and 3 years for core FOCUS) our group has decided to move everything to a standalone server. Z/OS is out of the question, so a mainframe will no longer be used and all programs and data will reside on a server. As to FOCUS dbs it will depend on the answers we receive about sink machines on a server.

I wasn't in the meeting so I don't know why IBI said Modify and Dialogue Manager would not be available. I think the suggestion was to use the WebFOCUS painter for creating the programs. I just wish my programs were that simple. Not having Modify is not a big deal, but if Dialogue Manager is not available for whatever reason, then I'm not sure I'd vote to remain with WebFOCUS.

Now we need to find out if DM is available on LINUX, why we wouldn't have it.

Thanks everyone,

We use quite large FOCUS datafiles on SINK, windows server, still 4.3.? in production. tests on 7.1 have shown good results, perfromance even seems better, don't quite know why.

The Sink machine has proved reliable since a bug fix 6 years ago, we have had no data corruption since. It is a transactional based system with heavy use of both MODIFY for batch loading and Maintain for users, and performance has never been an issue, even at heavy us times.

Basically we are happy to keep using FOCUS datafiles and sink on the upgrade to 7.

Thanks for all the info, but we already know the steps in a conversion process, since most of us have 15-20+ years of experience.

My question is why would IBI tell us Modify and Dialogue Manager will not be available on Linux. Several people heard what was said so either they all misunderstood or something is going to change in the near future. I guess the only people who can really answer the question is IBI themselves, since it appears both Modify and DM are available for Linux.

Anyone from IBI care to answer? I know you guys read this forum.

Thanks,

Sue,

We have applications on Linux machines that have both MODIFY and DM. There never was a problem.
Concerning system commands we have been using the ! prefix instead of the name of the OS.
I wouldn't worry (famous last words?).