UNIX vs. Windows

Hi William,
This forum is a fine place to start a discussion on this topic. I can't give specifics about demographics, but my understanding is that Lawson clients are spit roughly about 1/3 iSeries, 1/3 Unix and 1/3 Windows. In my experience Lawson runs fairly well on Windows, and SQL Server in particular, particularly if you are running the latest release, LSF9. The only really quirky thing about it is that the guts of Lawson on Windows actually runs within a Unix subsystem (MKS), and there were some design tradeoffs that Lawson had to make in order to make it "fit".

Thank you for your reply John.

May I ask what kind of design tradeoffs you are referring to? Are they major?

Hello, I'm also interested in any experiances someone can share with the Windows version of LSF9. We are on UNIX 8.0.3 and looking to move to Windows because of costs.

Sanford,

We are in the testing phase of moving from UNIX 8.0.3 to Windows LSF9. I'm the DBA and am acting more as a support person in setting up databases, migrating data, etc. I'm not an expert on Lawson by any means but my understanding is we have not run into any major problems or issues and are pleased with our decision at this point. I'll send a message with my email address if you want specific information that I can get quickly from my Lawson experts who have driven this effort.

Sanford / Oracle Head;

I have worked w/ Lawson for over 8 years, started with Lawson on NT4 and SQL Server 6.5. (the BAD old days)

Today, our team supports Lawson LSF9/APPS9 (GL/AP/AR/BL/HR*/RSS,P2P/...etc. ) on Windows 2003 server and SQL Server 2005. We have over 75 "core" users, and over 1,000 ESS users (entire company). The SQL server database size is now ~400 G.

We experience "once in a while", explainable slowness, otherwise, system performs very well 99% of the time.

Bottom line, LSF9 / SQL 2005 supports Lawson just fine.

If you want more specifics, such as HW Specs, components we deployed, let me know!

Get on windows, its easier, leaves more time for golf!!

Stan,

The decommision date for Windows 8.0.3 environment is May 1st (in two months). So if you are planning on moving your UNIX8.0.3, I hope you are thinking of upgrading to 9.0.x


Stan/oracle_head

Windows work fine. Lower costs, easier to maintain.

We are on S3 Iseries and considering moving to another platform, maybe Windows. We have two concerns and not sure of the impact. 1.) We have about four modified Lawson programs, two being high profile: the AP150, and AP155 - Check Requirements and Check Printing. We maintain all four by offloading the IFS into native source on the Iseries, just so our legacy programmers can maintain it. That said what would be an appropriate editing tool if we went to Windows? And what are the caveats of Lawson modified programs on a Windows platform? 2.) We have a rather large legacy custom system in house on our Iseries, and it uses about 25 of the Lawson files in LAWAPP9DB. If we moved to a Windows platform, do the databases get moved out of the Iseries LAWAPP9DB? How would the environment need to be configured so this legacy code on the Iseries can still access these databases? And how would upgrades impact this new configuration? Thanks!

Mark,
You have a platform migration, and I have done these over the years, and there is a lot to consider.
First, the answers to your questions:
1) You'll no longer have RPG, it'll be in COBOL. You'll also potentially have EBCDIC to ASCII considerations, to name a few. As for Editor, anything that runs on Windows will work.
2) You will need to consider a migration path of the custom code and database tables. There are tools, but it is up to you to get them moved.

In short, an iSeries to anything migration needs some serious planning and execution expertise. I am a consultant who has un understanding of how to accomplish this. Give me a call, and I'd be glad to help you get a handle of how to proceed, and which, if any, consulting help would be needed.

Kwane
505-433-7744

Mark,
 

We are hosted, and made the migration from a local-ish  iSeries host to Infor hosted Windows a year ago.  

You can access the COBOL source via a normal Windows share.    We only customize Lawson provided forms via Design Studio, we haven’t changed any COBOL code, but I’ve looked at a few to determine what was happening behind the scenes.    We’ve never used it, but Infor provides a Micro Focus Net Express COBOL compiler at the Global Download Center, I believe it has an IDE. 

Our previous host had modified several Lawson programs, and we heard that they had to review each of them every time new versions were provided by Lawson.    That seemed like a PITA, so we went as vanilla as possible when we moved to Windows.  Much of the customized functionality has been replaced by process flow or custom reports.

Prior host had a customized check printing program we ran from Client Access green screen which printed to a local queue via IDPS datastream.   Most other native Lawson and Crystal reports  were downloaded by users as PDF and printed locally.  That’s still true with Lawson hosted on Windows, but check and other forms printing (e.g. POs) changed significantly. 

Now we use Document Express, third party software from MHC which requires a local database to store form definition info and printed document history.  Apparently this is how many Lawson customers deal with form printing.   We put up MS SQL server on a dedicated VM  for this purpose.

The Lawson database migration from iSeries to Windows was relatively benign.   The iSeries DB2 extract and Windows SQL Server 2008 R2 data load were done using standard Lawson DB utilities.   If there was an EBCDIC/ASCII issue, they handled it.

I think you should be able to link to SQL server from your iSeries programs,  either via ODBC or by creating linked server, see this article:

http://social.msdn.micros...rs?forum=transactsql

A little bonus if you go with Windows.  Our users have an active directory account to log into their Windows workstation and access other network resources.  On the iSeries, we had a different account to log in to Lawson that was limited to an eight char user name.   With Windows, Lawson authentication is bound to our AD (albeit to a specific hard coded domain controller).  Though we must log in to portal and LID, we use the same user name and pwd as  when logging into Windows

 

Thanks Kwane and MikeP!  Much appreciated.

iSeries V7.1

Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard Environment 10.0.0.7 Apps 10.0.0.6

Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise: Core-based Licensing (64-bit)

Mike, we are migrating from iSeries 9.0.1.13 to Windows Server 10.0.0.7 (DB2 to SQL)  I am following the document link in an attempt to create a linked server to iSeries V7.1

 

The document says: Right click Properties on the Providers you want to use (IBM ones start IBM, they are DA400, DASQL and DARLA.

When I right click on Providers, I have no providers that start with IBM. Can I use the MSDASQL provider for this purpose.  If not can you give me a tip on what I need to do to install the correct provider.

I haven't worked with the MSDASQL provider.

I think the providers you mentioned are installed as part of the IBM "Client Access" software that installs on Windows PC and provides various tools and programs to connect to the iSeries.

Here's some stuff from my notes from back then. The context is creating and accessing recordsets from MS Access VBA, but the connection string info may be helpful



IBMDA400
IBMDA400 is the most flexible of the three OLE DB providers installed as part of the Client Access software. It does not use the Client Access ODBC driver to access SQL data. When using IBMDA400, you can access OS/400 or i5/OS Data Queues, OS/400 or i5/OS stored procedures, commands and programs, and have record-level access to OS/400 or i5/OS databases. In general, the Client Access OLE DB provider, IBMDA400, offers better performance because of less overhead.

This provider permits the index to be specified, and allows references to zero SQl dates without throwing an error.

Typical connection string:

Set cnxLawson = New ADODB.Connection
cnxLawson.Open "Provider=IBMDA400;Data Source=SERVER.NAME.K12.OR.US;", "", ""

Set rstDBHRPEP = New ADODB.Recordset

rstDBHRPEP.Index = "/QSYS.LIB/LAWAPP8DB4.LIB/DBHRPEp5.FILE(*FIRST, *NONE)"
rstDBHRPEP.CursorLocation = adUseServer
rstDBHRPEP.Open "/QSYS.LIB/LAWAPP8DB4.LIB/DBHRPEp5.FILe(*FIRST, *NONE)", cnxLawson, _
adOpenDynamic, adLockReadOnly, adCmdTableDirect

Thanks Mike for you input. I installed IBM i Access for Windows on the SQL Server and that gave me the providers.

Mike, if you find time, give me a call.  I would love to discuss something's with you.

(904) 951-7426