Stream Server |
City of Sheboygan
Sheboygan, WI USA
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The name of the application is Stream Server. It is an application developed in-house
for the City of Sheboygan using Iron Speed Designer. As we are all challenged
to do more with less, this application was developed for in-house use instead of going out
and purchasing expensive third party products.
The application is a Print Streaming process where spool files from our legacy AS/400 are
sent to our network printers with an overlay attached. This allows for us to use just
windows printing for print jobs from the AS/400. We now avoid confusing connection methods
for the AS/400. This application is used to administer all of the control files associated
with this system. Files reside on the AS/400 and on the network in an SQL database.
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Updating files on SQL server and the AS/400 for setting up mapping of printers is done
easily with the Iron Speed Application. It can be done from any device that supports a
browser.
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IT is the primary user for this application. When a new printer is set up,
control files need to be set up on the AS/400 to map the Output Queue to the
directory on the IFS. The table to map the Spool File to a particular overlap
is also set up on the AS/400 using the tool. The job running on the AS/400 is
controlled by a status setting. The setting is maintained with this application.
A person can easily set the job to go on hold, abort, or continue processing
spool files. The application also has the ability to run jobs or submit them
on the AS/400. The process is done by writing a command to a file on the AS/400
with the application. The poll job then queries the file on the AS/400 and runs it.
The same types of functions are set up on the network side as well. The beauty of
this application is it can be maintained in a single spot.
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Application size and scope |
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The application uses two databases — one on SQL Server and one on AS/400.
We use MS SQL Server and Linked Server with IBM Driver linked to AS/400. The
application has a total of seven database tables — three on SQL Server with
no views, and four on Linked Server with no views. The largest table has about 200
records. There are approximately 20 web pages. The application has five users in
the IT department and has about 100 transactions per month.
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The Project |
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The project took one developer about two months to complete.
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Code extensions and customizations |
We wrote about 200 lines of code for Updates, Inserts, and Deletes which needed to be done in an SQL Statement format.
We did not use any third party components.
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Page layout customizations |
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We did not make any page customizations nor did we create any application-specific design themes.
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Iron Speed Designer impact |
We believe we saved approximately six weeks of development time on this project.
The hard part is knowing HTML and a scripting tool. The biggest
time/cost savings was using a tool to generate the app automatically.
The only other thing that took a while is setting up the connection
strings in the app for AS/400 Link Server updates.
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In order for the connection integration to work between AS/400 and SQL Server,
journaling must be enabled for each table on the AS/400 that will be used.
Journaling is a one-time setup process except for when the table is updated
and recompiled. The table then needs to be setup for journaling again.
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Next steps |
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The only addition for this app would be to add additional printers.
However, this application sets up the template for other integration
with our legacy AS/400 information and new ERP system we are converting
to. There no longer is a need to copy data back and forth. It can be
connected to using Iron Speed as the development engine. I think we will
be adding more applications. I have been doing some preliminary
development with other applications using AS/400 data. These are much
larger tables with the results being great.
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About the developer |
Dave is Director of Information Technology for the City of Sheboygan, WI,
He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, and more than sixteen years
of experience with AS/400 from programming entire systems to integrating AS/400
functions and API’s. He has extensive experience with Microsoft tools like Active
Directory, Exchange, SQL Server. He has two years of experience with Iron Speed
Designer and has created several applications in addition to this one.
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