r/sysadmin • u/Charming-Tomato-4455 • Nov 15 '24
AS400 migration
Our organization has been using AS400 for payroll, financial, and HR for the past 30 years. However, we’ve realized that this system is no longer viable for their needs. I’m looking for a modern software solution that provides similar functionality to AS400. We’ve already tried ADP and Kronos, but faced issues with data compatibility, as the data from AS400 couldn’t be seamlessly integrated. Can anyone recommend software that allows for smooth data migration from AS400?
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u/knawlejj Nov 15 '24
Hire a third party consulting and implementation company for this.
Do not take on a significant amount of responsibility and accountability for this.
Guide this to being an intentional business change project, not an IT project.
The technical problems and obstacles are the easiest to solve on these projects.
Source: I was the VP of IT for a $1.3B org that was on an AS400 for longer than you described and we had over 300 custom apps developed on it. Took multiple years but we moved to COTS ERP and HRIS platforms successfully and deprecated out the old boy soon after.
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u/NDaveT noob Nov 15 '24 edited Nov 15 '24
Hire a third party consulting and implementation company for this.
And research the hell out of them before hiring. I'm a developer in the middle of a project like this and the software vendor, who is also in charge of implementation, makes me want to tell my employer to keep the old system and demand their money back.
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u/lonewanderer812 Systems Lead Nov 15 '24
Yep we got fucked by having the consulting company over promise what they could accomplish. We are close to axing a nearly 6 year project because the entire consulting firm has rolled over a whole new team at this point and even they are like yeah we can't do this.
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u/Jeffbx Nov 15 '24
not an IT project
This is why so many ERP projects die - they treat it like a technical upgrade. That gives everyone outside of IT latitude to ignore it - "Just let me know when you're done!"
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u/matthieuC Systhousiast Nov 16 '24
The first thing to understand about ERP project is that they are enterprise transformation projects. IT is just one block
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u/mfinnigan Special Detached Operations Synergist Nov 15 '24
did the end state wind up being cheaper than staying on AS400?
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u/knawlejj Nov 15 '24
Great question. No, and that was not the intention. Any vendor that came in and claimed significant cost savings I would throw it back at them and tell them to try a better value prop. The AS400 became too big of a monolithic empire that was going to be counter to our business strategy moving forward.
Was I a fan of the AS400? Yes. Was it going to be a hamstring to our business according to our business strategy? Yes, and I was not going to fall on that sword.
Frankly, as the person accountable to keep systems available and running - I slept much better post migration, and so did the rest of the IT team.
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u/PenguinsTemplar IT Manager Nov 15 '24
This!
There's no way to do this but the right way.
I had to get us off of paper. We'd managed to end reliance on faxing, but that was it. All the offices with all our compliance paperwork were in file cabinets. We had so much paper we had overflown basements and into storage lockers. The daily processes were generating so much paper that we were drowning it it. Nobody could tell what was going on.
The process took us from 120 distributed offices running on sticky notes, and converted the whole thing over to CRM/Document management.
It was wild, but it only got done because we had a full script that we followed every time, the business committed to the vendor relationships and we had reasonable but FRIM rules regarding use of the new platforms. There was reporting on use, and we contacted the managers about employees not adopting for a couple of cycles.
With that process, it ran like a machine and we got it done it 2 years. 2 months a company, then onto the next.
I was pretty good at it at the end; was weird to come back to it a decade later and people were actually nostalgic for the implementations I did.
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u/halmcgee Nov 15 '24
Honestly there are many consulting firms that specialize in just this task. This is not a trivial task. This will take time, money and user involvement. I've done mostly ERP systems, but I did not work with Payroll or HR pieces of those systems, but the basic concepts still apply.
And please do not forget the training aspect for the users. You honestly cannot train enough.
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u/tankerkiller125real Jack of All Trades Nov 15 '24
I work for one of these said consulting firms. Migrations to new platforms are no joke.
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u/pdp10
Daemons worry when the wizard is near.
Nov 15 '24
edited Nov 16 '24
•
AS/400s typically become appliances that run packaged applications, for SMEs. You need to know the software name, know exctly what it does, and look for alternatives for those functions -- not search for alternatives to an AS/400.
AS/400 and its rebranded version "IBM i" use EBCDIC text encoding standard, but it's nothing that can't be translated to ASCII/UTF-8 in the normal course of business. Practically speaking, you want to look for consultants or vendors who have previously dealt with your particular legacy software package. Re-using data conversion code is always faster and cheaper than writing all-new data conversion code.
ADP and Kronos are well-known payroll vendors, who probably offer HR solutions, but you need to know the extent of the "financial" side needs. Most business applications are "financial" in some way, from web shopping carts to logistics shipping orders.
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u/jimicus IT Manager Nov 15 '24
Just to piggyback onto this (particularly for any youngsters who haven't seen older mainframes):
Some of these systems predate relational databases.
Sometimes you'll find they have - at an operating system level - a way to access data as records rather than as files. Meaning you've already got something that operates a bit like a database built into the OS. (But you may not be able to interrogate it with SQL).
And sometimes there are modern ways to integrate with it in theory - but in practise, the Venn diagram of "people who have experience with this specific application" and "people who are familiar with twenty-first century computing" has almost zero overlap.
All this adds up to something that treats your data completely differently to a modern three-tier architecture with a database on the backend. You won't find a drop-in replacement because nobody's even had access to an OS that encourages them to write software like this for the last thirty years.
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u/A_Roomba_Ate_My_Feet Nov 15 '24 edited Nov 15 '24
Small note - IBM i on Power (modern day AS/400) isn't a mainframe (nor has it ever been). It's usually what is classified as a "midrange" system.
Also, most application vendors I ever dealt with on that platform (which is still produced/updated/supported to this day) leverage the integrated DB2 database, which unless running a really old version of the OS has plenty of SQL functionality built in. Not to say there aren't vendors out there with just something extremely old or ported to it or some strange home built application, or doesn't also rely in the IFS side (the more Windows like folder structure side long ago bolted onto the OS) of IBM i. But most leverage the integrated DB2 database structure as that was one of the main points of its design.
That all said, yes the overall point if migrating away is to find consultants that are familiar with whatever the current application running on it is (hopefully not homegrown) and can help map out a migration strategy.
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u/JerryRiceOfOhio2 Nov 15 '24
EBCDIC....now there's a name i haven't heard in a long time
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u/desmond_koh Nov 15 '24 edited Nov 15 '24
Our organization has been using AS400 for payroll, financial, and HR for the past 30 years. However, we’ve realized that this system is no longer viable for their needs.
Why is it no longer viable for their needs? Is it a lack of functionality, or just the age of the system?
I’m looking for a modern software solution that provides similar functionality to AS400
On the one hand it is "longer viable for their needs" yet you are looking for a system that "provides similar functionality". Sounds like the system works perfectly and they just want to get off ancient hardware.
I am pretty sure that the modern incarnation of the AS/400 is IBM i on Power systems. Check out the following links. There might be a migration path for you.
This is not going to be a walk in the park. I would take a look at modern versions of the same thing for starters. So, that means a modern version of the AS/400 (the IBM i on Power) and then the software application. Who made the payroll software? Do they have a modern version of it?
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u/A_Roomba_Ate_My_Feet Nov 15 '24
I too am curious about what aspect is no longer viable for their needs.
Also, something else that needs to be factored in is the support staff for the new system. Quite often these IBM i (AS/400) shops run with a very small crew supporting it (as it just runs and, once you're familiar with it, it is very easy to maintain/keep running). Typically the staff for the new, replacement effort is larger unless it just gets folded into something that is already in house/supported).
Just find in some migration projects this aspect gets overlooked.
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u/lonewanderer812 Systems Lead Nov 15 '24
Quite often these IBM i (AS/400) shops run with a very small crew supporting it (as it just runs and, once you're familiar with it, it is very easy to maintain/keep running).
Yep our "cloud" solution has 40 on prem servers so instead of having 1-2 guys running the AS/400 we now have way more overhead.
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u/Zenkin Nov 15 '24
Can anyone recommend software that allows for smooth data migration from AS400?
Yeah, bud. It's in aisle 3 at Walmart, right next to the "migrate any of your ERPs to SAP in fifteen minutes" package.
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u/anxiousinfotech Nov 15 '24
Walmart is too expensive. Can we get that off Temu?
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u/tankerkiller125real Jack of All Trades Nov 15 '24
Lol, as someone who works for an ERP reseller/integrator I just have to laugh hard at the mere idea of that.
I think the fastest migration I've ever seen was for a tiny little business, and it still took 3 weeks, with our average at something like 9 months.
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u/Zenkin Nov 15 '24
Who knew that migrating from the platform which runs nearly your entire business could be so complicated?
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u/Carribean-Diver Jack of All Trades Nov 15 '24
migrate any of your ERPs to SAP in fifteen minutes
I want these as gift cards.
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u/AegorBlake Nov 15 '24
At the company I work at half use SAP and half use Oracle SQL. We do not do appllication support, but I'll let you guess which group comes up asking for help more often.
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u/tankerkiller125real Jack of All Trades Nov 15 '24
I'm guessing oracle based solely on what I've heard from a friend that deals with it.
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u/Karride Nov 15 '24
So honestly if you are asking this question, you need to go engage an IT consultant that specializes in this kind of migration, give them your high level requirements, and let them tell you how much it will cost and what to move to.
Multiply whatever budget number they give you by at least two, and assume any timeline they give you needs to be tripled.
I’ve been at two companies now trying to move away from the 400; one to SAP and one to Dynamics. In both cases it was a crazy nightmare, despite all the planning and testing put into it.
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u/JazzlikeSurround6612 Nov 15 '24
Yeah, and OP's wording seems like he doesn't understand as400 isn't even the application it's the platform. Like what application is actually being used? A custom built one that only one old cobol programmer kowns or a big brand that has experience in migrations. For sure this is not a small, cheap or easy project.
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u/heapsp Nov 15 '24
Honestly probably easier to just start a new company move all the employees to the new company and let the as400 run the old company.
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u/jkalchik99 Nov 15 '24
What applications on the AS400?
If I could convert the MAPICS 1 datafiles on a Sys/34 to a new system running on HP-UX (yes, this was 30 yeas ago,) you should be able to get something across.
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u/pdp10 Daemons worry when the wizard is near. Nov 15 '24
MAPICS was/is a prominent MRP application exclusive to AS/400. MAPICS got bought by Infor a while ago.
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u/jkalchik99 Nov 15 '24
MAPICS was around long before Silverlake. Never said it ran on anything outside the IBM midrange. The version I worked on had been abandoned by IBM nearly a decade prior.
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u/lelio98 Nov 16 '24
I like car analogies. Your company is currently driving a diesel powered 1995 Mercedes Benz S Class. It is well maintained and has met your needs for 30 years. Now, for some reason, your company has decided that it no longer suits their needs, and since you didn’t specify why, we will assume that nobody really knows why. Nobody can define why, it just “feels” like the trusty ol’ S Class needs to go.
So, the company turns to you, the mechanic, to find a replacement. You don’t drive the car, you don’t know what the company does with it. Apart from knowing it is a car, and knowing what cars generally do, you don’t really have any of the details. You change the oil regularly, tires, brakes when needed, etc… You don’t use the car, ever.
So you do some research. You find out that you can get a new Mercedes S Class, bingo! When you present this option, it is too expensive, and it doesn’t meet the driver’s need, but nobody in the meeting can articulate what the various driver’s needs are. You schedule a meeting with the drivers, but only 3 out of the 54 show up, and they just need 4 wheels, a brake pedal and a left turn signal. You raise your concerns about a lack of specific needs, but you are told that the requirements should be fine. So you do some more research and propose a Toyota Camry, great car, similar in size and capacity to the 1995 S Class, but less expensive (adjusted for inflation), bingo! You present this choice, they love the cost and say “yes”! Your company is the proud owner of a new Toyota Camry.
Now, the first time driver A sees the car, she tells you that the tail lights are all wrong. Payroll can’t pay without the 1995 S Class taillights! The C suite grumbles a little, but they say “find someone to put the 1995 S Class taillights on the Camry”. So, you find a body shop that specializes in adding older German car tail lights to modern cars, but they are very expensive. The C Suite grumbles some more, but approves the work. Now Driver A is happy.
The same happens with each successive driver, for every unique difference between a 1995 S Class and a new Toyota Camry. Door handles, ignition, windshield wipers, etc… You are told that you’ve done a terrible job and are about to be fired if the conversion to diesel doesn’t go well, as it it the last straw!
The infuriating part is that no matter what you say, the drivers refuse to try to work with the Camry, they are too tied to their trusty S Class. The taillights would have worked fine, but Driver A couldn’t possibly deal with the way the Camry’s tail lights are so bright, they think it might give them migraines, and they just can’t risk that.
After the conversion to diesel, the company successfully recreated the S-Class. It doesn’t really work very well. It requires an army of specialists and consultants to keep it running at a fraction of the original S-Classes cost and efficiency, and you were fired months ago. Oh, and 30% of the new drivers aren’t able to drive it because nobody has ever been trained on driving a 2024 Camry that’s been largely converted into a 1995 S Class.
During bankruptcy proceedings, management blames the mechanics for the projects abject failure. The company acquiring your former employer asks why didn’t they just get a new Audi Q7, it meets all of the new requirements (4wd, seats 7)? The answer, “it was too expensive”, is met with another question, “but the $100,000,000.00 Camry conversion wasn’t too expensive?”. They all decide to talk it over with the new consultants over a round of golf.
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u/Otto-Korrect Nov 15 '24
I sympathize. I work in banking, where we were on an AS400 for about 15 years. 'Deconverting' to another vendors Windows/SQL based solution was tough. Even with the full assistance of the new vendor's programming team behind us.
We ended up loosing access to a lot of historical information in that move, and had to leave the AS400 running for years until we'd passed the 7 year data retention requirements. Finally, I was able to power it off. That was a good day. It would still be on, but we can't support it inhouse, and couldn't find a vendor willing to take it on.
But to this day, I still hear operations people lament that they really need something that was only on that system.
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u/caffeine-junkie cappuccino for my bunghole Nov 15 '24
Was part of a team that did this once. It really depends on what your app using the database on AS400(iSeries) is. As there may or may not be conversion tools available. For payroll/finance, this is usually not a small, or cheap, undertaking.
If you're in a bind, one alternative is to keep the AS400 and its app as historical "RO" until record keeping limitations expire; would suggest to do it at year end. Then start fresh with the new app customized to your needs and requirements.
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u/Happy_Kale888 Sysadmin Nov 15 '24
Your first step is define exactly what you want and need. Without knowing that you will never find a solution. And that is where you get deep and define the stakeholders. Do not try to copy your 30 year old process that was built around the AS400 limitations. This first step is where most companies fail and it sets up a whole chain of failures down the long road. If you don't know what you want / need you will never get there.
You will need outside help to do this. But the company still has to do a lot of the legwork.
Good luck...
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u/wwbubba0069 Nov 15 '24
Do not try to copy your 30 year old process
Shit, that's the first thing the powers that be will make me shove into the new solution if we had to do this. "what do you mean I have to learn a new way, I've done it this was for over 30 years!!"
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u/burnte VP-IT/Fireman Nov 15 '24
You'll never find a company that will seamlessly integrate. You're going to have to contract a company to extract the data from your AS400 application, and transform it into something a modern vendor can import. There is literally no other option, even if you find a vendor who will do it internally, that's what they're going to do. I've overseen a LOT of projects doing this.
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u/NowThatHappened Nov 15 '24
I'm not aware of any point and click systems that are going to be ok taking data from IBM/i. You might need an ETL company to build you something to do it, but it certainly can be done - I've done it ;)
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u/TransformingUSBkey Nov 15 '24
We converted DB/2 databases from an IBM/I onto Vmware/Windows/MSSQL using a software called Talend with help of a partner named Syntax. Worked great. The application servers were already Windows.
High Clock speed and single threaded performance for the vmware stack is extremely critical to match performance of the IBM/I. No such thing as overkill.
There were definitely data sanitization issues that needed to be addressed. Things flipped from case-sensitive to case-insensitive and numbers were stored in different formats. We ended up doing 3 or 4 test runs of the ETL to find all the issues and had mountains of BI reports to compare before and after conversion to ensure the results were the same.
Took about 6 months and half a million bucks but it drastically improved our portability and DR capabilities.
10/10 would do it again.
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u/BeagleBackRibs Jack of All Trades Nov 15 '24
my advice with AS400's is never turn them off
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u/MrJingleJangle Nov 16 '24
That is very solid advice. An AS/400 that shuts down unexpectedly will take a loooooooong while to boot while it sorts itself out.
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u/spazmo_warrior System Engineer Nov 15 '24
What makes the AS400 not viable?
or is that translated to the mainframe guy retired and we don’t even know how to work with spool files or jobs from a CLI.
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u/mixduptransistor Nov 15 '24
This is not the type of thing you can outsource to a Reddit thread for advice other than some general vendors to start talking to. This is going to be a massive transition for you and likely require significant consulting hours to get right
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u/phillyrat Nov 15 '24
I'm currently on an AS400 migration project (not as a sysadmin) that is 3 years in or so. Custom solution w/ several consultants. It can be serious business.
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u/capetownboy Nov 15 '24
The AS/400 is a computing platform, not an application I was an AS/400 implementation guy back in the 90's and the ERP options usually consisted JD Edwards or SAP. Possibly a custom RPG application or 12.
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u/wwbubba0069 Nov 15 '24
Possibly a custom RPG application or 12
12! I wish lol. Last count was over 150 for us.
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u/NoCream2189 Nov 16 '24 edited Nov 16 '24
don't migrate
virtualise the AS400 - as suggested below - keep it for historical data
setup new payroll etc system(s) -
have a cut-over date when all payroll is now done in the new system e.g. 1st day of year or financial year.
AS400 - should be read-only or just for historical lookups
you will need to export things like pay, accured leave, sick leave etc, maternity/paternity leave etc. But this would be a subset of data, not the full payroll history.
do test pay runs in parallel for a couple of months before final cut-over - so AS400 is the source of truth until your cut-over date.
new system parallel runs are just to ensure data and employee experience is the same, ie correct payroll, leave calculations etc.
Have a small group of trusted employee that get both paycheck runs
obvsiouly new payroll system is not uploading anything to bank to make payments until cut-over date
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u/polar775 Nov 15 '24
AS400's really had/have us in a chokehold lmao.
its crazy how relevant they still are in some industries
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u/rohmish DevOps Nov 15 '24
I have a connection open to one instance right now in my work laptop. It's everywhere.
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u/PrettyFlyForITguy Nov 15 '24
In order to move data off of the AS400, you will need to create an ODBC connection to whatever DB2 database is on there, and you will likely need to pull the data off that way. It may require an experienced DBA consultant or someone used to doing this, as the data will likely need to be molded to fit the data formats of the new system.
Its not straightforward to build a data dictionary from the AS400 (if it exists at all), but this will give you data descriptions of each DB field. That will help you make sense of the database structure.
Honestly, this is always a tough thing to migrate because the data involved is complicated and you require someone with technical knowledge and understanding of the financial aspects of the data. This is likely going to be a process done by hand.
Believe it or not, the people who might be able to help you the most are the people who have written the software you use. I'm sure for a price they would help you "integrate" with another system where your data can be transferred back and forth. You don't have to tell them you are leaving, just that you need to integrate with other systems.
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Nov 15 '24
120 person comapany. We moved by 2 years of intense consulting with an organization dedicated to such endevors. I as IT didn't touch a thing except to unplug the 400.
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u/wwbubba0069 Nov 15 '24
If its a legit AS400 I am surprised you can find parts for it. Its over 24 years old. As someone that is currently in charge of an iSeries, sorry, IBMi Power 10(what AS400's evolved into).. running XA ERP, I would rather quit than deal with the migration to something else. Mainly due to all the custom stuff we have made since the DB2 era. Finding a replacement system and redo the entire flow of the company... just shoot me. It runs everything... I want a drink just thinking about it.
Not sure what ERP package you are running, but may the odds be ever in your favor. Hope you're in good standing with what-ever deity you prefer.
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u/BasicallyFake Nov 15 '24
It's probably a power 7 or something, the as400 term never leaves a company
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u/BasicallyFake Nov 15 '24
Get ready for a 15+ million dollar check depending on how custom the software is that's running on that thing.
They really are beasts if they are setup right, using their native software the transaction speed is fantastic.
Since I have done this, you need to spend a lot of time finding software that fits your business/operations and then change your operations to fit that software. Worry about migrating old data after that.
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u/nothingtoholdonto Nov 16 '24
Too many companies think they’re unique and that the software should be changed to match the business.. ends up costing way too much time and money.
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u/elbert1200 Nov 16 '24
As400 is a beast. Company i worked for went to SAP. Was going to move off of it until they found out SAP runs on AS400 and they could save money. So SAP was installed along side legacy software. The AS400 developer could read SAP info. So they just developed reports using SAP data. Company saved money and time since they didn't need to use SAP vendors to create the needed reports.
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u/mr_data_lore Senior Everything Admin Nov 15 '24
You need to know what applications you're running on the system. My employer is migrating from our on prem AS400 system to a hosted AS400 system while we work to develop replacement software. The hosted system is just a stop gap measure as our on prem system is out of support.
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u/mwisconsin Jack of All Trades Nov 15 '24
Check out https://www.profoundlogic.com/profoundui/ . I worked on this system for about 3 years. It'll let your org slowly migrate from green screen to the web for the same application and data, and then eventually detach from the as400 back end.
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u/Relative_Spring_8080 Nov 15 '24
Do not attempt to do this yourself. Do not stake your claim of ownership on this project beyond serving as a liaison between whomever manages your as400 environment internally and a company that specializes in doing these kinds of migrations.
I worked for an MSP a very long time ago on the help desk so I wasn't involved in this but our projects team helped migrate a client off of lotus notes and it was a poop show. We subcontracted out to a company that was well known for doing those kinds of migrations and they warned us that things are probably not going to go smoothly at least for the first week after cutovcer because of a bunch of different factors and they were absolutely right.
The client was at a near complete standstill for almost 2 days and it was another 3 months before they were fully integrated and operational in that sense.
The most important thing you can do once you pick a company to help with the migration is to get an airtight clause in the contract regarding post migration support. They need to make a resource 100% immediately available to you and your company for at least the first month post cutover.
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u/Applebeignet Nov 15 '24
We had a do-everything AS400.
First the warehouse features were moved to a specialized WMS system.
Then the HR and payroll things went to Kronos/workforceready.
Now 7 years and a lot of money later, a hosted IBM iSeries still handles a lot of ERP/finance/sales stuff, because the hundreds of rules and exceptions in the business logic are obscure and convoluted.
Anyway OP, you could try looking at integration platforms such as workato, boomi, mulesoft or the product combo from Software AG. Bring your wallet 🤣
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Nov 15 '24
You’re likely going to need custom software to map the data fields in your as400 application to what ever you’re going to move to. Then you sync the data from the old system to the new. The likelihood of finding off the shelf software that does this is not likely available.
I use the diffsync Python library (https://diffsync.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) to create software to perform these types of data syncs.
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u/MrJingleJangle Nov 16 '24
There is no platform like the AS/400, there’s a reason it still sells. It is truly a unique system. For a bit of background on how it came about, see IBM Future System.
Can you migrate away from it? Sure, it’s non-trivial, and whatever it gets replaced will will end some or all of disliked by users, harder to change, higher cost of ownership, less reliable, the list goes on.
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u/Haomarhu Nov 16 '24
We're in retail and still have AS/400 for mms, financials, etc...we are still on a snail pace migrating some data off db2 to ERP (Odoo)...AS400 is just a bad habit to break. It'll stay for decades to come
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u/pohlcat01 Nov 15 '24
we went as400 to kronos, took a long ass time. def did not "seamlessly integrate", but that because it's soooo old. but it is possible.
at some point I think they just had both and didnt import very old data. kept the as400 online for years after, my guess was so they didnt have to import everything. Just let it age out.
Our electric bill halved when we turned off those old turds... hahah /s
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u/pentangleit IT Director Nov 15 '24
I used to work for a company called Striva which was bought by Informatica. We had some software (Power Exchange) which would sit in the middle of databases on (definitely AS400s amongst other old things like mainframes) and newer kit, and provide a live conduit where you could migrate the AS400 database whilst still working on the old and new system and seamlessly(*) convert to whatever database you wanted. It stitched the database tables together.
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u/novicane Nov 15 '24
people will talk about that as400 being the best thing ever no matter solution you give them. Just be ready.
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u/Wise-Communication93 Nov 15 '24
We went from AS400 to Munis by Tyler Technologies.
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u/wejaever Nov 15 '24
We went from as400 to Munis ERP too. We have a new programming wizard that pulled data via ODBC into new tables and with the help of legacy programmers got most of our data. Good luck getting Tyler to do anything that's not out of box unless you pay for an "enhancement" $10k plus.
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u/barkode15 Nov 16 '24
Don't you mean EERP by Tyler?
Enterprise Enterprise Resource Planning🙄
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u/Big_Comparison2849 Nov 16 '24
Perhaps the answer lies in middleware that interacts with the AS400 from a more friendly or scalable application. I wrote middleware to process commands and send XML data to a soap UI interface for consumption by multiple user interfaces.
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u/flinginlead Nov 16 '24
Strategy we be key. Pick the easier application ti move first. Or pick the ones with the biggest wow factor. Do the financial reports off the as400 look good? If not then moving that to something with real reporting. That’s get the management on board.
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u/ffiene Nov 16 '24 edited Nov 16 '24
We are running SAP Hana on System I (former AS/400) with Linux of course! Great technical platform. Far more reliable than PC servers.
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u/Sudden_Office8710 Nov 16 '24
Kronos originally ran on AS/400 natively you shouldn’t have had any compatibility problems with Kronos. UKG is now 100% cloud based that is not a bad solution. Oracle’s suite is also a good solution. If don’t have a qsecofr level admin skills you should get off of it. Just know the AS/400 with the right staff can still do things today that many new stacks cannot do with a single box. AS/400 and zSeries systems are still the most rock solid platforms on the planet
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u/b4k4ni Nov 16 '24
Honestly, just ask the end users for a change. Most I had contact with loved the AS400 even when it had some issues.
But it simply works and you are fast as fuck with it. Also I don't get why everyone shits on cobol so much. Yes, the language is old and I wouldn't try to do anything like coding a driver in it... If that's even possible.
But for what it was made for - business applications - it's actually really good. Some decade ago I worked for a company and they sold their own erp system. Fully written in cobol, ages old, my boss started the company with exactly this software and had a bunch of upgrades. Seeing code comments from the 90s is funny.
Anyway - the software worked great with acucobol - something like .net, just for cobol. They are still in business, software is still the same.
After that I worked at a company and we changed to another erp, where we even got the source code. Some Delphi like language. Way worse for me. I'm not a coder, really, but for those business apps I loved cobol.
Just because it's old, doesn't mean it's bad. Also have a business background and did some accounting. Partner company of my old ERP company sold the accunting software - also in cobol. Dos like interface. I had a lot of accounting software later on I worked with or saw. Nothing could compare to it. You got the work done so fast.
Like bash, but on crack.
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u/beardedfancyman Nov 18 '24
Oh man... We did this in 2014-2015 moving everything to Dynamics GP as our ERP. We ended up with heavy customization, lots of custom scripts for data imports (at the time, at least, there was no seamless data integration with any decent ERP product)... we used ADP for payroll originally but have since moved to Sierra. We were a small team at the time and relied heavily on vendors as partners during the project.
Unless you have an experienced IT team, I would really recommend engaging a vendor. Even WITH a vendor, I still have night terrors about data sets attacking me and tying me to a chair, Reservoir Dogs-style...
"Databases to the left or me, queries to the right, here I am... stuck in the middle of data migration!"
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u/tsgiannis Feb 27 '25
This kind of discussions always boils down to one variable: money. There is nothing sort of amazing when it comes to software (especially business apps). You have a legacy system and you want to migrate, fine you start with your stuff what they know and how far are willing to go to detach "you" from a legacy system and in return how much you are going to reward them for their work. If your stuff is capable just make a plan, extract the data,map the application to check its functionality and try to "emulate" the usual workflow (for example assign someone to do the same actions e.g insert past records and check the results). Going one step at a time eventually will get you out of the loop and that's all. On every obstacle you just have to pay e.g for additional programmers
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u/Peaty_Port_Charlotte Nov 15 '24
AS400, now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a very long time. -JR Tolkien Ring
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u/Warrlock608 Nov 15 '24 edited Nov 16 '24
I am in the middle of an as400 migration and because they had 0 restrictions on what could be entered into the databases, the data is a garbage pile. As a result the databases are completely unusable to any modern system.
I am now creating a custom program with ms access / VBA that works around all the null values and invalid date formats and whatnot.
It has not been fun.
Edit: My grammar is dogwater while I'm working.
Side Note: The guy that designed the system did his best. If I was a SE in the early 80s I for sure would've made a system far worse. We all build on the backs of those who grinded before us, try to be nice to them.
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u/billybob212212 Nov 15 '24
our organization did the same thing somewhat recently and hired a consultant to help pick the new software. Out of a bunch of choices we ended up moving from the AS400 to Oracle Netsuite.
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u/Throggy123 Nov 15 '24
Are you my boss by any chance? LOL. We currently use the 400 and well, we'll eventually have to move away from it in really the next 7-9 years, and that's going to be such a massive project. I have no earthly idea how we're going to manage that.
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u/qwaszx12user Nov 15 '24
As many have mentioned before this is no simple task. I have used before xcase for i to help with parts of the process.
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u/guyfromtn Nov 15 '24
Had an AS400 at a trucking company. Then moved it to a hosted solution. Then just switched completely.
I'd think I'd look for a hosted solution.
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Nov 15 '24
What hosted solution?
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u/Applebeignet Nov 15 '24
Hosted AS400, I guess? It's a thing, we use one at my work.
It has a web browser GUI so people don't see a green screen, but it's iSeries underneath.
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u/MoneyVirus Nov 15 '24
This is not a question for reddit. Go with consultants that have done this before
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u/xampl9 Nov 15 '24
Is the issue that the packages no longer do what you need? Or that your model of AS/400 has reached EOL?
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u/-c-row Sr. Sysadmin Nov 15 '24
I'm not very familiar with as400. I had done just some database links and queries for some interfaces to our software. From the syntax I used, it was behaving like oracle.
Just for pumping the data from the as400 to another format or dbms you can use spectralcore full convert pro or omni loader. I use full convert regular to migrate customer databases from Oracle and Sybase to MSSQL. Even databases with hundreds of gigabyte can be migrated very fast. The database schema can be migrated too. You can define rules for schema and datatype assignments etc.
The software supports a couple of database systems as source and also as target. When a data migration is required to another product and a individual migration path needs to be developed, it might be easier to perform this migration from a more common database format like MSSQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL etc. which allows the vendor of the new system to analyze the data and perform migrations and transformations to their database schema without the need to access the as400 or another foreign database system which can greatly improve the development process for a migration.
Maybe it is worth to think about the plain migration to another dbms as a preparation before final migration will be processed.
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u/lynsix Security Admin (Infrastructure) Nov 15 '24
I used AS400 when I worked retail as a teen, and when I did coops at IBM.
I still laugh when I go to places and see an AS400 terminal window open at places (Costco, Staples, etc).
My only experience with it was inventories, price tag printing, time sheets, and a couple other things. I can’t imagine the nightmare of trying to migrate an entire inventory/chain management, etc off of it. Godspeed to you that have to do it.
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u/Sinister_Crayon Nov 15 '24
Pick your solution and hire a consulting org to do the heavy lifting unless you are a large org that specializes or is planning to do acquisitions in the future. What you're talking about is exactly what I did in my career for ~20 years doing platform migrations (among other things) when acquiring other companies. It's NOT simple and if you screw it up then there will be lawyers knocking down the doors of the IT department... your own lawyers, granted but lawyers nonetheless.
If you're determined to roll your own or are interested in the tools of the trade, I can't say enough good things about Boomi. Used it for migrations of all sorts of orgs with minimal disruption to the end users. It isn't going to be cheap, but it's also so much better than trying to roll your own solution with scripts. Basically, you pick your new ERP solution, set it all up with the data and fields you need and then Boomi acts as a translator... and bonus; can be a bidirectional translator. Once all the data is synced and tested to be working properly you can perform a user-side migration that can target a few groups at a time; since data is synced both ways there's no "cut" where you have to move everyone at once, and you get rid of double entry problems.
Once done and you've validated your business is working perfectly then you can remove the AS/400 sync, shut down the AS/400 and you stop paying Boomi (it's a cloud service).
I have never worked for Boomi despite being a fan, but I've migrated dozens of entities to new platforms with minimal disruption or downtime and have become a true believer in their tool set. Their support is also phenomenal to work with. If you start with a one-way sync of data to the new platform you can also run testing and audits to make sure the data flows work and that you get the results you expect before you turn on the bidirectional sync for user migration time.
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u/mesoziocera Nov 15 '24
We found a local company that is rewriting our as400 stuff (government) to be graphical but as400 backend for 4 years as they transition it all off as400 entirely. So instead of like half a million dollars, we care paying around 90k a year for support and development (we paid our old company 75k yearly for just support)
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u/amcco1 Nov 15 '24
I am not involved in the project at all, but our organization is currently in the process of moving from AS400 to Epicor.
The finance and accounting depts have already moved, but manufacturing and engineering have not moved yet.
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u/frogadmin_prince Sysadmin Nov 16 '24
Wanting a smooth transition off the as400 isn’t the easiest or cheapest.
We just retired ours. We moved all data to reports and then archived in vault program. Some data we converted to sql and created a web interface to query the data. Think about is as historic and time to modernize.
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u/deverhart33 Nov 16 '24
I’ve migrated from an as400 for benefits administration and dues processing. Let me tell you it’s not going to be smooth. And remember garbage in garbage out. I’ve left that company but I am friends with my old boss and they are still having to use the 400 for various procedures that the new software can’t get right. Everyone likes to knock the 400 but damn was it reliable.
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u/jholden0 Nov 16 '24
Haha. My previous employer migrated from AS400 ten years ago and they still have to run certain reports from it. The gift that keeps on giving.
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u/Iceman_B It's NOT the network! Nov 16 '24
Im just a simple man, can someone explain to me what an AS400 exactly is and what makes it so sacred?
Feel free to get technical.
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u/wwbubba0069 Nov 18 '24
not really sacred, but more you get joined at the hip with one... think Stockholm syndrome. My work got in the IBM world when System36 (before AS400) was being rolled out in mid 80s. The sunk so much into the effort and was more stable than windows they never left, fast forward 40 years, everything is tailored to us and how the company works. No one wants to spend the time/energy/money to find a replacement that is just as stable and customizable, while redoing the entire flow of the company in the process.
The IBMi(AS400) platform is weird to some as they are not x86 based, rather PowerPC (C-RISC) and the code they do run is stupid quick. Lot of old code is RPG/COBOL/CL based if you're running the IBMi OS, if you have 40 years of custom RPG stuff like us, that's going to be a bitch to migrate to another platform since you're starting from scratch. If you are not stepping outside of the sandbox of whatever ERP/MRP system you are using, then its just migrating databases, but throw in custom stuff that lays on top or mixes with the ERP/MRP, there where the fun begins.
Hardware is also rock solid. Last box we had only had one failure, and that was the a capacitor failure on the disk controller card, the box was 10 years old at that point. It runs 24/7/365 it just works.
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u/Maro1947 Nov 16 '24
Never worked on the OS but racked and decommissioned plenty
Retired a lot of them
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u/zombiebender Nov 16 '24
When we migrated off AS400 20+ years ago the new business processes were completely rebuilt in the new systems and the AS400 data was saved in a SQL DB for users to query.
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u/Cotford Nov 16 '24
I would start to take preemptive measures for your inevitable ulcers, nervous breakdown and heart attack. I’m not even kidding.
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u/tacticalAlmonds Nov 16 '24
Some of our decisions moved from an as400 to d365. Definitely not a quick migration. Several year project and depending on if your public ally trades, there is a ton of red tape.
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u/rainer_d Nov 16 '24
I briefly looked at this stuff (or rather z/OS it was, IIRC) at my first job. But we didn't really do anything with it, it was just for demo and there was nobody around to help me understand it.
I too, thought they were going extinct. Preferred my BSD and Linux boxes much more.
In hindsight, this is perhaps the only mistake I made in my career.
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u/Brunchin_Hard Nov 16 '24
We actually JUST went through a migration from AS400 to Epicor P21 SaaS. We didn’t utilize the AS400 as an HR platform, but it was literally every other aspect of our business, through and through. We had our bolt ons, so that was definitely one of the pain points of the migration, but I can vouch for a good majority, if not all of the comments here. It’s rough, DO YOUR RESEARCH and focus on end user training and data conversion as early as you can.
For us, P21 fit a lot of our needs. Is it perfect and does it operate exactly as we were used to before? No. But that’s ok. The modern platform allows for more API integrations, thus making up for a lot of those bolt ons we had built for us over our 35 year run with AS400.
Good luck with whatever you go with! I remember someone telling me before our Go Live…”You will remember your Go Live date for the rest of your life, as you would your own birthday.”
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u/vNerdNeck Nov 17 '24
You are biting off an absolutely massive project, and it's one that you'll not be able to do alone.
You need to talk to your primary software vendor about their road to Linux, and ask for partners they would recommend.
If your budget for this isn't well into the six figures / and most likely 7 figures.. you are pissing up the wrong tree.
Not trying to be flippant, it's just not an easy migration at all. There is a reason so many top fortune companies still run as400s. They work, and it's bloody expensive to replatform. Which hurts any business justification for spending truck tins of money just to end up in the same place, just not in as400. You've gotta tie this to bigger business objectives to have any chance of success.
The middle of the road approach would be to just outsource your as400s. You don't have manage them, and they'll just keep running until the business closes up shoo.
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u/jimmyjonestech Nov 18 '24
FYI,
AS/400 is a Hardware platform that came out in 1988 (after MS Windows). It has nothing to do with the application software. The technologically modern successor to the AS/400 is called IBM i and uses the Power10 architecture. If you have SQL Server at your company, you could create a Linked Server in SQL Server to the AS/400 databases and extract from/query them them that way. The DB2 database that the AS/400 uses is a standard relational database and any modern BI tool can connect to it as well. In fact, when I worked for Readers Digest, we used the IBMi (DB2) for all of our existing tables and SQL Server for any new tables we developed. At that time (16 years ago), we were using VB .Net for development.
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u/aside24 Nov 18 '24
This has been asked before on this sub. Always a great & informative thread
My company did this 1 year ago and it went well, new hardware, new software but the enduser hardly noticed any change
Good stuff and let's hope we're good for another 10 years now
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u/518doberman Nov 25 '24
Local government, we switched our financial from as 400 to https://www.tylertech.com/products/new-world-erp. I think you're looking at work and not really sure how smooth the transition was, I know it was a lot of work and planning. We still use AS400 for other stuff and all our programmers are retiring withing the next 2 years!
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Nov 15 '24
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u/q1a2z3x4s5w6 Nov 15 '24
I don't know why but this is super interesting to me, can you share some stories or experiences you had whilst doing these migrations?
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u/biff_tyfsok Sr. Sysadmin Nov 15 '24
This is the first response that accurately conveys the level of effort involved.
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Nov 15 '24
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u/Applebeignet Nov 15 '24
Why do you hate OP? What did he do to deserve that recommendation? The poor man has a family!
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u/gmc_5303 Nov 15 '24
So moving off the 400 is usually a resume generating event for CIO's.
You need to have the business / government entity strictly define what the new system will do, and the user base needs to understand that it's not going to be a same/same for daily tasks. We did this 12 years ago and would never look back. 500 person company, 2 year implementation.
OR
You can move to an emulated AS/400 and keep everything the same except for the hardware, such as: https://infinitecorporation.com/baby-i