Personally I'd go the whole hog and get upto 8.5, especially if you are going to 6.1 as the web services support is fully integrated at that level rather than 5.4 which needs a couple of minor considerations that are well documented. 8.0+ gives you a minimum of:- A highly stable RPG ILE generatorNative Trigger Program Support*RTVFLDINF+ More. 8.5 gives you:- Service ProgramsWeb Servicesand Wicked search functionality that should have been in 20 years ago+ More. This is a thread on linkedin (Synon Programmers Group) that might also give a little more perspective. Also, note you should be able to directly upgrade to 8.5 from 7.0. Good Luck.Lee.
TARUN MALIK SENIOR PROJECT MANAGER at HCL TECHNOLOGIES
See all TARUN’s activity » Stop following Follow TARUN [left][left][left] Moving from Synon 5.2 to recent Versions.... Dear Friends,
Does any one of you have experience with migrating from older versions of Synon like 5.2 to the latest versions 8.5. I have few concerns while planning for this kind of a migration --->
1. The latest Version of Synon generate the source code by Default in
RPGILE. I need to know if I still have a choice to change the generation
language to RPG/400. If that is possible then are there any issues around it
that one would need to bear in mind while migrating from Synon 5.2 where
the backend source code is in RPG/400, to Synon 8.2 wherein default
code is generated in RPGILE.
2. What are the issues involved in migrating from old version 5.2 to latest
versions. Can I upgrade normally. Would appreciate if the relevant links,
docs could be shared about steps for Upgrade.
3. Does any one have idea about the support of BAR CODE Functionality
(specific to scanning of articles in Retail envronment) in Synon. If yes then
which are the Synon Versions which support this feature.
Thanks in advance for sharing your experience....
Regds,
Tarun Posted 20 days ago |
Reply Privately[left][left][left][left]Comments (3) <a href="http://caforums.ca.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=38860766&authToken=SDX7&authType=name&goback=%2Emyg"></a>
Murray Campbell Unemployed Application Technical Lead/Development Manager
See all Murray’s activity » Stop following Follow Murray [left][left][left] I am going to start by asking a stupid question. Have you confirmed with CA that it is even possible to jump over that many versions of Synon?
There have been quite a number of modifications to the model over the years, so beware of changes to the layout of messages in synon message files that are used during the generation of the code.
Also beware when generating ILE code out of a model that has traditionally been generated as RPG/400. The first hurdle is to convert all EUS from the RPG/400 to ILE. Fortunately IBM provide a tool to convert RPG/400 source, however, end user source may make use of how RPG/400 truncates high-order digits to fit a larger number into a smaller field. ILE will compile, but crash on execution with decimal errors.
The system we migrated from RPG/400 to ILE generation had this issue, as well as decimal overflow issues on counters in end user source. Again, RPG/400 truncated the high-order digit, where ILE crashes. This was most notable around counters where 999 + 1 in a 3.0 field would result in 0 for RPG/400 and a decimal crash in ILE. Note that poorly written action diagrams can also cause this issue when a counter is incremented without checking for overflow.
From memory there were some other issues as well, but I can't remember specifics as it was a couple of years ago. Having said that, all the issues came up either during the compile of the ILE source or during the rigorous unit and regression testing that will need to be carried out.
The model we converted was large. The generated source was several million lines of code and the executable objects were counted in the thousands. It had been upgraded through many releases of Synon over 16 years, and was at release 8.1 when I last worked on it. Posted 19 days ago |
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Rory Hewitt Software Architect at CA (formerly Computer Associates)
See all Rory’s activity » Stop following Follow Rory [left][left][left] Tarun,
1. The latest Version of Synon generate the source code by Default in
RPGILE. I need to know if I still have a choice to change the generation
language to RPG/400. If that is possible then are there any issues around it
that one would need to bear in mind while migrating from Synon 5.2 where
the backend source code is in RPG/400, to Synon 8.2 wherein default
code is generated in RPGILE.
Existing models will continue to generate in whatever language they were using prior to the upgrade. New models will default (in the YCRTMDLLIB command) to use RPGIV, but you can change that, either when the model is created or afterwards. The problems Murray mentions with the ILE generator crashing have been fixed since r8.1.2, although you will still need to convert any EXCUSRSRC to RPGLE
2. What are the issues involved in migrating from old version 5.2 to latest
versions. Can I upgrade normally. Would appreciate if the relevant links,
docs could be shared about steps for Upgrade.
Check with CA Support about this. I'm pretty sure you'd need to upgrade to something like r8.1 and then up to r8.5 - a 2-step process. CA Support will have the answers, though.
3. Does any one have idea about the support of BAR CODE Functionality
(specific to scanning of articles in Retail envronment) in Synon. If yes then
which are the Synon Versions which support this feature.
It's supported from r6.2, by using DDS user source.
Note that we only shipped r8.5 last month, so if you're looking for a fully stable release, you might want to upgrade to r8.1.2 and try that out for a while - as Murray points out, 2E has had a LOT of new features since r5.2. I mean, A LOT OF NEW FEATURES. Seriously.
Hope that helps,
Rory Posted 19 days ago |
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Lee Dare Synon and Plex Consultant/Development Manager
See all Lee’s activity »[left][left][left] Following on from the above. I understand that you will need to consider a 7.0 version as a staged approach. 5.2 isn't even Y2K compliant....
See this link for a list of the major enhancements in the product since 5.2
http://wiki.2einfo.net/index.php?title=Versions
Version 6 also included items like the NLL and LCL contexts..........+ more more more........
All outstanding issues regarding the usage of the ILE generator are resolved and 8.1.2 is very very stable. If you go 8.5 you can even take advantage of the web services and service program support.
One last thing to watch out for as you upgrade old models in when 2e renames fields if there is a clash in the Null model which can occur on large models or those where fields have user defined names. Do a trial upgrade first and take a close look at the exception report. Any that relate to database tables and especially keys need to be carefully considered.
I can assist with this if required.
Lee. Posted 19 days ago |
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