The Uniquely Supportive IBM i Community and the Future It Is Shaping, With Marius Le Roux
IBM i consultant Marius le Roux joins Charlie Guarino on TechTalk SMB to discuss the friendly community surrounding IBM i, why authoring the IBM i 7.6 Redbook made him feel like a spy, why AI might one day be seen as an OS, and more
Click here to listen to the audio-only version.
The following transcript has been edited for clarity:
Guarino:
Hi everybody. Welcome to this edition of Tech Talk SMB. Today I’m interviewing a person that I’ve been watching on social media for the last several years and in my view has really made a significant impact to the IBM i community. This person posts some very extraordinary facts, keeps everybody apprised of what’s going on in the community and on our platform, and I think it’s really high time that we brought him in for a discussion and get his views on the community and the platform in general. I’m speaking about Marius le Roux. Marius le Roux is a consultant. His company is MLR Consulting and he’s located in Port Alfred, South Africa. Marius, it’s so glad to be able to chat with you today. Thank you for joining me here today.
Le Roux:
Thanks Charlie. Thanks for having me on new podcast.
Guarino:
Absolutely. When I read your bio, let me read it so that people in the audience have a little background who you are, but they may not be familiar with you. You’ve been in the platform for over 20 years, which is very impressive to me. Offering experience on operations, administration, programming, modernization, modernizing legacy systems, things like that, integrating with cloud solutions, Azure, MQ series, things like that and optimizing enterprise systems and workflows. That’s really a very impressive resume, but it’s not even, I haven’t finished yet because more recently you are a co-author of an IBM i 7.6 Redbook, which to me is quite impressive, so congratulations on that. To be part of a Redbook is a very impressive feat, so congrats on. That’s really impressive.
Le Roux:
It’s definitely one of my life goals that has been achieved. A life goal to be a Redbook author.
Guarino:
Absolutely. Well, you should wear that. I think you get a pin, they give you a pin to wear, they give you some kind of award.
Le Roux:
I think on the third one then I get a digital badge, but I’ll be looking out for my pin.
Guarino:
There you go. On the third red book. Okay, well I think that’s great. I want to just thank you very much for joining me as I said earlier. So tell me, I’m just curious, you’ve been posting on social media for quite some time and I’ve been reading and I know you’ve engaged with a lot with the community. I know of right now primarily you’re living and your work is primarily in South Africa, but certainly you have a perspective of what’s going on in the rest of the world in the IBM i community. I’m just curious if people who may not be familiar with what’s going on in your part of the world, how do you see what’s going on in South Africa the same, what’s similar and what might be different than other parts of the IBM i community in other parts of the world?
Le Roux:
Sure. From South African point of view, some companies are addressing the skill shortage by actually training their own people in-house, so they’re not relying on external vendors. It’s a little bit difficult to find people training. They always try with a normal IBM training to get people, but they realize that to have that impact, that lasting impact actually on anyone that is interested in the platform, they have to pivot into training them in house and that’s actually how I also started on the platform. As you mentioned from my background from operations, right through programming, right through now being a consultant, that’s the first job that I got from school, leaving school is, Hey, do you like working shifts? Sure, okay, what do I need to do? Load the tapes. And within the third month of starting at that company, I had my first upgrade from V5 R2 to V5 R4, not understanding what everybody did, but I was tasked just to load a lot of tapes and run a lot of commands, but I saw everybody was very stressed a little bit for that night of the upgrade, but they all followed through and understanding how this system called back then day is 400 at this institution.
It was the core, the heartbeat of that whole organization and people. It is sort of like seeing a mission control in NASA. Everybody’s hands on orchestrating, did that person do that command? Okay, no, something went sideways. Everybody chimes in there, facilitates that, and as an operator you start absorbing all of this and that actually said to me internally, oh wow, this is something unique. Trying to be part of that and people actually paying people to be part of this lifeblood of the organization. It was an amazing feeling of acceleration, and that kept me going throughout the last 20 years, just to know that there’s always a special thing that I know that somebody else doesn’t know, but that’s which thing I want to show and share with somebody else as well.
Guarino:
You’ve mentioned you started on the V5 R3, R 5.4, but now yet you’re a co-author of 7.6, and that’s so many iterations of the OS since back then. I’m curious for those people who may not be familiar with the process of a Redbook, what was your experience co-authoring? A 7.6, you get some kind of beta and you test it? And what was your role as a co-author in that red book?
Le Roux:
I felt like a spy. Everybody said you’re not allowed to tell anything anybody whatsoever. This is top secret. That was the first impression that I got, but within sight of that confines of the secrecy, everybody had lots to share. It was so amazing to see how everybody delivered value each and every meeting. They helped when somebody couldn’t make a certain task to completion and the information that even IBM, felt also very privileged to have direct access to the people like Tim Rowe and Scott Forstie and Sarah McKenzie being able to just email them, asking them and picking their brains. It was a different feeling. I always thought that they were unapproachable, that you always had to go through layers, but that just felt very nice to get to experience that during the Redbook, and I made good friends along the way as well.
Guarino:
Was about to say the three names that you mentioned, I know them quite well and I think that really is something very special about our community in general, the approachability of these top people at IBM, and you can just call them or email them, and I think that’s a fairly unique thing that we have and we’re very lucky to have that and it’s a pretty cool thing, isn’t it?
Le Roux:
Definitely. You tend to not get the same feeling on other communities that I’ve been part of with one minor exception is the mainframe community. That’s a very vibrant community and there are thirsty for knowledge. The kids really want to embrace the mainframe for some reason that amazes me still today.
Guarino:
I totally agree.
Le Roux:
Totally, we should get that infection the same way to IBM i now.
Guarino:
Absolutely. I think that’s great. You mentioned, you said the kids, let’s talk about the next gen. This is a conversation that I hear quite often about a talent problem that we seem to have or it’s perceived out there anyway. There’s a skill shortage and I know some vendors are using that as a scare tactic to some companies to motivate them to leave the platform or certainly put that thought into their head. I’m not sure I agree with it, but I’d be curious to hear your perspective because you are somebody who is younger than me certainly, but also a younger face in the community. I’d be curious, so what are your thoughts on that? Do you think the system itself, there are enough people out there to manage what we have out there today, the code base and the systems that are today given RPG and also all the other languages and open source tools that are available, what are your thoughts on that?
Le Roux:
I definitely would say so. People are really coming to the forefront with the challenges that are facing like in South Africa, the company that I mentioned, the young people love the platform. They start seeing these things and I get the same feeling with Liam Allen when he started coming on the scene, they got their minds blown. They thought that this was ancient and we just doing report type programs that sends out a little email with the CSV and people start realizing, oh, you just entered this little command or syntax and compile, then you can call a web service and it’s magic. You don’t need to install a driver, you don’t need to go through hoops just to get that detail and then you can work with the data in a very structured and cohesive way. What amazed me throughout the years was when the pace runtime really got embraced more than what it was back then with E-Series server. I just wanted to basically got to internet enabled. Everybody hated it at the time because Java wasn’t optimized but I, IBM took the challenge and they started optimizing and they shifted things around down into different layers and that decision paved the way through what we now know as know as Node.js and Python, and it just becomes another system in the enterprise that you can leverage from.
Guarino:
It’s true. I don’t disagree with you at all if there are people who are not on the platform today, but they have the skills that you just talked about and other skills too, including other open source tools, be it Python, PHP or Node and you mentioned Liam as well, Liam Allen. What’s been your impression, your own experience and also what you might hear from other people as far as the community itself being welcoming to these people and to yourself? Is it an open arms thing? I mean you mentioned the approachability to IBMers, but how about the overall community, even non IBMers, what’s been your experience with that?
Le Roux:
I’m going to shout out to Marina here. I asked her a question and she said, well, let’s hop on a call and then talk it through. I also thought that people were going to be very hesitant to just take up some of their personal time in order to just have this face-to-face meeting, and what that left me with was then to reach out to another person to pick their brains about what’s going on and having this conversation that you and I are having as well to just say what’s going on in the world and if you compare that to another community, maybe for the likes of the Microsoft communities, they might have a similar thing, but you not necessarily have that direct connection that what you have like a more intimate connection in a sense where people actually understand where you are coming from. I get the feeling that some people take some things for granted on other communities where they expect you to be at a certain level when you ask a certain question in IBM i community, there are no dumb questions. There are no, we all started somewhere. Most of us might not have had extensive programming background and due to the nature of these questions that we are asking, everybody learns from it as well and that pays level forward also for somebody else that uses them sort of training in the future, because you got the answer from somebody that gave you the opportunity. It’s a nice paying forward community I would say.
Guarino:
I agree with you, everything you just said right there. I want to talk about your particular background. You mentioned earlier that you started as an operator, a shift operator, and yet now while I don’t look at you as an operator, certainly you’re somebody who seems to do it all. I know we’ve had conversations about development programming, AI, and we’ll get to some of those topics, but you still have yet a very strong administration background. And I’d be curious to think how somebody evolves into that role, and how does somebody involvement in that role, I mean to be able to do all those different things that’s such a wide swath of expertise that you seem to possess.
Le Roux:
Well, it started with me becoming bored during those night shifts, reading the big Redbooks that were printed back then, not in understanding anything what I’m reading, and then also trying to say, oh, RPG is quite easy, so then I started asking the RPG developer, who in the mornings always asked me to transfer their objects into production, can you just quickly help me compile or debug this program? Eventually he shadowed me, but then he saw, oh, I’ve got the right attitude and then he proposed that I become sort of his junior to take some of these grunt work tasks that are keeping him from doing his work. Now those are the recompiles, fixed one-liners, the basic stuff in RPG. He springboarded me into programming in a sense, where he says that as long as you know your loops and your basic structures and you know how to debug shift 15 and you’ve got the determination, you can become an RPG programmer and that’s stuck with me for quite a while.
Then one company that I worked for, they unfortunately had to close down to personal reasons from the owner side, but that prompted me into starting my own consultancy because there wasn’t anybody else to do the work, and that just left me with sort of answering the client’s requests where they asked me, well, we know you’re a programmer, but can you take a look at this thing that happened on IBM MQ, because back then I had some experience with IBM MQ from operations background, and understanding the APIs between IBM MQ and RPG interfacing with the troubleshooting from the operations background just made it more effective. That sort of launched me into system administration because I realized, oh, we can actually have the two and one with you now just maintain and operate on the system as well. They obviously got a bargain for me, but I enjoy doing these things because the system is so well defined on a scenes to jump through the different facets. You really can seamlessly interact in different roles. One thing that I might add to say is that if you’re wearing a lot of hat,s over years of time, it starts rubbing off the hair in your head.
Guarino:
That’s very funny.
Le Roux:
You start switching it.
Guarino:
You’ve been saving that line for quite some time and I think that’s a good line. That’s a good one. I like that. One of the things that you have in your bio is that you specialize in modernizing legacy systems and to me modernizing has a million different definitions depending on who you’re speaking to and the context in which you’re speaking about it. I’d be curious to hear what your definition of modernization means just on the surface, and then we’ll delve into this because I think it’s such an important topic, but what’s your elevator pitch for modernization?
Le Roux:
It starts with understanding the goal of what the business wants to achieve. Do they want to save time? Do they want to save money? Do they want to save maybe a complex process that takes a lot of people to change and have input into. And then trying to distill that down into some sort of end goal that is actually deliverable, and sometimes it’s taking, for example, an Excel report that a user always runs by month end or just before month end. This process runs for the last 15 years, little to no changes was done to it, but over the last couple of years people just, they receive the file and then they further announce the file into Excel or with other data sources. That to me is a good candidate for modernization, because you can define the amount of time and effort it takes to augment the different data sources for this one person. I mean that one person effectively becomes part of the program, then they normally retire or they leave the company, which now the program breaks. So you then ask them, okay, how can we automate this by using newer technologies such as change data capture to have more real time data and also start building those platforms for business to enable themselves as well, while still keeping your systems of record running as they should, storing data securely and efficiently.
Guarino:
You hit on something. To me that’s quite important and when I asked you about modernization, you did not jump directly into converting to fully free-form RPG, you’re talking about this. You approached it from what I think is the correct perspectives and that’s modernizing the business first and the workflows first because the technology will follow that, but it doesn’t necessarily drive that. I agree that we need to convert the language and the code base and the database and all those things. That’s all important, but it has to have a means to an end, not just for its, I mean certainly maintainability is important, but you talked about business first and I think that’s what business people will understand and the more likely to reach for the checkbook when they understand how they are going to get an improvement in their operations.
Le Roux:
I would say that the first thing is I was very eager to rewrite everything just to make it easier on myself and leave it better for the person that follows me. But from the 20 year mark of experience, I realized that when you look at a program that’s been running efficiently that has had very little changes, yes, it’s difficult to change. It takes some time, but from a higher perspective or overall perspective, that shouldn’t be the candidate for modernization. It should be always used in the back of people’s mind when they do take on large projects for example. But now with the invention of an LLM with code comprehension tools with institutional knowledge, this program doesn’t become difficult to change. You can also with the new language contracts in RPG start introducing modern ways of doing things as well alongside those programs as well. So it’s a whole different landscape that evolved in the last 20 years with how people normally approached it. And the other example is green screen scraping. There’s a good use for it if you for example, don’t know what functions are being used by your users most often. So if you want to apply the Pareto principle of 80/20, look at what the users are using 80% of the time and focus on that by delivering the diagnostics through a greenscreen scraping tool, which can help you derive that easier and more efficiently out of the system as well.
Guarino:
It’s completely true. Yeah, but what do you think, we talk about modernization all the time and I know business executives, business leaders who are running IBM i in their shops, they hear that all, they hear that constantly. Do you think there’s a fear of it being overhyped maybe or maybe or more importantly maybe misunderstood and there’s pushback, and maybe are, there won’t be the right word, an unrealistic expectation of what modernization is going to actually achieve in a shop? What do you think about that?
Le Roux:
The short answer to that, Charlie, is that most C levels might not have an IBM i background first of all. So somebody needs to teach them what does this platform do and what is it really going on on this system? I think Alan created an article from “Help, Inherited IBM i, What Do I do Now?” And it’s true in that article to teach C levels, what does this landscape look like? Because I would also think that and having empathy for the C exec in their stature or their drop role, they don’t want to put up their hands to say, I don’t know, and who can I reach out to? Especially if they go on Google and they try and Google certain terms and they see all of this negative sentiment around the platform, it just rubs salt in the open wounds already. So having a support system around that by being able to reach out in the community with the right people, getting for example Seidin involved with their CIO assignments that will already start changing that landscape tremendously, and then understanding also from the people who maintain the systems because these systems, yes, they run efficiently 24/7, but they do get a lot of TLC by the real human beings as those real human beings, their opinions as well in certain conversations.
Where does this, for example, project involve the IBM i? What is their take? How do they see it, so that they just get a good understanding, because a lot of people, they fall in the trap, oh, it’s Db2, oh, it’s just a database. We can distribute it as a database. Many modernization initiatives fall flat when they realized that they cannot just use an ODVC query to these tables and try and join these queries together to get the same information as an RPG program does.
Guarino:
Agreed. One thing we spoke about which really piqued my interest was a word that you said that I jumped onto, and you said AI is the new interface, and that stuck with me or it struck me because I mean I’ve been doing research on AI myself and speaking about it, but I never quite thought about it as a new interface and I’d be curious, tell me a little bit more about that and how you meant it when you say it’s new interface.
Le Roux:
May I use a quote from or reference to Star Trek? So when the captain of the ship just speaks to the computer and the computer answers for running a diagnostic, that’s all that he does. He doesn’t look at a screen necessarily, he just says, computer do the diagnostics and return with us with the result. That is actually evolving right in front of our eyes. And here’s another reference that I can make from a use case that was on IBM i site with a company that interfaced with Alexa as an actual user interface to do some integration work on IBM i where they talk to Alexa like a normal assistant. Yes, it was deterministic at the time, but imagine now if you couple that with now these MCP servers that can be more flexible and reach to other sources in order to get a more comprehensive or a more accurate layout with follow up questions. Because in an old use case it was finite. Some people just build thing, use cases on that and then it’s done. Now people want to say, okay, what about 11th thing? I want to know five years and more data. For example, with AI, you’ve got that capability to be a little bit more clever in that engineering now that’s what I meant.
Guarino:
And it goes beyond that. Of course now with the advent of Project Bob for example, now developing will become presumably much more productive. That’s the whole idea behind it. I’ve had the chance to play with Project Bob and I’m so impressed with what it can do. Have you been playing with it or used it or read about it?
Le Roux:
Unfortunately not yet played with it. I saw the YouTube videos and read a lot of forum posts about it, people’s experiences as well on LinkedIn, and it’s definitely a game changer and I’m very, well, I’m shocked and surprised at the same time and very, I’ve got, it’s an infectious optimism on IBM’s part as well due to the announcement that they did last year at TechXChange on this, that IBM as a company, as the whole corporate company, are putting their name behind this, it’s not vaporware, it’s not just an idea that’s going to float. Somebody has put a lot of effort in the marketing around that. So it’ll be interesting to see once that gets released on what its full capabilities are and obviously it’s not going to be fully flexible as what the other AR counterparts are. I mean there is some guardrails and constraints that’s going to be placed into it most likely. But having the open source community also taking up the call to action to announce that. I’ve been following this MCP server that got released in December last year more closely as well and people are, it’s like Christmas for everybody there with that.
Guarino:
I agree with you. So you sound very optimistic to me about the future of the platform. I mean that’s, hearing that, and what do you think success looks like in maybe five or even 10 years from now on this platform? Might it be the same system? I mean certainly will be in a different operating system. A new release is what I meant by that. IBM has already clearly announced that the roadmap goes well beyond 10 years from even today. But what do you think success looks like as far as how the system is going to be used in business? Is that too difficult of a question? I’m not quite sure. Maybe it’s a little unfair to ask you that question, but is it?
Le Roux:
I’ll give it a try. My theory or the way I’m seeing the future is going to be definitely how IBM Rochester or the engineering team is going to build more things closer in the operating system. And I’ve got a feeling of there’s more to come closer and more private into IBM i itself, with the advent of these new types interfaces to Spyre, the AI card for example, some sites that I’ve worked with, they not necessarily want to provision a whole Red Hat environment just to run this little thing that can only run on it. And one of the cases were with Merlin, they were very interested in Merlin, but they don’t want to just provision and Red Hat environment just for that. So if they start bringing in things closer to the operating system, like what they did with Java back in the day, we can see very interesting things.
And the thing that I’m getting from it is the watson geospatial things that they’ve included in operating system. Obviously people have asked for it and IBM said, okay, well let’s do this and a nice challenge and look at what interesting things has now come from it, and that’s close. You don’t need to call a system on the outside anymore. So imagine maybe one day with AI inside of the operating system system as well. It’s running efficiently close to your data, helping the system also become more autonomous as well. Rochester’s team is probably going to swear at me now for saying that.
Guarino:
Well, but as evidence how they’ve already have rolled out other technologies as part of the design, the design itself, it lends itself to adopting things very quickly I think, or more readily I should say.
Le Roux:
And with what they included with the MFA capability, it’s also showing me that this platform can really become to the, I think it was the previous code name of one of the systems, fortress Rochester, which like a fortress, it becomes very difficult to get into the system.
And there’s no way around. I tried to wrap my head around it and I’ve just got a headache. There’s no way to disable things once you’ve enabled it other than having that code, not even IBM when you call them and say, well, we lost all of the code. And they’re going to say, okay, well you’re going to need to reinstall the whole operating system. So that’s interesting because if you try and apply it from my experience on the platforms that I’ve been involved with like Linux and Windows, there are ways, lots of ways, very interesting ways as well to get into the places where you shouldn’t be in. Too many back doors. With IBM I, there’s that just different, it’s totally different if one really goes and look at the architecture of it, which I hope more people will be interested in.
There’s obviously vulnerabilities on IBM i. No one can make the claim it’s unhackable and not crackable anymore, especially with configuration drift as well with most clients. But if you keep abreast of it, which is also a very good thing with an AI agent for somebody to try and help you monitor whether that drift happens in certain recommendations and looking on the internet, oh is nice vulnerability, is it actually applicable to my site? Let me sound along to quickly get people to start actioning it. Especially if my IBM i is connected to the internet, which actually people do.
Guarino:
One expression I hear all the time is that out of the box, it’s not the most secure system, but the most securable system.
Le Roux:
Yeah, that’s pretty it.
Guarino:
Yeah, just like your phone. I mean when you get a new phone, it’s wide open. I mean you can lock it down somewhat, but your phone out of the box is very, very wide open, so correct. And there are apps that are a little nasty that can do things that you’re not necessarily aware of, which is completely true. Let’s shift a little bit before we start wrapping this up. Let’s talk about things that maybe people need to hear about this platform that they may not be hearing today or an uncomfortable truth. What might be an uncomfortable truth? People need to hear about this platform.
Le Roux:
I mean keep on saying this, all object is not to be used sparingly, or what, judiciously. And the reason why is that it just creates so much more avenues of attack and headaches down the line. So when somebody is really, everybody that works on the platform needs to understand that security starts at the person using the platform. There’s no more just, oh, he’s IBM i admin, it’s his problem, or there’s a security needs their problem. Everybody that’s using the platform needs to understand certain things around that. And just having certain authorities granted for you just because it was done in the past in that way or some software, no, you cannot run it through without that. That should really be challenged and rectified immediately.
Guarino:
Yeah, the old saying is that there’s nothing more dangerously said than this is the way we’ve always done it. That’s a dangerous statement for sure.
Le Roux:
And that’s also with the young generation. They actually do challenge that. I’ve been in a few conversations before when I myself said, well, that’s always how it was done, and we should look at really trying to keep it as close as possible where they start challenging this to say no, and this is too difficult and too complicated. There should be an easier way. And that with experience, with that tenacity and attitude of a young person can be working wonders in certain companies to reach a new objective and a new environment situation.
Guarino:
And that’s what keeps me optimistic, for sure. So let’s kind of wrap this up now, but I do want to ask you one final question, and this is your chance I suppose, to speak to IBM i professionals. It doesn’t matter where they are in their career, newbies, midrange, mid-career or retirees. What would be your message, your final message, your final point that you want to share from your perspective, from where you sitting today, where you’re sitting today, what’s your final message out to the community at large?
Le Roux:
Definitely for them to become involved more. I always lurked a lot in the shadows, so to speak, observing from the mountain if you take that analogy. But the action doesn’t happen when you’re alone at the mountain. The action happens there with a party down where everybody’s having a musical festival. So that in the last three years have really changed my whole feeling around the community and having people being able to be reached that you can reach out to and that especially if you’re having really difficult problem that you cannot easily solve through Google or even your LLM, just being able to go onto then River, I think it’s now called Zulip. Can ask a question. Everybody will be able to chime in when they’ve got a time. They’ll help you. If they don’t know the answer, they’ll point you in some direction. I’m kind of like in that age range with the internet relay chat.
So I would like a more real-time answer than the email, but I also realize that there’s email forum groups on midrange where a lot more wise people in their experience and knowledge gained will help you even quicker than any immediate message. And these two avenues exist in our community where people really want to help. They don’t shun you just to say, well, you’re supposed to know this. You’ve got already 20 years of experience. Go and Google it first or read the manual. There are no dumb questions. And I find that very unique to the community, and the message that I want to leave everybody with is for the 20 years that I’ve been on the platform, I think the next 20 years is just going to be even better with what’s coming around it. And everybody’s welcoming you with all open arms.
Guarino:
I think that’s a very profound statement you just made there. And I think it’s one of hope, which is really nice. It’s an optimistic and optimism and it’s all those things. So thank you for sharing that. I think that was wonderful. It’s no surprise to me why you were nominated and also have become an IBM Champion. You have all the attributes of what IBM Champions have, and I’m proud that you’re part of that community as well.
Le Roux:
Thank you.
Guarino:
Absolutely, Marius. It was a true delight speaking with you today. I’m glad we had a chance to chat and catch up. Always great to see you and to have a little nice conversation. And thank you very much for joining us. I hope everybody enjoyed this little podcast and got to learn a little bit more about you and more importantly about your perspectives and the community at large. I think you have some very valid points and various very interesting insights to what’s happening. So thank you.
Le Roux:
Thank you for having me, Charlie.
Guarino:
Absolutely, totally a pleasure. All right everybody, until next time, we’ll see you soon and thank you for listening, and we’ll talk to you again down the road. Bye now.
Le Roux:
Awesome. Keep up. Thank you. Take care.