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September 2005
It's a Wednesday. It's a perfect day outside. Sunny, in the 80s, low humidity. It's a perfect FOCUS Day for writing this Director's Chair. Did you notice the change in the subtitle of TABLE FILE CAR? It is now the FOCUS Language Quarterly, language being prominent to reflect the importance of the language that is common to virtually all Information Builders products. This one change emphasizes that the TABLE FILE CAR publication is clearly applicable to a much larger audience beyond our mainframe FOCUS users. I hope all of our user community can take advantage of its content.
Summit 2005 last May feels like a long time ago. Since our last issue of TFC was also published in May, this is my first opportunity to recap Summit events for you. We had fantastic attendance – about double that of previous years! That in itself was exciting as it showed the broad acceptance of the WebFOCUS product line as well as customers' devotion to mainframe FOCUS. OK, I suppose holding it in a fun spot like Las Vegas didn't hurt! The FOCUS sessions at Summit literally overflowed the conference rooms as we presented FOCUS Release 7.3, FOCLOG, Structured Hold Files, XFOCUS database, Table and Modify internals, and a host of other topics, all of which attracted not only the FOCUS contingent but the WebFOCUS people too who are clearly interested in a deeper understanding of the underlying language generated by the GUI. It made every day feel like a FOCUS Day.
By the way, Summit 2006 will be earlier next year – Florida in April. See www.informationbuilders.com/summit for the details. I'm already planning to once again be the first to welcome each of you at my FOCUS Roundtable on Sunday. Be there.
The next and future releases of mainframe FOCUS will follow the same numbering scheme as our WebFOCUS and iWay releases, and will coincide with their release dates as well as contain identical features (wherever applicable). Release 8.1 is the next major release, due out mid-2006 or so. Service packs for 7.3 will continue quarterly, with support for previous releases continuing as usual.
FOCUS Release 8.1 is slated to have many new features. Leading the way is an up to 20 percent across-the-board-improvement in performance over release 7.3, taking you as far back as release 7.1.1 performance levels. Sounds kind of retro – I like FOCUS Days like that. Release 8.1 will also feature the MDI (multidimensional Index) for hyper-fast retrieval from FOCUS and XFOCUS files, plus new Across summarization column types, Structured Hold Files, raised limits on segments and Linrec/Datrec, a new BY HIERARCHY facility for dimensional analysis, and a host of other features.
What is this FOCUS Day I keep mentioning? Well, my division is building a brand new full day program of training sessions oriented specifically toward the FOCUS language and how it ties into WebFOCUS. A must-see for both product audiences! Armed with topics for every level, we plan to take this FOCUS Day on the road later this year, to Information Builders' branch offices (and customer sites as requested) around the country where you can all attend. Brochures will be published soon and the next TFC issue will have more details.
The articles in this issue of TFC are, as usual, timely and insightful. The relational efficiencies article will help many of you who draw data from relational databases. Dates and their manipulation are perpetually important to analytical reports, so we re-cover it as the topic of the regular FOCUS 101 column. Also read more about the coming Structured Hold Files feature, the z/OS 1.7 certification, and the rules around MAXDATAEXCEPTIONS. Since the third annual Olympics Challenge lab at Summit went so well, I thought I would publish it here for you to test yourselves. And to satisfy your reminiscing urge, we added a new regular section called "FOCUS: Then and Now" that revives some of "the way it was" using FOCUS in the old days and how those burdens are relieved by current features, expanded limits, etc.
Enjoy the magazine, cherish the summer past, and look forward to the fall.
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