The Sybase Users' Group of Texas - September 2004 Newsletter (www.sugtx.org)


[Houston City Skyline]

 

 

Table of Contents:

 

 1)  SUG-TX August 24th Meeting Highlights

 2)  Upcoming September 28th SUG-TX Meeting – “PowerBuilder to Web Strategies”

 3)  SUG-TX October 26th Meeting

 4)  Sybase Offers ASE Express Edition for Linux - FREE*

 5)  Houston User Group for Sun (HUGS) Meeting

 6)  Sybase Events

 7)  Sybase Learning Center Schedule for Dallas (Sep - Dec)

 

 

1) SUG-TX August 24th Meeting Highlights

 

The Sybase Users’ Group of Texas held their meeting on Tuesday, August 24th with a presentation on the activities and announcements at TechWave 2004, recently held in Orlando, FL. 

 

Don Clayton, President of SUG-TX, welcomed everyone to the meeting.  The group went around the room and introduced themselves and held a Q&A session.  Don introduced Cindy Bean, SUG-TX Secretary and ISUG (International Sybase User Group) President, who discussed the activities that ISUG was involved in at TechWave.  Cindy presented the ISUG Innovation and Achievement Awards during the opening keynote session.  This year’s winners were Sethu Meenakshisundaram of Sybase, and Bruce Armstrong of Integrated Data Services and TeamSybase.  A special award was presented to Luc Van der Veurst for his ten years of service on the ISUG Board of Directors.  ISUG also held their annual members meeting, staffed the ISUG booth in the exhibit hall, sponsored a user group officer luncheon, and held the annual Enhancements/Ask the Expert sessions.   The ISUG Board of Directors were very busy during the conference.  Cindy also reviewed the database announcements made during the conference, including the beta of ASE 15.0.

 

Next, Don reviewed the conference announcements around the tools products.  PowerBuilder 10 was released just prior to TechWave and the keynotes discussed the roadmap for PowerBuilder 11.  Don went on to describe Sybase’s current strategy for their tools, including PowerBuilder, PowerDesigner, EAServer, and Appeon.

 

Kathy Ridley, SUG-TX Treasurer and ISUG Enhancements Director, discussed the latest on the ISUG enhancements process and the new design partner program.  Kathy showed the enhancements area on the ISUG web site and how the process works.  The design partner program allows Sybase customers to participate up front with Sybase engineering during the design of new functionality.

 

Check www.sybase.com/techwave2004 for more information on TechWave 2004 and www.isug.com for more information on ISUG.

 

 

2) Upcoming September 28th SUG-TX Meeting – “PowerBuilder to Web Strategies”

 

The Sybase Users' Group of Texas will hold their next meeting on Tuesday, September 28th.  The meetings are held at HAL-PC, 4543 Post Oak Place, Suite 200, Houston, TX 77027 (map), from 4:00pm to 6:30pm.  Members frequently continue discussions at Champps Sports Bar after the meeting while waiting for traffic to subside.

 

September’s topic will be “PowerBuilder to Web Strategies”.  Updating PowerBuilder applications to facilitate Internet and Web Services Architectures is a topic of great interest to developers.  Various strategies and tactics are available to PowerBuilder developers today to allow for the migration of PowerBuilder code to web and web-based architectures.  These strategies and tactics will be discussed, along with real life examples of moving PowerBuilder applications to the web. 

 

Options include the “screen scraping” approach of Appeon, partitioning an existing PowerBuilder application while building a new HTML-based front end, using .PDF-centric approaches to web DataWindow reporting, exposing PowerBuilder user objects as Web Services, integrating Java-based frameworks such as Java/Struts with PowerBuilder, and various PowerBuilder based frameworks for EAServer.  The meeting will be moderated by Don Clayton, and different SUGTX members will be discussing real-life examples from the projects they have worked on.  Be sure not to miss this exciting round table discussion format, and bring your war stories!

 

 

3) SUG-TX October 26th Meeting

 

October’s topic will be “The Power of PowerDesigner 10.0.”  Matt Creason, Sybase Senior Technical Consultant specializing in PowerDesigner, will discuss how PowerDesigner can benefit both DBAs and application developers.  This will be a high-powered presentation similar to John Strano’s July presentation, so mark you calendar and be sure not to miss it!

 

 

4) Sybase Offers ASE Express Edition for Linux - FREE*

 

Get a Monster of a Deal, Not a Monster of a Company

 

Introducing Sybase ASE Express Edition for Linux—the first enterprise-class commercial database that can take you from pilot to deployment for zero dollars and zero risk.

 

That’s right. Zero software licensing costs. Zero maintenance costs.
Develop a pilot project on Linux without cost or risk AND without scrimping on performance or manageability. Since it’s an industrial-strength data management platform, you'll be able to handle growth and evolving requirements without painful, expensive upgrades.

 

Why is Sybase giving away licenses for this great database for free? Because Sybase knows that once you get to know Sybase and ASE, you'll go back for more. Proof? Check out the customer quotes and stories on the offer page (below).

 

Download your free database today!

 

See the full story and the terms and conditions for the free offer at http://www.sybase.com/linuxpromo.

 

 

5) Houston User Group for Sun (HUGS) Meeting

 

The Houston User Group for Sun meets on the second Tuesday of every month at the Houston Sun office.  The next meeting is October 12th.  To be added to their mailing list, contact Art Blummer.

 

 

6) Sybase Events

 

a) Webcast Series - Easing Application Integration with SQL Anywhere Studio

 

Join iAnywhere for a developer-focused webcast series that will help you minimize the pain, time and cost of backend integration. Choose one or more of the following webcasts:

 

    Topic: Introduction to QAnywhere Application Messaging

    Date:  Wednesday, September 22nd

    Time: 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT, 11:00am – 12:00pm PDT

 

    Topic: Building Database Powered Web Services Applications

    Date:  Wednesday, October 6th

    Time: 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT, 11:00am – 12:00pm PDT

 

Full details at http://crm.sybase.com/sybase/www/iAS/integration_intemail.jsp?tpl=ias.

 

b) Webcast - Mobility: Rollouts without Rollbacks

 

iAnywhere will provide an educational webcast discussing mobile and wireless application rollouts that  features Gartner. In this seminar Gartner will discuss where enterprises have found positive ROI’s with mobile/wireless technologies. The seminar will examine some key risks that have delayed or prevented production rollouts. Gartner will also discuss the best practices and proven technologies that are used to overcome these challenges.

 

    Date:  Monday, September 27th

    Time: 1:00pm - 2:00pm CDT

 

Full details at http://www.xcellenet.com/Event.aspx?ID=55.

 

c) Webcast Series - ISUG Techcast Series

 

   Topic: Real-Life Solutions for Migrating ASE Servers to Linux

   Date:  Tuesday, October 5th and Thursday, October 7th, 2004

   Time: 12:00pm – 1:00pm CDT

 

The monthly ISUG techcast series, featuring popular topics from TechWave, starts again in October.  Registration information is available at http://crm.sybase.com/sybase/www/ESD/ISUGOCT2004Regis.jsp.

 

If you missed previous techcasts, you can view the recording of past sessions or download the presentations at www.sybase.com/isugpresentations.

 

 

7) Sybase Learning Center Schedule for Dallas (Sep - Dec)

 

     Sybase Dallas Learning Center

     14800 Quorum Drive, Suite 505

     Dallas, Texas 75240

     Contact:  972-687-6400

     Register: 1 800-8-SYBASE

            

04 Oct 2004  5 days  Advanced Administration and Troubleshooting for ASE

18 Oct 2004  5 days  Performance and Tuning: Configuring ASE

25 Oct 2004  5 days  Fast Track to Replication Server Administration

01 Nov 2004  5 days  Fast Track to Adaptive Server Enterprise

08 Nov 2004  5 days  Fast Track: Developing Robust Apps Using PowerBuilder 9.0

15 Nov 2004  5 days  Performance and Tuning: ASE Query Optimizer

15 Nov 2004  1 day   Introduction to SQL 12.5

16 Nov 2004  4 days  Advanced T-SQL: Tips and Techniques

29 Nov 2004  5 days  System and Database Administration: ASE

06 Dec 2004  5 days  Fast Track to PowerBuilder 10

 

Please verify class availability with Sybase registration or http://sed.sybase.com/Osiris/osiris_location_NAA1.htm#DL

 

 

     Hilton Computer Strategies

     6001 Savoy, Suite 207

     Houston, Texas  77036

     Contact:  713-782-6665

     Register:  www.hiltoncomputer.com

             

18 Oct 2004  5 days  PB101: Basic Programming Using PowerBuilder

Pre-register 5 days  PB301: Advanced Programming Using PowerBuilder

 

 

Send news & events to: secretary@sugtx.org

 

Do you have suggestions for our group?  Let us hear them.  We are working on new web site features which will include member self-service functions and member feedback capabilities.

 

Would you like to present your Sybase solutions to the Sybase Users’ Group of Texas?  The group is always looking for compelling presentations for our monthly meetings.  Let us hear them!

 

Please forward this newsletter to anyone interested in learning more about Sybase products.  To be added to or removed from the SUG-TX mailing list, send an email to secretary@sugtx.org.