CNX Corporation (link resides outside ibm.com) has been a leader for enterprise application development on IBM i since 1996. Today they specialize in RPG and web application development with user interfaces built with advanced JavaScript technologies. They design tools such as their solution that allows anyone to build applications that turn data into business intelligence. CNX builds web and mobile applications on IBM i for their customers around the world in education, financial services, food and beverage, law, logistics, manufacturing, publishing, retail, and other industries. The company is headquarted in Chicago, Illinois.
The company had always run their hardware and business systems on-prem at their Chicago office, but being a software development team, they wanted to get out of the business of managing servers and focus on their primary expertise. Since the pandemic, many of their employees had also relocated and were no longer located at their main Chicago office, which made managing hardware even more of a challenge. Lastly, their Power7 and Power8 processor-based servers were coming to end of regular support, which would dramatically increase their maintenance and support costs. CNX started to research cloud-based solutions that would increase their flexibility, developer productivity, and allow them to focus on building innovative software solutions for IBM i rather than having to worry about managing hardware.
Working with IBM and Product Manager Tonny Bastiaans, CNX implemented IBM i on IBM® Power® Virtual Server. Power Virtual Server are configurable multi-tenant virtual Power servers with access to IBM Cloud® services. With Power Virtual Server, CNX was able to eliminate 100% of their on-prem hardware, allowing them to avoid paying expensive extended support costs and focus on what they do best rather than worrying about managing physical systems. They have a consistent development environment and experience for IBM i in the cloud just as they did on-prem, with separate systems for development, testing, and one dedicated for the specialized build of the Japanese version of Valence that their business partners have access to as well. Tonny walked CNX through the process of getting started with a free trial and explained the user interface, helping their teams get started faster and speeding time to value.
Power Virtual Server gave CNX the flexibility they needed to continue building new IBM i software solutions for their customers. They can scale up the amount of memory and cores when they need it and take it down when they don’t, reducing costs further by only paying for what they need. Productivity among their development teams has improved by working on the fastest Power servers available in the cloud. CNX is looking forward to their future of focusing on software development expertise for their customers without having to worry about managing physical hardware with Power Virtual Server.