Remain Software Releases TD/OMS Version 16.1

Customer satisfaction is extremely important to Remain Software and providing exceptional software and support is a tenant of their business.

And, our colleagues from the Netherlands have now been doing this for 25 years – delivering on a commitment of quarterly updates and releases.

So, with the recent release of TD/OMS version 16.1, on a rainy afternoon in early July 2024, I spoke Wim Jongman, owner and chief technical officer at Remain Software, to learn what’s new and what to expect…

What’s new in TD/OMS Version 16.1

 

Below are some of the highlights from my conversation with Wim on the latest TD/OMS Version 16.1 release:

Andy: Wim, thank you for joining me today. Can you give us an overview of the latest release of TD/OMS and the key new features and improvements?

Wim: We released version 16.1 on the third of July. We always take a Wednesday for a release, and it is actually a combination of four Milestones that we did leading up to this release. So, four releases in one! Now, we’re ramping up already towards version 17 but version 16 has been a really nice year for us. In it we have VS code integration plus a bunch of new rest services available for APIs too.

Andy: I know that remain are always keen to get customer feedback to help them drive forward development of their solutions. Did you use user feedback from previous versions in this update?

Wim: Almost everything based on the customer feedback. Of course, we have to set out a roadmap for things that are new and that people maybe do not ask for, but the majority of our development is devoted to features and enhancements from customer requests. One, such development was from a customer that was doing a really large task. There were about 300 components programs and files in this one task and the question was, okay can this be a little bit easier to complete – make it more usable? And we basically implemented a solution for this in a month. We have something like 25-20 of these kind of improvements per release and at least 100 have been implemented in version 16 over the last year.

Andy: I see that this release is to, and I’m paraphrasing your marketing here, ‘to unleash development speed and efficiency…’ can you provide a little insight into how this new release achieves this?

Wim: Yes, and that’s not by mistake! In this release, we have seen is a big Improvement in speed because we are using our new rest APIs. With these, you skip much of the overhead from services such as JDBC and as a result are seeing a throughput speed increase of up to 10x.

Andy: Now, one of the really interesting new developments is the release of a new web development environment…

Wim: That’s right Andy, the first version of Octo brings essential functionalities of TD/OMS to the web, including work management, ratification, task and object management, and a comprehensive dashboard. This dashboard provides analytical insights, kanban tools, , and tracks the progress of DevOps activities through trend analysis charts. As an added bonus, everything that is running in the web browser. So, you can see your tasks in VS code. You can see your text components and then double clicking will open the beautiful editors within vs code.

Andy: Thank you Wim, before I let you go, can you let us know where we can get the latest released?

Wim: They can just go to the usual channels. So, it’s in the download section on our Remain Software website. If you have an installation already you can even pull it in directly from their IBM i with some command functions. Then, we need to set-up the rest server… but we have a command for that as well. Of course, if customers want some help, they are more than welcome to give us a call and we can jump online to set up this whole new environment for them.

Andy: Wim, thank you for your time, our customers really love what you’re doing and we look forward to the next release.

Wim: No problem, thanks Andy and thanks Proximity too!

 

TD/OMS Version 16.1 introduces enhancements that transform the development process:

• A new Web Development environment called Octo provides a seamless, zero-install development experience.
• Extended SSL configuration options for REST server instances, enhancing security and flexibility.
• Updated REST API documentation, simplifying integration and development.
• New CLI and REST APIs for various functions, significantly expanding automation capabilities.
• Integrated support for Visual Studio Code (VS Code), allowing developers to leverage the popular code editor
• Major GUI improvements, including fixes for application interface issues and enhanced tree node comparisons.
• Server-side enhancements, such as improved checkout and promotion capabilities for IFS objects.