IBM has announced IBM i 7.2 TR3 and 7.1 TR11.
The following landing pages exist in the developerWorks IBM i Technology Updates wiki. Go to these landing pages to see the full complement of enhancements and easily navigate to the technical details:
- 7.2 TR3
- 7.1 TR11 (link no longer available)
This announcement includes a lot of exciting features that are coming to IBM i and I recommend you read it.
This week, I will review a couple highlights from the announcement. There are two things that I think many of you will find very exciting. They are:
- Additional IBM i Services and
- IBM i Access Client Solutions is being enhanced to include the SQL Performance Center and Run SQL Scripts
IBM i Services
If you’ve been following this blog recently, you know that I have written a few times on IBM i Services. With this latest announcement, you have even more reasons to be interested in them as several additional services will be available soon. The announcement included a list of the new IBM i Services, and that list is below with a little more information.
- Lock information: You now have another interface to access lock information. There are two significant advantages with the SQL interface to access lock information:
- WRKOBJLCK and DSPRCDLCK commands do not have output file support. If you needed a programmatic interface to access this lock information, your only choice was to use the appropriate API. Now you can access this same information via SQL.
- With a single query you can retrieve the object or record locks for an entire library worth of objects. One-stop shopping with SQL!
- System Status information: New services will allow you to use SQL to access system status and memory pool information similar to you can get from the WRKSYSSTS and WRKSYSACT commands or equivalent APIs. However, this new system status information is more comprehensive and gives you a broader view of system status information. The memory information provides you the expected pool information and faulting rates that you would expect, but you will discover that you also can get at information available from WRKSHRPOOL as well.
- License information: This information similar to what you would review using the Work with License Information (WRKLICINF) command.
- Output Queue information: This information similar to what you would review using the Work with Output Queue (WRKOUTQ) command.
- Media Library Status: This information similar to what you would review using the Work with Medial Library Status (WRKMLBSTS) command.
- TCP/IP Network Status: You will be able to access TCP/IP Netstat information, as well as information on routes, interfaces and jobs. The job information that you can access is the jobs associated with network connections. Using this service, you can retrieve information where each row that is returned has information about an active connection and contains the remote and local port, address, name, type of connection, the job name, user name and more.
These services will be delivered via the Db2 Group PTF (SF99701 and SF99702). You can watch the Db2 for i – Technology Updates page for their availability, this blog, and twitter.
Scott Forstie, the Db2 for i Business Architect, has written the article “What’s new in Db2 for i with TR3 – Turn the “page” with SQL on IBM i” to explain the database enhancements. (I’d also like to thank Scott for his assistance in writing this blog.)
Access Client Solutions support for SQL Performance Center and Run SQL Scripts
Those of you who have been using System i Navigator (the Windows application) are likely aware that there are still pieces of function in that application that have no similar solution in any of the other IBM i management interfaces. IBM is well aware of this and has been working to address this gap.
This announcement addresses a very important piece of that gap.
IBM i Access Client Solutions (ACS) has been available for some time and is now being enhanced to include the SQL Performance Center and Run SQL Scripts. While the SQL Performance Center will be useful to many, Run SQL Scripts is something that everyone can find a reason to use. (Like those IBM i Services…)
As shown in Figure 1, Run SQL Scripts in ACS has some important enhancements for SQL users. Whether you love the color highlighting, fast application startup or the ability to use the application in more computing environments, you should download the latest ACS client.
Figure 1. Run SQL Scripts in ACS
There is so much more in this announcement! In future blogs, I’ll cover more of the features that are coming your way.
This blog post was edited to fix broken links on April 15, 2020.
This blog post was originally published on IBMSystemsMag.com and is reproduced here by permission of IBM Systems Media.