i Can Blog Archive

Technical Tips for i by Dawn May

Search the Job Log of an Active Job

Job logs for ended jobs, where the job log is in a spooled file, are easy to search on the green screen. When viewing the spooled job log, you simply enter your search text in the find field and press F16. In addition, you can use F14 to limit the columns in which your search is performed, then press F16 to search. 

However, when using the green screen, there is no find field when viewing the job log of an active job. Jobs with pending job logs have a similar problem. 

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Copy Performance Data using ACS IFS Tasks

This week, I want to review considerations to copy performance data to a different partition. Many IBM i shops may want to analyze performance data on a partition other than the production system.  The Performance Data Investigator uses SQL, and it may be desirable to keep that SQL workload off your production partition.  

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Editing a File in the IFS with Navigator for i

Navigator allows you to edit IFS files with a simple text editor.

Last week I compared the features of the Integrated File System between Navigator for i and Access Client Solutions in Working with the IFS:  Access Client Solutions vs Navigator for i. One key difference is with Navigator you can edit files in the IFS, while with ACS you can only view files. I had also previously written about the support to edit files in Navigator with the IFS Enhancements to Navigator for i article. Navigator allows you to edit IFS files with a simple text editor. 

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IBM i 7.2 Improved Temporary Storage Tracking (Part 8)

Temporary storage is tracked in a set of buckets; each active job has its own bucket, and there are global buckets used for temporary storage, but not associated with a specific job.

This week I want to let you know of an article written by IBMer Tim Clark of IBM that was recently published on the IBM i Developer site titled: Temporary storage and the database, Part 2 – Manage your Maintained Temporary Indexes (MTIs)

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How to Identify Your Active 5250 Session

I’ve been using tabbed sessions in the ACS 5250 emulator for a long time now. I really like the tab feature; tabs along with watermarks made it easy to identify which system I am logged in to. With a bit of configuration, you can make it easy to identify the active tab as well as customize the appearance of inactive tabs.

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i Can use IBM DVD Images with my USB 3.0 Adapter

IBM i began supporting USB flash drives back in 2012, but their use was restricted to save/restore and IFS options (refer to the blog IBM i Now Supports USB Flash Drives for additional background information). Many users downloaded the IBM Fix (PTF) DVD images, copied them to a flash drive, and then discovered they could not access the fixes because the entire DVD image was “just a file”.

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IBM i Embraces Syslog

Syslog is a very popular reporting system that runs on many devices and OSes. It uses various parts and programs to encode, transmit, consolidate, and analyze messages from a wide range of devices. Everything from Windows and UNIX to firewalls and IoT devices participate in sending and centralizing messages from across the enterprise.  That is, except for IBM i.  Of course, we always must be different (usually for good reasons).  However, when a security team wants to have an enterprise-wide view of events with a tool such as a SIEM (Security Information and Event Management), we sometimes feel left out.  Until now!

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Meet the PowerHA Family

IBM PowerHA SystemMirror for i was first introduced in 6.1 and has received continual updates and new functionality since then. As PowerHA has grown, new features such as the recent HyperSwap technology continue to bring even more high availability and disaster recovery options to meet the ever-changing and diverse needs of businesses around the world.

PowerHA now offers solutions that fit customers both at the largest end of the spectrum with the largest Power Systems and latest storage area network (SAN) technologies as well as those with just one or two cores on internal storage.

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STACK_INFO IBM i Service

IBM i Services have become quite popular, and it has become typical for new and enhanced services to be included with IBM i announcements. STACK_INFO is one of the new services that is part of the recent IBM i 7.3 TR3 / IBM i 7.2 TR7 announcement.

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