February 2017 IBM i Announcements

Once again it is announcement time, with IBM i 7.3 Technology Refresh 2 and IBM i 7.2 Technology Refresh 6 being announced.  As is somewhat typical for these Technology Refresh announcements, the content for both releases is quite similar.  Steve Will’s blog Announcing IBM i 7.3 TR2 & 7.2 TR6 reviews the announcement overall.  I want to focus on a few enhancements that will make an IBM i administrator’s life a little easier.

(more…)

IBM Call Home Web and How It Can Work for You

To first understand what Call Home Web can do for you, here is a brief description of IBM Call Home:
IBM Call Home constantly monitors the health and functionality of your system. Should an event requiring service occur, the Call Home function first notifies both you and IBM Support of the event. The function then automatically opens a service request and transfers preliminary critical diagnostic data to authorized support personnel. By obtaining information in this way, IBM Support can quickly identify problems and develop an action plan for problem resolution giving you a more effective first contact support session and ultimately, an overall reduction in time to resolution. And rest assured, all information transmitted to IBM is encrypted and sent via secure protocols. Only critical diagnostic information is provided; none of your business data is ever transmitted.

(more…)

IBM i Job Trace

When you have a problem you need to resolve, how you approach doing problem determination depends upon the actual problem. IBM i has a very rich set of diagnostic tools for problem determination purposes.

In this week’s blog, I’ll talk about what is called the “job trace facility.”

(more…)