IBM Puts Out First Cumulative PTF Patches for i5/OS V6R1

Published: March 31, 2008

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

On March 21, which was two Fridays ago, IBM began shipping i5/OS V6R1, the latest iteration and a substantially improved version of the venerable family of operating systems for the AS/400, iSeries, and System i platform. It is a big set of patches.

How big? Well, according to System i PTF Guide editor and IBM System i business partner, Doug Bidwell, chief techie at DLB Associates, the i5/OS V6R1 cumulative patches come on a DVD, and the current crop of patches weighs in at 3.74 GB. "Yep, it's a biggy," says Bidwell. "You got to wonder what kind of patching is going on when the Cume for a new release is almost as big as the release itself."

Bidwell wanted to alert readers of The Four Hundred that they should remember that it is DVD format and to be sure to order it ahead of time before contemplating an upgrade or new install of V6R1. The i5/OS V5R4 cumulative release weighed in at 10 CDs--with three of them for database and HIPER PTFs--and the cumulative updates for V6R1 are not small, either. You can see why IBM moved to a DVD format for the patch distribution. (Hopefully, IBM has seen the error in its ways and is not trying to charge customers for the DVDs, as it apparently was trying to do last year. Spend the buck or less on the DVD, Big Blue. Don't be greedy, particularly with System i shops that are trying to keep current and that are spending big bucks on the platform.)

As he has for many, many years, Bidwell is also keeping track of patches to all the current i5/OS releases and many of the older OS/400 releases, too, in the System i PTF Guide, which is distributed by IT Jungle. You can look at the archive of guide issues at this link.

As you are upgrading to V6R1 and applying patches, let us know how it goes. If all goes well, this is just as important information as knowing when and where something goes wrong. And as always, thanks for helping your fellow System i shops out.

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