Surprise! It’s 2024 Fall TR Time for IBM i
October 9, 2024 Alex Woodie
IBM announced the Technology Refreshes (TRs) for IBM i version 7.5 and 7.4 yesterday, bringing a host of new capabilities to the proprietary operating system. As expected, the surprise update covers a range of IBM i facilities, including Db2, Navigator, ACS, PowerHA, and the development tools.
Navigator gets several more enhancements with the new TRs, including: a new dashboard with software licensing information; Web-based administration of network facilities; support for monitoring of Java 11 and Java 17 jobs; enhancements to the Performance Data Investigator (PDI); and new options for working with audit journals, among other capabilities.
IBM also includes the recent enhancements in IBM i Access Client Solutions (ACS) version 1.1.9.6 with this batch of TRs. We covered ACS 1.1.9.6 when it was released in August.
The database is receiving updates to its core functionality, as well as to the host of SQL-based services that IBM has been building in recent years. A pair of new scalar functions for the creation of Universally Unique Identifiers (UUIDs) have been added, as well as a user defined table function to generate unfenced code.
Database engineers will appreciate a new table function that delivers info on indexes that is being delivered as a Db2 for i Service. Meanwhile, IBM is including six new IBM i Services to automate tasks ranging from capturing audit information more efficiently to gathering information about service tools.
SYSTOOLS will see seven enhancements with the new TRs, giving users more tools for accomplishing tasks on IBM i, including enhancements to SEND_EMAIL and new audit journal helper functions.
On the application development front, IBM is pushing enhancements to Code for IBM i, the VS Code plug-in that allows developers to work with ILE languages like RPG and COBOL from the comfort of a Web-based IDE. The database extensions have been extended to include more Db2 for i capabilities, such as integration with SQL Error Logging Facility (SELF) views, as well as a new command line interface for RPG.
Rational Development Studio for i (RDS) gets several new features, such as a two-year digit warning and new BIFs for returning maximum and minimum functions. Rational Developer for IBM i (RDi) is being updated with several new features in version 9.8.0.3, including IFS improvements, a delta compare feature, support for RDi tags, and improved JVM support.
Backup, Recovery, and Media Services for i (BRMS) gets several new features with IBM i 7.4 TR11 and 7.5 TR5, such as the addition of archive control group data to the backup status view and new optimizations to a command for restoring performance when restoring multiple libraries.
Customers that run PowerHA in the public cloud will enjoy major new features with these TRs. Previously, PowerHA, when deployed in a PowerVS environment, could only use PowerHA’s storage-agnostic switching and replication technologies, namely geographic mirroring, which doesn’t require a SAN (storage area network) and works with DASD (direct access storage device) on IBM i.
With the new TRS, IBM is now enabling PowerVS customers to use some of the more powerful replication and switching options in PowerHA that utilizes SAN-based replication and switching mechanisms. First up is support for Global Replication Services (GRS), which provides asynchronous replication between two servers and works similarly to how Global Mirror works in an on-prem environment.
GRS, which IBM introduced GRS to the IBM Cloud in 2022, uses a data replication mechanism that IBM used in Spectrum Virtualize, the software for managing IBM FlashSystem SAN arrays. In a statement of direction, IBM says it intends to add support for other HA technologies, including support for PowerVS FlashCopy and LUN-Level Switching.
IBM plans to deliver the bulk of the new functionality for the OS itself in IBM i 7.5 TR5 and 7.4 TR11 by November 22. Other products will ship in December, including updates to BRMS (December 15), RDi (December 20), and PowerHA (December 27). You can read the IBM announcement for 7.5 TR5 here and the announcement for 7.4 TR11 here.
Editor’s note: This story was corrected. Advanced Job Scheduler support was added earlier this year. IT Jungle regrets the error.
