Month: December 2022

In time-honored tradition, IBM has announced technology refreshes for IBM i 7.5 (TR1) and 7.4 (TR7), and with them an array of features, of which there are a number of useful elements for System Administrators.

SQL Services

As ever, SQL Services continue to be an area of growth and this technology refresh is no exception with more than 30 new services added along with a number of enhancements to existing services. The majority of the new services are in two distinct areas: NVMe where password protection policies can now be applied to physical disks and managed, and Db2 Mirror for i where submitted job tracking has been implemented to allow administrators to check the status of a job submitted on a node, even if the originating node is unavailable. There have also been some improvements in error logging. Remember these services are best run via Access Client Solutions.

Navigator for i

Another heavily enhanced area is Navigator for i where many items have been improved. The management of the IBM i Audit Journal (QAUDJRN) has traditionally been a green screen task, but with the technology refresh that is no longer the case. From Navigator for i you can choose to view, obtain details, and chart data having it filtered by user. A real game-changer when compared to 5250 limitations.

Everybody’s go-to command WRKACTJOB has had an equivalent in Navigator for some time, but the technology refresh sees the introduction of different modes. In basic mode, which is the default and ideal for most, the speed has been dramatically improved. Other settings provided are ‘ALL’ which is somewhat slower as it returns every column of data and ‘WORK’ which is in between ‘ALL’ and ‘BASIC’ in providing data for some key work management elements. When drilling into an active job you can now delve into the SQL details if applicable.

Several monitoring items have been improved: When viewing the QSYSOPR message queue you can optionally see just messages requiring a reply, for storage checking both SYSBAS and IASPs can now be seen, and Systems Monitors have been enhanced now providing a mechanism for you to right-click to visualize the data being monitored.

With the Performance Tools licensed program no longer a chargeable product, IBM has enabled the use of both job watcher and disk watcher within Navigator.

The area of Intruder Detection has been introduced providing the capability to define rules designed to notify should possible intrusions be detected.

High Availability

Within Db2 Mirror for i you no longer require PowerHA for IFS handling in certain configurations.

Power Virtual Server now provides hardware-based replication within the cloud with the announcement of Global Replication Services (GRS).

General

A new version (2.4.0) of Db2 Web Query was announced

Not specifically linked to the technology refreshes or IBM i specifically but worthy of a mention, all the same, is the fact that IBM documentation can now be used offline. Head to https://www.ibm.com/docs/en and after signing in you’ll be able to download technical documentation to a Windows PC (Mac is coming soon).

It should also be noted that in May 2022 a subscription offering for IBM i was announced.

Official Announcements

7.5 TR1 https://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.wss?docURL=/common/ssi/rep_ca/3/872/ENUSAP22-0273/index.html

7.4 TR7 http://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.wss?docURL=/common/ssi/rep_ca/4/877/ENUSZP22-0344/index.html&lang=en&request_locale=en

Software-based logical replication for IBM i has been the mainstay for high availability and disaster recovery for many years, due to its ability to adapt to changing landscapes such as co-locations, and more recently the cloud. Maxava’s logical replication solution, Maxava HA, is based on remote journaling, an intrinsic part of the operating system with efficiency at its core, but what makes Maxava HA stand out from the competition?

Audits

Maxava HA has the capability to use before and after images, a feature provided by remote journaling which has credible benefits to the area of audits. The before image is used to check that a record is as it should be before it is updated to the after image. If a difference is detected between the before Image and what is on the TARGET server prior to update, corrective action is automatically initiated by requesting a partial audit of the file along with a check for any other bad records, fixing just the bad records found. This gives Maxava HA better real-time in-flight data consistency checking which in turn means that both SOURCE and TARGET are synchronized more than some other HA solutions, resulting in fewer resources being required to maintain synchronization. Maxava HA is conducting continual audit checking on an update-by-update basis, self-healing where possible while flagging exceptions which may require further investigation.

CPU Consumed on Production (SOURCE)

While some logical replication solutions are fully dependent upon the IBM i Audit Journal (QAUDJRN) as a foundation for high availability, Maxava have opted for a different approach. The primary use of QAUDJRN is auditing and relying on it for high availability can have an unwelcome impact on the SOURCE server’s resources. As an example, in busy environments the Audit Journal can become a bottleneck, potentially causing a delay in transactions being processed and sent before being applied to the TARGET machine, leaving you potentially exposed. Maxava HA has no requirement for there to be any core jobs active on the SOURCE server reading QAUDJRN.

Maxava’s innovative command intercept method has been designed to remove much of the resource required to maintain high availability away from the SOURCE server with most of the processing taking place on the TARGET, away from the demands that running production environments bring. This approach relays activity in the order in which it occurs, meaning the TARGET system need only process the activity it is sent, without the need for any re-sequencing.

Maxava HA has been designed to have a small and efficient footprint and is suitable for the most demanding environments with the largest transaction volumes. This efficiency has been achieved with the introduction of a library called MAXSYS which contains a copy of IBM commands necessary to perform dynamic replication. The MAXSYS library sits above QSYS in QSYSLIBL (System Library List). Each copied command has its CPP (Command Processing Program) changed to a Maxava version and is also tagged with an exit point program to initiate a Maxava HA function prior to the normal execution of the QSYS command of the same name. This Maxava HA action has no significance to applications and the QSYS command executes as normal. As such both object and data activity are captured and moved off the SOURCE server immediately and without the delays that pre-processing introduces. Because of these efficiencies, Maxava HA has fewer reasons to audit and fix, which in turn reduces the overhead on the SOURCE system.

Price and Flexibility

The most popular pricing option throughout the industry is now subscription-based and Maxava is a pioneer of this offering, having provided it for several years. Subscription-based pricing allows you to switch from a traditional capital expenditure model to an easier-to-digest monthly or annual operational number. Subscription pricing provides the opportunity for you to adapt and flex as your requirements ebb and flow.

Perpetual license and maintenance options are still available for those preferring this traditional approach to software ownership.

Cloud Ready

Maxava has a long-standing pedigree in working with both Managed Server Providers operating their own Power Cloud, and Public Cloud providers such as Skytap and IBM (Power Virtual Server). Our Migrate Live™ service supports customers when they need to upgrade their IBM i environment or migrate to a new system, either on-premise or to the Cloud, without downtime thereby ensuring data integrity. Maxava’s replication technologies are a quick and dependable way to enable data to be copied to a new system while keeping it synchronized in real time.

The Cloud is also a popular option for those looking to move away from on-premise or co-location forms of disaster recovery while taking advantage of consumption-based pricing and eliminating the need to pay for hardware and software maintenance. Maxava HA provides fast and reliable real-time IBM i replication to the Cloud.

Maxava HA runs natively in the Cloud, from region to region or between Cloud providers.

Support

Maxava offers 24 X 7 customer service and support having adopted a follow-the-sun model with fully qualified experienced personnel in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Japan. This model enables Maxava to offer first-class local support while reducing response times and delays when solving customer issues and queries.

This article is written by Ash Giddings, Product Manager at Maxava

Virtual Serial Numbers

Businesses are challenged with regards to 3rd party vendor licensing on IBM i, with many vendors choosing to tie keys down to serial number. While this has worked well, in the past 4 years we’ve seen considerable growth in cloud migration, to a subscription-based as-a-service model and away from perpetual licensing. Although public cloud offerings tend to have the ability to pin partitions to a specific serial number, by opting for this eliminates the ability to start a partition on any node. A big plus with cloud. With the introduction of virtual serial numbers on POWER9 and Power10 for 7.2 (with a PTF enabler), IBM have made partitions much more portable and cloud friendly.

Power Virtual Server

Power Virtual Server is IBM’s off-premise solution enabling Power Systems clients to run workloads on both scale out and scale up environments in the cloud. The announcement sees this solution include a consumption-based model with terms available for periods of between 1-5 years.

Save and Restore

The algorithm used for saving and restoring objects has had a makeover and is both faster and less intensive on Power10 hardware. The compression ratio has also been improved.

When saving IFS objects there is a new default to the ASYNCBRING parameter on the SAV command. It now defaults to *YES and will result in better performance. There is also a process to enable this default when using BRMS.

When restoring objects, the progress message now includes size of objects restored – especially useful in the event of a disaster.

Security

A welcome change has been made to CPF22E2, where whether an invalid user profile or password is entered, the same ‘User &1 does not exist or password not correct for user profile’ will be shown.

System Value QPWDLVL can now be set to 4, which when used will result in support for passwords of a length of 1-128 characters while removing passwords for password levels 0, 1, 2, and 3 from the system.

IBM i Services

A huge area of growth in recent years, IBM i Services are the modern way to interrogate a multitude of system metrics, via Access Client Solutions. With 7.5 comes two new services in TELNET_SERVICE_ATTRIBUTES and CHECK_PASSWORD. In addition, 13 existing services have been enhanced.

Integrated Job Scheduler (WRKJOBSCDE)

This free, simple scheduler now includes the ability to schedule jobs to run annually with the introduction of the *YEARLY frequency. In addition, you can hold the job scheduler itself via HLDJOBSCDE while maintaining the status of the individual jobs coupled with the RLSJOBSCDE command to release the scheduler.

Access Client Solutions

By popular demand, the Run SQL Scripts function of ACS now has tab support, although beware when switching between the tabs that there is only one results panel.

For those using ACS with many partitions, the ability to logically group servers will be a welcome addition.

Open Source Package Management has moved from the TOOLS dropdown and can now be found in the main Management area of ACS.

IBM Navigator for i

An addition to this tool is the audit journal visualization feature allowing you to see either a detailed or chart view of one or more entry types in either a daily or weekly view. Much friendlier than the green screen equivalent.

The PDI area of Navigator now includes a method to filter data you’re specifically interested in and to investigate the data of interest in a new tab while preserving your current view.

Support for configuring TCP Servers SMTP, SNMP and LDAP is also now included.

Db2 Mirror for i

Touted as a continuous availability solution for IBM i after being announced with V7R4 by writing to two nodes at the same time, this high-end product now has the capability to flag one of the nodes as active and the other as read-only. Use cases for the read-only node include BI. You can also mix releases and run 7.5 with 7.4.

Modernization Engine for Lifecycle Integration – MERLIN

Although not strictly aimed at System Administrators, this stand out feature is worthy of a mention. To stop businesses from potentially leaving the IBM i platform, MERLIN has been announced to help modernize, simplify, integrate, and automate workloads and applications. Built in an OpenShift container it is designed to guide modernization and can form part of DevOps and CI/CD as well as talking to GIT repository with ease.

This article is written by Ash Giddings, Product Manager at Maxava

Firstly, for something to be considered highly available it needs to be available “five nines” or 99.999% of the time, suffering less than 5 minutes downtime a year. Any figure larger than this and the application or service is not deemed to be highly available.

There are two distinct types of HA for IBM Power Systems running IBM i and these can be neatly categorized into hardware and software-based solutions.

Hardware-based solutions for IBM i include products such as PowerHA or LPM (Live Partition Mobility) both adopting an active/passive approach.

Software-based solutions like Maxava HA are almost exclusively based on remote journaling, an intrinsic part of the IBM i operating system since 1998. Remote journaling was introduced by IBM several years after local journaling and was designed with high availability in mind after several large environments started to voice this type of requirement for critical applications.

Hardware

IBM i running on IBM Power Systems is classed very much a modern server, and a steady increase in the utilization of external storage has been a factor in more hardware-based solutions being implemented for the platform. PowerHA, a popular choice especially with customers running smaller IBM Power Systems, is based on clustering technology, and is integrated with the operating system by way of a licensed program (5770-HAS) to provide protection for both data and applications. PowerHA is based on IASPs (Independent Auxiliary Storage Pools), and all application data must reside in an IASP for PowerHA to be able to protect and manage it. As a result, before implementing PowerHA you must migrate your data from *SYSBAS to an IASP. This task requires careful planning and should be conducted in association with 3rd party software providers, many of whom have published procedures on how to perform this migration. This switchable IASP is then “owned” by one of the two nodes in the cluster, and although both nodes can be active the data is only available to one. Users of PowerHA find this an attractive feature as it allows for maintenance without downtime to be conducted on the node that doesn’t currently own the IASP.

It’s worth noting that not everything on an IBM i can reside in an IASP, in fact there around 36 object types that can’t – they must continue to live in *SYSBAS, and while many of these objects are quite obscure, some are commonly used, and this can present a challenge to environments. With PowerHA there is a concept called the Administrative Domain where some of these objects can live, although not all. The Administrative Domain is extremely basic and does come with some limitations in both use and the number of objects that can be handled while maintaining consistency between the nodes in the cluster. You may also find that you will need to write some code to interface with the Administrative Domain in order automate some tasks that are intrinsic to software-based replication.

There are several different options with PowerHA:

Geographic mirroring, where the replication is done by the IBM i itself as opposed to the external storage and is designed for environments that typically have less than 4 TB of data. Geographic mirroring offers either synchronous, meaning both copies are identical and is designed for distances between the nodes not exceeding 30 kilometers, and asynchronous intended for larger distances at the expense of not having as current of a recovery point.

For those using external storage the options include Metro Mirror, which is a synchronous solution, meaning both copies of the data in the IASP are identical, and Global Mirror for those looking to replicate to up to three geographically dispersed locations where larger distances are involved. The latter being an asynchronous solution.

Hardware-based solutions like PowerHA require little day-to-day monitoring and can be an attractive option for those who have worked through the general malaise of migrating their data to an IASP.

PowerHA does not provide a mechanism for you to have your data visible on any other node other than the current “owner”, so tasks such as backups, reporting or BI will have to be conducted on the production server, potentially impacting system resources and requiring downtime windows.

An increasingly common mix in the IBM i user community is combining both hardware and software-based HA solutions, for example using PowerHA within the data center, along with a software-based logical replication tool like Maxava HA to get a copy of the data out of the data center and onto a partition in a co-location or the cloud for disaster recovery, backup, reporting or BI purposes.

Software

Software-based solutions in the form of logical replication do not require external storage or IASPs, although both are fully supported by Maxava HA, and are instead built upon remote journaling. This integral part of the IBM i operating system is both reliable and extremely efficient. While some software solutions utilize the IBM i Audit Journal (QAUDJRN) as a foundation for high availability, Maxava adopt a different approach. The primary use of the Audit Journal as the name itself denotes is auditing and security and using it for high availability can have an unwelcome impact on the source server’s resources such as CPU, plus in busy environments the audit journal can be a potential bottleneck causing a delay in transactions being processed and sent before being applied to the target machine, leaving you potentially exposed. Maxava’s innovative command intercept method has been designed to remove much of the resource required to maintain high availability away from the source server with most of the processing taking place on the target server, away from the production workload. Mavava’s compute requirements on the source server is negligible when compared to some other software-based high availability solutions.

Maxava’s software-based HA solution can replicate pretty much everything on IBM i including Db2, the IFS, IBM MQ and QDLS. It also provides the capability to conduct simulated role swaps that turns the target server into a simulated source server for testing purposes without impacting the source production machine or the user base. Self-monitoring and self-healing elements are also included as standard and designed to minimize day-to-day checks performed by System Administrators.

Software-based solutions can operate in either synchronous or asynchronous modes. Synchronous normally for environments which are physically close where an acknowledgement is received before the next transaction is processed, while the asynchronous mode can tolerate longer distances between the source and target partitions and is better suited to co-location, or the on-prem and cloud hybrid architecture mix. Asynchronous is generally faster as the remote journal communication transfer is initiated at the same time with the assumption that it will be successful, with verification and acknowledgment afterwards.

The flexibility offered by software-based HA solutions is evident and while it has a history of being used on-premise, it can also be utilized in the cloud, between on-premise and the cloud or increasingly popular as the engine for DRaaS to the cloud. Whatever your present and future IBM i environment looks like, software-based replication with Maxava HA fits.

This article is written by Ash Giddings, Product Manager at Maxava