IBM i, FSP, and HMC release levels and PTFs (March 2023) Nathan Williams

​Below is a table of the major group PTFs for the last few releases. This is what we are installing for our customers on iTech Solutions Quarterly Maintenance program.

7.5
7.4
7.3
7.2
7.1
6.1
V5R4

Cumul Pack
22321
22328
22335
21084
17192
15063
12094

Tech. Refresh
1
7
13
9
11

Grp Hipers
24
102
177
226
285
210
204

DB Group
3
23
32
27
43
33
33

DB2 Mirror
3
21




Java Group
4
17
28
38
48
41
34

Print Group



3
13
31
49

Backup/Recov.
7
37
62
78
75
61
57

Blade/IXA/IXS



1
16
30
15

HTTP
5
25
42
51
53
46
36

TCP/IP
2
9
13
14
11
17
22

Security
12
43
83
115
110
60
 33

High Availability
3
12
20
22
18
 5

Hardware

2
18
35
44
 17

Open Source


6
6
6

The easiest way to check your levels is to issue the command WRKPTFGRP. They should all have a status of installed, and you should be up to the latest for all the above, based upon your release. Now there are more groups than the ones listed above, but these are the general ones that most people require. We can help you know which group PTFs you should be installing on your machine based upon your licensed programs. Here is a nice tidbit. The Cumulative PTF package number is broken down as YDDD, where Y is the year and DDD is the day it was released. Therefore, if we look at the cumulative package for 7.3, the ID is 21245. We can determine that it was created on the 245th day of 2021, which is September 2, 2021. Look at your machine and this will give you a quick indication of just how far out of date in PTFs you may be.
HMCs
Fixes are listed below in the order in which they should be installed for each software version. If you are upgrading to a new release, install the base version from recovery media or network image and then apply updates in the order listed. If you already have fixes applied and your current fix level is not in this list, just start with the next higher-numbered fix pack in the list. Be sure to read the release …
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Time is running out to catch the early bird savings at NEUGC 2023 in Westborough, MA. Register by March 31, 2023 with promo code EARLYBIRD. has everything you need to know about the event – costs, hotel registration info, speakers, sessions, and more. NEUGC (@NEUGC)

​Time is running out to catch the early bird savings at NEUGC 2023 in Westborough, MA.Register by March 31, 2023 with promo code EARLYBIRD. neugc.org has everything you need to know about the event – costs, hotel registration info, speakers, sessions, and more. pic.twitter.com/S4jh6NbSYc- NEUGC (@NEUGC)11:10 – Mar 28, 2023 Read More 

Do I Have Defective PTF’s On My System? Mike Darcy

​By now you should be familiar with IBM’s awesome free toolbox, QMGTOOLS. If you are not familiar with QMGTOOLS, I recommend you read this excellent article written by my colleague at iTech, Marc Vadeboncoeur.
For today’s article, I am going to focus on Option 24 of QMGTOOLS – “PTF Menu”
To get to this menu, simply add QMGTOOLS to your library list, and then enter “Go MG”

Choosing option 24 brings you to the PTF Menu, and this is where you can find some important information about the PTF’s on your system.

Option 1 “Compare group PTFs from IBM” will compare the Group PTF’s on your system, against IBM’s database of current Group PTF levels for your OS Version and Release. When the compare has been completed, you will see a message at the bottom of the screen saying “Spoolfile created with results…”

The spoolfile generated is called QSYSPRT and will be under the user profile you used to run the compare. Displaying the Spool File will show the current Group PTF levels from IBM’s website and the status of those levels on your system. (Not Found, Back Level, Installed or Related Group)

Paging down on the Spool File will then show a comparison of the Group PTF levels on your system against the current Group PTF levels from the IBM website.

Next, choosing Option 2 “Compare HIPER PTF’s from IBM” will generate another spool file, also called QSYSPRT. Displaying this spool file will show a list of HIPER PTF’s not found on your system.

Next, choosing Option 3, “Compare DEFECTIVE PTFs from IBM” will compare the list of defective PTFs on your system against the list of PTFs that superseded them on IBM’s website. This process will once again create a spool file under your user profile called QSYSPRT. This will show the defective PTF’s found on your system that have not been superseded.

These 3 Options under the PTF Menu of QMGTOOLS do a really nice job of giving you a quick and easy overview of your current PTF status. I strongly urge you to take advantage of these quarterly.
One last note, whenever you open QMGTOOLS, please first choose Option 13 – “Check IBM for updated QMGTOOLS” as this will make sure you have all the latest functionalities and updates for the tool.

Keeping your PTF’s current is the best insurance against system problems down the road!…
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Free Licensed Programs You May Want to Check Out Steven McIver

​Back when IBM i 7.5 was announced, IBM also announced several licensed programs that no longer cost any money to get a license for. Out of this list of programs there are two that stand out:  DB2 Symmetrical Multiprocessing and Advanced Job Scheduler. Let’s take a few minutes to see if you should consider trying either of these solutions.
DB2 Symmetrical Multiprocessing (we’ll call it SMP for short) has often been used as a possible solution to processing bottlenecks before paying to unlock an extra processor core for IBM i, which is quite expensive. To really take advantage of SMP, you must first have two or more processors licensed for IBM i on your system. After installing SMP on your systems, you can manually run queriers and tell them to use SMP parallel, or you can simply modify the QQRYDEGREE system value and give it a value of *OPTIMIZE to let the operating system determine the right times to enable it. Try running some long running queries with SMP parallel off and on to compare times and see if there is a time savings.
Advanced Job Scheduler is a separate solution from the native job scheduler on IBM i. As the name implies, it gives you advanced features for scheduling that you do not get in the native one. Here are three things I like about the advanced job scheduler that might be useful for you:

Calendars: If you have an end-of-month that is never on the same day each month, you can create a Calendar and place each of the end-of-month dates on it for the year. Then, you can tell your end-of-month job to run based on what your Calendar says.
Sequences: Maybe you want several commands to run in sequence at the time you’ve specified the job to run. You can line up a multitude of commands to one right after the other instead of having to schedule multiple entries or create a program.
Job History: Would you like to go back and see the last several weeks that a job has run to see if it’s been running normally or been ending abnormally or been running at all? AJS lets you quickly see that in the history log it keeps for each scheduled entry.

Both solutions sound great, right? The best way to obtain these licensed programs is to contact your IBM Business Partner and …
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