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IBM i 7.3 - TR7 Enhancements

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IBM i 7.3 - TR7 Enhancements

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You are in: IBM i Technology Updates > IBM i 7.3 - TR7 Enhancements
 
IBM i 7.3 - Enhancements timed with Technology Refresh 7


The remainder of this landing page intends to make it easy to see the supporting detail these enhancements.

 


Db2 for i Enhancements      
image 2073


Db2 for i - Functional Enhancements

Db2 for i - Database Management Enhancements

IBM i Services (new and enhanced)


Db2 for i - Services (new and enhanced)

Hardware and Firmware
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Platform

  • New processor feature for 11-core or 22-core configurations of the Power System S924 server
  • HMC and Novalink injection of license keys to an IBM i LPAR
  • VIOS support for selected PCIe3 x8 SSD NVMe adapters
  • New generation of enterprise 2.5-inch solid-state SSDs

Virtualization

  • Support for SR-IOV logical ports on a restricted I/O LPAR

Functional

  • Enhanced unmap support for IBM Spectrum Virtualize
  • Dynamic LUN expansion with the IBM DS8900 storage controller

 IBM i Operating System

Clustering enhancements

  • Replicate an encrypted password
  • Change synchronization for an inactive node 

F8 - F9 Retrieve command enhancements

 



IBM i System Management and Monitoring

Access Client Solutions - ACS

The ACS support continues to address the needs of the Administrator, User, and Db Engineer. The new version 1.8.0.3 due to be delivered in Late Nov/ Early Dec will have many new features across the ACS product.  

Run SQL Scripts - this interface is becoming the defacto SQL IDE for the IBM i community. In addition to the SQL formatter and verifier that was added last release the new release will contain the following new features:

  • SQL Content Assist - Think of this as prompting, only better 
  • Button to download all results 
  • Enhanced Insert from examples, 
  • Button to Save as new example 

5250 Interface - the 5250 interface on the IBM i has been enhanced to now support the 'F8' button to give you the ability to scroll up and down through the list of previously entered commands one at a time.  The 'F9' key has also been enhanced to provide a matching capability. From the command line enter DSP* and press F9 you will see the previous commands you entered that match that value. Details on the PTFs needed to enabled on the IBM i can be found at F8 and F9 enhancement details page. 

ACS Application Package for IBM i - A new application package has been added to support the ODBC driver running native as part of the PASE environment.  This allows ODBC access to the Db2 database from open source languages like Php, python, and node.js running on IBM i.  This is available today on the Access Client Solution Download page.

Nagios for i support

The IBM i team has partnered with Nagios and has created wizard to help facilitate the adding of IBM i node/LPRAS into the Nagios dashboard. Additionally, a wizard has been created to help with adding custom SQL to better leverage the many IBM i SQL Services that have been created to help the administrator understand and monitor key aspects of the IBM i system. These new wizard have been integrated into the latest NagiosXI. Details can be found here: Nagios plugin support for IBM i


     

    IBM i Application Development 

    Integrated Web Services - IWS 

    The IWS server can now be located within in a private subsystem.  In the past the IWS support was only allowed to be part of the HTTPSVR subsystem. Users can now define their own subsystems to have specific IWS servers located within.  
     

    RPG Updates - 5770WDS

    New operation code DATA-GEN

    • DATA-GEN generates a structured document, such as JSON or CSV, from an RPG variable. It requires a generator to generate the document. The DATA-GEN operation calls the generator, passing it the names and values of the RPG variables, and the generator passes the text for the structured document back to the DATA-GEN operation, which places the information into the output file or the output RPG variable.

    Overloaded prototypes

    • The OVERLOAD keyword defines a list of other prototypes that can be called using the name of the prototype with the OVERLOAD keyword. When the prototype with the OVERLOAD keyword is used in a call operation, the compiler uses the parameters specified for the call to determine which of the candidate prototypes listed in the OVERLOAD keyword to call.

    OPTIONS(*EXACT) for prototyped parameters

    • When OPTIONS(*EXACT) is specified for a prototyped parameter, additional rules apply to ensure that the called procedure receives the same value as the passed parameter. For example, without OPTIONS(*EXACT), the compiler allows the passed parameter to be longer than the prototyped parameter, and it allows a data structure to be passed that is related by LIKEDS to a different data structure from the passed parameter. With OPTIONS(*EXACT), the passed parameter cannot be longer than the prototyped parameter, and if the prototyped parameter is defined with LIKEDS keyword, the passed parameter must be related by LIKEDS to the same data structure.

     Additional details can be found at the RPG Cafe

    Rational Developer for i
    Continuous focus on developer productivity and ease of use modern programming yields improved RDi features and usability that will be delivered as part of RDi 9.0.6.7.  These updates will be delivered later this year. 

    Enhancements coming soon:

    •  Improved SQL formatting and SQL syntax verification
    •  New Preference index - allows you to search all the preferences and shows you the structure of the Preferences
    •  Addition of a Library List control, to adjust the library list being used within a connection
    •  Continued improvement of Refactoring support within RDi

    Details on the new feature will be detailed on the Rational Developer for i Fix List page once the new release has been delivered.

    ZeroMQ
    The ZeroMQ core engine in C++ (libzmq) has been delivered in RPM form. ZeroMQ is an open source universal messaging library. It is an important building block, as numerous applications rely on this technology. For more information, see https://zeromq.org/

    The Python bindings (pyzmq) are also available, making the ZeroMQ capabilities easily available to Python applications on IBM i. For more information, see https://pyzmq.readthedocs.io/

    Redis
    The open source in-memory store mechanism is now available in RPM form. It has several uses, such as a message broker, cache, or database. It is great for enabling applications that use this technology or is commonly used to support new development of web applications (particularly Node.js). For more information, see https://redis.io/

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    Document Information

    Modified date:
    27 April 2024

    UID

    ibm11164640