As part of the last Technology Refresh four SQL table functions were added that allowed me to extract certain journal entry types from the system audit journal. In the latest Technology Refreshes, IBM i 7.4 TR5 and 7.3 TR11, twelve new Table functions to extract other journal entries types were introduced:
When the new version of ACS was released we were informed that a new version of "Navigator for i" would be forthcoming.
Today I find that this new "Navigator for i" has been released. It is only available via PTF for the latest releases of IBM i:
You do not access the new "Navigator for i" via ACS, it has its own URL. On the partition I am using the URL is:
There have been times when I am debugging a multi-thousand line program when I find a line of code that can look something like:
1414.00 dou (X = Const1) ; |
I can see what value is in variable X. But my attempts to see what is in Const1 is met with:
EVAL Const1 Identifier does not exist. |
I use data structure arrays in many of my RPG programs. It has always been impossible to sort the data in the data structure array by more than subfield, that is until the latest Technology Refreshes, IBM i 7.4 TR5 and 7.3 TR11.
Included within the new TRs is a Built in Function, BiF, for RPG's Sort Array operation code, SORTA, that allows me to sort by more than one data structure array subfield. The syntax for using %FIELDS with a data structure array is:
Update April 13, 2022: New version is currently available for download here
It has been a busy couple of weeks in the IBM i world. We have had the announcement of the IBM Power 10 chips, new E1080 server, and new Technology Refreshes. On Friday all of these were joined by the announcement of an updated version of Access Client Solutions, ACS.
The new Power 10 chips and server, E1080, were announced last week and it should come as no surprise that IBM is releasing updates to their documentation.
This document, IBM Power Performance Capabilities Reference, has been updated with the CPW values for various models of the E1080 server running with the IBM i 7.4 operating system.
It also includes the same information for all of the Power 10, 9, and 8 servers going back to the Power 824 running IBM i 7.2, back in April 2014.
I won't ruin the "plot" by giving you examples of how fast the new E1080 is, the CPW numbers are impressive. You will have to check out the document for yourself to discover them.
You can download the PDF here.
The latest round of Technology Refreshes, IBM i 7.4 TR5 and 7.3 TR11, brought in three new additions to the RPG language. I thought I would start with two new Built in Functions, BiFs, that return the greatest or lowest value from an array.
The two new BiFs, %MAXARRAY and %MINARRAY, have the same syntax:
In what will be probably be the biggest announcement in the IBM i world this year IBM has announced their first server using the Power 10 chip, the E1080. I am not really a hardware guy, but I do appreciate the improved performance that the new Power 10 chip gives.
The ERP vendor SAP has developed their own SAP Application Performance Standard, SAPS, which they use to compare servers to one another. Their benchmark tests for the IBM Power 10 show that it outperforms Dell EMC PowerEdge with the Intel Xeon Platinum 8380 processor, SAPS 955.050 versus 248.530.
Even in a cloud environment 8 sockets, 160 cores of the IBM E1080 outperforms 16 sockets, 448 cores Google Cloud and HPE Superdome Flex.
To accompany the announcement of the IBM Power 10 launch we also have the announcement of the Fall 2021 Technology Refreshes, TR, for the two supported releases of the IBM i operating system, 7.3 and 7.4 . These TRs are necessary if you want to move to the new Power 10 E1080 server.
Comparing the page for IBM i 7.3 TR11 and 7.4 TR5 they have the same additions and changes:
With the Power 10 announcement happening tomorrow I received a link to a sneak peek from IBM, which you can watch here.
Look for the "orbs" and click on them as they will reveal more information.
If you have not registered for the announcement tomorrow, Wednesday September 8, click on this link to do so.
It has been a long time since I last wrote a post about display files, but I thought this was worth sharing. I was asked how you could determine which field the cursor is in when the prompt key is pressed. The prompt key is the SAA standard F4 key.
The person had found a very old program where the position of the cursor was returned as its location on the screen, as the row and column numbers. If this method was use they would have to determine the location of each field in the display file's record format.
I was asked is there an easier way?
Next week will be the biggest announcement from IBM this year, the next generation of IBM Power.
You can be there and learn about IBM Power 10 from the experts by attending this virtual announcement by signing up here.
Date: Wednesday September 8, 2021
Time: 10:30 AM (US Eastern time)
Duration: 45 minutes
Update August 13, 2024: New columns added to the SYSDISKSTAT View and Table function. Read about it here.
Back in IBM i release 7.2 the SYSDISKSTAT SQL View was added. It was introduced to give similar information to what can be see using the Work with Disk Status command, WRKDSKSTS, and allow us to do more with that information. Over the next couple of releases there have been new columns added to it making it ever more useful. I have to admit I have been remiss not writing about it until now.
In the latest Technology Refreshes, IBM i 7.4
With this statement I am going to get a snapshot of the which disks are the top five when it comes to the percent of the disk is used: