June 2011 iTech Solutions because IBM i (AS/400, iSeries) didn't come with a

System Administrator.

In This Issue

DR and HA Survey

Easier Signon with

Operations LAN Console

Faster IFS Saves

Upcoming Events

Release levels and PTFs

Quick Links

More About Us

Upcoming Events

Quick Links

Register Now

Last Month's

Newsletter

More About Us

Common Connect

Article on V6R1

How to make your

Greetings!

Earlier this month I was down in Alabama

doing an upgrade, and I had a free day in my

schedule. I decided to take a ride to

Tuscaloosa to see the area where the F4

tornado had gone through. This was about

6 weeks after those storms ripped through

the area, so I thought things would have

started to recover. Being from the

northeast, and never experiencing a

Tornado what I found was shocking. I was

expecting to see down trees and wind

damage. Instead what I saw was people's

entire lives just blown away. Giant trees

lying in the road and on lawns in every

direction. Trees that were as wide as a car

were thrown around like match sticks.

Houses without roofs, houses without walls,

empty slabs of concrete where houses once

stood, houses without a family, families

without homes, and communities without

people remaining. On some roads you would

look down the street, and see nothing but

total destruction in every direction. Not one

house in an entire neighborhood survived.

The destruction in the path of the tornado

Transition to IBM i

6.1 easier was mind boggling. People left for work the

morning of April 27th perhaps worrying

about small issues, and that afternoon

everything they owned, everything they

worked for was gone. It was a eerie feeling

standing in the middle of a neighborhood

without anyone around, and destruction in

every direction. The ray of hope was the

human spirit that I saw. People helping

people, and signs on many houses

proclaiming "we will be back". While it was

easy for my knees to shake surveying the

damage that mother nature can unleash, it

was good for my heart to see people fighting

back to rebuild their communities, their

neighborhoods, their houses, and their

homes. My heart goes out to those families

who suffered, and hope that their strength

will shine through as they rebuild their

homes.

So, I can imagine some of you maybe asking

"Well what does this have to do with IBM i

and System Administration". People's entire

lives were changed and possibly destroyed in

an instant when the tornado passed by.

What if some event like that happened that

affected your business? Those people that

regularly read this newsletter know I am

always talking about getting your backups

done, testing your recovery, insuring the

backups are done each night, that the

backup tapes aren't left in the tape drive or

in the computer room, etc. If something

happened to your company or even your

computer room that was a 10th as bad as

that tornado, you would have nothing left.

Nothing! So, what are you waiting for?

Check out your backups, make sure you are

moving your media off-site, make sure you

are backing up everything you need, and

insure you test out your recovery. It is

probably a good idea to talk to us about our

iTech Solutions eVault for off-site remote

backup. Your backup is immediately off-

site, and fully encrypted.

i can do anything with iTech Solutions

That is what our customers are finding out!

That their IBM i (AS/400, iSeries, i5) can do

anything when they work with iTech

Solutions. If you aren't, you can call our

customers and they will tell you why you

should.

Each month our newsletter brings to light

tips and techniques that help many System

Administrators in their job, as well as

managers know what is happening in the IBM

i world. We are happy to be able to help so

many people in the IBM i community. The

number of iTech Solutions customers is

growing each month, and that is due to our

commitment to our customers, our services,

and the support that we provide. Find out

for yourself what it is like to work with a

business partner who cares about you and

your success.

This issue of our newsletter has five articles.

In the first, I want your opinions on what you

are doing with Disaster Recovery and High

Availability. The second article is on making

Operations LAN Console easier to use. The

third article is about a PTF that improves

the time it takes to save your IFS. The fourtharticle lists some of the upcoming events inwhich iTech Solutions will be participating. The last article is for your reference withupdated PTF information.

If you are still on V5R4, send Pete an emailand he can help you upgrade to V6R1 orV7R1, with over 300 V6R1 upgrades doneto date you know iTech Solutions has theexpertise and know how.

iTech Solutions can help you improveperformance, upgrade i5/OS, performsecurity audits, implement a HighAvailability solution, Health Checks,Systems Management, RemoteAdministration, PTF management, Bladeinstallations, iSCSI Configurations,Backup/Recovery, upgrade an existingmachine, or upgrade to a new machine. Ifyou are thinking of LPAR or HMC, thenthink iTech Solutions. We have the skillsto help you get the most out of your Systemi.

For more information on any of the articles

below please visit us at on the web at iTech

Solutions or email iTech Solutions. We

would love for you to let us know any

articles that you wish for the future, or if

you enjoy any of the articles in the current

newsletters.

Disaster Recovery andHigh Availability Survey.

Last month I ran this article, as we were

looking for information on what people were

doing with Disaster Recovery & High

Availability, as well as what they were

planning on doing. I didn't get as many

responses as I needed, so I want to ask you

if you didn't get a chance last month if you

could take the survey. Thanks.

One of the things we are always interested

in is what people in the market place are

doing. Trends, directions, issues that

companies are facing. What are they doing

to fix or resolve those issues facing them.

We have seen in the past, that many people

in the i community have similar issues.

We would like to find out your opinion on

what you are doing with Disaster Recovery &

High Availability. Please click on the link

below to take this 2 minute survey and let

us know what is happening in the market

place. Everyone who completes the survey

will be entered to win one of three $100

American Express Gift certificates.

Disaster Recovery & High Availability survey.

Thanks, and we will be sharing the results

with everyone in the coming months.

You don't have to

sign-on to DST every

time you take over

the console.

Do you use Operations LAN Console for your

IBM i (AS/400 or iSeries) console? If you don't

have an HMC, this is the console that we

recommend. If you currently have a twinax

console, contact John at iTech Solutions and

have him convert you to Operations LAN

Console. The best reason is remote

connectivity, like being able to do a full

system back (Go SAVE 21) from home. Any

kind of restricted system command.

Operations LAN Console is just a blessing

when it comes to more easily managing and

administrating your machine.

One of the annoyances that happens when

you are using Operations Console, is that

when you try to reconnect to Operations

Console it asks you to enter your DST/SST

userid and password. Then the Console

Information Status screen is displayed,

where you hit F10 to take over the console.

Well, with 6.1.1 & 7.1 this sign-on can be

skipped. In fact, if you put PTFs MF44882 &

MF44894 on V5R4M5, or MF44644 & MF44647

on V6R1 you can also have this new

functionality.

With the new functionality, when you are

presented with the DST Signon screen, you

will notice an F18 function key at the

bottom of the screen. Pressing F18 will skip

the DST sign-on screen, and bring you right

to the IBM i sign-on screen for the console

device in the controlling subsystem. This

makes your life so much easier.

We have pointed this out to a few customers

during some recent health checks. The iTech

Solutions Health Check is to identify

problems you might have, best practices you

might not be following, identify performance

issues, security issues, etc. Yet, sometimes

it just takes someone to see the very simple

things that you are doing wrong. For help or

to have an iTech

Solutions Health Check contact Pete

Faster IFS Saves

IBM has released a PTF to improve the

performance of Saving the IFS. I have a few

customers who have a few million IFS

objects, so I know they will really benefit

from this. Of course, if you are on the iTech

Solutions Quarterly PTF maintenance

program, you will get this PTF as part of

your next service. For those people not on

our program, I will give you some additional

information below. You might want to get us

maintaining your machine for you, so email

us.

While one of the best ways to have faster

IFS saves is to do a little cleaning.

Unfortunately, that isn't always possible. I

have noticed that on many customer's

machines, their IFS seems to "collect"

objects. Sometimes this is because people

don't have insight into the IFS. If you are

managing your objects on your system using

the RTVDSKINF command (which collects the

information on objects in libraries residing

on your machine). You need to run the

RTVDIRINF command, which I wrote about in

a previous newsletter. This command will

gather information on all the objects in the

IFS.

The save process of the IFS can be a very I/O

intensive operation. IBM says that there will

be more CPU used after installing this PTF

during an IFS save, but in our overnight saves

at a few customers we saw the time to save

the IFS being reduced, but they weren't

keeping track of overnight CPU utilization. If

your saves are running with nothing else

running, then it won't be a problem. These

PTFs change the way a temporary structure

is accessed which results in a reduction in

the number of I/O operations. If you are

interested in the technical details, this is the

link for the informational APAR MA40515. By

the way, this is a delayed PTF which will

require an IPL to activate.

Here is the PTF for supported releases:

R540 MF52564 R545 MF52565

R610 MF52495

R611 MF52284

R710 MF52772

If you need help managing your PTFs, if you

would like us to handle your system

management, or take a look at one of our

support programs, contact Pete.

Upcoming Events.

Tuesday Sept 13 Omni User Group in Chicago

- Opening session, and technical sessions

TBA.

Tuesday Sept 27 - Vermont User group -

Technical Sessions TBA.

October 3 to 5th, in St.Petersburg, FL at the

COMMON Fall Event, Pete Massiello will

present:

What you need to know to do successful

IBM i (OS/400) upgrades to 6.1 & 7.1.

Virtual i partitions hosted by IBM i.

HMC, IBM i, FSP, Firmware: Putting all

the pieces together.

Everything you need to know to get

started with the new Systems Director

Navigator Console.

IBM i DevCon 2011 Las Vegas at Planet

Hollywood Hotel - Nov 2 to 4th. Sessions

currently being setup.

Release levels and PTFs

People are always asking me

how often they should be

performing PTF maintenance,

and when is the right time to upgrade their

operating system. I updated this article

from last month with the current levels of

PTFs. Let's look at PTFs. First, PTFs are

PTFs. Let's look at PTFs. First, PTFs are

Program Temporary Fixes that are created

by IBM to fix a problem that has occurred or

to possibly prevent a problem from

occurring. In addition, some times PTFs add

new functionality, security, or improve

performance. Therefore, I am always

dumbfounded as to why customers do not

perform PTF maintenance on their machine

at least quarterly. If IBM has come out with

a fix for your disk drives, why do you want

to wait for your disk drive to fail with that

problem, only to be told that there is a fix

for that problem, and if you had applied the

PTF beforehand, you would have averted the

problem. Therefore, I think a quarterly PTF

maintenance strategy is a smart move.

Many of our customers are on our quarterly

PTF maintenance program, and that provides

them with the peace of mind of knowing

their system is up to date on PTFs. 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.

Releases 7.1 6.1 V5R4 V5R3

Cumul. Pack 11116 11102 11137 8267

Tech. Refresh 2

Grp Hipers 34 92 157 169

DB Group 9 20 31 24

Java Group 5 15 26 23

Print Group 3 21 44 20

Backup/Recov. 10 23 41 33

Blade/IXA/IXS 6 20 14 -

Blade/IXA/IXS 6 20 14 -

HTTP 8 20 28 17

TCP/IP 3 11 18 16

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 V5R4, the ID is 9104.

We can determine that it was created on the

104th day of 2009, which is April 14, 2009.

Look at your machine and this will give you a

quick indication of just how far out of date

in PTFs you may be. I left V5R1 & V5R2 off

the list, because if you are on V5R1 or V5R2,

you don't need to be worrying about PTFs,

you really need to be upgrading your

operating system. The same can be said for

V5R3, but there are still customers who are

on those releases.

If you have an HMC, you should be

running V7R7.3M0. If your HMC is a C03, then

it should stay at V7R3.5 SP3.

For your Flexible Service Processor (FSP)

that is inside your Power 5 or Power5+ (520,

515, 525, 550, 570), the code level of the

FSP should be 01_SF240_403. Power 6 (940x

M15, M25, & M50 machines, and 8203-E4A &

8204-E4A) customers should be running

EL350_107. For Power6 (MMA, 560, and 570

machines) your FSP should be at EM350_107.

If you have a Power6 595 (9119) then you

should be on EH350_107. POWER7 the

firmware level is AL730_035 for 8202-E4B

(710, 720, 730, 740), AL730_035 for 750

(8233-E8B) & 755 (8236-E8C). Use

AM730_035 for 770 (9117-MMB) & 780 (9179-

MHB).

If you need help with upgrading your HMC or

FSP just give us a call. We will be happy to

perform the function for you or assist you in

doing it. Contact Pete Massiello.

We have the skills to help you get the most

out of your IBM i. For more information on

any of the articles please contact us at

info@itechsol.com . We would also like to

know what you think of this newsletter and

any items you would like us to discuss in

future issues.

Our staff of Certified i5/OS professionals can

help you get more out of your machines.

Remember,

i want everything to work.

i want control.

i want an i

i need iTech Solutions.

Sincerely,

Pete Massiello

Pete Massiello

iTech Solutions

www.itechsol.com