IBM i 7.4 Released - What Has Been Improved?
The newest version of the IBM i operating system has now been released. IBM has elected to release on a three year time frame, splitting the difference between the four years preferred by developers and the two by administrators. Here are some of the improvements that have been offered:
Db2 for i Enhancements
Db2 Mirror offers a continuous availability solution, and appears to be the most significant addition this cycle. The point is to reduce or even eliminate some of the most common causes of downtime. It works by mirroring the database across two independent LPARs, resulting in a much lower risk of downtime as it would be rare for both to experience problems at the same time. It works with many SQL services. The release also includes a number of enhancements for Db2 for i, including updating Authority Collection (introduced in 7.3) to work by object rather than just by user. The system also has disaster recovery support and support to replicate IFS data, meaning your data is even safer. This is Active-Active mirroring, not passive, so users should not even be able to tell which server they are being directed to.
Security Improvements
In addition to the improvements to Authority Collection, 7.4 contains a variety of security upgrades. These include support for TLSv1.3, automatic certificate management and enhancements to change the rules for user IDs and passwords. NetServer has been updated to SMB3, which supports larger read and write sizes and end to end data encryption for entire client/server conversations. The biggest improvement, though, is still Authority Collection, which has been popular since its release and now features several different SQL views to make it easier to use. The tool's ability to ensure that regular users did not have unnecessary special authority was always valuable, but the object-based view is easier to deal with if you face a security update. It supports the QSYS file system, root, QOPenSys, document library objects, and any user-defined file system.
Meanwhile, support for TLS 1.3, which is the updated version of SSL, is a big move, if a little belated, as specs were established back in August of 2018. This allows all users access to the most secure encryption methods. The Digital Certificate Manager has also been updated, allowing for more of its functions to be automated, including managing the trust list and requesting renewals.
Core Updates
A few changes have been made to the core operating system. This includes the ability to configure workload groups by job description, improved SMT reporting and some enhancements to the Service Tool Debug system, including allowing administrators to configure LAN for remote support and increasing the size of logs. The update also improves the system debugger used for application development.
Application Development
The Integrated Web Services engine can now send SQL directly, and you can compile CL commands directly from IFS stream files. There's also improved debugging, better tracking and managing of jobs and support for JTOpen JDBC drivers. A few other improvements to the API are in the bundle, which should help developers improve their workflow substantially.
Backup and Recovery Improvement
The BRMS - Backup, Recovery, and Media Services - has one large improvement, which is a turn-key cloud control deployment. It also backs up changes to journaled objects by default and easily backs up spooled files. Logging has also been improved.
Some of these improvements are also available in 7.3's latest tech refresh. By design, however, the tech refresh includes the major updates to Authority Collection, due to how pervasive the security updates are. Thus, if these updates are important to you, you should update to 7.4 early.
The primary improvements in 7.4 are the security improvements, especially those to Authority Collection, and the support for active-active mirroring in DB2. Either or both are likely to be enough reason for many companies to upgrade sooner, rather than later.
06/23/2019
