IBM is proving its long-term commitment to its server customers this week by announcing the 7.5 update for its i systems. Used in Finance, Insurance, Manufacturing and Retail industry these servers have the advantage of the RPG programming language and an in-built database (Db2) on a system than runs essential applications without the need for deep technical know-how and supported by a number of specialist business partners and application developers. I show my estimates for the operating system mix on the installed Power servers by year in the Figure above; IBM i has done well in keeping a 35% share of the base throughout and, unlike AIX (IBM’s Unix variant) has been largely unaffected by the introduction of Linux on Power in 2013.
What’s new with i 7.5?
IBM made three i associated announcements on May 3rd. In particular:
- Db2 enhancements – Db2 – the core database embedded in i servers – has been enhanced to support SQL standard for BOOLEAN as a data type, allowing programmers to use RPG and JSON for the first time. The maximum size of a Binary Radix index has been increased from 1.7TB to 16TB – useful for workloads in which data is growing significantly. It has added Ragged Flash support, allowing users to ensure that the integrity of target and source data in pending transactions is not disturbed when running FlashCopy. It has also put some new functions into i 7.4 for database engineers and SQL programmers.
- Db2 Mirror improvements – included for the first time in i 7.4, IBM has now added Mixed Release support, which allows users to keep the database running on an older machine (i.e. 7.4) while upgrading to a new one (i.e. 7.5). Active/Read-Only Mode allows users running identical system for Disaster Recovery purposes to lock down the second mirrored system so its changes won’t get copied to the production system. Db2 Mirror Versioning Service allows users to track the different versions of the code levels and functions they run.
- Security enhancements – passwords now have a stronger encryption scheme (SHA2- 512) with an API check to ensure that the password chosen meets the rules. It has also changed some the default name ‘*PUBLIC’ to ‘*USE’ in Db2 to help with audits.
- i Modernization Engine for Lifecycle Integration – code-named ‘Merlin’ this is a set of tools for software developers, or Integrated Development Environment (IDE), allowing users to set up a DevOps environment making it easier to publish and consume services. The programmer tools run in Red Hat OpenShift containers and, once set up, are available at the browser level. Included is the automatic conversion of fixed-format PRG programs into Free Form code, which is helpful for new programmers. It also includes Git, Jenkins and Visual Studio Code open source tools.
- IBM i Subscription – users can now buy their hardware, software and support services as a 1 to 5 year subscription with a lower total cost of acquisition than purchasing systems from capital budgets.
These enhancements make it easier for IBM i system users, programmers, purchasers and specialist business partners to integrate these legacy systems into a more modern hybrid cloud infrastructure. They make IBM i part of the Power server environment for Red Hat’s tooling for cloud native application development (see my Figure based on IBM’s below).
These enhancements will be well accepted by users, some of whom started using the operating system when first buying a System/34 in 1977 or AS/400 in 1988. It reminds me that over my almost 40 years as an analyst, new server systems, operating systems and software have regularly been introduced, but few of them have ever gone away. In the case of IBM i, these latest enhancements make it stronger as part of an evolving modern landscape.