IBM i 7.5 TR8 and 7.6 TR2 Highlight ‘Zero Downtime’ Aspirations—and the Value of Community Input
IBM i continued its journey toward zero planned downtime last week with the release of a new batch of Technology Refreshes (TR) for IBM i 7.5 and 7.6.
In addition to expanded capabilities for Migrate While Active, highlights from the latest round of OS upgrades include enhanced data visibility, hardened security and an acknowledgement of the IBM i community’s key role in delivering the features IBM i shops are clamoring for. Unless otherwise noted, the following enhancements were made available in the July 24 release of both IBM i 7.5 TR8 and IBM i 7.6 TR2.
Partition Mirroring
With IBM i 7.6 TR2, Partition Mirroring is now available on Migrate While Active across all current IBM i releases, having launched on version 7.4 a year ago before expanding to 7.5 in November—and now, to 7.6. Partition mirroring is a key component of Migrate While Active, allowing for the creation of a synchronized copy of a production system over a TCP/IP network without requiring storage-based replication.
The simplicity of using a TCP/IP network makes Partition Mirroring “a very nice tool to do migration,” Kris Whitney, current IBM i chief engineer and soon-to-be chief architect, said during a virtual session introducing the enhancements.
“This capability,” the 7.6 TR2 announcement letter added, “is particularly useful for migrations to a different data center or to a new IBM Power server where direct storage migration is not possible.”
Bundle OS Upgrades Into Migration
Also new to Migrate While Active is the ability to bundle OS upgrades into a migration, significantly reducing planned downtime.
The feature works by making an exact copy of the system, Whitney explained. After the copy is made, “we will start tracking all the changes that happen on the source side. Now you can go over to that target node and you can do an upgrade,” he said.
This can be done during business hours, though the final cut-over will require a “slight outage” and likely need to be scheduled on the weekend, Whitney noted.
Audit Trail Visibility
Several of the new enhancements help users get a better look at their system activity, including the introduction of CREATE_DATA_JOURNAL_READER.
CREATE_DATA_JOURNAL_READER creates custom table functions for specific journal entries. Data journals provide an important trail for every insert, update and delete made to a database, but they can be difficult to read, said Scott Forstie, a senior technical staff member at IBM i.
“When we look at those journal entries, it’s really hard to understand the row images and do something with them, because the entry-specific data is in hex (hexadecimal format). Yuck,” he said. “CREATE_DATA_JOURNAL_READER will create a helper function for you for any table that you want to understand the data journal entries.”
Enhanced Vulnerability Visibility
Security was a major theme of the latest IBM i Technology Refresh. “Security, security, security. Everybody should be talking about security,” Forstie said.
With that in mind, administrators can now get direct visibility into common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) specifically affecting their IBM i environment with the new CVE Info Service. Delivered within the SYSTOOLS schema, the feature allows for filtering based on OS release level, helping administrators make upgrade decisions based on vulnerability data.
“This was a personal area of interest for me trying to find some way, some way that we could use our SQL functions and RESTful services capabilities to more easily understand CVEs in the IBM i,” Forstie said. “Coming on July 24th, you’re going to be able to query that table function and it’s going to tell you: ‘Are any CVEs published that pertain to the IBM i that I’m using?’ So it’s CVE awareness.”
Integration With Cloud Key Protect
Available on IBM i 7.6 TR2, IBM Key Protect from IBM Cloud integrates external key management—also known as “bring your own key” or “keep your own key”—with IBM i for the first time.
“We’ll be providing the ability to export or move your existing AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) keys out of a key store that it is in today, into the KeyProtect space,” said Tim Mullenbach, IBM i security architect. “You’ll be able to wrap a key. That’s where you create a root key in your IBM Key Protect instance. And then you’re storing your key locally, but it’s wrapped by IBM Key Protect and you’d only be able to access it after having Key Protect on unwrap it. You’ll be able to use this type of key with the existing encrypt and decrypt cryptographic services APIs.”
Modern Email Authentication
As a direct response to requirements of major email server providers like Gmail and Microsoft 365, IBM i now supports simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) support for OAuth 2.0. Configurable in Navigator for i, Oauth 2.0 allows an application to access a user’s email without reliance on a password, but instead using a short-term access token.
As email server providers begin requiring Oauth 2.0, “the SMTP team has been working furiously on enhancing that server so that you can use OAuth-type capabilities to do the authentication,” said Tim Rowe, IBM i business architect for application development and systems management. “ … This is a useful thing as the world of security continues to change. And we have to continue to change right along with it.”
Embracing Community Input
The addition of Oauth 2.0 support is one example of the IBM i user community helping to shape the products they use, Steve Bradshaw, a longtime member of the COMMON Europe Advisory Council (CEAC), said during an appearance on IT Social Hour in June. Along with the COMMON Americas Advisory Council (CAAC), CEAC’s mission is to help integrate the IBM i community’s suggestions into actual IBM i products.
The advisory councils connect IBM i to its users by turning suggestions from the IBM Ideas Portal into product enhancements that have “big, broad appeal,” Bradshaw said. “And why is that important? Well, because the IBM team in Rochester (Minnesota, U.S.) and the other offices—they actually care about the ideas.”
Rowe also stressed the importance of community input in the IBM i 7.5 and 7.6 refreshes. “A bunch of these were delivered through our Ideas Portal,” he said. “I mean, you guys use this stuff. You give us information about how to use it better. We really do try to get these things updated.”