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November 4, 2020Alex Woodie

Next week, IBM is planning to deliver the PTFs that include the functionality contained in the Technology Refreshes it just unveiled for IBM i 7.3 and 7.4 last month. You will want to stay on the lookout for those updates. But some of the capabilities that IBM announced in the TRs shipped months ago, including those for Rational Developer for i (RDi).

The latest release of RDi, or version 9.6.0.8, was included as a feature for IBM i 7.3 TR9 and IBM i 7.4 TR4. IBM, of course, announced those TRs on October 6 and says it plans to deliver them on November 13. However, that particular release of RDi was actually delivered back in late April, as you can see from Doug Bidwells IBM i PTF Guide.

So while RDi 9.6.0.8 isnt exactly new, for the sake of completeness, we are giving it some virtual ink in these pages. Considering the speed at which the IBM i community sometimes adopts new technology, its quite possible that the capabilities contained in this release of RDi are new, at least to some of you.

RDi 9.6.0.8 isnt a bombshell announcement, but it does include a host of minor new capabilities and updates that were requested by RPG and COBOL developers.

At the top of the list is support for the new RPG language features that IBM introduced with IBM i 7.3 TR9 and IBM i 7.4 TR4, which we told you about last week. This includes the FOR-EACH opcode (as well as %RANGE and %LIST built-in functions); the DEBUG(*RETVAL) control keyword; the EXPROPTS keyword enhancement; and the new REQPREXP command parameter. These RPG language features are delivered in the compilers, which are included in Rational Development Studio (5770-WDS) product.

IBM is also giving users the ability to launch Access Client Solutions (ACS) from RDi without requiring a separate Java runtime environment to be installed. This update is expected to help customers avoid a certain degree of Java runtime aggravation when dealing with RDi and ACS, which has become a critical tool for accessing IBM i functions, including open source software.

This release also brings the ability to open /copy and /include files from ILE RPG source code thats stored on the IFS.

Developers that have run into problems with content assist autoformatting their SQL code will be pleased to hear that SQL is no longer autoformatted. Formatting now only occurs when the user invokes the format action, IBM says.

IBM has fixed myriad other mostly minor issues with RDi 9.6.0.8, including: the display whitespace characters that makes it hard to see RPGLE source code; incorrected values in the properties view for a referenced field; embedded CRLF sequencies in SQL not being handled by the Remote Systems LPEX editor, and problems with editing RPGLE members that reference a copy member with DBCS characters.

You can view the complete list of fixes in RDi 9.6.0.8 at this IBM website.

Tech Refresh Brings New RPG Features

Db2 And SQL Services Get Upgrades With TRs

How The Latest TRs Bolster The Core IBM i OS

Guru: RDi V9.6, Part 8 Better Ways To Copy Members, Manage LIBLs, and Find Preferences

IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 22, Number 18

Whats New with RDi Version 9.6.0.7

Tags: Tags: Access Client Solutions, ACS, COBOL, CRLF, DBCS, IBM i, ILE, Java, LPEX, Rational Developer for i, RDi, RPG, SQL

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Best Practices for Doing IBM i Cloud Backup & DRaaS Right

In the technology business for 30+ years including more than a decade in cloud backup and disaster recovery, weve learned a few things along the way. Here are best practices to follow and land mines to avoid.

With disk-to-disk technology, your backup data resides on disk drives, proven to be far more reliable than tapes. When your backup completes, you know the data is secure and accessible on the disk drive. With tapes you never really know if your data is usable until you try to restore it, at which point its too late.

Vendor offerings vary widely. Some are designed primarily for consumers and others for enterprise data centers. Choose a solution that scales and offers the features you need to provide the level of service you expect. De-duplication and delta-block technologies will improve performance, reduce your data footprint and save you money. Find out if their de-duplication offering is at the file level or the block level. Make sure the solution can back up servers, PCs, and laptops as well your applications.

Using encryption with tape makes backups run slowly and often takes too long to fit within a backup window. As a result, most people simply turn encryption off, creating a security risk. Even with the physical safety of disk-to-disk backup, encryption is essential. Look for 256-bit AES. Find a solution that encrypts your data during transmission and storage. Make certain there isnt a back door that would let someone else view your data.

You should have direct access to your backups, with no time spent on physical transport (no trucks, no warehouses). Restores should take minutes, not hours or days. Set yourself up to work with your data, not wait for it. Make sure your solution provider can meet your Return-to-Operations (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) which determine how quickly you can recover your data and maintain business continuity. Inquire about onsite and offsite replication that provide both improved performance and a solid disaster recovery strategy.

Your end-users are the weak link in your network security. Today, your employees are frequently exposed to advanced phishing attacks. Trend Micro reported that 91% of successful data breaches started with a spear-phishing attack. Be sure your vendor of choice includes cyber security training as part of their backup and DR package.

You should be able to back up your data no matter how large it grows. Starting small? Look for an option that handles your backups automatically. Then, as you grow, gives you tools to manage complex environments. Look for changes-only and compression technologies to speed backups and save space. And insist on bandwidth throttling to balance traffic and ensure network availability for your other business applications. Make sure that their solution offerings rely on common technology to scale easily as your businessand datagrow.

A 2019 Server OS Reliability Survey found that one hour of downtime costs at least $100K for 98% of companies to over $5 million for 34% of surveyed companies. When you do the math, the dollars make sense: Go with disk-to-disk. Unlike tape, there are close to zero handling costsno rush deliveries, loading, accessing, locating, or repeated steps. And theres one benefit you cant factor directly: Reputation. Reliability and security can make an incalculable difference with just one avoided breach or failure.

You cant say your data protection is complete until you have a disaster recovery plan that is itself complete and tested. Your backup vendor should have both the product mix and professional services team to help you prepare for a worst-case scenario. Make sure they can help configure your backups so you rebound quickly. Best bet: A vendor who can train you to deal with disasters confidently, based on your companys actual configuration.

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Four Hundred Monitor, November 4Grafana Provides a Visualization Option for IBM i Metrics

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IBM Delivered An RDi Update, Too - IT Jungle