Skip to main content

IBM i History & Key Features

IBM i

IBM i is an integrated operating system that runs on IBM Power Systems server with built in DB2 installed. The name 'IBM i' was introduced in 2008, and it is the current evolution of the operating system, previously named i5/OS, and originally named OS/400 when it was introduced with the AS/400 computer system in 1988.

IBM calls it as "IBM i: A platform for innovators, by innovators". DB2 Mirror for i provides continuous availability. IBM i can easily integrate with IoT, AI and Watson. 

History

History of IBM i goes back to 1978 when the first operating system CPF (Control Program Facility) was introduced for system/38. 

OS/400 was released in 1988 as an extended version of CPF to support the AS/400 (Application System/400). Current version of IBM i is still being called as AS/400 by many users. 

IBM released various updates to OS/400 (Version 1 to V5R3) between 1988 and 2006. 

One of the major addition to the server was LPARs (Logical Partitioning) introduced in 1999 to support multiple virtual servers on a single Hardware. 

OS/400 was renamed to i5/OS to 2006 for the newly introduced System i servers, these were in market till 2008. 

IBM i was released in 2008 with it's initial version IBM i 6.1 on IBM Power systems. IBM has also changed the way versioning is done from IBM i as 'IBM i V.R' (Version, Release) where as versioning was done as VxRxMx (Version, Release, Modification). 

One of the greatest advantages of IBM i is support it's earlier versions.

IBM i 7.1 was released in April, 2010 and Technology Refreshes for IBM i 7.1 until October 2015.

IBM i 7.2 was released in was released in May 2014 and last Technology Refresh was released in September 2018. 

IBM i 7.3 was released in April 2016 and latest Technology Refresh (TR9) was released in November 2020. 

Latest version IBM i 7.4 was released in April 2019 and latest Technology Refresh (TR3) was released in November 2020. 

No End of Support has been announced yet for IBM i versions 7.3 and 7.4 and IBM is committed to releasing Technology Refreshes for these two versions. 

Key Features

IBM i has a built-in database (DB2) and doesn't require separate installation this makes it easy to use system. 

IBM i supports the applications developed on it's earlier versions like system/38, AS/400. And, IBM i is one of the earliest Object-based operating system. 

IBM PASE for i (Portable Application Solutions Environment for i) enables port of AIX applications (which are also hosted on power systems) to the IBM i platform. PASE for i provides an integrated run time environment enabling AIX applications on IBM i.

Integrated Language Environment (ILE) allows binding of program modules written in different languages like RPG, COBOL, C and C++. 

Integrated Web Services for i enables ILE applications to perform in the web services and service-oriented architecture (SOA). 

TCP/IP on IBM i allows TCP/IP applications, protocols and services to direct the data to flow in and out of IBM i. 

IBM i Access Client Solutions is a Java based client provides Development and System management solution and is supported by Windows, Mac OS and Linux. 

Open source software can be installed on IBM i using IBM i Access Client Solutions. 

IBM i supports databases MySQL, MariaDB and Redis along with DB2 for i. PostgreSQL and MongoDB are currently in beta release. 

IBM Rational Developer for i is the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) published by IBM for working many programming languages like RPG and COBOL. This becomes extremely helpful when working with open source languages. 

IBM i supports many programming languages.
  • RPG
  • CL
  • COBOL
  • SQL
  • Assembly Language
  • C
  • C++
  • Pascal
  • Java
  • EGL
  • Perl
  • Smalltalk
  • BASIC
  • PL/I
  • REXX
  • QShell

Open Source on IBM i

Below are the open source technologies supported on IBM i. 
  • Apache HTTP server.
  • Java
  • Node.js
  • OpenSSL
  • Git
  • GNU Compiler Collection
  • Nginx
  • PHP
  • Python
  • Ruby
  • Lua
  • R
Apart from these there are many more packages are available. 

IBM i can hold applications like Drupal, Joomla, Mambo, Mantis Bug Tracker, MediaWiki, Moodle, PhpBB, SugarCRM, WordPress, XOOPS, ZenCart with MariaDB or MySQL as database. 

IBM i is not the same AS/400, it is much more powerful. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All about READ in RPGLE & Why we use it with SETLL/SETGT?

READ READ is one of the most used Opcodes in RPGLE. As the name suggests main purpose of this Opcode is to read a record from Database file. What are the different READ Opcodes? To list, Below are the five Opcodes.  READ - Read a Record READC - Read Next Changed Record READE - Read Equal Key Record READP - Read Prior Record READPE - Read Prior Equal Record We will see more about each of these later in this article. Before that, We will see a bit about SETLL/SETGT .  SETLL (Set Lower Limit) SETLL accepts Key Fields or Relative Record Number (RRN) as Search Arguments and positions the file at the Corresponding Record (or Next Record if exact match isn't found).  SETGT (Set Greater Than) SETGT accepts Key Fields or Relative Record Number (RRN) as Search Arguments and positions the file at the Next Record (Greater Than the Key value). Syntax: SETLL SEARCH-ARGUMENTS/KEYFIELDS FILENAME SETGT  SEARCH-ARGUMENTS/KEYFIELDS FILENAME One of the below can be passed as Search Arguments. Key Fiel
4 comments
Read more

What we need to know about CHAIN (RPGLE) & How is it different from READ?

CHAIN READ & CHAIN, These are one of the most used (& useful) Opcodes by any RPG developer. These Opcodes are used to read a record from file. So, What's the difference between CHAIN & READ?   CHAIN operation retrieves a record based on the Key specified. It's more like Retrieving Random record from a Database file based on the Key fields.  READ operation reads the record currently pointed to from a Database file. There are multiple Opcodes that start with READ and all are used to read a record but with slight difference. We will see more about different Opcodes and How they are different from each other (and CHAIN) in another article. Few differences to note.  CHAIN requires Key fields to read a record where as READ would read the record currently pointed to (SETLL or SETGT are used to point a Record).  If there are multiple records with the same Key data, CHAIN would return the same record every time. READE can be used to read all the records with the specified Ke
Post a Comment
Read more

Extract a portion of a Date/Time/Timestamp in RPGLE - IBM i

%SUBDT Extracting Year, Month, Day, Hour, Minutes, Seconds or Milli seconds of a given Date/Time/Timestamp is required most of the times.  This can be extracted easily by using %SUBDT. BIF name looks more similar to %SUBST which is used to extract a portion of string by passing from and two positions of the original string. Instead, We would need to pass a value (i.e., Date, Time or Timestamp ) and Unit (i.e., *YEARS, *MONTHS, *DAYS, *HOURS, *MINUTES, *SECONDS or *MSECONDS) to %SUBDT.  Valid unit should be passed for the type of the value passed. Below are the valid values for each type. Date - *DAYS, *MONTHS, *YEARS Time - *HOURS, *MINUTES, *SECONDS Timestamp - *DAYS, *MONTHS, *YEARS, *HOURS, *MINUTES, *SECONDS, *MSECONDS Syntax: %SUBDT(value : unit { : digits { : decpos} }) Value and Unit are the mandatory arguments.  Digits and Decimal positions are optional and can only be used with *SECONDS for Timestamp. We can either pass the full form for the unit or use the short form. Below i
2 comments
Read more