AS/400 Tutorials - http://www.as400tutorials.

com

AS/400 and iSeries Tutorial

What is it?

The successor to the System/36 and System/38, IBM's black box is the AS/400 re-branded as the
iSeries, System i and i5. From a user standpoint these systems function identically aside from
enhancements bewteen OS releases same so the names will be used interchangibly throughout
the tutorial.

The AS/400 is a rock solid platform with reliable hardware it is well suited for business
applications like ERP, CRM, and data warehousing solutions. It can be run in various businesses
settings including distribution, manufacturing, logistics, and banking applications. When it
comes to security the AS/400 operating system OS/400 is tough to beat, and is even capable of
C21 level security standards.

Generally you won't find any off the shelf hardware in these systems, as the iSeries is completely
proprietary. This type of hardware setup results in a relatively expensive (when compared with
standard x86 architecture found in typical desktop PCs) yet reliable platform. Hearing of an
iSeries hardware failure that takes down the system is few and far between (and typically occurs
during an IPL) and it is rare that the system needs to be brought down at all.

There are many third party applications (check the software vendor section for a listing)
available to handle all facets of business including accounting, sales, supply chain, e-commerce,
and warehousing.

Be prepared to learn some new jargon when working with one of these systems. For example
you don't load a service pack onto an AS/400 you apply a program temporary fix (PTF), you
don't reboot an AS/400 you initial program load (IPL) it. You work with user profiles and store
data on DASD.

Where is Windows?

Primarily the AS/400 and iSeries systems run a specialized OS called Operating System/400 aka
OS/400 and now known as i5/OS. For those of you still clinging to your old System/36 systems
you are in luck because OS/400 can perform System/36 emulation. I once encountered a food
service distribution company that was running an AS/400 model 170 with System/36 emulation
and RPG II programs for daily operations and never touched the actual OS/400 side except for an
IPL.

The newer iSeries systems can run a port of Linux and also features Logical Partitioning (LPAR)
technology that allows you to run several virtual server instances on one physical system.
OS/400 is tightly integrated into a flavor of the DB2 relational database known as DB2/400 and

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For AS/400 C2 level security info visit http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=pub1gg24420000
AS/400 Tutorials - http://www.as400tutorials.com

can be enhanced with IBM's other software and e-commerce solutions such as HTTP Server2,
WebSphere Application Server, and Lotus Domino/iNotes.

You can even get special cards that plug into an iSeries that will run a Windows server for
networking emulation and integration. Why you would ever want to taint your beloved iSeries by
integrating a Windows server is beyond me, except for keeping user logons and passwords
consistent. However with the release of Enterprise Identity Management (EIM) software in
version 5 of OS/400 a single sign on type solution can be accomplished.

iSeries i5

The latest re-branding of the iSeries is the i5. These systems have been standardized on a
consistent chip platform and can run Linux, Windows, AIX or OS/400 at the same time or in a
single instance (again through the use of LPARs and virtual I/O devices). You can also get
capacity on demand, whereby you purchase a system at a certain price and can have additional
processing capacity turned on (for more money of course) as needed without the expense of
purchasing a new system.

Cost

If you are used to running low end Windows based servers get ready for some sticker shock
when moving to the AS/400 world. These systems are not cheap in comparison! To further add
insult to injury AS/400 software vendors charge outrageous prices compared to Windows based
software.

You need to be selective when buying an AS/400 system. You can save a bunch of cash buying a
used machine instead of new, you can even find them for sale on eBay… the most important part
here is to make sure the machine you buy can be put under an IBM hardware and software
maintenance agreements. Neither of these yearly maintenance agreements will come cheap but
you really must have them! Never contract a third party to do hardware maintenance on a
business critical AS/400 system. Period.

Software maintenance is where most of the money goes.

Pay attention to what processor group aka P group the machine falls under. The very low end
machines start at P5 and the next step up is a P10, then P20 and so on. Software vendors will
charge you more money for a machine that falls under a higher P group… why charging more to
have the same exact software run on a faster machine is accepted is absolutely ridiculous but
that’s the way this industry works.

Small to moderate sized companies can get away with P10 systems as each model of AS/400 that
comes out provides more and more processing power for the same P group class system. Size
your system accordingly… AS/400s are efficient compared to Windows machines and you will
need a lot less storage capacity then you are probably used to.

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AS/400 HTTP Server Redbook at http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg246716.html?Open
AS/400 Tutorials - http://www.as400tutorials.com

You will be assigned an IBM business partner and they will do the selling and initial support to
get you installed and going. Work with your IBM business partner but don’t let them just
snowball you into buying whatever whiz bang system, you can run systems with 50 or more
users running green-screen applications on a very modest system especially since the processing
capability goes up each time a new model iSeries is released.

Typically AS/400s are purchased outright, however IBM does have the option of leasing them.
Just like cars a lease tends to be a bad idea and costs more over the long haul, it ultimately
depends on what your needs are going to be.

Connectivity

PC clients connect to the system through an emulation program, while dumb terminals connect
via Twinax networks. One such emulation program for the PC platform is IBMs own Client
Access Express (aka iSeries Access) that incorporates a full 5250 emulation program and other
nifty tools like the Operations Navigator that allow you to configure and control a system.

Clients can connect via network or twinax. In most up to date installations however the standard
is pretty much Ethernet and twinax. What is twinax? Twinax is the default network connection
used for devices like the system console and some printers. Although PC clients in the past used
emulation cards and an IBM program called PC Support (or your favorite emulator capable of
using a twinax card) to connect via twinax, PC Support is no longer supported in recent versions
beginning with OS/400 version V4R5. Recent improvements in OS/400 allow you to use TCP/IP
connected printers instead of having to rely on more expensive twinax cards and printers.

For reliability with dumb terminals and printers Twinax is a good solution, although it can be
somewhat difficult to setup if you don't know what you are doing. Twinax networks use
controllers that directly attach to your system, each controller has six ports and each port can
have several devices (terminal, printer, etc) daisy chained to it. Each device must have a unique
switch setting (you set switch settings on the device itself). To get a better understanding from
the command line issue the command "wrkcfgsts cfgtype(*ctl)" locate CTL01 in the list and
select option 8, from the Work with Controller Descriptions window select option 12. This will
create a printable table listing each controller port and all connected devices with switch settings.
If you plan on using Twinax I would highly recommend turning autoconfig on, this allows your
system to detect devices and makes adding new terminals a snap. As a side note, autoconfig is
great except when you relocate printers to new ports OS/400 will automatically create and assign
a new writer to it. To get around this happening I usually unplug the printer, change the switch
setting configuration and then plug it back in the new location.

For those who are security minded the iSeries is capable of using SSL encrypted sessions for
clients. Running SSL requires additional software configuration to OS/400 and a compatible
emulator. To accomplish this on the iSeries you will need to install and configure the Digital
Certificate Manager, IBM HTTP Server, and IBM Cryptographic Access Provider. Although this
may seem a bit daunting, using a network sniffer you will find that without SSL logon
credentials are passed in clear text which can be a serious security concern for some businesses.
AS/400 Tutorials - http://www.as400tutorials.com

Other connectivity solutions include using middle man programs like SNA, but in modern
networks the preferred method is TCP/IP over Ethernet and this has more or less become the
standard connection.

NetManage has the RUMBA line of emulators for connectivity with 5250 and 3270 systems.

Perle carries twinax terminal servers that are used to connect a twinax device (printer or
terminal) to it and connect to your host using TCP/IP. This works well for remote offices that
have devices requiring a twinax connection with an existing TCP/IP WAN.

TN5250 is a great open source 5250 emulator for both Windows and Linux that supports features
like printer emulation. It is also capable of SSL.

BosCom is a maker of another emulation package BosaNova. They also produce the eTwinax
controller for connecting up your twinax devices via TCP/IP. I have configured and used the
eTwinax controller and they are pretty slick, and very reliable even across a WAN. One of the
major benefits is they support Advanced Function Printing and IPDS so you can use your special
fonts and type formatting with a compatible printer.

Mochasoft produces another emulation program, it has a similar look to Client Access.

Symtrax has free text and web 5250 emulator programs.

IBM has the web enabled Host on Demand program that is essentially a Java 5250 emulator that
has features like file transfer. Another new element is that it allows you to click on menu
selections instead of entering them in on the command line.

DB2/400

As mentioned previously AS/400s run a version of IBMs heavy weight relational DB2 database
specifically designed for AS/400s called DB2/4003. This is a fully fledged db with all the
features you will find in just about any robust database system.

Commands

The 400 is a menu and command driven system. That is you can select options from a menu to
run program and you can also enter commands on the command line. Generally commands are
three letter abriviations of words. For example work is wrk, active is act and job is well job. If
you put these three together you get wrkactjob which is a command that displays all of the active
jobs presently running on the system.

Here is a partial listing of useful commands:

Writers and Spool Files Commands

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A thorough DB2/400 manual is available at http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg244249.html
AS/400 Tutorials - http://www.as400tutorials.com

chgwtr <printer> Work with writer, useful for changing the outq associated with a writer.
wrksplf <username/blank> work with your spooled files or spooled files for a user.
wrkoutq <queue/blank> work with an output queue.
wrkwtr work with all writers/printers.

System and Job Administration Commands

wrkactjob work with active jobs
wrkjobq work with a job queue or blank for all queues
wrksbmjob <username> Shows status of submitted jobs(jobq/outq/etc)
endsbs <name> end subsystem <name>
strsbs <name> start subsystem <name>
wrksyssts display system status, including drive usage and ASP usages
wrkusrprf <username> work with user profile (for resetting or changing user passwords)
wrkdevsts+F4 work with system devices(controllers, displays, writers) handy for checking status
of connected devices and varying them on and off.
dsplog show system log file (you may want to use F4 and specify date limits with this)
edtlibl Edit library list (like DOS PATH statements)

sndbrkmsg+F4 send a break message to users.

SHIFT+SysReq,6 show QSYSOPR messages

System Menus
go main AS/400 main menu
go tcpadm TCP/IP protocol administration
go ptf download/apply/work with program temporary fixes
go power Shutdown or IPL the system.
go licpgm Show installed programs

Programming

OS/400 supports a wide array of programming languages including RPG (report program
generator) through its many versions, CL (command language, used as a compiled scripting type
language), COBOL, Java, SQL, Perl, PHP, C/C++, REXX (an IBM cross platform scripting
language) and probably some others as well that aren’t worth mentioning.

Most commonly you will find RPG and CL programs in use. RPG is a very nice language for
accessing the underlying database tables quickly and efficiently. CL tends to be more used for
'gluing' various programs together or for shell scripting type tasks. A great feature in modern
RPG IV is the availability of embedding SQL statements right in your RPG programs. Although
SQL may be less efficient, embedding it into RPG can quickly speed up the process of
formatting and sequencing data without creating a bunch of logical files. For those familiar with
creating subfiles the use of embedded SQL now allows you to have them sorted in different ways
without having to create a new logical file for every sort, and no more need to use the opnqryf
command!
AS/400 Tutorials - http://www.as400tutorials.com

One of the great features included with Client Access is the availability of a Windows ODBC
driver, with an equivalent driver also available for Linux used to get data into your own
programs and spreadsheets. Using Perl (or your favorite scripting/programming language of
choice) on a Win32 system I have been able to generate Excel reports on the fly and email them
off with relative ease issuing SQL statements through the ODBC driver. The ODBC driver is a
great tool for making data transfers from the iSeries to the PC world much easier, or building
Win32 programs that need access in real time to iSeries data.

If you are looking to do TCP/IP programming in RPG IV on the iSeries Scott Klement has put
together a very thorough RPG sockets tutorial.

Is it possible to run OS/400 on Windows?! Lattice has the AS/400 emulation and development
system that allows you to write and run RPG programs right on you’re PC. I actually ran across a
company that had written an order entry program entirely in RPG II and used Lattice to run it on
the sales force laptops.

Java

IBM has made a push for AS/400 professionals to get up to speed with Java converting over
legacy RPG programs to webfaced Java running on WebSphere. It would appear that IBM is
betting on Java as the future of the iSeries system.

Although I do not want to see modern RPG (RPG IV anyway, II and III can go far away as far as
I'm concerned) become obsolete, it may be time for the iSeries to be more modernized. With
Java now taught as an introductory CIS course in most colleges there are certainly more
programmers with Java experience then RPG (are there any colleges other then Rochester
Community College that have courses on iSeries administration and RPG programming?), it
seems to be a good idea especially by migrating from a proprietary programming language to a
more standardized, popular, and portable one (although these qualities come with other issues).
Using a cross platform language also allows companies to migrate existing programs over to the
iSeries with minimal or no modifications.

On the flip side just how well Java applications perform on the iSeries, presently (and is
changing in each release of the operating system) OS/400 is optimized for running RPG
programs. I have created inquiry type programs in RPG IV and a keyed logical file (using only
chain operations, no embedded SQL) that can pull up a record from files containing several
million records almost instantly, and I wonder how well Java would run in a similar application.

Although it’s a bit dated now RPG programming guru Bob Cozzi4 wrote an article in 1999 about
the viability of Java on the iSeries. He makes some rather interesting points and states that RPG
isn't going away, rather it will be integrated with Java programs. I tend to agree, you should use
the right product (or programming language) for the job and when it comes to web services Java
is much better suited to the task then RPG. However the nitty gritty business programs and
interfacing with OS/400 and underlying APIs is better handled by CL and RPG. In the end we

4
Bob Cozzi is an expert in RPG and his website is located at http://www.rpgworld.com/
AS/400 Tutorials - http://www.as400tutorials.com

may need some of that pixie dust or a pair of magic binoculars to know how much Java will play
a role in the iSeries future.

With Java you can utilize JDBC to connect to the iSeries tables to run external applications as
well. I have seen this in action with several applications and it ran pretty well.

Linoma Software has the aXes program that web-enables your screens.

Coding Utilities

If you’re going to do any serious amounts of OS/400 programming you probably are going to
want an offline source editor (unless you just really really like using SEU). Typically these
programs work by FTPing your source files to and from your iSeries.

CodeStudio by RPG expert Bob Cozzi. CodeStudio is no longer being developed but is available
for sale as shareware. Not a bad program, it has some fairly nice features.

IBM now includes the "WebSphere Development Studio Client for iSeries" with your software
subscription. This is a great tool, if you plan to do any serious coding on the AS/400 get it, learn
it and use it.

DDS

DDS specifications are for creating database files, screens and report files. Instead of having to
manually enter in the table specifications (although there are CL commands to accomplish this as
well) you type them into a file using the DDS syntax for the file name, certain attributes, and
fields. Like RPG and CL you typically enter DDS through Source Entry Utility and then have to
compile them.

DDS is also used for creating display files and subfiles. For beginners the SDA (strsda) program
is very useful for creating screens, subfiles, and menus from a GUI type interface. For all but the
most obscure screen designs SDA can handle most anything and contains quite a few features
and allows you to see the results immediately without having to compile. I almost always use
SDA to create screens and will edit them by hand in SEU to fine tune or tweak certain settings.

Query/400

A really handy program is Query/400. Query/400 allows a user to build SQL based queries
ranging from simple to complex from database tables quickly and easily. Features include being
able to join data from several tables to create printable reports, flat file database, and download
files that can be imported into other programs like spreadsheets. Unfortunately Query has limited
logic capabilities and doesn't quite cut it when trying to tie information together from multiple
tables with unrelated data (tables that do not have matching fields), in which case creating an
RPG program is a much better solution. You can start query (if you have it installed and
licensed) by issuing the "wrkqry" command.
AS/400 Tutorials - http://www.as400tutorials.com

The main feature about Query is its menu driven, you don't have to learn any SQL syntax to
create reports quickly. Although simple to use Query has some more advanced functions like
sorting, and grouping. Typically you will spend more time trying to find the right data tables to
use then spent building a report with Query.

If you know SQL but don't have any SQL programs installed you might have the SQL4FREE
program that you can use for issuing SQL statements, although I am unaware of any limitations
with SQL4FREE (other than having to type in the statement every runtime) it is a really great
program. You can also issue SQL4FREE from a CL program, making it handy to generate
reports rather quickly.

SQL4FREE is a nifty utility and it definitely served a good purpose but it seems to have dropped
off the radar and can’t be found anywhere.

Another creative way of using SQL (if you don't have the SQL compiler, or Query/400 installed
on your system) is by using the CRTQMQRY and RUNQMQRY programs to create a Query
Management Query. If you are strapped for cash but want to be able to build your own queries
from SQL statements this is definitely the route to go.

Getting Data to PCs

Back in the early days this used to be a really complicated and cumbersome process, however in
modern times getting data from your iSeries to a PC is a routine and easy process to do. To
simplify things even more myriads of programs have cropped up to query and pull down data.
One such offering is XL400 and StarQuery from Symtrax.

XL400 and StarQuery allow users to create and save queries to data on your iSeries and dump
them right into Excel. Now users can satisfy their own reporting requests, although this solution
can be a mixed bag; many people running huge queries over many files all at the same time can
quickly swamp your system.

If you are using Client Access or iSeries Access you have the ability to download files using the
Receive File from Host function in emulator. The drawback to using this is it won’t convert
packed field data correctly, and packed fields are the standard field format for storing decimal
data.

AS/400 and Excel

Downloading data from an AS/400 database into Excel spreadsheets is an incredibly hot topic.
Pulling data into Excel allows you to do some advanced manipulation like pivot tables or to
pretty much slice and dice the data any way that you see fit.

As touched on previously there are several ways of going about this and there are several
commercial software packages on the market as well. By far you most often will see the use of
the ODBC driver to connect and download data into spreadsheet or Access databases.
AS/400 Tutorials - http://www.as400tutorials.com

There are however some other methods to doing this, although they are a bit more cumbersome
compared to using an ODBC driver. You can use the CPYTOPCD and CPYTOIMPF commands
to copy over an AS/400 physical file to a file located within the Integrated File System (IFS) that
can then be downloaded to your PC using Operations Navigator and imported into your database
or spreadsheet.

Keep in mind that the aforementioned commands don’t allow data selection constraints, so they
essentially replicate the entire database file to the target file located in the IFS.

Spool files

Any printable output on an iSeries is referred to as a spool file. For printing or viewing on the
screen spool files are nice, however transferring them over to your PC is a different situation.
There are several products available to convert and transfer spooled files over to the PC world in
various formats including plain text, rich text, pdf, and HTML.

One such way is using Operations Navigator included with Client Access and simply 'dragging'
the file over to your computer which translates it to a text file. Unfortunately you are limited to
only downloading spool files as ASCII or text based formats.

Kisco has the WebReport/400 program that allows you to copy spool files over to HTML, pdf,
text, and optionally send them as emails. I have used the WebReport/400 program and its pretty
slick, after processing a spool file is will also move it to an outq of your selection.

Spooled File Tools from BVS Tools allows you to convert and email spool files. Brad Stone has
some other nice programs available and is the author of several books on iSeries programming
related to web applications.

Symtrax has the Compleo suite that will monitor out queues and can even search for a matching
string within a spool file and route it accordingly. Included with this is the Explorer program
which allows you to look through out queues and copy over spool files to you PC like Operations
Navigator.

System Monitoring and Maintenance

There are a few commands used in OS/400 for monitoring several aspects of your system
including CPU usage and disk subsystems.

Work with System Status(wrksyssts):

Work with System Status

S199999
04/30/04
15:04:13
% CPU used . . . . . . . : 1.9 Auxiliary storage:
% DB capability . . . . : .0 System ASP . . . . . . : 60.13
G
AS/400 Tutorials - http://www.as400tutorials.com

Elapsed time . . . . . . : 00:00:01 % system ASP used . . :

60.8745
Jobs in system . . . . . : 5906 Total . . . . . . . . : 60.13
G
% perm addresses . . . . : .187 Current unprotect used : 2560
M
% temp addresses . . . . : .321 Maximum unprotect . . : 3185
M

Type changes (if allowed), press Enter.

System Pool Reserved Max -----DB----- ---Non-DB---

Pool Size (M) Size (M) Active Fault Pages Fault Pages
1 149.74 47.07 +++++ .0 .0 1.7 1.7
2 300.76 .43 55 .0 .0 .0 .0
3 5.11 .00 5 .0 .0 .0 .0
4 56.37 .00 18 .0 .0 12.7 15.3

Bottom
Command
===>
F3=Exit F4=Prompt F5=Refresh F9=Retrieve F10=Restart
F11=Display transition data F12=Cancel F24=More keys

Work with Disk Status(wrkdsksts):

Work with Disk Status

S1999999
04/30/04
15:06:08
Elapsed time: 00:00:00

Size % I/O Request Read Write Read Write %

Unit Type (M) Used Rqs Size (K) Rqs Rqs (K) (K) Busy
1 6717 7516 60.8 .0 .0 .0 .0 .0 .0 0
2 6717 7516 60.9 .0 .0 .0 .0 .0 .0 0
3 6717 7516 60.8 .0 .0 .0 .0 .0 .0 0
4 6717 7516 60.8 .0 .0 .0 .0 .0 .0 0
5 6717 7516 60.8 .0 .0 .0 .0 .0 .0 0
6 6717 7516 60.8 .0 .0 .0 .0 .0 .0 0
7 6717 7516 60.8 .0 .0 .0 .0 .0 .0 0
8 6717 7516 60.8 .0 .0 .0 .0 .0 .0 0

Bottom
Command
===>
F3=Exit F5=Refresh F12=Cancel F24=More keys

Work with Active Jobs (wrkactjob)

AS/400 Tutorials - http://www.as400tutorials.com

Work with Active Jobs OS400

07/04/04
23:22:21
CPU %: .0 Elapsed time: 00:00:00 Active jobs: 120

Type options, press Enter.

2=Change 3=Hold 4=End 5=Work with 6=Release 7=Display message
8=Work with spooled files 13=Disconnect ...

Opt Subsystem/Job User Type CPU % Function Status

QBASE QSYS SBS .0 DEQW
QPADEV000G QSECOFR INT .0 CMD-WRKACTJOB RUN
QSYSSCD QPGMR BCH .0 PGM-QEZSCNEP EVTW
QBATCH QSYS SBS .0 DEQW
QHTTPSVR QSYS SBS .0 DEQW
ADMIN QTMHHTTP BCH .0 PGM-QZHBHTTP TIMW
ADMIN QTMHHTTP BCI .0 TIMW
ADMIN QTMHHTTP BCI .0 TIMW
ADMIN QTMHHTTP BCI .0 TIMW

More...
Parameters or command
===>
F3=Exit F5=Refresh F7=Find F10=Restart statistics
F11=Display elapsed data F12=Cancel F23=More options F24=More keys

If you are running out of ASP disk space a quick way to find out which objects are taking over is
to run Display Object Description "dspobjd" and dump the results into an outfile. Running this
command on all libraries can take awhile, typically when running this I will submit it to batch.

Here is the CL command to do so:

===> SBMJOB CMD(DSPOBJD OBJ(*ALL/*ALL) OBJTYPE(*ALL) DETAIL(*FULL)

OUTPUT(*OUTFILE) OUTFILE(TEST/DSPOBJDP)) JOB(DSPOBJD) JOBQ(QPGMR)

This will submit the command to the QPGMR subsystem and when finished running a file
named DSPOBJD will be in the library TEST. After running this command you can then run
query or SQL statements over the file and order it by object size. Here is an example SQL
statement:

SELECT ODLBNM, ODOBNM, ODOBTP, ODOBSZ, ODOBTX

FROM test/dspobjdp
ORDER BY odobsz desc

A good maintenance task is to reorganize physical files. This process will remove deleted
records from files and helps to keep things running smoothly and minimize problems. To get an
idea if your files should be reorged, run a wrkf on your heavily used or large physical files and
select 8 to display file description, at the bottom of the report you will see a line with how many
deleted records are in the file. Generally your software should provide the tools to run
reorganization of the pertinent physical files for you.
AS/400 Tutorials - http://www.as400tutorials.com

After running any kind of data purges you should also reorg files. If your ERP software does not
provide the functions to reorganize your physical files you can do so manually by using the
Reorganize Physical File Member "rgzpfm" command. You can create a CL program to bring the
system into a restricted condition (or end subsystems like QINTER and QSERVER), as files that
are being reorged cannot be in use by other processes, and then run the reorg on each file.

Keep up to date on PTFs. You can setup your system to automatically check for and download
any new PTFs, once downloaded PTFs can be temporarily or permanently applied to the system.
If your running low on ASP you should permanently apply your PTFs, otherwise the system
retains two copies.

If you are feeling very ambitious and want to get your system performing optimally for the type
of workload being thrown at it you will want to make some changes to the processing systems.
This includes changing and creating (but is by no means limited to!) subsystems, memory pools,
and classes.

Subsystems are the places where work is processed (in batch and interactive jobs), classes
specify parameters to use when work is processed and pools are memory allocations that
subsystems can use to process work. Keep in mind this is extremely oversimplified description,
the point is to review how these are setup on your system and adjust if needed. For example if
you run a lot of batch jobs in QBATCH subsystem you may want to allow more than two (the
default for QBATCH) jobs to be running at any given time, likewise it would probably be a bad
idea to set the associated job queues Max Active to *NOMAX (thus allowing an unlimited
number of jobs). It may also be a bad idea to change the class for batch jobs to process at a run
priority of 20 or with a large timeslice, thereby running at the same priority as your interactive
jobs. For more information take a look at IBM's work management guide5.

High Availability

The ability to mirror your systems has become a hot topic for disaster recovery scenarios. With
the ability for AS/400s to do remote journaling6 in recent versions of OS/400 software vendors
have burst onto the scene with packages to accommodate AS/400 users’ high availability needs.

These are full blown redundancy software systems that essentially mirror two AS/400 systems
including all data files, IFS, configurations, user profiles and more in real time or as close to real
time as possible.

You need to be aware of some caveats when doing your high availability software selection. First
check with your other software vendors, most of them are going to charge you for having the
software installed on two AS/400 boxes (even though one installation is going to be in use at any
given time) and these costs can be incredibly exorbitant! If you have some forethought try and
negotiate these fees with your software vendors before buying the software… this is especially
true in the ERP arena.

5
Work Management Guide available at http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/iseries/v5r2/ic2924/info/rzaks/rzaks.pdf
6
Remote journaling information can be found at http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg245189.html
AS/400 Tutorials - http://www.as400tutorials.com

Also keep in mind what your data requirements are since that will drive bandwidth decisions. If
you are going to mirror your production system with another sittings across the room you won’t
have any isses… but if you are running a large system with lots of data transactions all of that
data is going to be replicated to your backup box and that can require large amounts of
bandwidth.

Presently the largest vendor in this arena are Maximum Availability and VISION solutions since
they aquired most of the competing HA software packages on the market.

ERP Application Vendors

JD Edwards For those of you who are living under a rock JD Edwards was acquired by
PeopleSoft - who has now been acquired by Oracle.

MAPICS software for manufacturers. MAPICS has now been purchased by Infor Global
Solutions. Infor now owns most all of the ERP systems that run on AS/400s.

Integrated Distribution Solutions provides software for food distribution, grocery, and
convenience industries. IDS has been aquired by Retalix.

JDA makes purchasing and supply chain software. JDA has aquired E3 Corporation the makers
of purchasing programs like E3 Trim.

SAP- Need I say more.

WyattERP is an open source ERP program for the AS/400 and iSeries platform. Unfortunately
the maintainer of this project James W. Kilgore has passed away and it hasn’t been updated in
several years.

Software Vendors

Innovative Systems LLC is the creator of FROG for i5 a utility browsing files, executing SQL
scripts and more.

ProData Computer Services has many utilities and are the creators of the popular DBU database
utility program.

WRKDBF is a great shareware utility for changes database files. It used to be free but it is still
inexpensive.

Help/Systems have several automation programs for the AS/400.

Weblinks

www.midrangeserver.com
www.redbooks.ibm.com
AS/400 Tutorials - http://www.as400tutorials.com

publib.boulder.ibm.com
www.as400.ibm.com
www.iseriesnetwork.com
www.ignite400.org
www.search400.com

Newsgroups

comp.sys.ibm.as400
comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc