IBM i information overview and what's new

Read this for an overview of the IBM® i information content, as well as a listing of what's new in the release. You can also find notices for hardware and software topics.

Welcome to the IBM i Information center, your source for technical information about the IBM i operating system. The documentation is your starting point for all IBM i technical information.

An overview of the new functions for the release is found on the IBM iLink outside Documentation Web site.

Note: The Documentation is updated periodically. To see a list of the most recent IBM i Documentation updates, see Documentation updates since IBM i 7.4 announcement.

Overview of the main categories and their new and changed information:

Table 1. IBM i Documentation main categories and what's new for IBM i 7.4
Documentation category overview What's new or changed
Availability

This category contains information about how to decide what level of availability you need and the technologies and techniques you can use to achieve your availability goals.

Connecting to your system

Use the information in this category to learn more about your options for connecting to and communicating with your system. From mobile telephones to remote consoles to the powerful functions of IBM Navigator for i, the IBM i environment offers you flexible solutions to use in your systems management strategy.

Database

This information enables you to take advantage of Db2 for IBM i to access and manage server data through an application or a user interface. As well as providing access to and protection for your data, DB2® for IBM i provides advanced functions such as referential integrity and parallel database processing.

e-business and Web serving

This category covers the electronic business capabilities of your system, to allow your company to participate over the Internet with other e-business companies.

Files and file systems

This category gives you information about both the database file management capabilities and the integrated file system capabilities of the system.

IBM i and related software

Use this information to manage the IBM i operating system and related software on your system, from installation, upgrades, and licensing to inventory and fix management.

Networking

Learn about IBM i networking technologies for connecting your business to the Internet, configuring e-mail, and integrating file and print services, user profile management, and network operations.

Programming

This category contains concepts and reference information needed most by IBM i application developers. Find information about developing multithreaded or distributed applications, or access reference information about application programming interfaces (APIs) and CL commands. Learn more about high-level languages such as C++, COBOL, and RPG.

Security

This information describes how to set up and plan for your system security. Learn how to secure your network and communications applications, and how to add highly secure cryptographic processing capabilities to your system. Find information about object signing and signature validation, identity mapping, and solutions to Internet security risks.

Storage solutions

The purpose of this topic collection is to introduce you to IBM i storage and to help you to understand your choices about storage solutions.

Storage solutions
Systems management

Use this information to distribute and group system resources, plan backup and recovery situations, secure your system, manage multiple systems, and troubleshoot any problems that might occur on your system.

Note: Not all topic collections are updated for IBM i 7.4. Therefore, some topics might be titled "What's new for V7R3."