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7.2 Content and Changes

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Abstract

New features first added in 7.2

Content

You are in: IBM i Technology Updates  > IBM Navigator for i > Enhancements list > 7.2 Content and Changes

The following new features were added with 7.2.  Many features have since been released back into 6.1 and 7.1 releases as long as the underlying support exists for the function.

  • Name – IBM Navigator for i. This interface was known in the past as IBM Systems Director Navigator for i. The name has been simplified to better represent what this interface is really about.
  • Additional function is available within Navigator by including the following products on your system.
    • System i High Availability Solutions Manager
    • Backup, Recover, & Media Services
    • IBM Performance Tools for i (DiskWatcher)
    • IBM Performance Tools for i (JobWatcher)
       
  • Dynamic left navigation – The left navigation area has been re-invented to provide true dynamic navigation. You can now drill down quickly and easily to the content you want to actually work with. This is especially useful for Database, IFS, and Performance functions within Navigator.
     
  • Independent tabs – The tabs across the work area are now independent and are cached. You can now navigate between them quickly without causing the content to be refreshed when you return to an existing tab. In addition you can launch any of these tabs into its own browser window.
     
  • Rich dynamic tables – The table control for many of the lists within Navigator has been replaced with a new Dojo based table. This allows you faster and better access to the data you need to work with. This table provides a new ‘quick filter’ function allowing very easy filter capability to just view those items that you require.
     
  • User profile management from signon screen - User IDs can be updated as needed from the Navigator signon screen. Users with expired passwords may now update the password and then sign in to the interface from a single location.

The IBM Navigator for i console contains the following task categories for IBM i management in V7R2.

Note:  These categories are similar to those that you see within the System i Navigator client application.

  • Target systems and groups (Target systems, System groups)

  • Favorites (Your personal favorites are shown here)

  • System (System status, System operator messages, History log, Search, Disk status, Emulation, Change password, Application Administration, and more.)

  • Monitors (System monitors, Message monitors)

  • Basic operations (Messages, Printers, Printer output, and more.)

  • Work management (Active jobs, Server jobs, Output queues, Active subsystems, and more.)

  • Configuration and service (System values, Time management, Disk units, Disk pools, Software, Program Temporary Fixes (PTFs), and more.)

  • Network (TCP/IP configuration, Servers, Remote Access Services, IP Policies, Enterprise Identity Mapping (EIM), and more.)

  • Integrated server administration (Virtual storage, Servers, Domains, and more.)

  • Security (Authorization lists, Cryptographic services key management, Intrusion detection, and more.)

  • Users and groups (Users, Create users, Groups, and more.)

  • Databases (Performance monitors, Health center, Databases, and more.)

  • Journal management (Journals, Create a journal, Manage journals, and more.)

  • Performance (Investigate data and collections, and more.)

  • File systems (Integrated file system, File shares, Create file share, Edit files, Download and upload files, and more.)

  • Internet configurations (IBM Web Administration for i, Digital certificate manager, IBM IPP Server for i, and more.)

     

  • PowerHA (Configure and manage existing or customized high availability environments; replaces Cluster resource services and High Avaliability Solutions Manager)

    Note: requires PowerHA licensed product

  • Backup, Recovery, and Media Services(Allows you to implement a fully automated backup, recovery, and media management strategy for your System i product )

    Note: requires Backup, Recovery and Media Services licensed product

New Content:

The following new functions are now available within the IBM® Navigator for i application in V7R2:

  • Usability and Performance Improvements

 Usability and performance improvements have been made to the following areas of the Navigator for i application:

  • Dynamic content in the navigation area
  • New dojo based tables for displaying lists of resources
  • Caching of data across tabs within the web console

Key improvements due to the use of dojo technology has greatly improved the navigation area, common list view, and handling of tabs within the workspace.

Task categories can now be opened to display any resource “containers” in the navigation area, similar to the System i Navigator client application. This makes it easier and quicker to access desired tasks.

Common list views now use new dojo tables that make it easier and quicker to filter lists, scroll through large lists, and select items in the list to perform actions.

Once multiple tasks are selected, resulting in multiple tabs in the console workspace, data is no longer refreshed each time you click back to a previous tab.

A new control now appears directly above the IBM i Management node in the navigation area.  Simply type in a navigator task you wish to find (you don't need to press enter!) and a list of possible tasks quickly appears below the quick path control.   Click on the task you want and the task will be processed and you will see it appear in a new tab.  You can also enter CL command names if you are familiar with the IBM i command set.  For example, you could enter WRKACTJOB in the quick path area, and then select the Active Jobs selection from the list of tasks!
A new Favorites node now appears in the navigation area. Expanding this node will show all of your personal favorites, saved by user profile and system. To save a particular list view as a favorite, simply select the “Save as Favorite” action from the actions dropdown in the table header while working with the list. Favorites can be organized by category as well.


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  • Target Systems and Groups
A new interface now exists to specify the target system to manage, and to be able to group similar target systems into groups. A new navigation node “Target Systems and Groups” now appears in the navigation area. You can select to manage another V7R2 system, or, you can also manage V7R1 and V6R1 systems as well.

  • Monitors

The ability to define, run, and respond to system and message monitors has been added to IBM Navigator for i for V7R2. This is an initial step in making Management Central functions from the System i Navigator client application available on the web. Monitors allow you to set specific thresholds and the actions that should be taken when those thresholds are reached.

  • Program Temporay Fixes (PTFs)

The ability to display, load, apply, install, remove, and clean up PTFs is now available in IBM Navigator for i for V7R2. You can also work with PTF groups. The PTF tasks are available under the Configuration and Service node in the navigation area.

The ability to search text from IFS and spooled files has been added to IBM Navigator for i for V7R2. The search function is available underneath the “System” tasks category. Before you can use this function, the OmniFind product (5733-OMF) must be installed.

New actions have been added to IBM Navigator for i to give users the ability to upload files to an IBM i directory, and download files from an IBM i directory. Also, a new action has been added to allow users to edit certain types of files.

A new function, “Goto Integrated File System Folder” has been added to allow you to quickly go to a desired folder in the Integrated File System. Previous selections are saved by user profile and system.

  • Printers and Printer Output

Automatic and silent printing support is added for V7R2. This function allows a user to automatically and silently print spooled files in one output queue to client printers. It also allows an IBM i ISV moving their business application to a cloud environment to print output to any printer that a client may have attached to their PC. A new task category “Virtual Printers” is added to the tasks listed under the Printers task category in the navigation area, however, it only appears if currently managing a system for V7R1 or above V7R1.
The functions of exporting spooled files selected from a list of spooled files to output queue, integrated file system and email by Infoprint server are simplified for V7R2. They were implemented as wizards which is inappropriate for actions on a spooled file. Now the actions are implemented as a single panel with as many options set to defaults as possible.

  • Database

On Demand Performance Center:

  • A menu option has been added to SQL Plan Cache snapshots and SQL database performance monitors to view overview charts in Performance Data Investigator. 
  • A menu option has been added to a selected statement in the SQL Plan Cache to see the job history for that statement.
  • Additional filters will be used when selecting to show the statements for a row from the index advisor and condensed index advice lists. This will provide a better match of statements that generated the advice in the SQL Plan Cache.
  • The index advisor list now includes a column with the times the index was advised when it was dependent on other index advice.
  • A filter has been added to the Show Statements panel filters, which specifies whether the other filters all need to match.
Database Management:
  • Support for new database features; Row Permissions and Column Masks, and the ability to activate these row and column level security capabilities on tables, Ability to define multiple event triggers, Ability to define named parameters and default values for parameters in SQL stored procedures and functions.
  • Generate SQL now supports several new options; Ability to obfuscate an SQL trigger, function or procedure, ability to specify whether to schema qualify objects, and the ability to add the OR REPLACE clause.
  • Support has been added to view the contents of a table.
Database Maintenance:  The status of a table reorganization will now show where the reorganize was started from, how many rows may have been deleted during the reorganization and the amount of storage returned because of deleting the rows.
Maintenance Usability and Performance improvements: 
A number of improvements have been made in the areas of usability and performance in Database.
  • Re-design of several panels for better usability (and performance) on the Web
    • Select Schemas
    • SQL Details for Jobs
    • Show Status (Table Reorgs, Table Alters, Index Builds, OmniFind text index builds)
    • Grid Column Chooser
  • Performance changes to improve list retrieval, filtering, and data compression
  • Usability changes to display lists resulting from database actions in a separate tab (for easier navigation between lists)
  • Usability changes to display selected dialogs as dojo popups 
  • Quick path access to several Database panels

  • Journal Management

The View Entries action was added for a journal. This action allows you to view the journal entries for a journal. You are given the ability to specify criteria to limit the journal entries that are returned.

  • Integrated Server Administration

  • Resource allocation priority will be used to let user define the cost on the hosting IBM i resources when formatting the storage spaces linked to the IBM i client servers.
  • Disk units with 4K sectors will be supported when creating a virtual disk.
  • Disk unit type solid-state drive (SSD) can be selected as preference when creating network server storage space.
  • Selecting either restricted devices to restrict access or allowed device resources to allow access is being supported.
  • Storage pool size limit which has been increased to use 8 byte integer will be supported.
  • File level backup (FLB) will be supported on VMware ESX virtual machines or Windows laptops and desktop machines in the network, and new OS type Auxiliary Server is introduced.
  • Add support for Windows Server 2012, including a new ReFS file system type for storage and shared disk linking.
  • Remove support for Windows Server 2003 in the Create Server wizard for V7R2 systems.
  • Remove the ability to create quorum disks for V7R2 systems.
  • Add support to the server cloning wizard to let the user select the storage pool where virtual storage should be created.

 

  • Network

    Enterprise Identity Mapping (EIM) support has been enabled in V7R2. Enterprise Identity Mapping (EIM) for the System i® platform is the IBM i ® implementation of an IBM® infrastructure that allows administrators and application developers to solve the problem of managing multiple user registries across their enterprise.

  • Support All System Value 
A limited number of system values were missing from the IBM Navigator for i web console.  The missing system values have now been added, including all the system values dealing with network attributes. 
image-20200117145505-1
Also, you can quickly go to the panel where a specific system value can be displayed/changed,  by simply typing in a description of the system value, or the IBM i system value itself, into the Quick Path area.
  • Security
Security wizard support has been enabled in V7R2. Security wizard allows users to create a set of security recommendations, create reports explaining the security recommendations, and apply the recommendations to your system (optional).
  • Disk Management
  • Concurrently removing disk units from ASP was enabled. Allow user to pause, resume or cancel the removing.
  • "Solid State Drive" column was added to disk units list to indicate if the disk unit is SSD (Solid State Drive).
  • Some of the user access restrictions on IBM Navigator for i were removed. Allow users to have a different user id and password for XPF and Service Tools.
  • The start tracing/stop tracing/clear trace/start balance/stop balance actions were added for disk pools. These actions allow users to trace the hot data on each disk unit in the specific disk pool and balance them in the disk pool by different balance types.
  • The rebuild disk unit data action was added for disk units. This action allows users to rebuild data on a failed disk unit in parity set.
  • The end allocation/resume allocation actions were added for disk units. These actions allow users to stop/resume allocating data on the specific disk units.
  • Performance
The Performance category in IBM Navigator for i includes Performance Data Investigator (PDI), Collection Manager, and web-based GUI interfaces for Collection Services, Job Watcher and Disk Watcher. New functions for Batch Model, System Monitor, and Performance Reports are described below.

  • Batch Model: A new Batch Model set of commands is available under Sizing as part of the Performance task. The Batch Model tool models the system utilization and job run times of IBM i batch workloads. You can use the Batch Model commands to help analyze and predict batch job performance on the IBM i and help answer the question: “What can I do to my system in order to meet my overnight batch run-time requirements (also known as the batch window)?” A Batch Model collection is created based upon existing performance data collected using IBM i Collection Services. The batch model file based collections can be viewed and managed with other collections in the Collection Manager table.

    System Monitor: In conjunction with the new System Monitor task in Navigator for i, the Performance task has delivered a new System Monitor package to provide near real-time graphs for system monitor data collected. This new package provides lightweight, single metric views with refresh capability for real-time system monitoring data. The charts can be launched either from the system monitor function of IBM Navigator for i or from Performance Data Investigator (Investigate Data task) Perspectives List panel. The list of perspectives (charts) available will be the same list as the data categories collected from the System Monitor function. In addition, the Configure Collection Services GUI is enhanced to enable system monitoring configuration.

    Integration with Database: The Database package is enhanced.* This provides SQL plan cache data perspectives with new SQL collection services data, new detailed Database I/O views for both Physical and Logical I/O metrics, and new SQL Cursor and Native DB Opens. A Health Indicators perspective for Database Health is added to the Health Indicators package. Job Watcher package is enhanced with detailed Logical Database I/O perspectives.

    SQL Plan Cache and SQL Performance Monitor database performance files can be viewed with SQL Overview and SQL Attribute Mix perspectives*. From the Database task viewing any of these database performance files, you can launch into PDI to view the set of charts. From within PDI Perspective list panel, the SQL Plan Cache Snapshot, Event Monitor and SQL Performance Monitor database performance files can be seen in the Collection dropdown list for each library and selected to Display the selected valid perspective.

    Performance Reports: A Performance Data Report can be generated for a set of PDI perspectives. Using a predefined or customized Performance Data Report Definition under Reports in the Performance task allows you to generate a PDF or zip file for a specified collection. This allows efficient export for multiple charts or tables on a collection at one time.

    Display Holder information: In PDI you can display holder information when you have identified a thread or task that is holding others. On the Interval Details for One Thread or Task view, use the Show Holder button to display the holding job or task information.

    Drilldown information: When drilling down on charts in PDI, you will see specific drilldown information to indicate the selected metric or interval used to filter the data displayed.

    System Information panel: On PDI perspectives display panel, the Show System Information view option will provide more detailed information for the system that the displayed collection came from such as processor, memory and partition specifications.

    Option to show SQL error messages: The Show SQL error messages option on the Options panel in PDI provides specific error information on SQL errors when using the Modify SQL function.

    New Perspectives: In addition to the new perspectives described above for System Monitor, Batch Model and integration with Database, the following areas have new perspectives: Memory and Java.

    * Requires PT1 Option 1 installed on the system.

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Document Information

Modified date:
24 January 2020

UID

ibm11143574

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