IBM Administration Runtime Expert for i

Security Bulletin: IBM Application Runtime Expert (ARE) for IBM i - this PTF will be shipped with the Security group August 31, 2026 and disables the IBM ARE legacy GUI interface.  See ARE PTFs at the bottom of this page for more details.

The product ships with an intuitive, easy to use GUI interface.  The interface provides for the collection and verification of a customized set of information about an application, its runtime environment, and the IBM i system that it runs on. Users have the ability to collect a wide array of information, system settings, and attributes. This collected information is built into what we call a template. Once a template is built, it can be used to verify the application, and its environment, on the same system where the template was built, or any other IBM i system. A system is verified against the information stored in the template, and the results are documented in a set of reports. These reports give a clear and concise view of what changed, or what is different. The beauty of this interface and methodology is that you can build and maintain an application knowledge base, which can be used to automatically verify a system. You can easily update your template to include new information and settings as you learn more about things that cause your application or system run incorrectly.

For examples of how ARE can change the way you do application service and support, see the usage examples in the getting started guide.