Re: Firmware Updates

At the risk of igniting a flame war, (and this is the last I’ll say about it), Patrick, for those of us who are System Administrators on IBM i , firmware updates are particularly simple. If you don’t have an HMC, then regularly apply PTF groups (as you should anyway) and the system will simply deal with that for you. If you have an HMC and wish the HMC to manage it, then you can update the firmware, often times without disruption and at will, and it’s particularly simple. You just tell it to go out and get the appropriate update and apply it, the HMC does the rest. Only when the firmware falls way behind does it get more complicated.

Linux (Unix including AIX) is still a bit of challenge for me since so much of the Admin is done manually, and on demand as opposed to automatically like IBM i . Updating device drivers for instance is a separate action from updating the OS system. Not so on IBM i, IBM puts all the device drivers in a group and applies them for you, then updates the devices. Linux most likely could do that too, but the culture of Linux administration would most likely veto that since direct absolute control over the environment is highly desired. You know Linux very well so it is plain and simple to you, not so much for the uneducated and unexperienced.

ARE is a fabulous tool that IBM created primarily for its own use in troubleshooting customer issues, and made it available to anyone. With a little Java programming you could use ARE to find system related issues and correct them automatically. (The programming part is in the correction of the issue) I don’t remember if ARE is available to the older OS VRM that you typically report using but if it is you should have a look.


Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects

On Feb 28, 2024, at 6:50 AM, Patrik Schindler <poc@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hello Vern,

Am 27.02.2024 um 16:51 schrieb VERNON HAMBERG Owner via MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

In the arena of updates, to accomplish what Greg is recommending, I think I can say that IBM already "provide readymade applications to relieve the sysadmin from the chore of manually comparing values, and conditionally compute a result" - it's called Administration Runtime Expert (5733-ARE). More info at https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/ibm-administration-runtime-expert-i.

Thanks for pointing this out.

After a quick glance, ARE is not what I was talking about. It's an OS dependent application for local install with a much broader goal about "consistent performance and deployment". Handling PTFs is just a sub-function of it. Handling firmware updates in an OS independent way is completely out of scope. Firmware handling being different depending on the availability of a HMC doesn't make things exactly easier to grasp.

:wq! PoC

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