need to learn AS/400 hardware & OS features

I have decided to accept an offer to change from my
current P/A position to a Sys Admin position within my
company.  There are several reasons for doing so, but
primarily, they have offered me to take "ownership" of
the AS/400 environment.  Through some new, fresh blood
in the management team partly due to a reorg, they are
looking to do a clean sweep of all our "old" AS/400
equipment and replace with new AS/400s.  Currently, we
have a development AS/400 and a QA/Production AS/400
in our corporate headquarters and one AS/400 in each
of our four plants.  (We are also an IBM mainframe and
Unix-Oracle shop.)  The VP (new to the company) in
charge of this aspect of our company has voiced
concerns regarding the reliability issues of old
equipment and our ability to get replacement parts on
a TIMELY basis so that we suffer only minimal
downtime.  He is vaguely familiar with the AS/400 and
in his previous employment managed a shop that
included AS/400s; he has a good impression of the
AS/400 and knows generally of the reliability of the
platform that most of us take for granted.

Personally, I see this as an opportunity to champion
the AS/400 and promote new uses that were either
unavailable or not well suited with the old equipment.
 The lowest common denominator has been our V3R2
development box, which has been a real PITA as far as
trying to exploit current AS/400 features.

While I have other questions that I will ask in
separate postings, I would like to hear your
suggestions as to how I might get up to speed on the
latest AS/400 technologies, both hardware features and
OS features.  I have been out of that loop since I
have had no responsibilities over the past several
years involving AS/400 hardware and OS issues,
strictly in a P/A role.  Now I need to catch up.  Oh,
BTW, I have been in the IBM midrange for over 15 years
and have been on the AS/400 since its inception.  I
subscribe to AS/400 network, but, to tell the truth,
have paid most of my attention to the programming
articles.  Guess I better get to reading my old
issues, eh?


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