Re: Firmware Updates

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.


The basic idea is to collect settings into a template, then collect settings on other machines or later on the same one, which compares against the template and reports on differences.

It's been around quite awhile, was originally called Application Runtime Expert, in case you've heard that name. And this has been included with IBM i entitlement at no additional cost.


Cheers
Vern


On Tue, 27 Feb, 2024 at 7:32 AM, Bryan Dietz <bdietz400@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


To: midrange systems technical discussion

they have this...
https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/i/7.4?topic=utilities-clrtmp

just find a time and run it.

bryan

Patrik Schindler wrote on 2/27/2024 3:09 AM:

Hello Greg,

Am 26.02.2024<http://26.02.2024> um 20:37 schrieb Greg Wilburn <gwilburn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:gwilburn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>:

IBM should spend more time writing clear **concise** documentation, and spend less time cleansing their vocabulary of offensive terminology.

I'd go a step further. IBM should provide readymade applications to relieve the sysadmin from the chore of manually comparing values, and conditionally compute a result — something a computer is *built* to do! HP(E) shows that this is entirely possible. You insert an USB stick with a readymade Linux appliance into a server and boot from there. It scans the hardware, compares with a (local) repository, and outputs a list of recommended upgrades in a GUI list, where you can easily look up dependencies, and change logs. Then you click *one button" and it does all the tiny steps for individual component upgrades in the right order while the sysadmin can commit to do more useful work! Since it's automated, the whole process is less error prone than humans doing this alongside other work!

I'm aghast that IBM still gets away with their old-fashioned way of keeping current with firmware. IBM charges a *lot* of money for their "service". If I were a regular IBM customer, I'd use each and every chance to voice my opinion, and gather allies in the right spots (BP, COMMON, etc.) to force a change here!

:wq! PoC