I thought it’d be good to start by reviewing the IBM i documentation and online resources available. Most of the technical topics that I'll be sharing via this blog are already documented in some manner – the issue is knowing where to find the documentation and then finding the time to read all it all!
This is the formal documentation repository for each release. The Information Center has a tremendous amount of documentation but built-in search capabilities do leave a little to be desired. The English version of the Information Center is updated periodically; national language translated versions are not.
IBM Systems Hardware Information Center
This is where the hardware
information is documented. Depending upon where you navigate to, you may end up
taking links that lead you back to the IBM i Information Center.
This is the IBM Web site for IBM i
marketing information. It's mostly overview information that reviews the key
features and benefits. These Web pages generally link to the IBM i Information
Center for technical documentation. There’s an amazing amount of information
within the IBM i Web presence - but once again, finding it is the challenge!
However, the Web pages do have a method to the madness. Each major topic area
follows the same standards for organization, high-level content and layout.
I've solicited favorite links from my peers in the lab to build the following list:
- Performance Management Web page
- iDoctor for IBM i
- Systems Management
- IBM i Access
- Security
- Availability
- TCP/IP
- HTTP Server
- BRMS
- IBM Integrated Web Application Server
- Integrated Web Services for i
- DB2 for i main page
- DB2 Web Query
- DB2 Web Query community page
- Virtualization with IBM i, PowerVM and Power Systems
- IBM i on a Power Blade Read-me First
- IBM i on POWER Blades Supported Environments
- IBM i integration with BladeCenter and System x
Redbooks, Redpapers and Technotes
are great technical resources. They’re generally focused on a specific topic
and cover conceptual as well as task-oriented documentation. That is, Redbooks
not only tell you how to do something, but also describe why you want to do
something. Redbooks are produced only for a small set of topics that IBM i
supports. Within the Redbooks Web site, you’ll find a specific section for
"System i" Redbooks; note that "System i" is really a
legacy name since the Redbooks included in this section include Redbooks for
IBM i software topics as well.
I don't use this site a lot, but I
really like it when I need it! Given that a lot of the software on i has been
there for a long time, some of the "legacy" functions haven’t been
documented in the IBM i Information Center. The Information Center does contain
links to the older books that are still applicable, but you have to know how to
find those links! This online library Web site is how I find the older
documentation more easily.
The link I have provided is the
System i support link - not the Power Systems support link. The Power Systems
support page doesn't have all the popular links that the System i support page
has - and I think those popular links are pretty good. In addition, through
this Web interface you can "Search Support," which includes more
documents when going through the System i support page. Searching through the
support site has the really nice feature of searching through multiple
repositories - Redbooks, Software Knowledge Base, Hardware and Software
Information Centers, educational information, PTFs and APARs, and more. While
on the topic of the support Web site, I want to specifically discuss the
Software Knowledge Base.
The software knowledge base is a
collection of articles written by IBM support representatives to describe or
document common situations, scenarios or problems seen by the support center
representatives. Some of the articles are available to everyone for free, and
some are only available if you have software support. But these articles can
provide some really helpful information. Perhaps in future blogs, I'll point
out a few that I find particularly helpful.
Within the IBM i Support site, I want to highlight a couple Web pages.
- IBM Disk Sanitizer is a cool new function to securely erase IBM i disks units that I'm sure will make a future blog.
- Future software upgrade planning information is the Web site where IBM makes our future planning statements so you can be aware of potential future changes and plan for them.
No wonder we have a hard time knowing all that's available! Just trying to summarize the main Web information turned out to be surprising difficult; but what's really amazing is that I've just scratched the surface in this brief review of IBM i online information. Each and every one of these links is just the starting point for a wealth of information, not to mention the fact that I've only identified a subset of the topics that we document on the Web. This just confirms why it’s so hard to know about all the capabilities of i and why we need this blog!
Next week's blog will be on to the technical topics. Stay tuned.
I just wanted to point out that the AS/400 Online Library site that was referenced is no longer supported and hasn't been updated since V5R2. The supported information centers do not link to it since it is out of date. The IC does have a PDF files and manuals page (About i5/OS information > PDF files and manuals) which in turn has a link to a list of additional reference manuals that are still valid for the current releases. That page directs customers to find those manuals in the IBM Publications Center. Thanks.
Posted by: Beth Taylor (IBM) | August 25, 2009 at 03:41 PM
I just wanted to say this is a nice collection of links. Thank you for taking the time to write this post!
Posted by: Ryan Watkins (IBM) | October 02, 2009 at 12:52 PM