Technology Moves Fast. PASE Can Help

This week’s blog was written by Tony Cairns. Tony is a member of the IBM i development team working on open-source solutions, including PASE and PHP enablement.

As a member of the PASE development team, inquiries from the IBM i community regarding PASE often come to me. In one such recent email, the following phrase caught my eye:

To most, including me, it (PASE) is just "the other side I rarely use.”

E-x-a-c-t-l-y!

PASE (Portable Application Solutions Environment) for IBM i is an optionally installable component of the operating system. There’s no charge for it. Specifically, if you were to go looking for it, it installs as Option 33. However, there’s probably no reason to go looking for it because you’d most likely find that it has, in fact, already been installed on your system and is quietly running one of the many popular offerings available for IBM i, such as Java, PHP, SAP and so on.

What?? It’s optional, but it’s probably already installed? That’s right. PASE is such an integrated part of the operating system these days that you’d have to go out of your way to remove it – at the risk of severely limiting your system. That’s why, for most, PASE is often shrouded in all the mystery of a good Indiana Jones movie.

PASE Unveiled …

Let’s look at how PASE enables IBM i to support AIX applications, using PHP as an example. Put simply, PASE enables AIX compiled binary code (e.g., PHP) to run inside the same process as your ILE programs (e.g., RPG) “sharing” IBM i System Licensed Internal Code (SLIC) and POWER hardware (see figure below).

Just to be clear, in PASE, AIX compiled binaries are NOT emulated in any way. They run directly on the POWER processor and in same IBM i job/process as your ILE programs. This is possible due to “shared” SLIC. And since the POWER processor supports both AIX 32-bit binaries and 64-bit binaries, PASE also supports both 32/64-bit AIX binaries. As such, PASE enables you to run many AIX applications on the IBM i operating system with little or no change, effectively expanding the portfolio of solutions available for the platform.

IBM i Project Manager ...

The PASE environment shared kernel is very accurate matching AIX behavior. Most project managers report PASE porting and version upgrades cost pennies on the dollar compared to conventional application development. At the Rochester lab we walk the talk, to wit, about 98 percent of PASE runtime is borrowed directly from AIX with less than 2 percent change to fit our merged ILE/PASE environment.

IBM i Operator ...

Since PASE and ILE programs share the same SLIC kernel, they also share the same basic exception/signal processing. Therefore, essential system operations are the same for both PASE jobs and non-PASE jobs, allowing IBM i operational tools like wrkactjob to view job attributes, end jobs, etc. As an IBM i operator, continue to use same familiar IBM i tools for PASE jobs, and when you have time, you can choose to learn all manner of new techniques offered via PASE shells and scripting (future blog).

IBM i Programmer ...

PASE memory required for any program run stack, heap size or shared memory is acquired from same SLIC teraspace pools use by ILE programs. Therefore, ILE/PASE programs can share data and actually call routines in either environment. However, as a true Midwest geek I am bound by Minnesota nice, so I feel compelled to mention that it takes practice to use the ILE-2-PASE QP2 APIs and counter-part PASE-2-ILE _ILECALL, _PGMCALL APIs (future blog).

By the way, in IBM i 6.1 and later, ILE and OPM program models are better converged, so PASE memory can also be used by OPM programs. … Hey, if you haven’t done so already, isn’t about time you moved up beyond V5R4???

IBM i CTO ...

We the people (IBM i people), say thanks to AIX developers worldwide for testing ported PASE production applications.

Sound funny? Maybe, but helps IBM i CTOs sleep soundly at night. We are not alone when running AIX ported PASE applications. Most often, AIX counterparts have lived through development trials and cost, tested each new version, and re-designed to fit customer feedback. After the AIX dust settles, we the people (IBM i people) pick up hard-earned AIX binaries for our own PASE production environments.

I tell you these things not because you need to completely understand them, but rather because I’d like to give you an appreciation for how thoroughly and seamlessly the environment has been integrated into IBM i. As a growing number of solution providers leverage PASE, it’s becoming more likely every day that you may be reaping the benefits of an application built to utilize the capabilities of AIX – and not even know it.

For those of you having an interest in a deeper understanding of PASE, perhaps looking for ways that you can further leverage the environment, I’ll follow up with another post featuring additional information, tips and useful resources in the near future. Meanwhile, join the conversation on Facebook and share your own comments and stories about PASE.

 

Making a Good First Impression, Then Making It Last

Our guest blogger today is Kathy Tri, a senior software engineer at IBM Rochester who functions as the technical lead and architect for IBM i install, upgrade, license management and Power System upgrades. She shares insights and information about her team’s ongoing efforts to deliver an exceptional client experience. Read it, and then join the conversation on facebook.

A positive out-of-box experience for clients deploying IBM i has been a key point of emphasis from day one, and will continue to be in the future. Much is owed to the integration of the operating system with key functions, such as security and database, and with IBM middleware like WebSphere Application Server. We package and test everything together as a fully integrated stack to ensure the quick and easy deployment of an IBM i system or partition. As technical lead and architect for installs and upgrades, my goal is to ensure an easy migration to a new release with minimal downtime. The key objective for the IBM i operating system and its related products is to enable our customers to run their businesses without having to worry about the computer. A common thread among customers running IBM i systems is that they plug it in and leave it alone. It just runs with minimal intervention. This is what we had in mind when we developed IBM i support for what we call n-2 (n minus two) upgrades. For example, if an IBM i customer is currently on release V5R4, they can directly move to release 7.1 without having to install 6.1. This allows a customer to remain on a release for at least four years before needing to move to a new release. While it would be wonderful if customers could always remain current with operating system releases and technical refreshes, we know this is often not possible.

Since customers may have more than one partition or system, we also support interoperability between systems that are one or two releases apart. In other words, interoperability allows clients to develop applications on a current release and deploy them to a release n-1 or n-2. Another out-of-the-box feature is that most customer data can be moved from any prior release of AS/400 to the current releases of IBM i. For example, just the other day I was asked about moving applications and data from a V4R2 AS/400 to IBM i 7.1 on a new POWER7 system. Indeed, most of the data and applications will move with minimal reconfiguration needed. This is not a typical upgrade, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend it as an upgrade strategy, but it is an example of how we try to ensure investment protection and ease of moving to current releases and hardware. In this case, the customer will have the applications they love and will be able to gradually take advantage of new functions available.

Today we offer a number of tools to help plan the install or upgrade of an IBM i partition. For example, the IBM Pre-upgrade Verification tool for IBM i ensures that key items have been completed before upgrading the operating system and related products. To allow for remote install and eliminate media errors, we encourage downloading your entitled software and license keys from the Entitled Software Support (ESS) site.

Once the media images have been downloaded, you can use the resulting image to upgrade or install a new partition. In addition, network install allows for remote install from a single media image, which makes it easier to deploy the release. If you want a good reference for this capability, download IBM i Network Install using Network File System. Meanwhile, the IBM i Information Center has complete information about planning and installing a new release of IBM i.

The virtual media, or network install, was very beneficial for an IBM i customer who had a system that was older than  five years. They wanted to move to a current release to take advantage of some new application modernization functions. Their dilemma, however, was they didn’t know where the physical box was anymore! No one had needed to do anything with the physical system for a few years and the building they were in had been remodeled. They were wondering if there was any way to upgrade without having to physically load the DVDs into the system. Using the virtual media that was downloaded from the ESS website, they were able to upgrade the system without touching the physical box. They eventually found the system, it had accidently been walled over!

The out-of-box experience has always been key to IBM i customers. Our goal has been to provide them with an exceptional client experience that yields fast time to value. The influence of this “plug it in and go” capability has also rubbed off onto new POWER environments. IBM PureSystems takes it another step and optimizes the complete solution stack, combining advanced IBM hardware and software along with patterns of expertise. The result is an optimized configuration that is fully integrated and simple to deploy. The rapid deployment capabilities of these systems provide a simplified experience. Individual elements of your IT infrastructure need not be separately acquired. As a result, customers can focus on delivering business value. Sound familiar?

 

 

 

IBM i Single Level Store …. In Lieu of a Crystal Ball

When the System/38 was being architected, it was recognized that underlying hardware technology was subject to unpredictable change. While it didn’t take a crystal ball to understand that change would be inevitable, having one to forecast the future of storage technology sure would have been nice. But as we all know, there is no crystal ball. This reality led to the development of Single Level Store. A key feature of Single Level Storage (SLS) architecture is that it insulates the upper-level code from the specifics of the storage technology it uses. Along with the Technology Independent Machine Interface, TIMI (see Steve Will’s “TIMI - Protecting Investments and Integrity in IBM i”), SLS is a fundamental element of the design that has allowed IBM i to continue to take advantage of new capabilities seamlessly.

Single level storage makes memory and disk space one entity; you do not need to know where your programs or files are stored. When you access something, you request it by name, and IBM i will automatically find it for you. Is it already in memory? Super! If it’s not, the storage management component will find it, wherever it may reside on disk and bring it into memory. You don’t need to worry about where the disk is or what type of disk is used. You can easily add additional storage, including solid state drives, to your existing disk configuration. The storage management support effortlessly introduces disks to the system regardless of their capabilities or technological frameworks.

Let’s review some of the technical advantages at your fingertips with IBM i and SLS along with the integrated storage management it incorporates: 

1. You can seamlessly optimize the use of solid state drives. This ability is an extension of automatic storage management. IBM i can automatically place your frequently accessed data on SSDs; IBM i with SLS manages your storage.
   
   But did you know that with the magic of SLS, you can also get immediate benefits of a very fast IPL by putting your load source on SSDs? Several IBM i clients have moved entirely from spinning disks to SSDs; substantially reduced IPL time was among the many benefits
   
   
2. You can transparently add more disk capacity and automatically balance your use of that additional storage.
   It’s critical to have your data and files distributed across disk units to allow for parallelism when accessing that data; you do not want a single disk unit to become a bottleneck. IBM i’s storage management will do this automatically for you. You do have controls, such as trace and balance for fine tuning, but once you have a configured environment, IBM i will take care of it all for you.
   
   
3. You are alleviated of the need to manage where your data is stored or the space allocated to file systems.
   On many non-i systems, you will find storage allocated to file systems. When the file system gets full, you will get errors until you either increase the size of the file system or delete files to free up space. There may be plenty of space available on the physical disk, it’s just not assigned to that particular file system.
   
   When I first started working with some software on a Unix environment and I discovered this requirement, I was dumbfounded. Why would anyone want to worry about how much storage is allocated to which file system? Why doesn’t the system take care of that for you? After all, there’s plenty of disk storage available!

IBM i Single Level Storage is well documented in the IBM i Information Center topic, IBM i Storage Management. Interestingly, this article is geared toward readers familiar with x86 storage architecture.

Other blogs on SLS include Steve Will’s “The “New” Value of Single Level Store” and Mike Cain’s “One of the Crown Jewels: Single Level Storage.”

Single Level Storage makes i easy.

 

 

 

 

COMMON Annual Meeting, Spring 2013

This year’s COMMON Annual Meeting is in Austin, TX. Many things are similar to past meetings – a great technical agenda with a lot of sessions, IBM i experts giving the presentations, the Expo where you can learn more about products and solutions that are available, conversations with colleagues that I’ve meet over the years, and the opportunity to meet more people, all of who have one thing in common – their passion for i.

One thing that is a bit different this year is the use of social networking at the conference. Social networking was used in the past, but even more so this year. There is the COMMON User Group Facebook page, you can follow the @COMMONug Twitter ID as well as the conversation tagged with #commonug or #IBMi. People at the conference used social media to share their experiences, and if you weren’t at the conference, you can still read what people were saying.

It’s a busy week for me with seven presentations. While I enjoy giving the presentations, I really like the questions and discussions that come up after the session. I always learn something new and there are always challenging questions. It’s also very rewarding to help others or to assist with solving a problem.

If you haven’t already heard, this year is the 25^th birthday of IBM i. The birthday celebration was unveiled at the COMMON opening session. There’s an IBMi25 Facebook page and there will be 25 “chapters” posted that celebrate the past, present and future of i, and its unique combination of technology, community and business. You’ll want to take a look and add your comments. You can also follow @IBMi25 on Twitter or with the #IBMi25 hashtag.

After COMMON, I have a week to catch up, then I’m off to present at two local user group conferences. I’m attending the New England User Group Conference and the Toronto User group Conference (TEC) and am looking forward to those events as well!