A Few More Tools

In case you missed it, you now have a few more tools for your "hero bag".

Earlier this week, IBM announced the IBM i 7.3 TR2 and IBM i 7.2 TR6 with a planned availability date of March 17, 2017.  If you are still running on IBM i 7.1, nothing new for your kit.  Please get on with upgrading to 7.3. Even Superman needed a cape to be a hero...  just saying

As mentioned in the previous post, one of the very nice things you can do with DB2 Web Query is take advantage of the SQL based IBM i services available.  It is a quick and easy way to demonstrate more value. With that in mind, there are even more services available with the new technology refreshes.

A couple other interesting additions are some JSON functionality and IBM i Access Client Solutions (ACS) enhancements.  If you are not exploring the use of ACS to interact with DB2 for i, now is a good time start. I suggest making it part of your DBE toolkit.

With regards to JSON, document stores and unstructured, non-relational databases, look for more information and insight to come. The notion of employing "other" databases that have advantageous attributes and specific characteristics tailored to today's ever expanding data storage and processing requirements is something we need to illuminate and discuss. Stay tuned.

As usual, Mr. Forstie has done a very nice job detailing the technology refreshes for 7.2 here, and 7.3 here.  Check it out.

And if you have any questions or concerns as to how to take advantage of all the tools and techniques, please let me know.