Over time there was a spring-fall rhythm to the rhythm of software program updates, although the creation of the OpenStack cloud controller by NASA and Rackspace Internet Hosting really broke the industrial Linux distro into the April and October cycle of business rollups. And so, after a few years of tech refreshes that follow the same rhythm, we now expect an update from IBM.
And starting tomorrow, IBM will be introducing the Autumn Know-How refresh to the current release. It could be IBM i 7.3 TR9 and IBM i 7.4 TR3. And these, unlike those partial technology refreshes that surfaced earlier this year in May, are real information refreshes, complete with up-to-date code, that are rolled up directly into a know-how refresh PTF group. Will be done, as prospects and peers have. To make some guesses.
The other two releases, which also contain some form of technical support, have been withdrawn from advertising and marketing and for this reason no longer receive technical information. To be more precise, the IBM i 7.2, which was first shipped on May 2, 2014, was withdrawn from advertising and marketing in this 12 months on April 30, and general support for this launch on April 30, 2021. with an estimated minimum of three years. Long Help is being added before long.
Maybe even on Tuesday of this week, when all those bulletins debuted, but we don’t expect or else Alison Butrell, IBM I provide supervisor at Giant Blue, will talk to us by that name about it. Which we got a preview of last week was one of the bulletins.
As we report separately in this issue of The 4th Hundred, the IBM i 7.1, which was first delivered on April 23, 2010, was discontinued by IBM on September 30, 2017 and whose 30 General support ended on April 2018. Prolonged support lasting up to 5 years. This could make the IBM i 7.1 the longest supported launch in the history of the AS/400 and its lineage.
Butril and Will gave us a preview of the ‘know-how refresh’ update ahead of the formal announcement, for which we thank them. And we also want to give about three webcasts that IBM is hosting with COMMON.
Tuesday is the first with Will going on a fundamentally technical refresh for the IBM i 7.3 and IBM i 7.4. On Wednesday, Jesse Gorzinski, enterprise architect for Open Supply at IBM i, will talk about Open Supply enhancements, along with many of the items we already covered here at The Four Hundred with Purple Hat Ansible Integration with IBM i have done. and support for various databases on the platform.
And on Thursday, Scott Forsti’s Dynamic Duo, DB2 for i Architect, and Tim Rowe, Architect for the software development and methods administration business, will discuss DB2 and the growth in entry consumer options. You will be able to sign up for these webcasts at this link. We’ll be plowing the manifestos and listening to these webcasts for you to drill down into the key points over the coming weeks.
In the meantime, we can provide you with a small preview to increase your urge for food. The overview that Will is offering here covers all Energy Methods platforms including AIX and Linux as well as the IBM i.
As is the case with all know-how refreshes, being added to the IBM i code base may not be a big winning new piece of code, though with a handful of tweaks and additions. We’ll collect it all and set it up for you over the next week, after which will provide a brief description in future editions of The 4 Hundred. no worry. Tech Refresh won’t be available until November 13th, so we have time to take a look at them all.
