Understanding how to enter DDS specifications into a source file and compile them into physical and logical files is really as far as you need to go for 90% of the tasks involved in running a 400. Yes, nowadays you see alot about using DDL (essentially SQL) to create tables but I am still a fan of DDS and do create views using SQL statements when it makes sense to do so.

Recently I have been working on a tier three ERP system from one of those conglomerated software consolidation companies. Chances are you have heard of them if you have been around ERP systems in the last few years. 

The one thing I really hate about this system (which uses a mainstream database on the backend running on a Win32 platform) is how clunky the report writing process is. It’s not elegent, and it’s not tightly integrated into the system itself. In short I think it sucks.

This is precisely an area where the AS/400, iSeries and System i shines. You have so many native tools and applications to work with the underlying database. You have tools like Query/400, Query Manager, direct SQL and so much more that simply plugs right in and goes. You don’t have to learn a bunch of complicated syntax to use programs like Query/400 either because its entirely menu driven.

Many people these days are frowning on “green-screen” based programs.

My take is always to use the right tool for the job and sometimes that is a query report or interactive lookup screen using runqry or query definition. The command line and perhaps a small CL program allows this to be transparent to the user, so who cares if the resulting data is displayed on an old fashioned green-screen.

So to get started writing reports check out the following short list of commands/programs:

WRKQRY
STRQMQRY
RUNQRY
Operations Navigator (allows you to execute and thoroughly examine SQL statements)

One area that used to be lacking on the AS400 was report manipulation or report mining tools. People used to print out thousands of pages of reports (and many still do) just to pull out a couple pages with the pertinent details and then throw the rest away.

But nowadays there are so many third party tools that will take your spool files and convert them into plain text for your PCs. Even Operations Navigator has had this capability for many years. It even allows you to search through files and outqs. End users can even do this with a little bit of training on Operations Navigator, it’s not that difficult and they will love you for it.

There really aren’t many excuses for getting the most out of your systems today. We aren’t living in the stone age where data extraction and reporting writing for the AS/400 is complicated thanks to the myraid of tools that have been available for many years now.

There is a large misconception running about the user community these days that the AS/400 and iSeries platform are old antiquated machine as scarce as the dinosaurs and just as hard to use with its crummy looking text only interface commonly known as the green screen.

This is a major sticking point for business looking to buy an AS/400 and especially for some system administrators that have been groomed on a Windows based environment with point and click ease of use and a built in wizard to do just about everything.

But there is really good news for those people who absolutely hate the old fashioned green-screens that the AS/400 and iSeries platform is known for… there has been a tool available to make maintenance and administration tasks easier. That cool graphical user interface tool is called Operations Navigator, it comes along with your regular licenses so it doesn’t cost any additional money and it has been available now for many years.

That’s right I said that the operations navigator utility is a GUI you can use with your AS/400 and iSeries systems. With it you can maintain users, catalogue system patches and program temporary fixes, watch jobs, administer printer output queues and more.

You want to run an SQL query to delete some data sets or run a quick and dirty report and export the results into Excel? Operations navigator has you covered. Want to copy files from your computer over to the integrated file system on the AS/400? Operations navigator can do that too.

If you are into keeping a watchful eye on the health and performance data of your system, once configured, operations navigator will spit out great looking charts and graphs of important performance metrics.

Did you know that you can also download your reports as text or pdf files from your AS/400 or iSeries with operations navigator, this very feature alone can replace you dependency for expensive third party software packages you may currently be using.

One of the greatest features not otherwise available until operations navigator came around is the ability to diagnose SQL statements and present them in a graphical diagram with each of the steps the system used to execute it in very thorough detail.

There is also a whole feature set available that will collect performance data on your programs and files and record how often temporary indexes are built, you then simply go back and review this data after running a collection and it will recommend indexes to build that will improve the performance of your reports and queries dramatically.

Eventually you may find yourself having to perform some tasks in the command line environment, but as time moves on more and more of features are being built natively into operations navigator with each new release slowly removing the dependency on the green-screen. Who knows though, you may even become a convert like some of us old 400 folks and start to use the command line interface instead of the GUI.

Nonetheless oprations navigator has such a rich set of tools and its ease of use make it an excellent tool to administering your AS/400 and iSeries systems so it is definitely here to stay.

The operating system that runs on an AS/400, iSeries, i5 is known as OS/400 or i5/OS and it is command and menu driven. At its heart everything tends to be a command and even the menus that you see use commands behind the scenes. All of these commands are known as control language

 AS400 commands tend to be three letter abbreviations of two or more words put together. For example the word “work” is commonly used in several commands and is abbreviated as wrk. Printable output on an AS/400 is known as spool files and commands to work with those are abreviated as splf— ok so thats four letters but it is a rare exception.

So if we put together Work and Spool Files we ge the command “wrksplf” Work with Spool Files and it allows you to maintain your printable output that is still residing on the system. And by the way commands are entered on the command line at the bottom of menus and denoted with the “===>” symbol.

 To see a list of AS400 commands that have been catagorized into groups type in “go verb” on the command line. As you will see there are *alot* of commands. Ultimately you will probably only ever use 20% of them, and realistically even for day to day system administration less than that.

You can also prompt any command by typing it in and pressing the F4 key on the keyboard. This prompting will display more detail about the command and provide all of the available parameters that go along with it.

Everything that runs on the AS400 is called a job. And all of the jobs run within their own areas known as subsystems. To see a list of all the jobs currently running on the system you will use the command wrkactjob which stands for Work with Active Jobs.

Without getting into a bunch of techno jargon, subsystems are a way to run jobs that jobs can be allocated system resources like memory and CPU processing time. For example printers run in there very own subsystem called QSPL, which tends to have its own pool of memory allocated to it. That way others jobs in the system don’t use that allocated memory and vice versa. The memory can be reallocated easily if need be but that will be covered in another topic.

Out of the box an AS400 will have adequate subsystems configured to get you up and going… as time goes on your can create more subsystems or change the pre-configured ones if need be.

Lastly let’s take a look at how to shutdown or restart an AS400. Starting up an AS400 or restarting is know as an Initial Program Load or IPL for short. This is a rather straight forward process but can take quite a bit of time to complete.

In a very brief nutshell upon startup the system checks everything out and loads up the operating system and related systems to make the system opertational. During an IPL is most often when you will experience a hardware failure… not to worry though because most hardware failures that occur on an AS400 can be replaced while the machine is running. This includes hard disks, redundant power supplies and even memory.

So to shutdown or IPL a system you will use the Power menu which you access by typing in “go power” on the command line or alternatively using the Power Down System or pwrdwnsys command. Most people opt for using pwrdwnsys.