Big Blue Bolsters Navigator For i With New Stuff
October 14, 2024 Alex Woodie
Changes are afoot with Navigator for i, the Web-based administrative tool for the IBM i platform, which gains a range of new capabilities with the latest Technology Refresh. Some of the more visible additions to Navigator include complete support for the Advanced Job Scheduler and expanded support for new security journal data mart. But not to be overlooked are the retirement of the old Web Admin GUI (with replacements in Navigator), and enhancements to PDI.
Navigator for i is IBM’s strategic Web-based console for administrating the IBM i server. The product enables administrators to monitor and manage various components of the IBM i stack, including databases, jobs, messages, printers, users, network, security, performance, the file system, backups, and high availability, among others.
Big Blue launched a new version of Navigator for i in the fall of 2021 to replace the aging version of the product, which traces its roots back to a Windows-only client launched in 1995. Built using the latest tech, including the Angular JavaScript framework, New Nav (as it was then called) delivered a fresh and speedy user experience on the outside, while an overhaul of the innards (using SQL-based IBM i Services and REST instead of CL commands) meshed with IBM’s new tact.
While New Nav launched with most of the capabilities in the old product, it had some gaps, and IBM has been working since then to fill them, while acknowledging that it won’t duplicate all of the old functionality because the way that people interact with the platform is changing.
IBM Navigator for i now monitor software licenses.
With IBM i 7.5 TR5 and IBM i 7.4 TR11, which IBM announced last week, IBM is fleshing out the product in some notable ways. For instance, Navigator now includes monitors that show the state of IBM subscriptions and system product licenses on the platform, including which licenses will soon expire.
Users can view the information in graphical form, with red panels indicating that a subscription or a license has expired (see image). Alternatively, users can view the data in a table. If one or more subscriptions or licenses has expired, it will also show on the system home panel. The thresholds for showing this information can be configured in Connection Properties.
Performance Data Investigator (PDI), a tool for investigating performance problems in the Db2 for i database, is also getting some attention in Navigator for i. With this release, IBM has added several new data points to PDI collection service, including Active Jobs Count; CPU Utilization by Prestart Job; Job Count by Status & Prestart Jobs Count by Status; Job Count by Type; and Job Count by Subtype. This data should provide a richer collection of data when tracking down database performance issues.
IBM has also developed new ASP Graphs that show more information about Auxiliary Storage Pools (ASPs), including: percent busy; utilization; and response time breakdowns for each Independent or User ASP over time. These graphs leverage the new Monitor-based SMASP file and are available in the Monitors package, IBM says.
IBM Navigator gains the capability to track Active Jobs in PDI.
IBM also added some new hooks for VS Code, the open source, browser-based IDE from Microsoft that has taken the IBM i world by storm thanks to Liam Allan’s Code for IBM i plugin. With this release, IBM is delivering a new option on View SQL panels to launch directly to VS Code and execute the SQL.
“If you have VS Code connected to a system, the SQL will execute,” IBM says. Otherwise, the editor will open with the SQL in VS Code. IBM notes that this feature uses the Db2 for IBM i extension in Code for IBM i. The minimum version of the Db2 for IBM i extensions is 1.4.0, but IBM recommends 1.4.1.
Advanced Job Scheduler (AJS) capabilities have also been added to Navigator. The capability to monitor AJS in Navigator was one of the features that IBM took a while to deliver. IBM made big strides in adding AJS capabilities with the Spring TRs. With the new releases, IBM has now delivered all AJS functionality in Navigator, the company says.
IBM has made a point of making it easier to understand what’s going on in the audit journal in recent years, including launching a data mart in Navigator to improve analysis of security events with the Spring 2024 TRs.
IBM has delivered all Advanced Job Scheduler capabilities in Navigator for i with the latest TRs.
With the current operating system update, Navigator gains new audit journal capabilities, including support for AUDIT_JOURNAL_xx table functions, which returns information from the audit journal specific to an individual entry type. Customers will also benefit from user-defined filtering for enhanced data mart content control, as well as support for configuring and managing the cryptographic co-processor.
IBM made an enhancement to the Memorandum to Users (MTU) bookmark function in Navigator. Specifically, it says it will now restore shipped MTU bookmarks. (For the record, you can view current MTUs for October 2024 here.)
This release brings enhancements to the Administration Runtime Expert (ARE), which provides an easy way for users to catalog the settings for workloads, applications, and system environment and which IBM first shipped back in 2010. With the new TRs, IBM is adding support for new templates, including basic editing and rebuild capabilities.
IBM is making some changes to Web-based administration of networks in IBM i environments. IBM says it phasing out the old Web Admin GUI, and replacing it with functionality in Navigator, which will be phased in over time. IBM has not chosen when to announce the end of service for Web Admin GUI, it says in this support document.
IBM is replacing Web Admin GUI with equivalent functionality in Navigator for i.
To that end, Navigator with IBM i 7.5 TR5 and 7.4 TR11 brings several new capabilities for managing networks. It will start with support for viewing and modifying server properties and logging. Users can pull up a page that lists all of the HTTP Servers (the ones powered by Apache) and issue commands to start, stop, or configure them. Users can also pull up Java Web application servers on the IAS and IWS pages, where they can start and stop the servers, or view the log files, IBM says.
IBM has also added a new wizard for configuring the Transport Layer Security (TLS) on the IBM i. Users can also work with security certificates from the new Certificates Store Table that is coming to IBM i.
Finally, there are some changes to how monitoring jobs works in Navigator. IBM says users will be unable to migrate monitor jobs from the old version of Navigator to the new version due to Java incompatibility issues. With the new release of Navigator under IBM i 7.5 TR5 and 7.4 TR11, monitor jobs will utilize Java 11 or 17.
You can find more information about the Navigator updates here.
