Levi, Ray & Shoup, Inc.

The fix is in for IBM i

7/10/2017 by Paul Lesle

Have you ever called IBM for help with an IBM i error message and been told there is a PTF for that issue? Maybe you’ve been told you are just too far back in fixes and need to get current before they can help resolve the issue?

If so, you were probably already dreading giving up another weekend to install the updates.

IBM is constantly updating the available Program Temporary Fixes (PTFs) and providing them for those with current support (https://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/i/fixes/index.html).

But repeatedly updating your system with the latest PTFs is a daunting task and perhaps you can’t even get a suitable outage window more than once or twice each year. With that in mind, it is important to get the right PTFs installed each time.

The key to a successful PTF update is to put the effort into the research ahead of time. The starting point is to review and order the latest cumulative and group PTFs containing all the PTFs related to a software component on your system. These are ordered through IBM’s Fix Central and can be downloaded or ordered on media (https://www-945.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/).

In addition to the groups, there are individual PTFs which may not have made it into the groups that need to be reviewed.

With that in mind, I recommend that you research all the following:

Once you have identified all the PTFs you need, you can go back to IBM Fix Central and order them.

With all the PTFs in hand you can schedule the update work. As a final note, in case anything does go south, make sure to have a good recovery point (backup before the work) as well as planning to get another backup afterward that will capture all these new fixes.

Once you’ve completed all the planning, that late night or weekend you’d rather be at home will be much smoother.

About the author

Paul Lesle is our Power Systems Technical Team Lead and has been involved in activities including evaluating specific client requirements and recommending solutions, evaluating current system performance, performing installation readiness reviews, and implementing IBM server solutions. He has taken the lead in designing a wide range of solutions for customers’ IT infrastructure needs.