Sitting in your cubicle, you glance from your monitor to the reassuring green light on the face of your company's i system—and then it hits you.

You look over the top of your monitor as the white wall beyond it disappears. Tropical blue waves crest in foamy white peaks and glide up the golden sand, inches from your bare toes. The scaly tree next to you totters in a warm breeze and sends a single coconut toward the family photo on your desk . . .

Frantically, your fingers fumble into position on the keyboard. A single bead of sweat forms at your hairline and slips down your brow. You look at your monitor again, just to make sure. Of course, you know the answer; and it isn't going to change just because you looked away.

Yes, you're still on IBM i 5.4 (or an even earlier release?), and it's time to upgrade.

You can get off the island—or at least shake the feeling of being on a deserted one—all alone with your impending task. So what are you waiting for? IBM i 6.1 has been going strong for over a year, offering a stable release and performance improvements—thanks in part to a required program conversion that lets applications take advantage of new operating system features and efficiencies that will get even better with POWER6 and upcoming POWER7 hardware upgrades.

And you aren't alone. Many of your peers haven't upgraded either.

"Going back in history, there have been several instances where people have gone to new releases faster than this," says Craig Johnson, the IBM i product manager. And compared to prior practices, IBM has softened its tactics to get customers to upgrade. "There are things in the past that we did that we've stopped doing," Johnson says. "We used to require the new release with new hardware, and we saw release adoption go up faster. It was great for the new release but bad for customers who didn't want to do two things [hardware and software upgrade] at the same time."

Taking it further, IBM is giving customers a reprieve of sorts. The company has decided to put 5.4's scheduled end-of-marketing date (the point at which Big Blue stops selling it or making it available to customers) on hold, at least temporarily, so that you have more time to plan your upgrade and the necessary program conversion that comes with IBM i 6.1 and higher. This is especially important for shops still running—cringe—i 5.2.

IBM's OS Plans

The currently supported IBM i OSs are 5.4, 6.1, and 6.1.1. They're all available and IBM makes fixes for them if a customer happens to find a bug. Typically, IBM sells two releases at a time; however, the company has announced it's extending the life of 5.4 for at least one year. IBM will market (i.e., actively sell and make available) IBM i 5.4 until January 2011.

The extension may not mean much to shops already on 5.4 (except for the extension of support that it equates to and the chance to put off the 6.1 upgrade a bit longer); or even to folks using 5.3 (since they can leapfrog over 5.4 and get to 6.1); however, anyone still using IBM i 5.2 must pay attention. You've been given a second chance. Because IBM lets customers leapfrog over just one OS release on an upgrade, you must install 5.4 before you can go any higher. And if it wasn't available, well, then, you'd have to completely install the operating system from scratch.

It's the same (or nearly) with every release, isn't it? True, you don't have to upgrade right away. And many have concrete reasons not to: bugs, the economy, waiting to overhaul hardware at the same time.

"Most businesses have a natural aversion to being on the bleeding edge, but someone has to go first, says Jon Weigens, a senior consultant of system engineering and operations for a large retailer running IBM i systems. "We would like to know that the potholes have been smoothed out before heading down the road at full speed."

Still, many of those reasons have passed, and shops should be at least planning for the upgrade and required program conversion.

Alas, there is one more thing keeping IBM i users from upgrading. Because i systems have been so traditionally reliable, some shops have installed it and forgotten about it. "The value of i is once you get the applications up and running, they stay up and running," says Kathy Tri, IBM's technical lead for i installs and upgrades. "So customers want to know what the value is in upgrading. There has to be performance reasons and benefits."

And there are plenty of good reasons to upgrade your OS; not the least of which come from IBM in all the features they've stocked in 6.1 and plan to put in the next major release, which is due out in early 2010. You can read about those features in "Top 10 Reasons to Deploy IBM i 6.1" below and "The Next i OS," also below.

But we don't want to just talk about why IBM thinks you should upgrade. Other good reasons abound.

There Are Plenty of Good Reasons

A more efficient computing environment. By making sure that applications take advantage of the enhancements in the latest operating system, the servers that those programs run on become more efficient, faster. This opens up the opportunity for customers to consolidate workloads onto fewer machines and reduce their overall computing costs.

Support doesn't last forever. Perhaps the most important reason is support (or lack thereof—which may be why you feel like you're on a deserted island). The discussion above on IBM's plans is key. The most important point being that 5.4 is the oldest release that IBM will help you with should something go wrong in your shop. (Support for 5.3 ended in April 2009.)

Still, you can upgrade to 6.1 from 5.4 or 5.3; and you'll be able to hop from 5.4 to the release beyond 6.1.1 as long as you complete the program conversion. However, to get beyond 5.4 from 5.2, you must upgrade to 5.4 first and then do the program conversion and upgrade to 6.1, 6.1.1, or the next release—and that's only as long as IBM markets 5.4. So shops running 5.2 have until January 2011 to get to 5.4 and then make the program conversion leap to 6.1 or the next release without having to install a current operating system completely from scratch.

Of course, there are AS/400 servers out there that don't support 6.1 or higher, including models 270, 820, 830, and 840 and other older systems; which means those boxes also must be switched out to upgrade the operating system.

The bugs have been worked out. Yes, it has been more than 18 months since the release of i 6.1, and it has indeed been proven stable. "The quality of 6.1 is better than 5.4," Johnson says. In fact, it already has an intermediary on the market—6.1.1 is the most current version. Read Chris Maxcer's blog "IBM Intros New Storage, Virtualization, and Connectivity, Plus New IBM i and RPG in 2010" about that.

Performance, performance, and uh, performance. Let me say it again: performance! We've gone over in many an article the great things about i 6.1 (V6R1 Packs a Punch page, ID 21198); and you can read some of the great benefits in "Top 10 Reasons to Deploy IBM i 6.1" below. But just to remind you of a few, IBM i 6.1 offers new encryption technology, disk clustering, Java performance enhancements, and support for IBM i on Blades and additional IBM storage solutions. It also offers—when combined with POWER6 processor technology—increased performance from SAN solutions and PowerVM virtualization and opportunities to reduce energy consumption.

Let's not forget about security, either. Of course there are security enhancements in 6.1. Someone has to stay ahead of intruders!

Applications run on it. IBM also will tell you that in the way of support by third-party vendors, 6.1 is farther ahead of where 5.4 was at the same point in its life. As of September 2009, more than 800 software vendors supplied more than 2,000 applications supporting 6.1. "That's a great story because that means those folks are supporting the latest and greatest OS, and if a customer's applications are ready for V6, than it's easier to migrate," says Jack Morris, vice president of sales for the IBM Solutions Group at Avnet Technology Solutions.

POWER7 chip set. IBM i 6.1 will be the base for POWER7. What could be more cool than that? IBM i user Weigens says his shop has definitely taken notice of the POWER7 future, as well as the suite of PowerVM offerings and tighter integration with IBM Systems Director. He is looking forward specifically to high availability enhancements like OS journaling functions and improved internals for job tracking that enable more efficient business continuity in the event of planned or unplanned downtime. "As an organization, we typically stay close to the leading edge of technology as a general policy; providing, of course, that the platform and software have been proven stable," Weigens says.

But What About that Ocean?

Yes, the program conversion, retranslation, or whatever you call it might look like an obstacle the size of an ocean, but it must and can be done, and planning and preparation is key.

The IBM Redpaper "IBM i5/OS Program Conversion: Getting Ready for i5/OS V6R1" (REDP-4293-00) explains it best, but in a nutshell the program conversion enables applications to take advantage of efficiency features in IBM i 6.1 so that they run their best as part of a more finely-tuned, efficient system. To convert a program requires the creation data, which is a subset of observability and retained by default unless intentionally removed, so that most programs (going all the way back to System/38) can be converted.

"There's a big misperception that has customers asking, 'Do I have to rewrite or recompile my applications?'," Johnson says. "For the vast majority of applications the system just takes care of it. If the customer has the program creation data for the application, which has been automatically saved since 5.1, then the OS will convert the application with the upgrade. But if the creation data is not available (that is, the application was created before 5.1 or the data was deleted), then they'll have to recompile the program.

"But even without the creation data it isn't impossible to move forward," Johnson says. "It's just that they have to recompile the data."

IBM estimates that 90 percent of applications and customers won't have a problem with the conversion, and programs will be better optimized to the hardware they're running on.

Be Prepared

The key, IBM says, is planning and preparation.

Rocky Brands, Inc., an outdoor apparel business, has tentatively planned its upgrade from i 5.4 for the first quarter of 2010 when business slows down after the holidays. The company would have liked to move forward before this, but other projects have pushed the upgrade back, including "business-driving projects to increase profitability across the enterprise" and initiatives like SOX, says Mike Moegling, a senior programmer and analyst at Rocky Brands.

Typically, the businesses' i systems administration team spends a lot of time preparing for such an upgrade, examining how operations might change and contacting hardware and software vendors to gather intelligence on application readiness. "The goal is to have business leave on Friday and come back on Monday and experience nothing unexpected," Moegling says. "I anticipate considerable planning for the upgrade between the iSeries administrative team and my team in business applications."

Another large i system implementation also pays careful planning attention to its applications. "We run a wide variety of applications, some of which may need to be addressed due to the requirement for the extended object template," says Weigens, the company's senior consultant of system engineering and operations. The IT team will work with its application vendors to resolve issues as they come up. "Since our general policy is to keep application software levels current, the expectation is that most software will have been recompiled either in-house or by a vendor since 5.1 and will convert properly," Weigens says.

In addition, the company (which is running 5.4) has gone so far as to write an OS upgrade policy. Its upgrade procedure begins with its sandboxes and then moves onto the development partitions and its high availability mirrored systems before ending with the production boxes. The business has already moved one of its sandbox partitions to i 6.1 and has plans to proceed with the rest of its 30 partitions in the first half of 2010. "Since the HA servers will be the penultimate systems to be upgraded, it affords us the option of role swapping to the mirrored systems in a controlled manner with the previous version available should we run into unanticipated issues requiring a rollback," Weigens says.

"Every upgrade performed is executed according to a detailed project plan that is built upon previous experiences," he says. "The extensive burn-in period employed on a succession of servers allows plenty of time and a broad range of application testing before the upgrade ever touches production."

You Aren't Alone

You aren't alone in your endeavor to upgrade your IBM i operating system. The Big Blue website has lots of resources to help with the project. IBM has done a good job of thinking through how to get customers seamlessly through the process, Avnet's Morris says.

The "IBM i5/OS Program Conversion" Redpaper contains instructions for the Analyze Object Conversion (ANZOBJCVN) command. The command identifies programs on 5.3 and 5.4 that will not convert to run on 6.1 and estimates the times that are required for program conversions.

There is also an IBM Pre-Upgrade Verification Tool for IBM i that you can download on your system to help identify which steps you may have missed in the process that could cause the upgrade to fail.

Still, customers shouldn't be afraid to turn to IBM or its business partners for help completing the upgrade. "Upgrades are work and require preparation," Moegling says. "If you can't do it with your own resources, use your IBM Business Partner as a resource."

Avnet's Morris agrees. "I'd turn to IBM or a business partner because they have the experience and skills. It's a question of do you have the skills and time or do you leverage someone who does this more consistently and therefore have a better experience?"

So if you think you're on a deserted island, think again. It's time to start planning how you're gonna get off the island.

"You never want to get behind on your PTFs and releases," Moegling says. "The upgrade process since V5R1 has been improving and the machine just runs better. Sure I have had some issues, but they get fixed, IBM is there for you, and you end up knowing your system better. You don't want to have the "heart" of your business performing at anything less than 100 percent."

Rita-Lyn Sanders is senior industry editor of System iNEWS. She is an award-winning journalist who once upon a time covered science and technology for a local newspaper. Her favorite things to do are spend time with her family, laugh, read, ride a bicycle, feed her chickens, be creative, and eat cake with lots of gooey icing. And, oh yeah, someday she plans to own a used bookstore and ice cream shop and write a novel, and then run a bed and breakfast for hunters and teach game-cooking classes while her husband (a wildlife biologist) guides big game hunts. Nothing beats an elk burger!

Top 10 Reasons to Deploy IBM i 6.1

IBM i 6.1, the latest version of the integrated operating system for Power servers, delivers significant benefits for i customers:

1. Enables consolidation of i and X86 servers with an IBM BladeCenter solution. i 6.1 is supported in IBM BladeCenter S and H with BladeCenter JS12, JS22, JS23, and JS43 blades.
2. Reduces impact of planned and unplanned outages with high availability solution from IBM. i 6.1 supports the new PowerHA for i disk clustering solution.
3. Better performance for i and IBM Systems Storage environments through improved SAN support. i 6.1 with POWER6 processor-based servers and a new Fibre Channel Adapter can deliver performance with the DS8000 that is comparable to internal disk.
4. Increased performance for Java and WebSphere applications with i 6.1 enhancements. In Java application performance tests, IBM i delivered 68-78 percent more transactions per second than i 5.4 running on the same POWER5+ processor-based server. Simplifies deployment of Java applications and extends value of business applications through a web application server and web services environment provided with i 6.1
5. Reduces IT costs with an easy, integrated, web-based management environment. i 6.1 delivers Systems Director Navigator for i, which enables web-based management. Navigator integrates with IBM Systems Director 6.1, providing a rich management environment for multiple, heterogeneous servers.
6. Meets regulatory requirements by protecting data at rest and backups of critical business information through advanced encryption options available for i 6.1.
7. Reduces costs and simplifies creation of test and development environments through virtualization of i storage. i 6.1 with POWER6 processor-based servers can be a virtual partition, receiving its I/O resources from another IBM i or PowerVM VIOS partition.
8. Through VIOS, IBM i 6.1 partitions support storage consolidation with IBM System Storage solutions DS3000, DS4000, DS5000, XIV, and SVC.
9. Enhances application functionality and performance with new DB2 database functions and management tools provided with i 6.1.
10. Delivers the performance required for IBM i applications with POWER6 processor-based servers. These one to 64 processor core servers provide industry-leading performance for IBM i, AIX, and Linux operating systems.

—Craig Johnson, IBM i product manager

The Next i OS

IBM expects to deliver a new release of IBM i in 2010. Some of the capabilities planned for this release include:

• The integrated DB2 database for IBM i will be enhanced with support for XML, enabling clients to store and search XML documents. IBM also plans for DB2 for i to support transparent encryption of a specific column in a database table, enabling clients to further protect sensitive information.
• PowerHA for IBM i is planned to support asynchronous replication, providing clients a disk-clustering based disaster recovery solution. In addition, PowerHA for i will support LUN-level switching, providing another high availability option for clients with selected IBM System Storage solutions.
• IBM i storage management will further leverage solid-state disk technology by automatically moving data that is accessed most frequently to SSDs, designed to help clients improve application performance.
• IBM Power Systems and IBM Rational will provide enhancements to RPG, enabling RPG programs to easily work a variety of client applications, including web services, mobile devices, and XML.
• Additional management tasks for IBM i will be available in web-based Systems Director Navigator for i that IBM plans to include with the IBM i operating system. Additional monitors for IBM i will be added to Systems Director, providing an alternative to Management Central for clients with multiple IBM i environments.
• IBM i integration with BladeCenter and System X via iSCSI technology will be enhanced with support for software target support. This solution is planned to support a faster connection between IBM i and X86-based systems while potentially lowering the cost of the solution.
• IBM i support for PDF documents will be enhanced to support the transformation of existing spool files to PDF files.

All statements regarding IBM's plans, directions, and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice.

—Craig Johnson, IBM i product manager

Find Out More

The Power of i—IBM Fall 2009 Webcast Series
Webcast uncovers the features and benefits of IBM i 6.1, reviews the new storage options available for IBM i, and explores the latest software and hardware enhancements

V6R1 Packs a Punch
Collection of articles covering IBM i 6.1 (ID 21198)

IBM i5/OS Program Conversion: Getting Ready for i5/OS V6R1
IBM Redpaper explains how to prepare for program conversion (REDP-4293-00)

IBM Pre-Upgrade Verification Tool for IBM i
IBM tool ensures completion of the required pre-upgrade steps and flags the steps that were missed or completed incorrectly