The way I feel about what's in 6.1 with IBM Systems Director Navigator for i (just "Navigator for i" from now on) is similar to the pride I feel when one of my four children accomplish something truly exceptional. What we have provided is an intuitive, fast, and robust web-based tool to manage your IBM i operating system. Not familiar with Navigator for i?

Well, it all started with Operations Navigator, which was an installed Windows application that helped you manage a handful of OS/400 operating system tasks. When we later renamed it iSeries Navigator, we added Management Central, which added centralized management capabilities for monitoring, fixes, and users, along with a number of other tasks. Through it all, our goal was to move Navigator to a web-based interface because we knew users didn't want to depend on an installed Windows application in the data center to manage their operating systems.

In 5.3, and then again in 5.4, we started adding web-based tasks that were founded on Navigator tasks. Now in 6.1, we have more than 300 web-based tasks you can perform with the same ease you would expect from System i Navigator, but now from Navigator for i.

Comparison of Old and New Navigator

Before I get into Navigator for i's functionality, I want to talk about the differences between it and System i Navigator. Here's a definition of each.

Navigator for i. This web-based console embedded in every instance of the IBM i operating system. There is nothing to install. More than 300 tasks are available immediately by pointing your web browser to http://systemname:2001.

System i Navigator. This Windows-installed console that uses remote commands and APIs to access several IBM i operating systems. It is bundled with System i Access and requires you to configure the systems you want to manage before you can access them.

Here's what you can manage with each:

Navigator for i. Because this console is embedded in the IBM i operating system, it can manage only that instance. There are a few exceptions: The user can use Navigator for i to manage remote instances of IBM i through the current instance (available through the URL advisor), and Navigator for i can also manage integrated Windows and Linux servers.

System i Navigator. Because this console is remotely located on a Windows machine, it can manage a handful of IBM i instances directly or many IBM i instances by using the Management Central function.

The unique capabilities of each are as follows:

Navigator for i. The two main functions available only in Navigator for i are the Performance Data Investigator and the High Availability Solutions Manager. Additionally, ease-of-use enhancements such as the ability to specify a unique starting page and customize favorite tasks are available.

System i Navigator. Management Central functions are available only in System i Navigator. However, a lot of what Management Central provides is also available in IBM Director and will be enhanced in the next release with IBM Systems Director (more on that in my next article). In addition, Navigator for i does not include database functions that involve graphics and charts, and disk management's graphical views and capacity charts.

I suggest using Navigator for i for the deep, IBM i-specific tasks that you need to perform daily. Then, use either System i Navigator or IBM Director for your monitoring, updating, and inventory jobs. As I'll talk about in a future article, IBM Systems Director, when it becomes available, will provide you with a unified experience for managing not only your IBM i but also all your IBM systems--regardless of the platform.

Getting Started

To start using Navigator for i, simply point your browser to this web address: http://systemname:2001. Navigator for i is included as part of the base operating system option 3 (5761SS1 0003).

Navigator for i does require some programs, but these products should already be on your system. However, here is a list you can use if you experience problems.

• IBM HTTP Server for i5/OS (5761DG1)
• QShell (5761SS1 option 30)
• PASE (5761SS1 option 33)
• IBM Developer Kit for Java (5761JV1)
• J2SE 5.0 32 bit (5761JV1 option 8)
• IBM Toolbox for Java (5761JC1)
• Host Servers (5761SS1 option 12)

If you need to troubleshoot the server job that runs Navigator for i, look for the Admin jobs under QHTTPSVR. In Figure 1, you can see several QTTPSVR Admin jobs. The first Admin job runs HTTP Web Admin, LDAP, Web Navigator, and IPP functions. The Admin2 job runs IBM Systems Director Navigator, Secure Perspective, Cluster Services, and HASM. The Admin3 job runs IBM Access for Web. You could choose to end and restart the HTTP server from the TCP/IP Server jobs.

First Look--Getting Around Navigator for i

When you open Navigator for i, you see a lot of similar tasks, as Figure 2 shows. You may be happy to find that we haven't removed the 2001 port. Navigator for i took the port over as the management portal. The link to the old i5/OS tasks page that previously appeared in the 2001 port is now on the welcome page.

In the left navigation area, tasks that look a lot like the System i Navigator folders show up. If you click one, you get a nice summary of highly used tasks, with a button below to view all tasks for that category.

Figure 3 is a good sample: In the left navigation frame, click Work Management, and you'll see the summary page that guides you through the most common tasks. Here, you can also dig into all the more detailed tasks.

After you find a task you want to run, System Status for example, click the link and the task opens up a new tab. Each page that opens into a tab can be saved as a startup page. Therefore, as soon as you sign on, Navigator for i automatically opens key tasks. Figure 4, you see four of my favorites: Users, Server Jobs, TCP/IP Servers, and System Status. Because any task that shows up in Navigator for i in its own tab can be saved as a startup page, you have quite a variety of tasks to choose from. To remove a startup page or change which one shows up first, simply select My Startup Pages in the left navigation area.

Common User Experience

Now let's take a quick dive into some of the common controls you will see. As Figure 4 illustrates, property pages can have multiple tabs. They behave the same way as the property pages in System i Navigator and, in fact, are the same binaries! Simply click around to see each tab.

Although, the tables are a bit different looking, they still have much of the same functionality. As you see in Figure 5, the table shows multiple pages. From the upper right corner of the portlet (the little pencil icon), you can edit how many rows show per page. The default is 15 rows, but you can change it to up to 100. You can also add and remove columns. Column sorting works well, and to the right of each name is a context menu widget. Click the widget to get the context menu, just like you do in System i Navigator.

Most everything else is pretty similar to what you're used to. The wizards look like wizards, and the edit boxes, drop-down lists, and radio buttons are also similar.

One unique feature in Navigator for i is that you can directly access any task, no matter how detailed, from a URL. You can set customization, such as include criteria, in the URL (e.g., so you can view only jobs for Greg). Plus, there is a URL advisor that helps you compose the URL that your application needs to create.

Feature Overview

Now, let's delve into each function a bit. Some I simply summarize while others I give more detail about because they have some new features. Look for future articles to dig even deeper into some of these new capabilities.

System Management lets you perform general system-level tasks. Examples include system status, history log, and disk status. New in the System category is Run Command, which Figure 6 shows. This feature isn't the same as an interactive command line. You need a 5250 session for an interactive command line. But Run Command does let you type in a command, view previous commands, and even prompt for a command's parameters. After you run a command, the system tells you whether the command ran successfully. If it did not, this function delivers error messages so you know what happened. To see any command output or details, you can go find the job log under your current user.

Basic Operations lets you manage messages, printer output, printers, and your own jobs. These tasks are similar to those in System i Navigator.

Work Management lets you manage your IBM i jobs, job queues, output queues, subsystems, and memory pools. As with all summary pages, the work management page has a button at the bottom to show all tasks in this category. In this case, the button is called Show All Work Management Tasks. Figure 7 shows the resulting screen with all tasks in the Work Management category in a tree format. Here, the Jobs task category is opened and all tasks you can perform on a job are listed. If you select a task and click OK, the task runs. For some tasks, such as Active Jobs, the task window immediately opens. For others, such as Hold Job, Navigator asks for additional information before it can perform the task.

Configuration and Service lets you perform system configuration. From here, you can manage system values, time zones, and the system clock. A new web-based capability for this release lets you manage your disk units. From here, you can view your disk units and disk pools, include a new disk unit, and add a new disk pool. As with System i Navigator, you need a DST user ID and password. If you have one, you're prompted for the ID, then you see the table of disk units. If you don't have one, you get a message with a link to an Information Center page with instructions on how to add one.

As a reminder, the graphical view that displays images of your towers and where your disk units are located is unavailable in Navigator for i. For this capability, you still need to use System i Navigator.

Network Management lets you manage TCP/IP and Internet support. This support includes tasks for IPv4 and IPv6 networks, lines, DNS servers, IBM Tivoli Directory Server (LDAP), and one of my favorites, TCP/IP Servers. Figure 8 shows the TCP/IP Servers table displaying one of the server's context menus. With this task as one of my startup pages, it is easy to manage the TCP/IP environment.

Integrated Server Administration lets you manage servers hosted by IBM i. This feature provides a whopping 37 different tasks to perform. You can manage your integrated servers and iSCSI servers, as well as the virtual disks that those integrated servers use. Furthermore, you can manage your network server host adapters and service processors and also manage the enrollment into Windows domains.

Security lets you can configure and manage security settings for your system. Tasks include managing authorization lists, changing object permissions, managing cryptographic services and keys, and configuring the cryptographic coprocessor.

One of the new UIs available for 6.1 is Intrusion Detection. Intrusion Detection lets you set up and manage policies that notify you of any intrusions detected against your server. This new feature is easier to use than previous releases because you don't need to use the Intrusion Monitor audit or audit journal. Everything you need is accessible in the Intrusion Detection UI in Figure 9.

Users and Groups Management lets you manage your IBM i users and groups. This includes viewing all users and groups as well as viewing users not in a group. You can also create a user or group from here. If you're familiar with System i Navigator's group UI, you will be pleased with how similar this is. The one thing to remember is that it's only the direct list of users and groups, just like a direct connection to an IBM i instance. None of the Management Central functions of finding users, editing multiple users, sending users, or performing user inventory is available in Navigator for i.

Database Management lets you specify which database you want all database tasks to use. Simply click the Set Database/Schema to Use with Database Tasks button at the bottom of Figure 10. When the proper database is set, you can work with objects, tables, views, and indexes.

Additionally, database performance monitors and the database health center are available in Navigator for i. The database health center provides nice realtime and historical health metrics. For example, Figure 11 shows the overview of the database environment.

Further, there are Activity views to show the current activity as well as the environmental, size, and design limit pages. Each page shows realtime data, or you can choose to have them display historical data.

File Systems lets you manage the file system. This functionality includes tasks such as viewing the file system contents and managing permissions on the file system objects. It also lets you manage file shares (i.e., shared folders). Navigator for i provides a tree and a table to navigate your file system as well as a Find function that searches all columns in the table.

Internet Configuration Tasks lets you manage and configure your HTTP servers and application servers, manage digital certificates, configure the IBM IPP server, administer the web-based help server, and use the Internet setup wizard for configuring your Internet environment.

This window is also where you can access the System i Navigator URL advisor, which lets you add any task in Navigator for i into your own web applications.

Additional Plug-ins

In addition to all the base functions, other plug-ins are available, including the following.

Performance Management lets you manage collection services, the data objects, and how often the data is collected. After the data has been collected, this feature helps you investigate performance data on your system. Figure 12 shows the Investigate Data task.

This task has dozens of perspectives for you to choose from. The tasks help you focus on the performance data in certain ways. This feature provides a description of each perspective, and then lets you choose which collection object to use when displaying the perspective. I chose CPU Utilization and Waits Overview and specified the most recent collection services data. The results are in Figure 13, which shows the perspective selected and the legend explaining what is being graphed over a 12-hour period. One nice feature is that you can turn on hover help and, as you mouse around, see the detailed numbers along with the legend information for each square in the graph. When you're done analyzing this perspective, you can close the graph or save it as a custom perspective.

Backup, Recovery, and Media Services (BRMS) is well known to System i users. It helps you manage your most critical and complex backups, including online backups of Lotus servers. You can also recover your system fully in the event of a disaster or hardware failure.

Cluster Resource Services helps you set up and manage your high availability solution by creating and managing clusters, cluster resource groups, device domains, cluster administrative domains, and perform switchovers.

High Availability Solutions Manager helps you select, set up, and manage your high availability (HA) solution. It comes with a trial license so you can see whether it fits your needs. As you can see in Figure 14, there are a few steps you can do with the trial license, including verifying what HA solution you want and validating whether you have the hardware needed. That way, when you're ready, you can purchase the full license and set it up and manage it.

More to Come

Navigator for i has some amazing new functions, and it's now faster, customizable, and web-based.

In the near future, you'll see all this functionality seamlessly integrated into IBM Systems Director, the strategic cross-platform tool for centrally managing the many systems in your environment. In IBM Systems Director, you'll find monitoring, automation, update (PTF and firmware) management, and virtualization--not only for your IBM i but also for other platforms you or your colleagues manage.

For more information, check out the IBM System i Information Center or the IBM Systems Director Navigator for i website.

Greg Hintermeister works at IBM as a user interaction designer and is an IBM master inventor. He has extensive experience designing user interaction for IBM's systems management and virtualization products, wireless applications, and numerous web applications. Greg is a regular speaker at user groups and technical conferences.