As mentioned in the August 20th issue of the newsletter, the iSeries Navigator toolset was enhanced in V5R3 with a Show Indexes task. This new task, commonly referred to as Index Evaluator, provides more details on which indexes are being used by the DB2 query optimizer to improve the performance of your queries and SQL requests.

A new Redbook TechNote from Don Zimmerman of IBM Rochester addresses a surprising change in i/OS 6.1: journaling of logical files, SQL views, and indexes. The new Logical file journaling protection in 6.1 is referred to in the Technote as "covert" journaling. This change will affect you whether you are using the Start Journal Physical File(STRJRNPF) and Start Journal Access Path(STRJRNAP) commands or if you are employing System-Managed Access Path Protection (SMAPP).

As you move to i/OS 6.1, you will need to be aware of this new journaling change to properly manage your system.

Any time you consider adding or changing a field in a file, you can quickly get a picture of its usage by using this utility, which displays Physical Files, Logical files, Display Files, and Printer file references in programs, service programs, modules, and source code files.

If you forgot the name of a program you worked on weeks ago, but remember it used a certain file, this utility can help you locate it. If you have a situation where a field in a file is getting unusual results, this utility will help you locate programs that update the file.

The utility can use wildcards so you can retrieve all the references to file names MASTER and MASTERL1 (etc.) with just one execution of the command. And as an added feature, you can also display lines of source code containing a particular field name.

Seeing is believing when it comes to application development and deployment. Glenn Johnson says it, sees it, and believes it. As senior vice president at Magic Software Enterprises, he believes in delivering applications seamlessly over the Internet. He sees it happening in a unique single development paradigm that removes the need to manage multiple programming languages and write separate client and server standards. This leaves folks free to focus on writing powerful application business logic. To i types, this means the power to choose how to deploy apps--whether full client or web, on-premise or on-demand, software or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), or global or local.