If you’re an experienced system administrator or IT manager, you know the IBM i operating environment through and through. Over the years, you’ve mastered the art of optimizing your IBM i environment—through monitoring, analyzing, investigating, troubleshooting, reporting and more—and you probably think that iBM i no longer holds any secrets for you.

But there are still a surprising number of little-known tips and tricks to help you get the most from your IBM i operating system. This wonderful and fully integrated operating system/server has so many tools and features that are available at no additional cost. Yet sadly, many system admins aren’t even aware they exist.

Hey, I get it! You’re super busy and don’t get to talk shop with other IBM i experts as often as you’d like. That’s exactly why I’ve decided to create a new series of articles on “IBM i and its best-kept secrets.” Each article will reveal a single piece of information that I believe is value to us “IBM i folk.”

Free tips on IBM i optimization

I’m offering this information for free. Well, almost. Since nothing worth having is ever truly free, I will ask a small favour in return.

Here’s my ask:

1. Provide me with feedback. If you find my IBM i tips and tricks valuable, I’d love to hear about it. And please be specific about what worked for you (for example: “I removed 20 indexes and saved 200GB of disk space!”). Your encouragement will motivate me and your personal experience will enrich our community knowledge base.
2. Let me know if there’s a best-kept secret you think I should write about. Maybe you’re sitting on helpful information that I’m not aware of.
3. Share my articles with anyone you think may find it valuable. If you have friends who are system admins, developers or IT department managers, this is your chance to make their day!

You can reach me at: tamarav@r2i.ca

If I don’t get any feedback, I’ll assume that either no one read the articles, no one found them helpful, or that my tip was simply not a well-kept secret after all. So, if you like what you read, please make some noise.

And now, with no further ado, here are the articles:

IBM i Secret #1: System indexes that you literally NEVER use

Stay tuned for more! In the coming weeks, I’ll cover some other great tips about performance analysis, databases, security, fix-level reporting and more!