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There's a tool for that!

A New TAA Tools Refresh Is Available

The August 15, 2019 refresh (R70) of TAA Tools is ready. This refresh supports IBM i releases 7.2, 7.3, and 7.4, and contains 2 new tools to help with system maintenance and consistency over time. The refresh also contains many fixes and enhancements.

Check out our latest release notes for full details.

Complete documentation for all our tools is on our web site. Always check for tools that can help you before starting a new project. We may have something that will lighten your load. Good places to start are our category page or searching our index page.

Call 507-258-5182 or email support@taatool.com to order your refresh. We can either email you a download link or ship it to you on CD.
Why do we call this a "refresh"?

We do a simultaneous update of the tools across all of the underlying supported releases of the IBM i Operating System. To call this a release or version would confuse it with the VRM numbering of the IBM i OS, since we refresh the tools far more often. You could consider this our parallel to IBM's Technical Refreshes for IBM i, but our refreshes apply to multiple VRMs of the IBM i OS.

New Tools

We have 2 new tools in this refresh that will make your life easier.

CVTENVVAR

The Convert Environment Variables command converts job and system environment variables to an output file. The file can be used to check and verify current environment variable settings, or to compare ENVVAR settings over time on the system. The CCSID of the environment variable is also listed.

CMPENVVAR

The Compare Environment Variables command allows a comparison of environment variables between two systems or two versions converted from the same system.

The CVTENVVAR TAA command must first be used to capture the information on each system to an output file. CMPENVVAR then compares the information from the two files and prints a listing noting any differences.

New Support For Supplemental Licenses


The tools can now support multiple licenses on a single system. This makes it much easier to manage cases where the system image must be switched or replicated to a system with a different serial number. This would include cases for capacity backup (CBU), disaster recovery (DR), high availability (HA), or live partition mobility (LPM).

Supplemental licenses can be installed in addition to the base license for a system. The base license is created either during install or with CHGTAAKEY. Its serial number must match the system at that time. Supplemental licenses are installed on that same system and can reference other serial numbers. If a license check fails for the base license, the supplemental licenses are checked.

The base license resides in the TAATOOL/TAALICENSE data area. There can be up to 9 supplemental licenses in TAATOOL named TAALIC_001 through TAALIC_009. You create a supplemental license using the CHGTAAKEY command as follows:

CHGTAAKEY KEY(<key value for alternate system>) LICNBR(1)

This creates a supplemental license in the TAATOOL/TAALIC_001 data area.

When the additional system is used, the base license and supplemental licenses are available since they've been replicated or switched. The base license check will fail, but the supplemental license check will succeed. This will be entirely transparent to you.

Featured Tools - Compare

TAA compare tools come in two basic flavors: system/object compares and database record compares. The system/object compare tools can be used to
  • ensure your IBM i is maintained with consistency over time
  • ensure multiple systems are kept in sync
The database record compare tools can be used to check values in keyed or arrival sequence files and in program or externally described files.

There are over 60 TAA different compare tools currently available in the TAA toolset.

A complete list of all TAA compare tools is found on our website. These tools will help you maintain consistency on one system, or between several systems, over time.


System Compares

Changing system values or objects can cause unexpected problems to arise on a system. It can then be difficult to diagnose why these problems are occurring, unless you have system snapshots that you can use to determine what is causing the problem. TAA has several compare tools which will help identify changes to system values and objects, and keep your system running smoothly over time.

An system manager might think they don’t have time to run periodic checks on the system, but once these tools are run on a scheduled basis, such as monthly, and the snapshot reports stored in chronicled files, having this information available for inspection when problems arise could be critical.

Here are short summaries of some of the more popular compare tools, just to name a few:

CMPSYSVALThe Compare System Values command allows a comparison of system values between two systems, or a comparison of system values on the same system over time. First, the CVTSYSVAL TAA command should be run on a scheduled basis to capture information on each system to an outfile. CMPSYSVAL can then be run to compare information from CVTSYSVAL and produce an easy to read report showing any differences. With such a process, system differences can be discovered and verified.

CMPENVVAR – Similar to CMPSYSVAL, the Compare Environment Variables command allows a comparison of environment variables between two systems, or a comparison of environment variables on the same system over time. The CVTENVVAR TAA command should be run on a scheduled basis to capture environment variable information to an outfile. CMPENVVAR then compares the information from the two outfiles and reports differences that were introduced. Differences among systems can be discovered and evaluated for problems.

CMPOBJSEC2 – The Compare Object Security 2 command allows a system security officer to compare the security settings of one, generic, or all objects in a library to a specific object. This tool can be used to easily determine if security is identical across a set of objects, such as sensitive personnel files. A summary spool file is output with a line for each object that is checked. A detailed spool file is also produced for each object where security differs.

CMPUSRPRF2 – The Compare User Profile 2 command compares the information between single or multiple user profiles on the current system to the same user profile information from a different system, or a saved version on the same system. CMPUSRPRF2 may be user to determine if profiles match on different systems, or to determine changes that have occurred to profiles on the same system. This tool can be invaluable to check if authorities and access remain consistent over time.


Database Record Compares

CMPDBF – The Compare Database Files command compares data base file members by relative record number. A range of "columns" can be specified. Files must have the same format, but the comparison is byte by byte. The columns refer to byte positions within the record, not table columns.

CMPDBF2 - The Compare Database Files 2 command compares two uniquely keyed files that have the same format by key and lists the changes to the data in a specific field.

CMPDBF3 – The Compare Database Files 3 command compares two members by the values of the entire record, with exceptions noted to a report for evaluation. This is done to see if the records from either file are missing from the other. The order of the records does not matter. The formats may be different but the record lengths must be the same.

CMPSRC - The Compare Source command offers a different take on source member compares than CMPPFM.

CMPSRC2 - Sometimes you only need to know that differences exist. The Compare Source 2 command is used to provide a summary of the members of two source files when the members are match by name.

CMPSRC4 - The Compare Source 4 command is a front end to CMPSRC2 that will span all the source files in a library.

There are many, many more such tools. All are documented on our web site's tool index. Check it out!
Copyright © 2019 TAA Tools Inc., All rights reserved.


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