AS/400-iSeries Starter Kit

Whether you are an AS/400 programmer or system operator, you will find essential information in this book to help you understand some of the basic concepts and nuances of the system -- information that will make your job easier and increase your comfort working on the AS/400.

The strong suit of the AS/400 is its operating system, OS/400. Compared to other operating systems in the industry, OS/400 delivers an unmatched level of functionality. However, with these many integrated functions also comes a complexity that you must learn and manage. I have written the chapters of this book to expose some of these complexities and help you learn how to manage them.

The book is arranged in a logical order from basic AS/400 setup information -- such as how to plan for installation, suggested actions to perform during installation, how to establish a basic work environment, how to create user profiles, and how to establish default public authorities -- through some of the more important areas you need to understand to operate, program, and manage your system. At the same time, each section and chapter is tightly focused, so you can go directly to a particular topic and learn what you need to know without reading the entire book.

This second edition of the Starter Kit for the AS/400 has grown considerably and is now divided into seven distinct sections. Following the chapters on AS/400 setup, I address the area of AS/400 operations. This section offers you insight into basic system operation functions such as message handling, working with print files and output queues, disk management, and job scheduling. In this section you will learn how to communicate with users on the system using messages; how to use OS/400 functions to automatically monitor for and answer specific messages; how to locate, work with, and secure spooled files on output queues; and how to move towards unattended operations using OS/400s built-in job scheduler.

The next section on system management is tied closely to system operations, featuring two in-depth chapters on AS/400 save and restore features and strategies. Anyone involved in system operation and application development needs to understand these concepts to take advantage of the save and restore capabilities the AS/400 offers. These chapters teach you both the technology and the strategies you will find helpful as you plan and implement an effective backup and recovery approach for your systems.

The next three chapters present practical help concerning AS/400 work management objects and functions. The concept of work management includes many objects -- such as job descriptions, user profiles, subsystem descriptions, routing entries, and job queue entries -- and includes the many relationships these objects share to process work through your system in a managed and efficient work environment. These chapters introduce you to both the key objects and those relationships. This complete description of work management objects, together with sample work management configurations, should give you a good taste for this often-feared area of the AS/400 and spur your confidence and curiosity to learn more.

The section covering file basics tackles one of the most troublesome areas for those new to the AS/400 architecture: file structure. Because of your previous experiences, the definition and administration of the OS/400 integrated database is something new and foreign to many of you. But you must master defining and using files on the AS/400 to ensure that your applications take advantage of OS/400's database functions. I have devoted several chapters to building your knowledge of AS/400 files and how you can manipulate those files and use them effectively in your applications.

An entire section is devoted to basic CL programming tasks. This material, which covers everything from correct CL style, to using CL programs with display files and database files, to teaching programs to talk to each other, will certainly give you a firm foundation on which you can build your CL programming skills.

The final two chapters of the book address two topics that did not fit neatly into any of the other categories -- working with OS/400 commands and working with data areas. This material offers you the easiest ways to find a command you are looking for. And if you want to find a place to store a little data without having to build a file, you will discover that in this material as well.

The information presented in these 33 chapters, while not all-inclusive, will help you develop a basic working knowledge of some of the key concepts and functions you will encounter on the AS/400. With this foundation, you will be solidly prepared to explore each subject in depth using the AS/400 manuals and other resources mentioned in the bibliography.

If this book makes you feel more comfortable with your new system, serves as a useful reference tool, and inspires you to further explore the AS/400, it will have served its purpose.