Enhancements to IBM AIX Version 6 and AIX Version 7 offer improved performance, scalability, availability, security, and manageability
IBM United States Software Announcement 211-371October 12, 2011
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| At a glance |
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IBM® is enhancing AIX® 6 and 7, the IBM strategic UNIX™ operating system for mission-critical, core business applications.
For ordering, contact your IBM representative, an IBM Business Partner, or IBM Americas Call Centers at 800-IBM-CALL (Reference: RE001).
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| Overview |
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The AIX operating system is an open-standards-based UNIX operating system that provides the enterprise-class IT infrastructure for thousands of clients around the world. IBM is making enhancements to AIX 6 and AIX 7, which will include significant new capabilities for security, availability, and manageability.
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| Key prerequisites |
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Refer to the relevant IBM Software Announcements.
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| Planned availability date |
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October 14, 2011
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| Description |
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The AIX operating system has been enhanced to provide the following new capabilities in AIX 7 Technology Level 1 and AIX 6 Technology Level 7:
Performance and scalability:
- Active System Optimizer, a new subsystem designed to autonomically improve the performance of workloads (AIX 7 TL1 SP1 or later). Performance improvements may vary depending on configuration and workload. Measurements should be taken before running the subsystem in a production environment. Active System Optimizer support is available only on POWER7® systems.
- A new (network option), namely tcp_fastlo, for enabling a TCP fast loopback feature. Using the TCP fast loopback feature can significantly reduce TCP/IP protocol overhead and lower CPU utilization if the two (TCP) communication endpoints reside on the same logical partition (LPAR).
- Improved application availability when using Live Application Mobility to relocate a rootvg-based workload partition (WPAR) from one system to another.
- An enhancement to the JFS2 filesystem that allows administrators to dynamically alter filesystem caching to tune the performance of certain workloads such as sequential reads or sequential writes without the disruption of unmounting the filesystem.
- A 50% reduction in JFS2 memory usage for metadata, compared to earlier releases of AIX (AIX 7 TL1 only).
Availability:
- A new option for the Logical Volume Manager (LVM) to retry failed I/O operations indefinitely. This can improve overall system availability by allowing recovery from transient failures of storage devices.
Security:
- AIX support for multiple Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) servers to provide increased availability and load balancing.
- Auditing subsystem support for audit events for the Encrypting Filesystem and Role Based Access Control Domains.
- Additional support to centralize management of Role Based Access Control Domains in LDAP.
- GSSAPI support for IPSec to provide increased cross-platform interoperability.
Manageability:
- AIX Profile Manager application programming interfaces (APIs) to allow independent software vendors (ISVs) and clients to provide control of resources outside of AIX.
- Significant improvement in mksysb performance during restore and alt_disk_install operations.
- ProbeVue enhancements including support for regular expressions in user function probes, a new stack trace data type, and support for printing the process tree and listing probe points.
Other enhancements:
- Command and library enhancements designed to comply with the Open Group Single UNIX Specification Version 4 support (AIX 7.1.1 only).
- AIX support for system dates beyond 2038 (AIX 7.1.1 only).
- Inclusion of the IBM License Metric Tool (LMT) agent on the AIX base media to simplify deployment of LMT (AIX 7.1.1 only).
- An update of Samba on the AIX Expansion Pack to version 3.3.12.
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| Product positioning |
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AIX 7.1
Industrial-strength features and functions of the AIX operating system have been proven in a wide variety of computing environments from small one- or two-processor systems for small workloads to large 64-processor systems to meet the demanding requirements for vertically scaled applications such as databases.
AIX 7.1 features include:
- Workload partitions to provide software-based virtualization
- Live Application Mobility (requires the purchase of IBM Workload Partitions Manager™ for AIX or the purchase of the AIX 7 Enterprise Edition, which includes IBM PowerVM™ Workload Partitions Manager for AIX)
- 64-bit kernel for higher scalability and performance
- Dynamic logical partitioning and Micro-Partitioning® support
- Automated load balancing
- Online addition or removal of processors, memory, and I/O resources
- Support for dedicated and shared processor LPAR groups
- Trusted AIX for multilevel, compartmentalized security
- Integrated Role Based Access Control
- Encrypting JFS2 file system
- Exploitation of POWER7 storage keys with enhanced protection and reliability
- Concurrent AIX kernel updates, which can reduce the need for planned outages
- Dynamic tracing with ProbeVue
- Designed to comply with the Open Group Single UNIX Specification Version 4 standard
- Robust journaled file system and Logical Volume Manager (LVM) software, including integrated file system snapshot
- Tools for managing your systems environment: System Management Interface Tool (SMIT) and the Systems Director Console for AIX
AIX 7.1 represents the most advanced version of the AIX operating system. AIX 7.1 builds on a solid heritage of supplying integrated, enterprise-class support for IBM Power Systems™ servers.
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| Java 1.4.2 installation images removed from AIX 6 and AIX 7 media |
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IBM has announced September 30, 2013, as the date on which it will end support for IBM SDK for AIX, Java™ 2 Technology Edition, V1.4 on the Power® platform. AIX V7.1 will no longer have IBM SDK for AIX, Java 2 Technology Edition, V1.4 installation images on its media beginning with the 7100-01 technology Level. AIX V6.1 will no longer have IBM SDK for AIX, Java 2 Technology Edition, V1.4 installation images on its media beginning with the 6100-07 technology level. Developers are advised to consult the IBM Developer Kits life-cycle information to obtain the latest information on IBM Java SDK and JRE service support
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| Product number |
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Program number Program name 5765-G90 AIX 6 Express® Edition 5765-G62 AIX 6 Standard Edition 5765-AEZ AIX 6 Enterprise Edition 5765-G97 AIX 7 Express Edition 5765-G98 AIX 7 Standard Edition 5765-G99 AIX 7 Enterprise Edition
Business Partner information
If you are a Direct Reseller - System Reseller acquiring products from IBM, you may link directly to Business Partner information for this announcement. A PartnerWorld® ID and password are required (use IBM ID).
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| Order now |
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To order, contact the Americas Call Centers or your local IBM representative, or your IBM Business Partner.
To identify your local IBM representative or IBM Business Partner, call 800-IBM-4YOU (426-4968).
Phone: 800-IBM-CALL (426-2255)
Fax: 800-2IBM-FAX (242-6329)
Internet: callserv@ca.ibm.com
Mail: IBM Teleweb Customer Support
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3500 Steeles Ave. East, Tower 3/4
Markham, Ontario
Canada
L3R 2Z1
Reference: RE001
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Note: Shipments will begin after the planned availability date.
Trademarks
Workload Partitions Manager, PowerVM and Power Systems are trademarks of IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.
IBM, AIX, POWER7, Micro-Partitioning, Express, PartnerWorld and ibm.com are registered trademarks of IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.
UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other countries.
Other company, product, and service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.
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