Operations Console; What's New For V5R4 - IBM System i Manual

Operations Console

The Operations Console acts as a system console for you to access and administer your systems.
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IBM facilitates interaction with your systems by providing management consoles that can be accessed
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through terminals and PCs. The Operations Console is an installable component of iSeries Access for
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Windows . Using Operations Console, you can access and control the console and control panel functions
either locally or remotely through one or many PCs, which facilitates many administrative functions.
Operations Console uses 5250 emulation provided by either iSeries Access for Windows or IBM Personal
Communications to emulate a console. To emulate a system control panel, Operations Console provides a
graphical remote control panel or virtual control panel. To enable communications between a system and
a PC, Operations Console can use a local area network (LAN) and TCP/IP connections, or can use direct
cable attachment. It supports dial-in connections from remote PCs to PCs that are directly attached to
systems. These remote PCs can then function as a console, which allows easier system management and
access.
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Operations Console support is available with V5R2 and later releases of the i5/OS operating system.
IBM iSeries 270 and 8xx models support only Operations Console as their PC console.
Enhanced authentication and data encryption provide network security for console procedures.
Operations Console network connections use a variety of Secured Sockets Layer (SSL), that supports
device and user authentication without certificates.
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If you plan to use Operations Console to manage System i hardware, see the Managing Operations
Console topic collection in the IBM Systems Hardware Information Center.
Related information
Managing Operations Console

What's new for V5R4

This topic highlights the changes made to the Operations Console topic collection for V5R4.
New system-side functions have been added in V5R4 to make it easier to manage your system using
Operations Console.
The system no longer requires a password when creating a device ID. Systems can now accept console
service functions in D-mode even in the event that there is an uninitialized disk unit present. A system
can now force an exit at C6004508 in D-mode with function 21 if needed.
The take over and recovery option takes effect immediately now. Also, take over and recovery functions
are supported in D-mode now. The Console Information Status window during console take over or
recovery has been changed to make it easier to see if Take over the console is YES or NO. Finally, the
DST signon window associated with take over / recovery (ATTENTION: This device can become the
console) no longer has any PF keys since the only function allowed is signon.
Only iSeries 270 and 8xx are supported. This means that only parallel direct attached RPC can be used.
Also, in V5R4, older SPD-bus cards are no longer supported even in migration towers. The code is still in
place so that users can take advantage of it, however there is no support for its usage.
Client-side functionality also has some added features for Operations Console.
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