Master IBM i data areas and data queues for inter-program communication in 2026: create and manage data areas with CRTDTAARA, RTVDTAARA, and CHGDTAARA, use the LDA local data area, declare DTAARA in RPG, build producer-consumer pipelines with CRTDTAQ, SNDDTAQ, and RCVDTAQ, and use keyed data queues for priority message routing.
Master DB2 for i window functions in 2026: use ROW_NUMBER, RANK, DENSE_RANK, NTILE, LAG, LEAD, FIRST_VALUE, and LAST_VALUE with the OVER clause, PARTITION BY, and ORDER BY to write advanced analytical SQL queries against IBM i DB2 data without self-joins or subqueries.
Master ILE RPG date and time handling in 2026: declare date, time, and timestamp fields, convert between formats using %DATE and %CHAR, perform date arithmetic with %DIFF and %ADDUR, process fiscal periods, and call CEEDAYS and CEEJULDY CEE APIs for century-safe date calculations in IBM i RPG programs.
Bring AI inference to IBM i in 2026 with IBM watsonx on Power: deploy Granite foundation models co-located with your DB2 data, call watsonx REST APIs from RPG using HTTPAPI, integrate Python-based inference pipelines in PASE, implement document classification and anomaly detection use cases, and govern production AI with watsonx.governance.
Tune IBM i memory performance in 2026: understand the *BASE, *INTERACT, and *SPOOL shared pool structure, set pool sizes and activity levels with WRKSHRPOOL and CHGSHRPOOL, diagnose paging faults using Collection Services and the WRKMEMPOOL command, configure automatic performance adjustment (APA), and size pools correctly for interactive, batch, and PASE workloads.
Send email from IBM i in 2026 using every available method: configure the SMTP server with CHGSMTPA, send plain-text alerts via SNDDST and SNDSMTPEMM from CL, build multipart MIME HTML email directly from RPG using HTTP API calls, send notifications from PASE with Python smtplib, and design a reusable CL email alert pattern for batch job failures.
Automate IBM i batch jobs in 2026: add recurring schedule entries with ADDJOBSCDE, manage and monitor schedules with WRKJOBSCDE, set up failure notifications via message queues, configure the IBM Advanced Job Scheduler (5770-JS1) for complex job dependencies, and query schedule history from QSYS2.SCHEDULED_JOB_INFO.
Unlock the power of DB2 for i CTEs and recursive SQL in 2026: write readable multi-step queries using the WITH clause, chain multiple CTEs, use CTEs in UPDATE and DELETE statements, and traverse hierarchical data structures like BOMs and org charts with WITH RECURSIVE and the LEVEL pseudo-column.
Master IBM i RPG subfile programming in 2026: design subfile and subfile control record formats in DDS with SFLPAG and SFLSIZ, load records in a loop using WRITE, display with SFLDSP and SFLDSPCTL, handle user input and option codes, implement page-up and page-down paging logic, and position the subfile cursor with SFLRCDNBR.
Secure the IBM i Integrated File System in 2026: understand the IFS authority model, control *PUBLIC access, use CHGAUT and CHGOWN to set object permissions and ownership, configure IFS access control lists, handle symbolic link authority implications, design secure PASE application directory trees, and audit IFS access using QAUDJRN.