Edit: Some links no longer work.
Originally posted July 21, 2015 on AIXchange
What new features and capabilities would you like to see added to AIX? How can you share your ideas with IBM?
In the past, customers could submit a design change request (DCR). This is now done with a request for enhancement (RFE).
Read more about RFEs here:
The following products are now available on the IBM RFE Community. This RFE Community update gives you the ability to enter additional Requests for Enhancements (RFEs), allowing for better communication between you and developers on more platforms and servers.
- IBM AIX: The AIX operating system is an open standards-based, UNIX operating system that allows you to run the applications you want on Power Systems servers.
- PowerHA: PowerHA SystemMirror for AIX technology is a high availability clustering solution for data center and multisite resiliency. It is designed to protect business applications from outages of virtually any kind, helping ensure round-the-clock business operations.
- PowerSC: IBM PowerSC provides a security and compliance solution optimized for virtualized environments on Power Systems servers running the AIX operating system.
- PowerVM VIOS: PowerVM provides a secure and scalable server virtualization environment for AIX and Linux applications built upon the advanced RAS features and leading performance of the Power Systems platform.
For details, check out these RFE FAQs and this list of status values and definitions:
The status of a request depends on:
- Where the request is in our development lifecycle
- Whether we are still considering the request
- Whether we have approved it and plan to deliver it
- Whether we have declined it.
Finally, here are a couple of videos. This roughly 8 minute video tells you how to watch for and receive RFE notifications. This longer video (it’s about 20 minutes) tells you how to submit, view and send out notifications on RFEs.
If you have an idea for enhancing AIX or any IBM product, or if you just want to discover what other users have suggested, why not engage in the process?
On a personal note, July 16 was the 8-year anniversary of AIXchange.
Over the years I’ve enjoyed hearing from the many readers who’ve told me that this feature has been educational or otherwise beneficial. Some of these readers have become good friends.
Through eight years, I’ve written in the neighborhood of 400 blog posts. Occasionally I’ll Google a term and be directed to something I wrote some years back, something I’d forgotten about. Besides jogging my memory, this often serves as reference material for topics I’m currently working on.
Although technology changes, I find that there’s still a wide audience for AIX- and Linux-oriented information, and I plan to continue to provide this into the future.
As always, if you have topics you would like to see covered, just drop me a line.