Elizabeth Zinkann

AIX, based on AT&T's UNIX System V, is IBM's UNIX operating system. AIX (Advanced Interactive eXecutive) is most often associated with the RS/6000 computers, although it is capable of running on other architectures. Several books have been written for AIX administrators, and I have reviewed most of them as they appeared. The most recent publications have been written and published by IBM Redbooks, and I have included a review of the AIX Logical Volume Manager from A to Z: Troubleshooting and Commands by Laurent Vanel, Ronald van derKnaap, Dugald Foreman, Keigo Matsubara, and Anthony Steel (IBM International Technical Support Organization, IBM Redbooks). I also reviewed Accelerating AIX: Performance Tuning for Programmers and System Administrators by Rudy Chukran (Addison-Wesley), plus a couple of brief summaries of AIX books that I've reviewed in the past. The first, Æleen Frisch's Essential System Administration, Second Edition (O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.) isn't really an AIX book, but it has enough AIX information to aid any AIX administrator. The second, AIX Performance Tuning by Frank Waters (Prentice Hall), should be a familiar reference for anyone running an AIX system.

A note about IBM Redbooks -- while researching and writing this column, I became aware of IBM Redbooks, Redpieces, Redpapers, and their related Residencies. There is a relatively new system of Redbook Portals, which provides information about Redbooks in each of the categories. Redbooks present the most recent books about topics, such as RS/6000 and UNIX, Netfinity, Networking, Storage and SAN, S/390, Tivoli, and the AS/400. Redpiece display the pre-publication books, which may not be completed or proofread; Redpapers contain shorter technical documents. The Residencies are proposed topics that are currently under development.