The Rocket Software team is pleased to announce that the new version 9.4.1 of Rocket® iCluster is now available.
Rocket iCluster high availability/disaster recovery (HA/DR) software solutions ensure uninterrupted operation for your IBM i applications, providing continuous access by monitoring, identifying, and self-correcting replication problems.
Rocket® iCluster 9.4.1 delivers meaningful improvements to how you manage, monitor, and optimize replication across your IBM i environment, with AI-assisted tuning and expanded browser-based workflows in the companion Web release.
Rocket® iCluster Web
Usability
The following new features and improvements were added the Web UI for increased usability:
AI Tuner: Let the System Tell You What to Fix
Diagnosing replication imbalance has traditionally required deep expertise and manual analysis. AI Tuner changes that. Built directly into iCluster Web, it automatically collects and analyzes workload data, maps dependencies, identifies imbalance, and delivers specific, actionable recommendations. Your team gets faster time-to-insight without needing to be replication experts, and your DR posture improves as a result.
More Operational Control from the Browser
iCluster Web 9.4.1 extends the range of tasks your team can handle without leaving the browser:
Object Suspension is now available directly from the Monitor and Object Specifiers pages, giving operators immediate, targeted control over what's being replicated without requiring green-screen access.
Smart Diff Refresh is precise: it compares source and target data, finds only what has drifted, and repairs just those differences. For large files with limited changes, this can dramatically shorten refresh time and reduce replication blocking windows; keeping your systems more available, more of the time.
Priority Audit Sync Check focuses sync checks on objects changed within a defined time window, instead of scanning everything. This reduces overhead and lets you run checks more frequently or fit them into tighter maintenance slots.
Activate Out-of-Sync Objects by Size lets you restore the smallest out-of-sync objects first, getting quick wins early and giving you better control over recovery sequencing when time is tight.
Reliability
A More Resilient Monitoring Architecture
The Monitor and Replication Groups architecture has been redesigned from the ground up. This means faster dashboard load times, better behavior under concurrent activity, and a more resilient monitoring experience as your environment grows — with no single point of failure in your visibility layer.
Rocket® iCluster Core / Green Screen
Performance and Reliability
The following new features and improvements have been implemented for increased performance and improved reliability:
Cut Refresh Times and Reduce Network Load
Refresh windows have always been a necessary cost of keeping backup systems in sync. With iCluster 9.4.1, that cost gets smaller. ZLIB compression is now available for refresh operations, reducing the volume of data moved across the network and helping you shrink maintenance windows. On Power10 systems, on-chip hardware acceleration takes it even further, with no extra configuration required. Enabling it is a single setting change for existing users.
Know Exactly How Long Your Recoveries Take
Until now, refresh timing data left gaps in your picture of DR readiness. iCluster 9.4.1 closes that gap by reporting true end-to-end refresh duration: from the moment a refresh begins to the moment replicated data is fully available on the backup system. Whether you're managing databases, IFS files, programs, or other object types, you now have accurate numbers to plan against, report on, and optimize.
Tame High-Impact Replication Workloads with Group Splitting
As replication environments grow, a handful of large or fast-changing files can drag down the performance of everything else in the group. Replication Group Splitting lets you isolate those problem files into their own group, maintaining synchronization alignment and managing dependencies safely, without disrupting the rest of your workload. The result is more predictable performance, easier monitoring, and finer-grained control as your environment scales.
Quality
This release also addresses a set of focused issues that impact day-to-day replication reliability:
- Objects incorrectly flagged as Out of Sync or Not Found (NFD) on backup nodes are now handled correctly, reducing false alarms and unnecessary operator intervention.
- SQL trigger replication failures caused by comment truncation have been resolved, improving the completeness and reliability of trigger handling.
- A CCSID-related issue that caused database triggers to replicate only partially has been corrected.
- IFS replication consistency during journal management has been improved.
- Monitor panel responsiveness has been restored for Option 8 and related Status Monitor workflows.
Small Enhancements Worth Noting
This release also includes five small green-screen enhancements:
- Sync check reports now display the associated group name, making it easier to interpret output at a glance.
- iCluster startup has been streamlined by removing an outdated service dependency (*INETD), simplifying the startup sequence.
- Communications startup efficiency has been improved through optimized STRTCPSVR *DDM invocation.
- Command handling consistency has been modernized by replacing HSNDCMD usage with DMSNDCMD in the affected workflow.
Upgrade Information
iCluster 9.4.1 is an enhancement pack applied to an existing iCluster 9.4.0 installation — not a full reinstall. iCluster Web 9.4.1 is the companion Web release and ships alongside the engine update.
Product Lifecycle Updates
We’ve updated the Product Lifecycle for Rocket iCluster on docs.rocketsoftware.com under the latest versions of each product. This helps customers plan upgrades confidently, knowing they’ll receive long-term support and access to the latest innovations.
Detailed release notes can be found here Rocket® iCluster release notes. The complete documentation is available in the Library.
