IBM IMS High Availability Large Database Toolkit for z/OS

IMS HALDB Toolkit allows the IMS DBA to consolidate or split partitions where the data is showing signs of growing or shrinking. To ensure the new partition settings are correct, it allows the IMS DBA to simulate the repartitioning before making the change to the IMS HALDB database. It then enables the IMS DBA to set specific thresholds to inform them when maintenance is required for an IMS HALDB database.

IMS HALDB Toolkit improves the performance of IMS HALDB databases. For instance, once an IMS HALDB primary database is reorganized, all secondary index pointers require healing. In IMS, this healing process is performed by using “self-healing”, which means the index is corrected when it is first used. However, since the self-healing procedure can impact performance during peak times, the toolkit provides an offline utility to heal the secondary indexes.

IMS HALDB Toolkit can also help in the conversion of user-partitioned IMS databases to IMS HALDB databases. If there are multiple identical databases with different key ranges, the toolkit transforms the databases into IMS HALDB databases and merge the data into a single IMS HALDB database. This helps users who need secondary indexing but were restricted from using it when the data was split across multiple databases.

IMS HALDB Toolkit provides special functions to deal with IMS DBRC. For example, the tool allows the IMS HALDB DBRC definitions to be cloned or replicated from one IMS RECON data set to another IMS RECON data set. It can also change the high-level data set qualifier name during the replication process. The toolkit also allows a set of production IMS HALDB databases to be allocated and copied from one IMS system to another IMS system.