IBM® IMS™ Tools solutions can help organizations that use IMS to optimize performance and to manage their IMS environment.

IBM offers dozens of IMS Tools to simplify the following types of tasks:

Application management

The goal of application developers is to deliver well-written applications while meeting deadlines. By using a robust set of tools, application developers can become more productive and less dependent on the database administration and systems staff.

Common challenges for application developers who are striving to maximize application performance include:

• Eliminating unnecessary binds
• Identifying potential access path changes
• Editing data values
• Creating valid test environments
• Archiving data to less-expensive disk and tape
• Enhancing database availability by minimizing the downtime that is associated with batch application failures
• Automating the manual tasks that are associated with backing out database updates after an application failure
• Decreasing the time to market with IMS Connect applications

IBM IMS Tools provide a solution that helps application developers address all of these application management requirements. A complete list of these Tools is available at http://www.ibm.com/software/data/db2imstools/solutions/application-management.html.

Backup and recovery

Backup and recovery is one of the most complicated areas of database management. Having the right resources to do a recovery is critical. Without them, you risk the loss of key data.

Database backup and recovery tasks are varied, from recovering from a dropped object to rebuilding after a major disaster, and everything in between. Recoveries that are done manually can be error prone, time consuming, and resource intensive.

The backup and recovery solution that is provided by IBM IMS Tools can help you reduce the business risks that are associated with data loss. A complete list of these Tools is available at http://www.ibm.com/software/data/db2imstools/solutions/backup-recovery.html.

Business intelligence and dynamic warehousing

Taking advantage of business information requires a strong, flexible data warehouse and a business intelligence solution that is built on a powerful, highly scalable platform. The expanding scope and mission of business intelligence, along with the increased corporate emphasis on cost savings, data security, and green initiatives, is driving organizations to consider IBM System z® as a strategic platform for data warehousing and business intelligence. This powerful, highly scalable platform is ideal for hosting the transactional systems that house the raw data, as well as the data warehousing and business intelligence solutions.

The IBM business intelligence and dynamic warehousing solution on the System z platform helps drive smarter business decisions across the entire organization. This solution offers a suite of IBM IMS Tools that deliver scalable, high-performance data warehousing and business intelligence capabilities. A complete list of these Tools is available at http://www.ibm.com/software/data/businessintelligence/systemz/.

Data governance

Increased emphasis on data compliance and privacy regulations has resulted in new levels of complexity around data management. The IBM IMS Tools offer a data governance solution that responds to ongoing requirements that are related to auditing, retention, and privacy of your data. The tools provide the capabilities that IT organizations need to more confidently comply with regulations, while saving time and expense in the data center. Organizations that struggle with governance challenges ask themselves these kinds of questions:

• Is our audit reporting strategy lacking institutional controls, or perhaps even nonexistent? Do we have problems demonstrating compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley and ISO standards or other requirements of our country?
• Are we using "live" production data for unit testing, with no masking of sensitive data values?
• Are we wasting resource by storing large amounts of unreferenced and inactive data on our operational databases? Are we storing outdated data that we have no legal requirement to retain?
• Is sensitive data potentially being exposed to theft while at rest or in transit between our organization and our business partners?

If your organization answers yes to any of these questions, the IBM data governance solution offers IMS Tools that can help minimize the liability risk that is associated with data governance. A complete list of these Tools is available at http://www.ibm.com/software/data/db2imstools/solutions/compliance.html.

Data replication

Given the tremendous volume of information in existence today and the ever-increasing growth of information worldwide, having a single and reliable version of your data has become more and more critical in data management. Considering that a single and reliable source is the current ideal operating paradigm, you might wonder why an organization would need or want to replicate information. The answer is that a number of business drivers and technology issues necessitate high-volume, robust, and secure information replication. Some of the most often-cited reasons for replicating data include:

• Populating a data warehouse or data mart while maintaining data consistency among disparate systems
• Populating a central repository from remote sites or vice versa
• Scheduling and maintaining consistency of data in multiple locations by providing a single version of the data from a central site
• Replicating information from a central production environment to a mirror image or subset used for analytical or query processes
• Applying filters to replicate pertinent data to provide an accurate subset for business processes
• Applying real-time or event-driven rules to ensure synchronization across data stores and locations

The IBM data replication solution includes IMS Tools that can help you address these and many other data replication needs in your z/OS® environment. A complete list of these Tools is available at http://www.ibm.com/software/data/db2imstools/solutions/data-replication.html.

Database administration and change management

Database administration and change management are core responsibilities of the database administrator. If these responsibilities are not managed correctly, they can monopolize data center resources, waste valuable time, and result in the generation of errors. In managing the database administration and change management process, database administrators face many challenges. They need to know how to:

• Ensure that they complete all of the necessary steps when making a change
• Manage and track the changes to the definitions of database objects
• Propagate changes to other database environments
• Keep IMS software versions current
• Manage a corrupt database
• Efficiently convert IMS full-function databases to the High Availability Large Database (HALDB) format

The IBM database administration and change management solution offers IMS Tools that can help reduce the negative impact that data changes can have on your database. A complete list of these Tools is available at http://www.ibm.com/software/data/db2imstools/solutions/database-admin.html.

Performance management

Improving productivity and profitability is a top priority that affects the entire business, including the data center. Database administrators continually strive to maximize database performance to support service level agreements (SLAs), drive higher transaction rates, and ultimately increase profitability. As they strive for top performance, database administrators are presented with many hurdles and look for new ways to take a more proactive role in identifying potential performance problems before they negatively affect their systems. In managing performance of IMS database management systems, database administrators need to perform many specific tasks, such as:

• Check the performance health of the IMS subsystems
• Determine why online transactions are failing (deadlocks, locking contentions, or RID pool failures)
• Set alerts to know when performance thresholds are reached or exceeded
• Tune IMS systems more efficiently
• Identify a process for analyzing and isolating IMS transactions and performance bottlenecks
• Verify service levels and predict trends that will improve the productivity of IMS specialists and system programmers

The IBM performance management solution offers IMS Tools that provide the statistical information that you need to meet your service level agreements. A complete list of these Tools is available at http://www.ibm.com/software/data/db2imstools/solutions/performance-mgmt.html.

Transaction management

IBM offers a set of tools to help you better manage your transaction environments. The tools help you administer your Extended Terminal Support (ETO) environment more efficiently by eliminating the need for assembler skills. They also help you better manage your message queues and help you execute IMS commands throughout all of your IMS systems.

A complete list of these Tools is available at http://www.ibm.com/software/data/db2imstools/solutions/transaction-mgmt.html.

Utilities management

Underlying the operation of any database management system are the utilities. With the number of database objects growing exponentially, especially when dealing with ERP applications such as SAP, the impact of managing utility jobs, meeting service level agreements, and ensuring recoverability can be overwhelming. IBM offers IMS Tools that assist in the utilities management process. For example, in an on demand world, 24x7 data availability is a key requirement. Reorganization tools from IBM can help with the performance of key functions, such as unloading and reloading IMS data, without having a negative impact on data access.

The IBM utilities management solution offers IMS Tools that can help you achieve higher availability and better performance during periods of data maintenance, while enhancing the productivity of both database administrators and system programmers. A complete list of these Tools is available at http://www.ibm.com/software/data/db2imstools/solutions/utilities-mgmt.html.

Version upgrade acceleration

Moving to new releases of a database server such as IMS can be a daunting task. Having an implementation plan that includes the right set of tools can make a significant difference in the time, effort, and protection of your valuable data assets. The ideal solution is to have a set of tools that assist not only in migrating to a new release of IMS, but in the entire lifecycle of your critical applications that are supported by IMS.

The IBM IMS Tools let you let you:

• Establish a performance baseline to analyze the newer release
• Determine which parameters need to be set
• Capture activity in your previous version of IMS to help determine the optimal settings

The IBM version upgrade acceleration solution offers IBM IMS Tools that reduce the amount of time between the start and end of a migration to a new version of your database management system product in the z/OS environment. A complete list of these Tools is available at http://www.ibm.com/software/data/db2imstools/solutions/version-upgrade.html.