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IBM Introduces New Database Software Tools

IBM, a worldwide market share leader in the database industry, announced new software tools to help customers improve database performance, ease system administration and reduce the total cost of computing.

IBM's database tools provide customers with easy-to-use administration capabilities that help simplify data management and reduce the cost of computing brought on by the rising costs of system administration. According to Aberdeen Group, system administration can account for as much as 75% of the overall cost of database ownership. With today's announcement, IBM is delivering 20 new offerings, including new self-managing expert, to help customers reduce complexity and automate improvements in system performance.

The announcement builds upon IBM's momentum in the database tools market. In 2000, IBM invested $200 million in its database tools business to meet the growing demand for system automation driven by the IT industry's shortage of database administration (DBA) skills. In the past 18 months, IBM's database tools business has more than tripled, growing more than 240% in 2001 alone.

Amica Mutual Insurance, the nation's oldest mutual insurer of automobiles, offering home, life, marine and personal liability insurance, relies on IBM's database tools to optimize database performance and availability.

"While we were initially attracted to IBM's database tools at Amica for their low total cost of ownership, we've quickly realized how indispensable they are for a multitude of tasks, from automating essential database maintenance jobs to helping reduce database query costs," said Rick Buckley, database administration manager for Amica. "Being able to rely on IBM's DB2 Tools in Amica's IT environment, our DBAs have more time to devote to value-added projects such as enhancing the systems that support our highly ranked customer service efforts."

Amica Mutual Insurance joins a growing list of companies that rely on IBM's database tools to increase productivity and gain cost savings, including Bank of America, Verizon, DaimlerChrysler, Travelers, Sprint PCS, State Farm, Home Depot, Progressive, Unicible, the German Government and CSC Denmark.

SMART (Self Managing and Resource Tuning) Tools:

As part of IBM's Autonomic Computing initiative to help reduce complexity and improve quality of service through the advancement of self-managing capabilities in computing environments, IBM is introducing two new tools to automate database performance tuning and database recovery time as part of the company's continuing effort to expand SMART (Self Managing and Resource Tuning) technology into its DB2 database software.

DB2 Recovery Expert for multi-platforms, provides simplified, comprehensive, automated recovery features with extensive diagnostic and self-managing capabilities to minimize database outages. DB2 Performance Expert consolidates, reports, analyzes and recommends SMART changes on DB2 performance related information. These are also the first tools to emerge from IBM's SMART database initiatives, a joint collaboration between IBM's Silicon Valley, Almaden, and Toronto research labs aimed at accelerating autonomic computing in database technology.

Multi-Platform Tools

In addition to the SMART database tools, IBM is also expanding its multiplatform tools portfolio with:

• DB2 High Performance Unload quickly and efficiently unloads and extracts data from DB2 for movement across enterprise systems or for reorganization in place.
• DB2 Table Editor quickly and easily accesses, updates, and deletes data across multiple DB2 database platforms including the Informix Dynamic Server.
• DB2 Web Query Tool allows the connection of all users directly to multiple enterprise databases, securely and simultaneously, regardless of database size, hardware, operating system or location and now includes support for the Informix Dynamic Server.

zSeries Tools:

IBM is also introducing 15 new and enhanced tools for DB2 customers using the zSeries platforms. Among these include:

• DB2 Administration Tool: allows customers to manage the tasks that keep DB2 performing at peak levels.
• DB2 High Performance Unload: is a high-speed DB2 utility for unloading DB2 tables from either a tablespace or an image copy.
• DB2 SQL Performance Analyzer: provides customers with an extensive analysis of SQL queries without executing them and aids in tuning queries to achieve maximum performance. This tool makes it easier to reduce the escalating costs of database queries by estimating their cost prior to execution.
• DB2 Change Accumulation Tool: quickly creates image copies or "change files" without impacting your online operations with precision.

Availability

SMART database tools support DB2 users on multi-platforms including Microsoft Windows, HP-UX, Sun's Solaris Operating Environment, IBM AIX and Linux. The new multi-platform tools will be made generally available on July 26, 2002. DB2 Recovery Expert will be available on September 27, 2002.

All zSeries eServer database tools will be generally available between March 8 and July 26, 2002. For more information about IBM Data Management Solutions tools, please visit www.ibm.com/software/data/db2imstools.

About IBM's Data Management Business

IBM's DB2 database software is the worldwide marketshare leader in the industry. It is the industry's first multimedia, Web-ready relational database management system, strong enough to meet the demands of large corporations and flexible enough to serve medium-sized and small e-businesses. There are more than 60 million DB2 users from some 400,000 companies worldwide relying on IBM data management technology. For more information please visit www.software.ibm.com/data.