BMC upgrades management tools for DB2

BMC Software recently pumped out upgrades to five of its SmartDBA management tools for Version 7 of IBM's DB2 mainframe database, along with two upgrades for the distributed, Universal Database edition of DB2.

The products are a further step in BMC's Golden Gate Project, which aims to provide database administrators (DBA) with an integrated set of tools for managing mainframe and distributed database environments from multiple vendors through a single, Web-based console, the company says.

The Web-based console for DB2 UDB is available now. The console for IBM's DB2 mainframe database is scheduled for release in the first half of this year, says Karl Chen, vice president of marketing at BMC.

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BMC Software recently pumped out upgrades to five of its SmartDBA management tools for Version 7 of IBM's DB2 mainframe database, along with two upgrades for the distributed, Universal Database edition of DB2.

The products are a further step in BMC's Golden Gate Project, which aims to provide database administrators (DBA) with an integrated set of tools for managing mainframe and distributed database environments from multiple vendors through a single, Web-based console, the company says.

The Web-based console for DB2 UDB is available now. The console for IBM's DB2 mainframe database is scheduled for release in the first half of this year, says Karl Chen, vice president of marketing at BMC.

BMC's tools compete with products from vendors such as IBM, Oracle and Quest.

On the mainframe side, BMC will release Version 2.0 of System Performance for DB2, which adds navigation components intended to provide a more "task-oriented" approach to managing system performance, Chen says.

The new reporting capabilities allow a DBA to check on system health, accounting and audit data without having to use DB2's system management facility.

The company also has released Database Performance for DB2 Version 1.1, which adds a tool that lets DBAs reorganize a database without having to take it offline. A similar "online reorg" capability was added to BMC's SmartDBA tools for Oracle's database earlier in the year.

The other upgraded mainframe tools are Application Performance for DB2 Version 2.0, Database Administration for DB2 Version 1.2 and Recovery Management for DB2 Version 1.1.

On the distributed database side, BMC will announce SQL-BackTrack for DB2 UDB Version 2.0, which adds new back-up and recovery capabilities, and SQL-Explorer for DB2 UDB Version 6.0.02. This has been integrated with another tool, DBXray, so that an administrator can locate poorly performing SQL code from within DBXray, which is a diagnostic tool, Chen says.

The mainframe tools are available now, priced from $21,800 for the Application Performance product to $86,300 for the Database Administration tool, BMC says. The DB2 UDB, also available now, is priced at $5,610 for up to 25G bytes of storage for the SQL-BackTrack product, and $3,140 per Windows NT workgroup server for SQL Explorer.

Niccolai is a correspondent with the IDG News Service's San Francisco bureau.

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