Assessment Tool for DB2 Support and Development

Industry

Customer

Our customer is a global IT service provider, one of the most recognized companies in the IT community.

Project Overview

The goal of the project is to support a comprehensive assessment tool for DB2 product customers as well as enhance and develop the product itself. A leading product on the marketplace for mainframe DB2 databases, it is designed to optimize efficiency of a DB2 database on z/OS.

It performs the following functions:

Monitor, analyze and tune the performance of IBM Universal Database and IBM DB2 applications on z/OS
Optimize database administrator time by offering an enhanced end–user interface with robust graphical data views
Quickly and easily identify performance bottlenecks using predefined rules of thumb
Enjoy substantial breadth and depth of monitoring DB2 environments by combining batch reporting capabilities with real time monitoring and historical tracking functions
Support an enterprise–wide integrated systems management strategy activated by the product family
Store performance data and analysis tools in a performance warehouse.

Project Execution

The IBA activities include:

L2 Customer Support: Dealing with customers and customer reported issues, consulting and initial problem analysis, interaction with Change Team / Developers (L3) to report product bugs and make requests for product improvements, maintaining Problem Management Records (PMR) and opening Authorized Problem Analysis Reports (APAR) in RETAIN.
L3 Change Team: In–depth investigation of customer reported problems, developing code changes to fix confirmed problems, provision of recommendations for bypass or workaround, making documentation changes, and supporting L2 Team in problem investigation and consulting.
Test Team: Unit tests, Integration / Regression tests, collaboration with L3 / Developers in defect fixing and test scenarios / test cases development, test results interpretation, and documentation.

Software Environment and Technologies:

z/OS mainframe operating system
Mainframe DB2 database
Programming Languages: PL/X, Assembler, C, ISPF, CLIST
Program Environments: ISPF, SDSF, SCLM, SMPE, IPCS, DB2, CMVC
Debuggers: SLD, XDC
Lotus Notes–based collaboration and tracking tools
Customer's internal tools: SPA, RETAIN.

Project Results

IBA Group became involved in the project more than six years ago and during this time developed strong partnership with client teams that are engaged in major product design and development.

Presently, IBA is maintaining several major product releases, including:

Assessment Tool for DB2 on z/OS
A tool to monitor, analyze and optimize the performance of DB2 Database and DB2 on z/OS applications online in real time and in batch reports
DB2 Buffer Pool Analyzer for z/OS.

IBA is constantly improving product quality, reducing the number of customer complaints and field–opened APARs (Authorized Program Analysis Reports). Given the IBA's deep mainframe expertise and dedication, as well as excellent cooperation with the customer teams, the project has achieved quality targets set by the customer's management. Users working with the assessment tool for DB2 product family describe their experience as pleasant.