StorageTek to Archive DB2 Data on Mainframes

UPDATED: The concept of information lifecycle management (ILM) continues to get
ringing endorsements from the storage sector’s top companies. The latest vendor
to throw its support the ILM way is StorageTek
, which plans to announce archive software geared to help
administrators manage IBM’s DB2 database on mainframes.


The Louisville, Colo., company will unveil Lifecycle Director for DB2 for IBM
mainframe databases at the Share IBM conference in New York next week. The
software will corral, manage and repurpose data in IBM’s
mainframe databases, in which a lot of data in traditional Fortune 500
businesses is stored.


With Lifecycle Director software, DB2 managers in enterprise legacy IBM
OS/390 or IBM z/OS environments can automate the movement of older or less
frequently accessed files from expensive disk storage systems to lower cost
storage media, such as tape, while maintaining speedy data recall.


Ted Battreall, database archiving product marketing manager at StorageTek,
said Lifecycle Director is part of StorageTek’s strategy to introduce new
ILM products that will classify, manage and move data in different
environments.


“Lifecycle Director does all of this in a way that is transparent to the
application and in such a way that application code modifications are not
required,” Battreall told internetnews.com. “That’s the key
differentiator. You can archive-enable an application without touching a
line of code.”


This element is crucial for legacy applications that may be 30 years old or more,
because there is generally less personnel with expertise to tinker with such
software.


So the idea is to eliminate the need for manual coding. As part of the so-called ILM strategies
for cradle-to-grave data management, StorageTek, IBM, Veritas Software and EMC are endorsing this idea of relatively
hands-free management.


In fact, EMC has a similar agreement
with OuterBay in which it resells the start-up’s Application Data Management
software. And Veritas inked
a deal with Princeton Softech that combined the companies’ data management software
to attract customers focused on improving their overall data
management practices.


According to a StorageTek statement, Lifecycle Director curbs the need for
the modification of application code, which can eclipse the cost savings and
reductions in management complexity promised via competing DB2 archive
products. In that sense, Lifecycle Director competes directly with software
from OuterBay and Princeton Softech.


Lifecycle Director can reduce active table sizes by an average of 85 percent
and eliminate the over allocation of disk storage space. Administrators can
conserve valuable disk storage resources and accommodate continued data
growth, which is brought about by the explosion of data and the myriad new
government regulations that dictate how long it must be stored.


Lifecycle Director also renders the data as soon as the application is active
at the recovery site to alleviate downtime. And the software automates the
replication of up to four tape copies via single and concurrent tape write
operations.

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