Welcome to issue 4 of Triton News. This is our last newsletter of the year so we've packed it full of information and updates from the industry to keep you going till January!
We recently attended the IBM " Demystifying Database Archiving on System Z" event in London. The event brought together industry professionals, all experiencing the pain of data growth within their organisations. Click here to download our "Managing the Data Explosion" presentation. Our Hot Topic this month is about how reduce your IT costs by database optimisation.
We also have the latest IBM Optim Data Privacy white paper available here.
As ever, we love to hear from you so please email us with any comments or suggestions.
If you wish to unsubscribe from this communication please follow the link at the bottom. |
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Reduce costs by optimising your current DB2 z/OS database
Reducing costs is becomming increasingly important to IT departments and the current strain on business is increasing this pressure.
Applications not performing
Getting the best performance out of your DB2 z/OS environment can significantly improve both performance of your mainframe based applications as well as reducing cost. Usage pricing for z/OS means that as MIPs increases so do software costs. Applications are simply "coping" with current cpu usage but not performing to their best and systems/hardware are upgraded earlier than necessary to cope with increased usage.
Drive costs down
Triton will work with you to drive down the cost of your software whilst improving application performance, by reducing MIP usage. A detailed study will be undertaken highlighting areas for improvement and potential savings. Tuning can then be carried out by your in-house team with support from Triton or by a team of Triton's DB2 z/OS experts, resulting in reduced MIPs, improved application performance and a reduction in cost
For more information on how Triton can help you drive down costs and increase performance email us today. |
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Triton Agreement to Market IBM Optim Enterprise Data Management Solutions
As IBM Premier Business Partners we are delighted to now be able to offer the full range of IBM Optim Enterprise Data Management Solutions. The suite of products addresses data growth, test data management, data privacy and application retirement issues, helping organisations to effectively manage their data across the entire enterprise.
Clair Ross, Principal Consultant, Triton Consulting comments: "IBM Optim is a database administrator and data architect's dream tool. For the extraction and creation of test data, the control is simple enough to enable the population of test databases with desensitised, relationally intact subsets of live data, without the need for complex SQL. The Data Privacy solution provides data masking techniques, and is designed to only allow users to access information specific to their needs. The data extraction and archiving functions are magnificent. You truly have a tool that permits one to manage data across the enterprise."
From speeding up deployment and streamlining the application testing process, to managing expanding data stores and protecting data privacy, IBM Optim delivers a truly enterprise-wide data management solution.
Gary Harvey, IBM Optim Channel Manager, UK and Ireland adds: "Triton Consulting Limited are an established business partner, achieving IBM Premier Business Partner and IBM Gold Consultant accreditations since 1998, and are able to offer expertise in DB2 consultancy, and database and information management."
For a range of downloable resources on enterprise data managemet, visit our website. |
Industry Insight
Improving customer service through database optimisation
Bertrams is a large wholesaler in the books supply chain throughout the UK with a wide range of customers both here in the UK and overseas.
With orders increasingly being placed online, Bertrams needed a robust back end database to support this growing route to market.
The Challenge
Bertrams Books uses DB2 with Net Search Extender (NSE) as the host for their Group Bibliographic / Multimedia Database, and was experiencing some issues surrounding the performance, scalability, resilience and backup for this critical DB2 database. When customers searched online for book titles the search time was taking far too long which, in todays fast paced on demand environment this was simply not good enough and customers were clicking off the site before completing their search.
Triton were commissioned to review the current DB2 set-up and provide recommendations that would improve the response times. The objective was to get the best performance possible from Bertrams existing software licenses by using the best server configuration possible.
Triton provided a database healthcheck, performance review and consultancy - click here to read the full case study. |
Brother-Hawk(TM) brings new levels of control to lights-out database
performance management
Brother-Hawk from DBI Software, provides unique insight into performance issues by monitoring your databases 24x7 and alerting you to performance issues before they become performance nightmares.
Brother-Hawk sends automated, customized, meaningful alerts based on the characteristics of real-time and recently computed data. DB2 LUW database performance monitoring now includes three levels of customized alerts. Lights-out alerting of potential performance management issues has never been so on-target.
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Data Management Business Value
Today's IT systems are becoming increasingly complex as competitive pressures drive businesses to become ever more agile and flexible. As organisations demand more and more value from their IT investment, the focus is firmly on the bottom-line business benefits that can be delivered by IT applications. Less emphasis is usually placed on supporting infrastructure such as the database system, which can sometimes be considered to be a commodity resource, However, this infrastructure remains a critical factor in determining the application's ability to meet its business objectives.
Click here to download the presentation by Julian Stuhler at IDUG Europe. The presentation examines some of the key themes in the ongoing development of the IBM DB2 database engine, and shows how they can help to directly drive business benefit and enhance competitive advantage. |
| Triton Announce Partnership with Xkoto
We are delighted to announce this new partnerhip with Xkoto which allows us to bring the assurance of continuous availability and disaster recovery to our customers.
How can we deliver 24/7 access to business critical data?
This is a continuing problem for organisations in every industry. Customers expect and need access to services round the clock. Application downtime can have a serious effect on business.
GRIDSCALE database virtualization software manages multiple, identical databases to run on a cluster of systems with the same or better reliability and performance than more expensive, proprietary systems. Because GRIDSCALE is an active-active solution, all the servers in the cluster are accessible, fully utilized, and can be dispersed geographically to mitigate disaster scenarios.
Applications get consistent data reliably and quickly, and by sharing the load across multiple servers, the loss of any one server does not have an impact on availability. In addition, systems continue to run to their full capability even when individual servers are taken offline for maintenance. For more information about GRIDSCALE and database virtualization visit our website where you will find a range of downloadable resources. |
| IBM Data Champion
IBM this week announced Julian Stuhler, Triton Consulting Director & IDUG President as one of their Data Champions for 2008-2009. IBM have introduced a Data Champion Program which recognises and honours individuals who have made exceptional contributions to the IBM Data Management Community over the previous 12- 18 months.
Exceptional community members were nominated by peers in their field. A panel of IBM employees then reviewed the contributions of each nominee.
Julian comments: "I was extremely honoured to be chosen as an IBM Data Champion. I had previously heard of the initiative via the Gold Consultant Program, but had no idea that I would be invited to become one. It was a very pleasant surprise" He continues "I think that it is a great initiative. As a long-serving IDUG volunteer, I know only too well how vital it is to recognise the efforts of those who give up their valuable spare time to help others. A strong and vibrant community is one of the great strengths of IBM's data products, and this program is a great way of encouraging that community to grow. "
Julian has been a volunteer for IDUG since 1996, serving as a conference presenter and later as a member of the European Conference Planning Committee and the IDUG Solutions Journal Editorial Board. Julian joined the board in 2004 and became President in May 2008.
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Techie Tip
DB2 for z/OS - Plan Stability
One of the major headaches all DB2 users face when upgrading to a new release is the possibility of access path regression. In order to benefit from enhancements to the optimiser, plans and packages need to be rebound under the new release. The vast majority of the time, this will result in the same or better access path being selected, but just occasionally DB2 may select a worse one and performance suffers.
IBM has delivered some very useful new functionality in the maintenance stream for DB2 9 for z/OS to help to address this issue. PK52523 provides some new options for REBIND that allow the old version of an access path to be stored. If regression occurs, the previous access path can be quickly and easily re-established with another REBIND. This will be a significant benefit for V8 customers moving to V9, removing one of the biggest migration pain points. This functionality will be further enhanced in future releases of DB2.
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Manage your data for better mergers
By Warren Daniels
Marketing Manager
IBM Optim
One of the major outcomes of financial unrest on Wall Street and in the City has been a series of mergers and acquisitions. Every M&A increases the size and complexity of the IT infrastructure that must be managed and maintained to support the new organisation.
CIOs need to ensure the new organisation has an effective data management strategy in place, with early IT involvement to plan for integration challenges. All too often, these aspects are overlooked and I believe this is the key reason for the breakdown of M&A's.
Both companies should take an audit of their existing estates and identify overlapping applications. Duplicate, redundant or inefficient applications should be retired and this will help to reduce overall costs, risks and help the new organisation to move towards the "one version of the truth" with regards to customer data.
Enterprise data management is key to supporting IT integration because it helps align the technology and methods for managing application data with business objectives of the newly-formed organisation. By implementing enterprise data management strategies, new companies will be better positioned to handle issues such as data growth, retiring or consolidating redundant applications, migrating data from disparate applications, protecting data privacy, support data retention and e-discovery and implementing business continuity initiatives.
With an effective enterprise data management solution, IT resources can be deployed as the new organisation evolves, whilst mitigating risks and controlling budgets. This will go a long way to adding business value.
Click here for more information about Enterprise Data Management |
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