CA IDMS r17 Exploits zIIP Engine to Deliver Greater Capacity

Latest Database Release Highlights CA’s Leadership in Utilization of IBM Mainframe Specialty Processors

Enhanced Architecture Enables All Types of Workloads to Exploit zIIP Capacity

ISLANDIA, N.Y. – CA (NASDAQ: CA) today announced a new version of CA IDMS, a high-performance, high-availability mainframe database management system that helps lower overall mainframe TCO by exploiting IBM’s zIIP (System z® Integrated Information Processor) specialty processor to deliver greater computing capacity and throughput without requiring additional system hardware resources.

The new version, CA IDMS r17, makes wide use of the zIIP engine, which IBM originally introduced to handle specific types of processing workloads. CA IDMS r17, however, enables customers to direct a much broader set of functions to the zIIP. In fact, portions of all typical CA IDMS production workloads—including those generated by online transaction systems, batch processing jobs and distributed platform requests—can exploit zIIP capacity to offload processing that would otherwise occur in the Central Processor’s CA IDMS address space.

Because significant portions of all these CA IDMS r17 workloads can run on zIIPs, customers can better leverage zIIP capacity to scale their database environments without incurring expensive hardware upgrades. This is in marked contrast to DBMS solutions from other vendors that either limit the types of workloads that can be offloaded—or that fail to utilize zIIP altogether.

Additional CA IDMS features, such as support for CICS® threadsafe applications, further increase overall throughput.

Increases System Availability, Streamlines Operations

CA IDMS is designed to handle customers’ demanding application requirements, including high-volume Web transaction processing. The new version significantly increases system availability, streamlines operations and helps boost staff productivity with a variety of features—including fault-tolerant dynamic system changes, dynamic journals, online index tuning, simplified installation using electronic software delivery, workfile automation for database reorganizations, automatic extensible scratch management, large format files for database and journal files, and improved diagnostics.

“Workload growth and limited mainframe workforces are two of the most critical challenges that enterprise IT organizations face today,” said Jasmine Noel, founder and principal analyst, Ptak, Noel & Associates. “CA is directly addressing these challenges by delivering database solutions that make optimal use of IBM’s new mainframe hardware and by simplifying ownership of complex mainframe environments.”

Leverage Mainframe Databases as Part of SOAs

CA IDMS r17 also eases interoperability with distributed systems and Web services through enhanced SQL and TCP/IP support. This enables customers to more easily leverage their mainframe databases and business logic as part of their Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs), without over-burdening their application development staffs.

Communications Giant BT Supports 13-Terabyte Customer Service System Database with CA IDMS r17

Worldwide communications leader BT is using CA IDMS to support its 13-terabyte Customer Service System (CSS) database, which processes daily more than 275 million billing, order processing, and fault reporting transactions for more than 20 million customers.

“The new features available with CA IDMS r17 will enable us to more effectively manage our systems and provide options that increase our ability to cost effectively support the business,” said Steve Terry, department manager of mainframe technical services at BT.

CA Extends zIIP Support to CA Datacom

CA also announced the beta release of CA Datacom r12, another popular CA mainframe database management system, which, like CA IDMS r17, is designed to exploit available zIIP processing capacity while streamlining database ownership and administration tasks.

“CA is committed to helping enterprise customers fully leverage their mainframe investments and optimally enable the business through information technology,” said Mark Combs, senior vice president of CA’s Mainframe Business Unit. “With CA IDMS r17 and the upcoming CA Datacom r12, we are again demonstrating that commitment by delivering next-generation mainframe solutions specifically designed to address our customers’ primary IT challenges—including better price-performance, reduced dependency on traditional mainframe skill-sets, and easier extension of mainframe applications out to the Web.”