CA Updates Database Tools, Encrypts Mainframe Tapes

Published: May 23, 2006

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

CA, formerly known as Computer Associates, got a new chief executive officer in late 2004, a former top executive in IBM's Software Group, John Swainson, who has deep experience in the mainframe and who has been responsible for creating Big Blue's WebSphere middleware franchise. CA, of course, has deep mainframe experience too, and has been peddling tools for that market for several decades. Last week, CA announced updates for its mainframe database tools and also delivered data encryption for tape archives created using its BrightStor tools.

As we all know, CA was--how shall we put this?--an acquisitive company for several decades. The mainframe tools that were updated last week came to CA in 1999 through two acquisitions: Platinum Technology, for DB2 on mainframe management, and Innovative Design, for IMS on mainframe management. These tools have long since been given the Unicenter brand name, which is CA-speak for systems management tools.

According to David Schipper, vice president of product management for mainframe tools at CA, Unicenter Database Management r11.5 for DB2 includes over 30 different products, which have been tweaked and extended to support DB2 V8. Generally speaking, the r11.5 for DB2 tools are used by database administrators to monitor and tune database performance, to administer the database, and to backup and recover information stored in the database. These products came to CA from the Platinum acquisition.

DB2 V8 was launched last year, and was one of the most feature-packed relational database updates that IBM has done in many years, probably in close to a decade, and the Unicenter Database Management r11.5 for DB2 toolset has been updated to address many of these new features. Schipper says that based on customer feedback, CA has been prioritizing its support of the new DB2 V8 features. The r11 versions of the tools, which came out with DB2 V8 last year, supported 64-bit applications, provided some long-name field support, and support for Unicode data, but with r11.5, the CA tools can now support longer column, table, index, and object names. The tools also do a better job of gathering statistical usage information on database information. The r11.5 tools also have better availability during database maintenance, thanks to support for online schema evolution. Basically, this feature allows you to change the structure of a database while it is still supporting workloads and minimizes downtime if it cannot completely eliminate it. CA does not provide list pricing for the tools, but will say that it offers MIPS-based and sub-capacity pricing for them.

The r11.5 DB2 database tools do not just work with DB2 V8, by the way, but also support the earlier DB2 V7 version, and in fact, customers can run the tools in DB2 V7 mode and totally ignore the DB2 V8 features. Just like it takes CA time to address a new database release, it takes mainframe customers time, too.

"The uptake of DB2 V8 has been relatively slow because of the enormity of the release," explains Schipper. "It has taken customers some time to absorb it." And, because by definition a mainframe application is mission critical, customers are loathe to change something that is working. The same will be true of DB2 V9, which will be available through IBM's quality partnering program, or QPP, which is mainframe-speak for a controlled beta program, beginning June 9. CA will deliver support for DB2 V9 on the same day IBM delivers it, whenever that is.

CA has also enhanced the seven tools in its Unicenter Database Management for IMS r11.5 set. The updated tools include features that allow database reorganizations with little or no effect on batch processing and use reorganization of indexes for clustered databases as a means of improving the performance of applications that are fed by flat-file IMS databases. Schipper says the tools in the IMS set have had recovery analysis and recovery jobs added to existing products, which CA's competitors in the mainframe market--meaning IBM, presumably--charge extra money for. The IMS tools can now make use of the snapshotting capabilities of z/OS to make copies of IMS databases for performance and recovery. IBM's IMS V9 database was launched a year ago, and the r11.5 tools for IMS support both IMS V9 and the earlier V8 release.

In addition to the database tool updates, CA also announced that its BrightStor archiving software for mainframes now includes a tape encryption feature. With so many high-profile losses of tape archives in the media lately and governments leaning on corporations to do a better job protecting sensitive customer information, tape archiving is all the rage. Last September, IBM provided integrated data encryption features for mainframe disk and tape arrays to address these concerns. But some mainframe shops use CA tools, not IBM tools, to manage their disk and tape data, which is why CA has created BrightStor Tape Encryption, which integrates with its CA-1 Tape Management, its BrightStor CA-Dynam/TLMS Tape Management products, and third-party archiving solutions to automate the encryption of data stored on tapes. The product also integrated with IBM's RACF access control software for mainframes as well as with CA's eTrust CA-ACF2 and eTrust CA-Top Secret alternatives as well as the BrightStor CA-Vtape and CA-Disk archiving tools, which, as the names suggest, archive data on virtual tapes and disks.

While there are a lot of pieces to CA's approach to tape archive encryption, what the company wants to stress is that it can deliver transparent encryption for any z/OS application that copes with tape, and can do so without any changes to JCL or applications. The software, by the way, makes use of the cryptographic features in the zSeries and System z mainframes.

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