iTera Improves OS/400 File Support in iSeries Reorg Tool

by Alex Woodie

iTera this week starts shipping an updated version of Reorganize While Active, a utility that reclaims unused disk space on OS/400 servers without causing downtime. With Reorganize While Active V3R2, iTera has enhanced the product's capability to deal with additional OS/400 files attributes such as files with referential constraints and NULL-capable fields. The company also says the product now runs faster and has an improved user interface.

File reorganizations are an important part of good OS/400 server maintenance. Without a periodic file reorg, the disk space once occupied by deleted files remains unavailable and system performance deteriorates. However, file reorgs often result in long periods of downtime. That's because the command that IBM provides, in OS/400, to initiate file reorgs, Reorganize Physical File Members, or RGZPFM, requires a lock on the file that's being reorganized. This can result in hours of downtime when large, heavily used files are reorganized using RGZPFM.

To combat this downtime, iTera and several other companies (including IBM) have developed reorganize-while-active tools. Using these tools helps to prevent long periods of downtime by reorganizing a copy of the production file, instead of reorganizing the production file itself. The application can remain online because any changes made to the production file are immediately replicated to the copy of the file undergoing reorganization (in iTera's case, using OS/400's journaling feature). Inevitably, there is some downtime associated with reorganizing while active, because at some point the utility requires an exclusive lock on the file, but this technique creates shorter downtime than RGZPFM.

In early 2002, iTera introduced its "in place" file reorganization method with Reorganize While Active V3R1. This alternative method doesn't require copying or replication, which can reduce the impact on DASD, but still requires an exclusive lock on files at the end, to complete the process. Most of the enhancements in the new release of the product apply to the original mirroring method of reorganization.

With Reorganize While Active V3R2, the product now supports reorganization of files with two additional attributes--those with NULL-capable fields and referential constraints--making Reorganize While Active compatible with nearly every type of OS/400 file attribute, says Dan NeVille, president of the Salt Lake City company. "With the enhancements of V3R2, Reorganize While Active can now reorganize files with nearly any kind of file attributes, and do so quickly and efficiently," he says.

iTera was well aware of the limits that referential constraints posed to previous releases of Reorganize While Active. Previously, if somebody had used the tool to reorganize a file with referential constraints turned on, "it would cause a cascading delete into other files," says Russ Roberts, chief developer of the product. "Now if we have referential constraints, we put them back in after the reorganization."

Support for files with NULL-capable fields is also an important addition as more developers use SQL statements in their applications, Roberts says. But iTera only had one customer complain about that problem, although the company had known about the limitation posed by referential constraints since the product was first developed. Companies must use the mirroring reorg method with files attributes of these types.

In addition to the new file support, Reorganize While Active V3R2 runs faster than previous releases. With this release, the product is capable of reorganizing files by the key of the physical file or by the key of a logical file, which makes subsequent file operations more efficient, iTera says. Roberts estimates the improvement in subsequent reorganizations is about 20 percent compared with previous releases of the software. As a result of this enhancement, the product copies records faster during a reorganization, and also performs the file-swap at the end of the reorganization more quickly.

Reorganize While Active V3R2 also has a more user-friendly process monitor screen, which shows the current relative record number that the product is working on. This release also has the capability to automatically start and stop journaling when commitment control is selected for the reorganization process.

Reorganize While Active V3R2 is shipping now. Licenses for the utility are tier-based and start at $3,000 for servers in the P05 group (pricing is unchanged from V3R1). For more information, go to www.iterainc.com.

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