without cutting corners3ways to optimize your infrastructure

Contents

2IntroductIon Increase applIcatIon

performanceImprove workload

management IBm solutIonscontrol data growth

IntroductionA smarter approach to data management can help you control application costs and promote business growth without cutting corners.

Control data growthWith data stores on the rise, learning how to turn the tide requires help from data compression, archiving and tiered storage.

IBM solutionsIBM has a portfolio of data management products that can help you boost productivity throughout the data life cycle.

3Increase application performanceHere’s how you can improve application performance and meet your SLAs without sending resource expenses through the roof.

4

Improve workload managementDB2 and IDS workload management features help optimize the use of resources, reduce downtime and increase application availability.

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Keeping costs low and productivity high is a top business priority, no matter what the state of

the economy. But cutting costs doesn’t necessarily have to mean cutting projects or jobs. It

just means that you have to take a smarter approach to doing what you do every day.

Since data is the backbone of just about every business, optimizing your infrastructure can go

a long way toward keeping your IT budget in check. Most companies are charged with these

three imperatives:

• Controldatagrowth

• Increaseapplicationperformance

• Improveworkloadmanagement

Byeffectivelyaddressingtheseimperativesandoptimizingyourinfrastructure,youcanboost

productivityandreduceavarietyofcosts,includingadministration,maintenance,storageand

trainingcosts.Thise-bookexploresseveralwaysyoucanaddresseachimperative—andhow

tousedatamanagementtechniquestohelpcutcostswithoutcuttingcorners.

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streamline storage to help keep costs in lineNow that virtually every business system and customer interaction produces a digital record and

compliance regulations are increasing, businesses are up to their eyeballs in information. When

it comes to data, though, more isn’t always better. In fact, overgrown data stores can hinder the

performance of mission-critical ERP, CRM and custom applications.

Just storing the ever-expanding volume of data can be a major headache. Additional servers and

storage mean higher costs for space, not to mention power and cooling (and possible fines for

data centers that use too much power). Meanwhile, data de-duplication can be cumbersome

and expensive.

“With DB2 9, we’re seeing compression rates up to 83 percent on the data warehouse tables. The projected cost savings are more than US$2 million initially with ongoing savings of US$500,000 a year.”

–Michael Henson,Team Lead, Database Delivery Services, SunTrust Bank

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The good news? Having lots of data doesn’t inevitably mean higher costs. These data management

strategies can help you get a handle on information sprawl and keep costs in check:

• Compress datato decrease storage infrastructure requirements. Disk storage

systems are often the most expensive components of a database solution, so even

a small reduction in the storage subsystem can result in substantial cost savings for

the entire database solution. IBM® DB2® and IBM Informix® Dynamic Server (IDS)

both incorporate Deep Compression technology to help reduce storage requirements,

which can result in significant infrastructure and administration cost savings.

• Implement tiered storageto manage application data based on its evolving business

value and access requirements. In a tiered storage solution, current transactions remain

in the high-performance online transaction processing (OLTP) environment. Reporting

data in history tables can be maintained in mid-tier storage, helping you to control

costs while still meeting service requirements. To further reduce costs, you can move

historical or reference data offline to tape or other long-term storage devices.

Control data2growth

“We observed a 70 percent compression ratio. We really believe that this feature will provide a huge saving and benefit, and will make us more productive and more cost-effective.”

–Ellen Reys-Klebaner,Chief Database Architect, Visa

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•Perform database archivingtosegregateinactiveapplicationdatafromcurrentactivity

andsafelymoveittoasecurearchive.Streamlineddatabasesenableyoutoreclaim

diskstoragecapacity,whichcanenhanceapplicationperformanceandavailability.

IBMOptim™DataGrowthSolutionsandOptimarchivingtoolshelpmanageyour

enterpriseapplicationdata,enablingyoutoarchivetransactionrecordsandstorethem

securelyandcost-effectively.

•Use archiving processes driven by business policies soyoucanspecifythebusiness

rulesandcriteriathatgoverndataretentionanddisposal.Policy-drivenarchivingalsolets

youautomatedataretentiontosupportcomplianceinitiatives,whichcanhelpyourespond

quicklyandaccuratelytoauditanddiscoveryrequests.

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Optimize performance levels and workloadsThepressureofexpandingdatavolumesmakesithardertokeepapplicationperformance

inlinewithservice-levelagreements(SLAs).Tocompoundtheproblem,troubleshooting

performancebottleneckscanbeextremelydifficultwithouttherightmonitoringtools.The

challenge:improveapplicationperformanceandworkwithexistingSLAswithoutaddingtoo

manynewresources.

Avarietyofdatamanagementstrategiescanhelpboostapplicationperformancewhilemaking

betteruseofyourITdollars:

•Make the most of database performance management features tomonitorandanalyze

multipledatabaseinstancesrunningavarietyofworkloads.Usehistoricaldatatoautomate

analysisandreporting,analyzetrendsandplanforgrowth.Identifyresourceshortagesand

exceptionalconditionstopreventperformancebottlenecks—andimplementprocessesthat

alertadministratorsautomaticallywheneventsoccurthatmayimpactperformance.

“Choosing DB2 has delivered significant benefits for our organization: database size has been reduced by 40 percent and performance is 15 percent above our targets.”

–Brian Visser,ITOperationsDirector,CentralServices,KONE

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“Having the ability to process 1 million busy-hour call attempts per CPU, and to also have Carrier Grade availability, was a major challenge for our NGN/IMS fully featured Call Server. The extreme performance and data resilience of solidDB has proven to be a solid foundation for our extreme requirements.”

–Franc Dolenc,DirectorofProductsandSolutions,Iskratel

•Supercharge application performance.Becausetheykeepdatainmainmemoryat

alltimesratherthanondisk,persistent,relationalin-memorydatabasescanhelpmeet

theperformanceandreliabilitydemandsofreal-timeapplications.In-memorydatabases

canfurtherboostperformancebyprovidingahot-standbyconfigurationwhereread

operationscanbeload-balancedacrossprimaryandhot-standbydatabaseinstances

transparently.Ifyou’rereadyforextremespeed,considerIBMsolidDB®UniversalCache.

Itsrelational,in-memorycachingsoftwarehelpsacceleratevirtuallyallindustry-leading

relationaldatabasesupto10times.Plus,ithasbroadsupportforback-enddatabases,

soapplicationteamscanuseexistingskillstoaccelerateperformanceacrossavarietyof

platformsandprojects.

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Improve 4workload management

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Optimize workloads for available resourcesAsthedemandtoaddresscustomerneedsandmeetSLAsincreaseswhilebudgetsshrink,

databasesoftwaremusthelpITmanagersmakethemostoftheirinfrastructureinvestment.

Applicationsnolongerrunexclusivelyonthedataserversystem,whichmeansthatthenetwork

betweendataserverandapplicationcanhinderperformance.Inaddition,someapplications

haveintroducedtechniques,suchasconnectionpoolingandconnectionconcentration,that

cansignificantlyimpactexperiencedresponsetime—evenwhenthedelayisnotcausedby

thedataserveritself.ITmanagersalsohavetoaddressproblemscausedbytheapplications’

businesslogic,orbyoverloadedclientsystems.

Havinganeasywaytopinpointbottlenecksandoptimizeworkloadsintodifferentclasses

cannotonlyimproveoverallperformancebutdecreasetheneedforadditionalhardwareand

softwaretomeetSLAs.TheworkloadmanagementfeaturesbuiltintoDB2andIDSarewell

suitedtothechallenge:theycanhelpoptimizetheuseofresources,reducedowntimeand

increaseapplicationavailability.

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DB2,forexample,incorporatesself-configuring,self-healing,self-optimizingandself-protecting

features.DB2WorkloadManagerisaresourcemanagementandmonitoringtoolthatisbuilt

rightintothedatabaseengine.ItsprimarybenefitsincludeCPUcontrol,roguequerydetection

andcontrolanddatabaseworkmonitoring,soyouneedfewerskillsandresourcestoadminister

thesystem.

Inaddition,DB2typicallydoesabetterjobofautomaticallyself-managingtheseresourcesthana

databaseadministrator(DBA)usingmanualmethods.ThatfreesuptheDBAtoworkonimportant

businesstasksinsteadofmundanehousekeepingchores.

IDSdeliversanactive-activeclusteringsolutionthathelpsprovidelow-costscalabilitywithhigh

reliability.Workloadscanbespreadacrossserversaroundtheworld,basedonpredefined

businesslogic,tomakeoptimaluseofallsystems.Businessescan“setitandforgetit,”allowing

themtomanagethousandsofdatabaseswithminimalDBAstaff.

TheworkloadmanagementfeaturesenableDBAstocreatecontrolsaheadoftime,overridethem

ontheflyandevenadjustthemtochangingprioritiesonadailybasisifneeded.IBMWorkload

Managementfeaturesalsoprovideenhancedsupportforad-hocmonitoring,workloadprofiling

andworkloadcapture.

Improve 4workload management

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Withintegrated,modularplatformsdesignedtohelpyoumanageenterpriseapplicationdata

andoptimizedata-drivenapplications,IBMsolutionscanhelpyouturnthethreeimperatives

outlinedinthise-bookintobestpracticesforyourbusiness.

Data growthDB2andInformixdatabasesoftware,alongwithOptimdatamanagementsolutions,provide

solidfootingforcontrollingdatagrowth.DB2helpsyouhandledemandingworkloadsby

scalingeffortlesslytohandlehigh-volumetransactionprocessing.Informixdatabasesolutions

aredesignedforindustrial-strengthembeddedcomputing,providinghighreliabilityandnearly

hands-freeadministrationtobusinessesofallsizes.

Optimdatamanagementandarchivingsoftwarehelpsdistinguisholddatafromnewinformation

andstoreitappropriately—reducingtheamountofinformationapplicationsmustsiftthrough

andhelpingtomanageapplicationdatagrowthovertime.InformixandDB2canalsohelpto

reducestorageneedsbyupto80percent1usingautomaticDeepCompressioncapabilities,

andhelpmaximizedataavailabilitybyreducingplannedandunplanneddowntime.

IBM 5solutions

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Application performanceWithbuilt-inreliabilityandavailabilityfeatures—aswellasahostofautomatedreporting

capabilities—DB2andIDShelpmaximizedataavailabilitybyreducingplannedand

unplanneddowntime.

Foradditionalperformancegains,solidDBUniversalCacheprovidesrelational,in-memory

databasecachingtechnologythathelpsacceleraterelationaldatabasesandincreasetheir

performance.ItusesSQLtoenablefastapplicationprocessingspeedsandresponsetimes.

Combiningtherelational,in-memorydatamanagementcapabilitiesofsolidDBUniversalCache

withtheversatilityofdisk-baseddatabasesgivesapplicationsthebestofbothworlds.

IBM 5solutions

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Workload managementTheworkloadmanagementfeaturesinDB2andIDSarewellsuitedtothechallengepresented

bytoday’sbusyorganizations.DB2,forexample,incorporatesbuilt-inself-configuringand

self-optimizingfeaturesthatsupportCPUcontrol,roguequerydetectionandcontroland

databaseworkmonitoring—leavingDBAsfreetoworkonstrategicprojectsandsavingboth

timeandeffort.

IDSenablesworkloadstobespreadacrossmultipleservers,makingthebestuseofallavailable

resourcestohandleeverydayworkloads.Italsosupportsquick-responsecapabilitiesto

distributeworkloadswhenhigh-prioritySLAsorotherdeadlinesmustbemet.Predefinedpolicies

helphandleworkloadmanagement,enablingthesamenumberofDBAstomanagelarger

numbersofdatabases.

solutionsIBM 5solutions

14Resources

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IBM DB2•ibm.com/breakfree

•Provenstrategiesforuncoveringcostsavings

withIBMDB2

•DB2DataCompression

•DB2performanceinindustrybenchmarks

•DB2WorkloadManager:IBMRedbook

IBM Informix Dynamic Server•ibm.com/informix

•IDSCompression

•IDSHighAvailabilitysolutionsdemo

IBM solidDB•ibm.com/software/data/soliddb

•IBMsolidDBUniversalCachedemo

•IntelandIBMcollaboratetodoublein-memorydatabase

performance

IBM Optim Data Growth Solutions•ManagedatagrowthwithIBMOptimDataGrowthSolutions

Formoreinformationaboutthefollowingtopics,pleasevisit:

© Copyright IBM Corporation 2009

IBM Software GroupRoute 100Somers, NY 10589

Produced in the United States of AmericaJuly 2009All Rights Reserved

1 DB2 for Linux, UNIX and Windows. ibm.com/software/data/db2/9/editions_features_storage.html

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