By Madhavi Amirneni and Eric Radzinski

The Db2 for z/OS tools modernization strategy represents IBM's investment in delivering key functionality to today's multi-platform, hybrid cloud, and AI world. We have implemented an extensive set of enhancements that help database administrators and application developers work with and manage their Db2 for z/OS environment, including many that directly fulfill specific customer requirements. We encourage you to take a few minutes to read about these new capabilities and how they can be applied in your Db2 for z/OS environment.

Db2 for z/OS Developer Extension 2.2.3

This release includes enhancements that can increase your productivity and provide you with greater flexibility in the area of security, working with stored procedures as well as numerous usability improvements. The significant changes in this release include:

• Increased flexibility by supporting the ability to tune single SQL queries without specifying a password in a multi-factor authentication (MFA) security environment
• The ability to cancel long-running or unresponsive SQL processes with a click of a button, saving you time and eliminating the frustration caused by having to wait for a process to finish or fail
• The ability to load, save, and reset host variables for stored procedures and user-defined functions from the catalog view or from a file, which eliminates the need to re-specify the same host variables every time you run a stored procedure with host variables
• Increased clarity in the results of a stored procedure run by categorizing input and output parameters accurately and by excluding output parameters from the host variable view

Db2 Developer Extension 2.2.3 is available now, free of charge, from the Visual Studio Marketplace. For the complete list of enhancements and fixes that are included in Db2 Developer Extension 2.2.3, see the Change Log.

IBM SQL Tuning Services 2.1.0.9

This release of SQL Tuning Services expands workload support by providing several new APIs for tuning workloads. You can now perform all the following actions without the use of a tuning profile:

• Create a workload
• Refine a workload
• List the workloads for single or multiple Db2 subsystems
• Explain the SQL statements in a workload

This release also includes the following configuration-related improvements:

• The ability to configure a default truststore for all Db2 subsystems that are connected to an SQL Tuning Services server, which simplifies the configuration process and mitigates problems that can arise when clients connect to SQL Tuning Services server to tune SQL
• The ability to automate the management of log files based on criteria that you define, which can eliminate much of the overhead that's required to manually manage log files as they grow and accumulate over time

For the complete list of enhancements and fixes available in this release, see What's new in SQL Tuning Services.

IBM Db2 Administration Foundation 1.2.1.3

The latest release of Db2 Administration Foundation includes the following significant productivity and usability enhancements:

IBM Db2 Analytics Accelerator for z/OS

• The ability to specify an interval for automatically refreshing accelerator information to see the latest accelerator status and metrics
• The option to lock the original tables or table partitions when you are loading table data, which enables you to protect the original tables or table partitions against changes during the load operation
• The ability to to load table data in the background, which prevents interruptions in the user interface while the data is loading
• For accelerator-only tables, you can now visualize the load metrics and evaluate the patterns and performance of loads over time for load history, load table details, and load table history, making performance diagnostics more intuitive and insightful
• Enhanced accelerator trace, which resolves the existing size limitation to support larger output traces

IBM Db2 Query Workload Tuner for z/OS

• You can now specify the appropriate collection ID in the Query tuning window when you are tuning an SQL statement that references objects created under a collection ID other than your own. This feature applies only when tuning without a tuning profile.

Enhancements for working with SQL queries

• The ability to run a specific part of the SQL statement by selecting it in the editor
• The ability to provide a file name for the CSV when exporting SQL queries

For the complete list of enhancements, see What's new in Db2 Administration Foundation.

IBM Db2 DevOps Experience 1.3.0.10

The latest release of Db2 DevOps Experience includes the following usability and productivity enhancements:

• The ability to DROP index objects across instances, applications and Db2 subsystems
• The ability to refresh applications on demand from the DevOps Experience user interface

For details about these enhancements, see New and changed functions of Db2 DevOps Experience 1.3.0.10 (UO03793).

As you can see, this latest refresh of the Db2 for z/OS modernization tools includes many useful features for Db2 database administrators and application developers. We encourage you to investigate and try out these new features in your shop and provide us with your feedback.