DataDirect Intros DB2

BEDFORD, Mass. -- DataDirect Technologies, the unparalleled leader in data connectivity and mainframe integration and an operating company of Progress Software Corporation (Nasdaq: PRGS), has introduced new data connectivity features and development tools for mainframe DB2 and IAM databases within its industry leading DataDirect Shadow® mainframe integration suite.

DataDirect has long supported application developers with its industry leading Shadow Studio, an open, Eclipse-based development environment which simplifies mainframe data access for non-mainframe developers. New to the Shadow Studio is the Dynamic-to-Static SQL Facility, which enables organizations that rely on DB2 for z/OS to gain the benefits of static SQL, including lower resource consumption and faster performance for dynamic SQL. In benchmarks performed in DataDirect’s mainframe development lab, test results indicated the Dynamic-to-Static Facility improved performance by up to 70 percent.

Until now, developers were faced with the unattractive choice of suboptimal performance and significant resource consumption with dynamic SQL or manual conversion from dynamic to static SQL, which is time consuming and costly. With the new Dynamic-to-Static Facility of Shadow Studio, developers now have a graphical environment from which to evaluate SQL performance requirements as well as a non-invasive conversion tool to change dynamic SQL to higher performing static SQL for improved access to DB2 mainframe data from ODBC and JDBC™ distributed applications.

Customer acceptance of the Shadow Studio Dynamic-to-Static SQL Facility has been overwhelmingly positive. Her Majesty’s Land Registry, where the British government stores information on more than 20 million properties in the world’s largest DB2 installation, has experienced marked performance improvements and near perfect reliability and system uptime.

“We are using the Dynamic-to-Static Facility to increase processing throughput and for overall cost containment,” said Steve Dean, principal data services manager at Land Registry. “Without this feature, ODBC compliant software which uses dynamic SQL is expensive to maintain. The new Eclipse-based graphical user interface greatly simplifies the systems management and performance tuning environment, enabling us to extend the usage of Shadow to more applications.”DataDirect Technologies Inc.