Can anyone direct to me a product or commercial services to automatically convert IMS databases into relational, and to replace DL/1 calls with embedded SQL?

Thank you.

-- Don Estes (donestes@donestes.com), July 02, 2002

Answers

Well, there is a product called DL/2 that claims to be able to convert IMS applications to DB2 with no code changes. I have never used it so I am a bit skeptical of its claims and would encourage you to ask the vendor to provide you with customers who have used it that you can talk to. Ask them about its "ease of use" or lack thereof, but also ask about the performance of the resultant DB2 applications. If you do not convert from the hierarchical view to the relational way of doing things performance may suffer. Now, all of that being said, here are the links I found regarding the product and company...

http://www.lightyr.com/presentations/LYTeleconf_IMStoDB2.PDF

http://www.lightyr.com/presentations/LYTeleconf_DL2_Technical_Overview _%20Nov72001.pdf

http://www.circle-group.com/software/DL2%20Version%202%20Release%203% 20Enhancements.pdf

http://www.db2link.com/Tools/Tools_full_listing/DL_2.htm

-- Craig S. Mullins (craig_mullins@bmc.com), July 03, 2002.

Thanks, Craig, but I had already looked at this product and my requirements don't fit. I have a very peculiar requirement: I have to modify COBOL programs that currently access IMS on the mainframe to compile under Microfocus COBOL and access that same IMS data through a relational view provided by an ODBC driver. In effect, I have to convert the DL/1 access to EXEC SQL syntax, and deal with the differences between the two database access methods (all the while remembering that it is really still IMS under the covers).

I do a lot of consulting work for a company that converts VSAM and IDMS DML to EXEC SQL. They have a product that eats the VSAM file declarations in copy books or the IDMS schema and builds equivalent EXEC SQL replacements (including handling REDEFINES and OCCURS items). What I'm looking for is an equivalent product for IMS, and I'm not finding it. Hopefully, someone will know of a company that specializes in IMS to DB2 migrations.

This is an interesting product. Using ODBC drivers, it allows access to mainframe data in DB2, IMS, VSAM or QSAM files through a second port on the disk and without going through the mainframe. The goal is to shift load off the mainframe, with the obvious caveat that the program must be able to cope with the fact that the most recent updates to records might still be in buffers in the mainframe. Other than that fairly large caveat, this could be extremely interesting for reporting or query usage.

All suggestions greatly appreciated.

-- Don Estes (donestes@donestes.com), July 03, 2002.

Here are 3 companies that provide products, there are several services that are offered also:

http://www.princesoftware.com/princesoftware/fw.nsf/pages/ServiceOffer ings http://www.uctnet.com/database.html http://www.circle-group.com

Thanks, Garland

-- Garland Crabtree (garland_crabtree@bmc.com), July 03, 2002.