Customer Story
State Agency Makes the Big IMS-to-Db2 Move
Syncsort Optimize IMS helps state agency successfully migrate from IMS to Db2
It was a risky proposition for one state agency in the U.S. They were looking at the wholesale conversion of their IMS data to Db2. Like other IMS shops, they knew they needed to get off IMS but they had several reasons to be wary.
Why so risky?
At one time their IT team had experimented with a manual conversion. It involved only a very small portion of their data, but it took six months to do. Meanwhile the daily updates on the department’s client-management system, which recorded details on the activities and needs of a quarter million people, kept piling up. At some point their IMS system could conceivably just stop working, which of course is unacceptable for any agency, especially for one in a large, high-growth state.
Meanwhile the maintenance and licensing of IMS was costing the department $800,000 annually. It was also becoming more and more unwieldy to make the legislatively mandated changes in the department’s client-management software system. “Rewriting application code is extremely difficult and extremely risky,” said one of the department’s database administrators. They knew they would eventually have to eliminate IMS altogether and consolidate onto a single Db2 system. But how? Based on that earlier experiment, they knew they would be in trouble unless they could get an unusually powerful set of specialized tools and services to make the switch without crippling their operations and busting their budget.
Finding a vendor with both IMS and Db2 mainframe expertise was an interesting exercise, especially a vendor that had a record of specific IMS to Db2 conversion services and multiple reference cases to validate that they can do this very specialized job.
They found those tools in a Precisley solutions package called Syncsort Optimize IMS, as well as hands-on help from the Syncsort Optimize IMS services team. After an efficient due-diligence drill and the selection of Syncsort Optimize IMS, there was urgency to get started, as time was of the essence.
Download this case study and read more about how this US state agency successfully migrated from IMS to Db2.
