The IBM® InfoSphere Optim™ solutions manage enterprise
data throughout every stage of the information lifecycle, enabling
your company to assess, classify, subset, archive, store, and access
enterprise application data.
Using the archiving features in the
Optim solution, you can accomplish the following tasks:
- Isolate historical data from current
activity and safely remove it to a secure archive.
- Access archived historical data
easily with familiar tools and interfaces.
- Restore archived data to its original
business context when it requires more processing.
The Optim test
data management capabilities provide an efficient alternative to database
cloning, allowing you to create development and testing environments
that are sized appropriately.
Optim helps
you achieve these benefits with the following components: Archive,
Move, Edit, and Compare.
- Archive is used to identify and
archive sets of relationally intact data before you remove selected
data from your database. Archived data is indexed and stored. You
can browse, search, and restore selected subsets of archived data.
- Move extracts and migrates sets
of relationally intact data. Using Move, you can create test databases
that are referentially intact subsets of a production database. You
can also extract sets of related data and transform it as you migrate
the data to the test database.
- Edit is used to browse and edit
sets of relationally intact data in database tables. Using Edit, you
can edit data, review logical application paths, and browse data to
ensure that application test results are as expected. Edit supports
your rapid development of applications, allows you to analyze the
structure of your database, and facilitates your browsing of precisely
defined segments of relational data.
- Compare facilitates comparisons
of sets of relationally intact data. The Compare component compares
data results from application tests to the original data and highlights
all differences. Compare allows you to rapidly analyze the effects
of your application software or modifications to it.
The Scheduler is used to schedule Optim processes to run periodically, in sequence,
or both. This feature allows you to run selected processes at a convenient
time or regularly.
The Optim Server is used to define tasks on workstations
and direct any resource-intensive data-processing functions to a machine
more suited to the task. This machine can be one on which the database
is located, eliminating associated network traffic, or a machine that
is dedicated to the Server function.
The Configuration program provides a way to configure
workstations (including machines that host the Server) to use Optim. Using the Configuration
program, you can also maintain and customize the Optim environment.
Other features are used to do the following tasks:
- Run processes from the command line
- Restart a process that ends abnormally
- Retry a process for which all rows are not processed
successfully
- Customize the handling of dates for aging data
and scheduling processes
- Convert currency
- Browse files that are generated by the solution
- Create database objects from definitions in generated files
The Optim solution
is easy to use, simple in concept, yet powerful in supporting complex
database structures. Intuitive dialogs simplify data entry tasks and
provide options for processing relationally intact sets of data. Intelligent
window handling technology allows you to display multiple dialogs,
windows, context-sensitive online help, and tutorials.
Depending on your licensing agreement, you can use
one or more components of Optim.