Like other retailers, Dillard’s faces the challenge of processing transactions that require complex information about pricing, promotional offers, and loyalty discounts. If its mainframe-based IBM^® Db2^® database can’t deliver fast, real-time performance for online and in-store sales—especially during holidays and other busy sales periods—quality of service and customer satisfaction can suffer.

Dillard’s has benefited from a range of BMC solutions, including BMC AMI SQL Performance for Db2^®, BMC AMI Ops Monitor for Db2^® (formerly MainView for Db2^®), and BMC AMI Ops Monitor for CICS^® (formerly MainView for CICS^®). Dillard’s uses these solutions to monitor Db2^® systems, detect performance problems, and alert the IT staff to take corrective action before outages occur. The staff used the BMC AMI APPTUNE for Db2^® component to create a “top 20” list of transactions that were the biggest consumers of MIPS.

BMC AMI SQL Performance for Db2^® helps the staff identify poorly performing SQL quickly and easily. The staff has dramatically reduced the number of MIPS used to free computing power for complex transactions while postponing costly mainframe upgrades.

• SQL tuning efforts reduced CPU utilization by 35%.
• Better utilization allowed Dillard’s to avoid a costly CPU upgrade that would have been required to handle today’s complex transactions.
• A “what-if” capability helped reduce risk from making changes to critical applications.
• For one application, Dillard’s reduced MIPS consumption by 90 percent.
• BMC AMI APPTUNE enabled Dillard’s to identify its top 20 most CPU-consuming applications.