As most everyone in the IBM i community knows, IBM has had an ongoing major initiative across the IBM i platform called Database Modernization. It’s the process of moving your DDS (Data Description Specification) defined PF (Physical File) and LF (Logical File) to DDL (Data Definition Language) defined tables, views and indexes. There have been quite a few articles written on these subjects and most authors have focused on one major decision criteria – speed. Using this as the one and only criteria, most authors on the subject come to the conclusion of “It depends” and “you don’t need to convert all your PF to SQL Tables or all your traditional I/O to embedded SQL”. I’m going to add one more criteria to your decision tree. That is flexibility. This presentation lays out the reasons why (benefits) everyone should modernize their database and convert to DDL. Then I will give the methodology IBM is recommending so that converting you DDS to DDL does NOT require you to recompile or change your current programs.
Learning Objectives:
- Benefits of Modernizing your DDS described files to DDL.How to convert your DDS PF/LF to DDL Tables/Indexes with NO changes or recompiles to your programs.
- Specific examples of how those benifits have been utilized in a live production environment after conversion.
