"DB2 is a very rich environment, and is very specific about how you work with it from an application perspective," said Mark Combs, a CA distinguished senior vice president for mainframe operations. "With DB2 10, IBM introduced a lot of good new features, but it requires work" to upgrade a database to take advantage of them, he said.

CA has updated two of its software packages for managing DB2 on z/OS, namely CA Technologies Database Management Solutions for DB2 for z/OS, now at version 16, and CA Mainframe Chorus for DB2 Management, now at version 2.5. Both packages have been updated to manage DB2 version 10, .

Gartner has estimated that 75 percent of the DB2 databases running on z/OS will need to be upgraded within the next 18 months. IBM support for DB2 version 8 ended this year and support for version 9 will end in June 2014. "There is a fairly intense push to get people to version 10," Combs said.

Adding to the work of upgrading is the fact that many mainframe administrators tend to be older and close to retirement, which means the upgrade duties may fall to the less-experienced junior staff, who might appreciate helpful tools for getting the job done. "Our tools have been upgraded to easily manage this transition," Combs said.