Among the packages that have been updated include BMC SQL Performance for DB2, BMC System Performance for DB2, BMC Database Administration for DB2, BMC Database Performance for DB2, and BMC Recovery Management for DB2.

For instance, SQL Performance for DB2, which roots out resource-hogging SQL queries, has been rewritten to run on the zIIP processor. "Of the tools a customer can have, typically the tuning and monitoring products have the highest overhead" for the CPU, Reddick said.

By moving the software to the zIIP processor, customers can run the product without using any of the CPU's main resources.

One BMC customer that may take advantage of the new set of tools is the Florida Hospital. The hospital system has about 42 back-office and medical applications . The database gets about 400 million calls a day.

The hospital is about to upgrade to DB2 version 10. A data warehouse will be the first application to use the new database. DB2 supports time-based data, which will allow the hospital to ask .