This document is written for managers and senior professionals who are considering upgrading heritage systems by converting them to use the DB2 family. It has generally been recognized for some time that the relational database management system (DBMS) DB2 offers a superior platform when compared with file systems and networked DBMSs. There have been a number of conversions to DB2, but most users have had insufficient reasons to convert to DB2. Over the last few years, market dynamics have

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... ed a great deal. There are now additional incentives to convert applications to use DB2 in the form of exploiting parallel processors, enabling client/server, distributed data, and data replication. In addition, the cost barriers have been greatly reduced, making conversion a cost-effective and realistic proposition. Although most installations understand and are familiar with application development, DBMS conversion is a new and unfamiliar territory. This document describes the steps, actions, and decisions that should be made early in a conversion to DB2. It shows the process to be followed and discusses how to obtain a low cost, high function conversion. Its objectives are to ensure that a conversion strategy is selected that will bring satisfactory results at predictable and manageable costs.