IBM Db2 Database Reviews

I'm helping customers migrate from Oracle to Db2. I am also assisting with business intelligence using Db2 Database.

One of the benefits of the solution is efficiency. One of our biggest clients is a bank based out of Brazil. As their data grew, fetching data became slow, and they did not have a good banking experience. By moving to Db2, they get better efficiency in managing and accessing the data. They have a good experience with the application.

IBM DB2 pureScale Feature is valuable. It is used for scalability. Customers with huge growth potential would really benefit from having a database that enables them to scale their business without the fear of having a redundant database.

The product’s user interface is not easy to use. I did one implementation of pureScale at Welsh Bank. It was very, very complex to deploy the feature. It took us more than six weeks. It has specialized hardware for you to use, and specialized switches are required to have that functionality in place. Over the years, it has improved, but nine years ago, it was a nightmare. The product should make the implementation of pureScale easy. It could give a seamless experience.

I have been using the solution for about ten years.

The solution is quite stable. It's not a simple database, but it comes with the territory. The product has existed for a long time, since the late 80s. The team has experience in databases, and maintaining them is a breeze for them. The tool is a futuristic database. I witnessed teams in IBM do time travel queries in 2012. The tool’s version 10 had already implemented time travel queries. Years later, we saw the features in other databases.

The product is years ahead of technology and architecture. It helps software developers have very good features that are years ahead. Now people are really focusing on the cloud. I'm sure they have features that help software engineers or developers work or code with the cloud in mind.

I've used SQL Server for a very long time. Microsoft SQL Server is quite easy to use from a beginner’s perspective. Its user interface is very intuitive and quite easy to use.

The ease of setup depends on the instances. In some instances, it's quite complex. Compared to SQL Server, MySQL, and PostgreSQL, Db2 is not easy to deploy. It is quite complex compared to other databases. However, the complexity comes with the territory. Companies that have complex requirements benefit from it.

Depending on the features we are deploying, deployment would take a couple of days to months. IBM DB2 pureScale Feature is quite complex. Deploying it is not easy unless you have somebody who's very, very experienced. While deploying pureScale, we need staff to help with the deployment. I was working with IBM at the time, so I could ask my colleagues, who were quite experienced, to help me. They were from the worldwide team in Toronto. They're quite happy to help.

From a customer’s perspective, we would need a very experienced business partner if we get support from a business partner to assist with the deployment. If we have money, we can contact IBM. IBM is quite expensive. IBM is always ready to assist, and the team is quite experienced. As long as you have knowledgeable database administrators who have the experience and are ready to learn, it's quite easy to maintain daily. For upgrades, we need someone who's very, very experienced to do an actual migration. SQL Server is quite easy to migrate. For Db2, we need experienced people to help out with the migration.

Compared to other databases, Db2 is relatively cheaper. Oracle is very expensive. Sometimes, it is ten times more expensive than what we pay for Db2. However, Db2 has more features as compared to Oracle. When we buy Db2, we buy all the features. When we buy Oracle, we just buy a few features. For example, for row access security, you have a different product that you need to pay to unlock that functionality. Things like storage are available on Db2 straight out of the box. You have to pay Oracle to unlock new features.

I work with huge enterprise customers such as banks who, at the moment, are not quite ready to take the data to the cloud. Db2’s SQL PL understands up to 85% of Oracle’s thought procedures. Many developers are unwilling to invest a lot of money and resources to migrate Oracle databases with huge thought procedures to Db2. However, with Db2, we don't have to migrate all the thought procedures or triggers. DB2 understands most of that language out of the box without changing anything. So it's quite easy to move from Oracle to Db2. This is what I would advise any enterprise customer that is ready to move to Db2. It’s very, very cheap in the long term compared to Oracle or any other database. Overall, I rate the solution a nine and a half out of ten.

IBM Db2 is a database for our core banking. We extract data from Db2 and put it in the data warehouse.

The main database platform is for core banking. It covers vulnerabilities.

The structure is straightforward, consisting of the test file and the logical and physical files. You have one physical file and many logical files related to it.

Banks use it which indicates that the security and compliance features are quite good.

The data table names are very short which is not user friendly compared to the Oracle SQL server. It should have longer column and table names.

I have been using IBM Db2 Database for six years.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

The solution is scalable depending on the IBM hardware you're using. IBM has also operation for Unix hardware. 1,000 users are using this solution.

Oracle is very good product compared to Db2. We have used Postgre too.

Deployment is vert fast. It takes eight hours to complete. It depends on what path you're doing. IBM provides training.

The product has a competitive pricing.

The solution depends on the use case. It is reliable and scalable.
Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

I was a heavy user of IBM Db2 Database. So, I used it for very complex queries because data extensively was with the mainframe database.

Considering the day-to-day activities in my company, around 30% of my work's contribution is possible because of IBM Db2 Database.

The solution's robustness is one of the most valuable features of IBM Db2 Database.

The solution's UI hasn't been upgraded. The solution’s UI is an area to improve because the solution was developed long ago. However, to date, they have been good at whatever they have been doing. But I feel that the solution's UI can be made more appealing.

Since the solution is functioning at its peak, there are no additional features that I would like to see in it.

I have been using IBM Db2 Database for four years. Also, it isn't the latest version that I use.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight and a half out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten. Around 50 to 100 people in our organization are using the solution. We plan to increase the use of the solution because there are always new teams in our organization who install the solution for the new joiners and any other projects or contracts.

The initial setup was straightforward, especially if we compare IBM Db2 Database's setup phase with Toad for Oracle's setup process.

Even though I have seen a return on investment using the solution, I wouldn't be able to explain it with actual numbers.

The solution's pricing is fine.

I want to tell others who plan to use the solution that it is great for learning the heavy script and database queries. I can take on a couple of complex test plans, test procedures, and other related work. So, I think it's a very robust tool. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

The most valuable feature of the solution is its compatibility with IBM Power Systems.

IBM Db2 Database is not a commodity product compatible with hyperscalers. IBM Db2 Database needs to work more on compatibility with other platforms.

Considering the competitors of IBM Db2 Database, I would say that the tool has to be made more cloud-friendly and should have agreements with AWS, Microsoft, or Google to run things on hyperscalers. In general, I would want the tool to have a bit more openings around cloud solutions rather than only being available on-premises.

I have been using IBM Db2 Database for a few years.

It is a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution.

It doesn't really matter whether small companies or big companies use IBM Db2 Database. Whether to choose IBM Db2 Database or not depends on a customer's preferences.

If I consider the price of IBM Db2 Database, I would say there are cheaper products in the market.

Whether or not there is a requirement to pay additionally for maintenance or support apart from the standard licensing fees of the solution depends on the agreement you have with IBM.

When you look at IBM Db2 Database, you feel it is more of a vendor lock-in type of approach. IBM Db2 Database offers little performance difference or competitive advantage compared to Oracle SQL or other platforms.

The products recommended to my customers may vary and depend on certain agreements. There are a lot of products, like Oracle, Microsoft SQL, and many other cloud databases, making for a wide portfolio of products.

IBM Db2 Database is a very standard and IBM-centric solution, so you need to be familiar with all the aspects of the product since it is not really an open product, meaning you can't run it on everything. IBM Db2 Database only runs on specific systems. I rate the overall product an eight out of ten.

We use the solution for handling retail customer information. We use it as an integration broker. It stores all the vendor information.

We rely on it for our data transfers. If we need to send an invoice, for example, we'd use this product. 

The solution is very stable and reliable. It's a very mature product.

If you have specialized support, it's fine in terms of getting assistance.

The solution can scale. 

IBM gives us tools that help us 

When I look at Microsoft SQL Server, SQL Server provides me with better tools for database management. IBM is missing things like data permissions and backups, et cetera. Microsoft has a very user-friendly interface that IBM lacks. The user interface from IBM is not great.

I've used the solution on and off for the past ten years. 

It's a stable solution. It's been around for quite some time and is very mature. It's reliable. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

It's quite scalable. We haven't had any issues. We can reuse DB2 mainframes, et cetera. We haven't had issues. 

We're not increasing usage. We're pushing towards the cloud and Azure systems. 

We are a big customer of IBM and have some sort of specialized services. We have an elevated support agreement that helps. In general, it's not the greatest. That's only at a personal level.

Neutral

I am familiar with the Microsoft SQL Server, which is more user-friendly and has more user-friendly features. We're also exploring moving away from this solution to more cloud-based Azure services. 

The setup wasn't part of my job. We had a team that handled it. However, my understanding is it was straightforward. 

I don't deal with the pricing. I can't speak to its exact cost.

I'm not a database person. I'm a programmer. 

I'm using version nine in the company.

If a person wants to use the solution from a user perspective, I'd suggest they actually look at cloud programs, not IBM or on-premises. Cloud simplifies a lot of things. If I were starting from scratch, I'd go right to the could.

The reliability is excellent, and therefore I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. I only have issues with the user interface.

I am currently using IBM Db2 for z/OS. It is used to manage a huge amount of structured business data and provides DB services for many different applications.

Its performance is great. In my case, half a million transactions per second are using the DB services of the Db2 mainframe. So, it provides a great ability to support logical units of work.

For every big organization or big site, such as a bank or a credit card company, the most important asset is data. An organization puts all its business data and manages it in Db2 because it trusts that Db2 will be able to provide all the necessary services, such as:

• Business continuation
• The ability to process a large amount of data
• The ability to maintain a large amount of data
• The ability to execute DB services in a fraction of a second

Its functionality and availability are valuable. Its availability is great. It is available 99.99% of the time. 

Its security is great, and there is also the ability to execute very complex SQL statements. It provides the developers the ability to get the functionality using great tools like SQL and many other additional features.

The management of Db2 should be simplified because there are not too many specialists in this area, and the learning curve of Db2 specialists is very long. After the courses, probably it takes one and a half or two years to get to the point when you are using the product properly in the production systems. So, the complexity is very high, and the most important thing is to simplify the management of the product, including self-maintenance. They should simplify the installation, management, and monitoring to simplify the product. It takes too long for a person to be a specialist in this product.

The price should also be adjusted a little bit. IBM is quite expensive with respect to the product.

I have been working with this solution for 34 years.

It is very stable.

It is absolutely scalable. It is hard to count the number of users. For example, in a bank, each and every customer of the bank uses the product. There are hundreds of thousands or, in my case, even millions of customers. There are also people who are not customers but access the website of the banks to look at something. Those people are not registered, but they're using the product as well. So, there could be millions of users. In the banks where I work, the business is growing. With the growth of the business, the number of users is also growing every year by a small percentage.

If Db2 is properly used, an organization can build a database with thousands of tables, and it can provide the exact information for the applications within a second. We have 500,000 transactions a second, and each of them needs to get some information from the database to perform a show, insert, or delete operation for different users. In the banking or finance domain, there are a large number of transactions. Even in a small country, there would be a large number of transactions every minute or seconds of the day. Db2 is capable of providing services for each and every transaction.

Currently, technical support is concentrated in IBM's main supporting facilities and laboratories. Years ago, each and every country had its own engineers who provided technical support, but today, it is concentrated in a few hands through the support centers of IBM, and their support is good.

Positive

Before Db2, we used IMS. It was years ago, and currently, in addition to Db2, the same organization is using Oracle, MSSQL, MySQL, and even NoSQL databases, such as MongoDB. During the past five years or so, the NoSQL databases are getting in as well. So, we are using a few RDBMSs and NoSQL databases as well in parallel.

When I compare IBM's mainframe Db2 for z/OS with other relational database management systems, this one wins against almost each and every other database in terms of abilities and performance. Optimizing the scales or optimizer for creating the access process is probably the best in the world. In many aspects, Db2 wins against almost each and every other RDBMS, including Oracle, Microsoft, MySQL, and NoSQL ones. However, in the area of complexity and maintenance, probably the others are better.

It is quite complex. It is not a simple installation. If the installation is done by a specialist, it takes a few hours.

It was implemented by our own in-house team. For deployment and maintenance, in a big organization, probably two DBAs are required to be on the safe side, in case one of them is on holiday or something like that. Two people are sufficient to maintain the product.

It is expensive. The price depends on the size of the machine on which you are installing the Db2 and the features you are using. It also depends on the country. IBM has different policies and different options for payment for this product. 

IBM Db2 manages a huge amount of structured business data and provides DB services for many different applications in banking, military, logistics, and other areas. Big organizations that are using IBM mainframe are using Db2 Database for providing the database services for various applications. Thousands of organizations in the world are using Db2 for managing their data—their most important asset. By using Db2, they can manage this huge amount of data by building an enterprise-wide data model, consisting of thousands of entities and tables. When built with a proper methodology, Db2 is a great asset for each and every organization.

IBM mainframe Db2 for z/OS would probably be the best platform if you need a database that is not limited to one specific area and can provide you with the following:

• Different DB services
• Different functional and application areas
• Parallel processing abilities with a big amount of relational structured data

It will be difficult to find a better solution for such a business.

I would rate it a nine out of ten. It is very good.

It's not the Db2 LUW, which is Linux, Unix, Windows. It's the mainframe. It's the active-active, high availability environment that we need for the aggressive SLAs that we've got here in Saudi Arabia.

I like that its true active-active. For example, if there are two instances within a cluster, we can take one of them down and there's no failover or switch over. There's no primary and secondary, it's true active-active. We can take one side down and we can upgrade that with new maintenance or a new version, obviously testing coexistence beforehand, without impacting the business.

In a distributed world, you've got lots of different prerequisites you've got to be managing here. Not just the database - possibly the VMs that the database is in and the OS that the database is running on, Linux or Windows, as well as the storage.

I like its high availability. It's well supported by IBM. It's used by a lot of the larger business organizations globally within banking, finance, credit cards, insurance, retail, and government.

We're proving that it's got that high availability and robustness. We can prioritize the workloads that are coming into that database management system, using the features of the IBM z/OS environment. That way, if this transaction's coming in off the network that is in and out, they will be given priority over somebody doing a lengthy query that's coming in from the network that you would consider to have more batch-like tendencies. 

We like that it's using separate specialized CPU engines to manage the locking and the sharing of data via a coupling facility. This stays on the CPU that we would be licensed for. We call them specialized engines that you don't license. They're not paying your licensing costs. Whereas, for example, in other database management environments for high availability, they communicate between themselves over an IP network. The CPU would be higher for them. There's no special process or capability that allows taking that CPU and that communication between them. It has to, if you've got four nodes of a database management system, one of them would have to lock on a row in a table or whatever, it's going to have to propagate that information to the other three nodes on the mainframe side. It would just put it into what we call a coupling facility, and the other Db2 members or instances in the same cluster would be able to check that and see that, no, we can't update that yet, we'll have to wait.

There are lots of different things we use it for. We use it for data replication, which means that we've got an always-on alternate Sysplex cluster several thousand miles away that is propagating the data to that Db2 over there using replication services at the software level rather than, if you physically replicate data and the Db2 or the Oracle environment, physically using storage replication, you've in effect got a cloned copy of that environment. It's going to fire up at the remote site, looking for the network that's at the local site. There are lots of things you would have to do there to do that. Plus the RTO time to actually get that alternate Db2 at the DR side could be 40-45 minutes depending. Whereas we can do this capability and we call it always on, where the RTO is about a minute.

The good thing is that there are improvements coming with later function levels for the z/OS Db2. I'd like it if, with the operating system that we've got, z/OS, on the mainframe, it would allow us to refresh the hardware to run Linux dockers on the mainframe. This means this might give us opportunities for different ways of coming into the Db2 environment in the future. We just want a bit more integration with Linux. That said, we are already seeing Linux more readily available on the mainframe environment.

Not only have we got the premium operating systems on OS. We can run LPARs on the same mainframe footprint that is also supporting Linux. This is what has improved and made the mainframe environment more competitive.

We're also looking at AI for Db2 as well, and machine learning for the future. We know that AI has come out, that we're going to get that, and we're going to evaluate that product next year for Db2.

That said, I haven't got any real complaints about Db2 on the mainframe. For the most part, a lot of the problems we have nowadays are to do with communication between the various teams that you would class as stakeholders.

I've been working in a mainframe environment since 1991. I got involved in Db2, in the mid-nineties back in the UK. I've supported the database team regarding the system programming side of things, however, I used to be involved in it quite a lot operationally as an ops analyst lead. I've not actually worked with other database management systems on other platforms. However, some of my team support them. I occasionally have to look at these sites to understand the products and what their advantages and disadvantages are.

Sometimes it's how you go about system management processes within the environment, and not always the product itself. If, for example, we're going to put maintenance onto the Db2, we would do that in a sandbox environment first. We would test that the Db2 that we've put the maintenance on can exist or coexist in the same cluster as the ones we haven't put the maintenance on. That's the first thing.

We would test functionally and can regress that maintenance in case we introduce a defect, or it causes an application defect. Coexistence and regression are very important in the sandbox.

After we've signed that off, we would move it into the development environment where they've got all the different development services, integration, UAT, dev-test, pre-production, model production, et cetera. We would let the development workloads test the Db2 instance there and see that that's working. If that's okay, then we upgrade the other Db2 instance in the cluster. Finally, we put it into the production environment.

Therefore, you're not going to do a big thing. You're putting your maintenance in on 50% of the database environment so that you've got ability and capacity on the other side where you haven't made that change. And you've already proved coexistence and regression, should there be a defect identified through the application.

I like the way that Db2 allows us to do that. Certain DBMS environments, you have to upgrade them all to the same level. Some of them have to be patched quite regularly due to security. However, in the mainframe, it's not too bad.

When I first came here, they were putting the maintenance and the new release, they would do it across the whole cluster. Which, if we had a problem with some of the applications that are running in there, we would have to regress that, which would probably mean an outage. There are operational or system management processes that we've tuned and we've improved so that we're mitigating against any service disruption.

The way the IBM z/OS Db2 environment's designed does allow coexistence. It does allow us to upgrade 50% of it, or 25% of it, and leave it running alongside one that's back level - as long as we've proven our coexistence.

We've got a two-way Db2 cluster at the moment. With two members in that cluster, we could have up to 32 members in that cluster. It's got outward scalability as well.

It's got the ability to have up to 32 members within that data sharing group or that cluster. So you could run one of these on a separate Z server, Z mainframe, which would give you quite a lot of CPU capacity. I don't know whether there are any environments out there that would need or have that. Some of the world's largest banks - maybe in America or in Asia - might have a configuration like that. For us, we're across multiple processes, and we've got the ability, should we enable for cloud at a later date, to be in a position where we can just scale-out with little disruption, by just adding more LPARs with Db2 members in. We just have to make sure that we've got the processing capacity on the mainframe to support the additional workload.

IBM technical support is pretty good. We haven't had issues with them from the operating system, from the KICKS, from the MQ, from the Db2. When I compare it to, for example, Oracle tape, we don't get the same level of support there. There's a lot of collection of log information and things like that. We have to escalate that case or that incident to the second or third level within that organization. We tend to find that IBM, on the other hand, is pretty good with that. I can't comment on other areas other than experience with Oracle, which sometimes isn't that good.

The mainframe environment does not that often require that we have to set up another Db2. If you're creating a brand new Db2 cluster or data sharing group, then there is a bit of work in that.

The IBM manuals for this and our localized documentation assist the engineers and consultants in building a Db2. I don't consider any issues regarding a build of a Db2.

The mainframe environment from a security perspective is one of the key fundamental selling points of the mainframe environment. It is relatively secure assuming that the security people that administer the RackF database, the external security database, are actually configuring it right. Then we deploy role-based access controls. When they're doing this sort of activity database, people would have to liaise with other areas within the infrastructure and support to configure that Db2. Obviously, with any Db2 you need security permissions. They would need to discuss with the storage team how much disc space they're going to need and to discuss with the performance team and capacity team to make sure that they're going to profile that environment. They would need to discuss with the automation team to make sure that the Db2 is shut down when we need to shut the system down and that it's started up properly when the system's reloaded, or if it is in an unplanned activity, that we can restart it in light mode. Furthermore, the automation tool is monitoring that Db2 instance to make sure that it's healthy. Ultimately, there are lots of different teams that would be involved in this. 

For the most part, the setup is simple. If somebody wants a new database or schema, we could just quickly do that within that environment. If we need a brand new, separate Db2 environment, that would be more complicated, however, we have the procedures and processes in place for that.

We could have just one systems programmer doing that maintenance. That said, from my perspective, I engage a lot of the teams. Once we've put that maintenance into the development environment and we leave it for a week against one member and leave the other member back level, we would do full performance analysis to see that, with all the transactions that are running there, there's no additional CPU and there's no deterioration in response time and that the Db2 member itself is looking healthy, it's not having any resource shortages, there's no virtual memory or physical memory increases or deviations or anomalies.

We'd engage with the performance and capacity team. I recently engaged with the distributed team, for example, the middleware teams, to make sure that if anything is coming off the web through the web servers, they are aware of our change so that they can monitor and support us.

While it's one person that's doing the change, he might be working with a few junior engineers to do training. We tend to engage a lot of teams across the activity to make sure that everything looks okay and we're not impacting SLAs.

Furthermore, we have a 24 by seven operations team and they do all the operational side. You wouldn't get a Db2 systems programmer in production stopping and starting the Db2. That would be done by the operators.

In the 90s, there was a big problem with the IBM mainframe environment and there was a big push to move the middleware off the mainframe and put it on cheaper distributed hardware. What happened then was the workload was coming in over the network. This was what we called dynamic SQL coming into Db2 - which was a bit more resource-intensive to what it was with traditional legacy style workloads that were static SQL coming into the Db2 environment, that we could see the CPU on the mainframe.

In the old days, in the 90s and before that, we were charged quite expensive amounts for licensing the software on the full capacity of the mainframe they're running on.

Now, what they introduced mid-nineties/late-nineties was these specialized processes like a coupling facility. There was a Z integrated information process called a zip. This supported workloads coming in off the network from web servers coming into Db2, and we know that these workloads are traditionally resource-intensive. They're not as efficient as static SQL. This meant that in the old days, our licensing costs would shoot up as we would have to upgrade the mainframes and it would make it more expensive.

IBM introduced these specialized processes and the zip allows the workload to be dispatched on that specialized processor. Not all of it - maybe 40% to 50% of a transaction is eligible to be dispatched on a zip. This means that we don't need as much of the standard mainframe engines to support the business workload. Anything that's running on a zip, we don't have to pay licensing fees.

This was something that made the mainframe more competitive again. Furthermore, with the mainframe we have now we can have the forerunner to virtualization (VM), which is what I started on back in the early 90s, known now as ZVM. Having ZVM means that you can run virtual machines in that OS. It acts as a hypervisor. It runs virtual machines in that OS that could be separate Linux instances.

The flagship or premium operating system on the mainframe is z/OS. It used to be called MVS, multiple virtual storage. We're going to be able to evaluate next year within Linux Dockers, in them LPARs, alongside all other tasks that we've got running such as Db2, such as KICKS. It is going to make it really interesting in the future.

We have been comparing Oracle RAC against the z/OS Db2.

I tend to see that there's a lot of bias for people, depending on, for example, if they work for an Oracle database management system. In that case, you tend to get a lot of people that are biased towards the Oracle. Likewise, you'll get that with Db2 LUW or Db2 z/OS. They don't tend to know what the other environment can do. That said, looking at it from an infrastructure and system programming background, as my background is really system programming and storage and hardware infrastructure, it's trying to get a general view on what the database management system can offer for SLAs, high availability when it's patched, and how often it would have to be patched. I want to know, for example, if there are a lot more security defects and fixes with one environment as opposed to another so that we're not interrupting our hosted business in the environment when we're doing our maintenance and new releases of software.

I'm a partner of IBM. I used to be an IBM employee until August when I switched over to a partner company.

I'm not would say totally biased towards IBM. We do like to look at other vendors' hardware and software. For example, we use Oracle hardware on the mainframe environment for the tape. Oracle took over Sun which took over Storagetech, which is a mainframe and distributed tape solution. We do have a mixture of IBM and non-IBM software and hardware.

I'm a technical manager at the moment, and I'm supporting a team that's running Db2 across multiple sites within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

We are moving to the private cloud, however, at the moment, it's on-premise between multiple data centers dispersed within Saudi Arabia. They don't want to be looking at any cloud services from suppliers where they do not have control of the data. We are looking at maybe next year a private cloud infrastructure for the mainframe Sysplex environment.

I'd advise new users to make sure they know what you're doing. Don't guess. There's a lot of people working out there in IT that like to tell people that they know what they're doing. From my experience, they don't know what they're doing, and they can make a complete mess of it. I see it a lot over here in the Middle East. They need to be aware of what they're doing. They need to be following proper procedures and processes.

When they're upgrading to the production environment, they should be raising a high severity ticket with the supplier. For example, if we're changing the version of Db2 in our production environment on 50%, or one member, I would inform the team to raise a high severity ticket so that we've got IBM support on hand should we encounter any anomalies. I would be saying that the same to the Microsoft SQL team, to Db2 LUW, to Oracle, that sort of thing. That would mitigate risk.

They should also properly test it. They should make sure that they follow all the functional tests, which we call IVPs, which are scripted tests that you can run to prove that it looks okay. You should be engaging with the application team in non-production first to see that they're not having any problems with the application. You should try and see if there's a performance team or monitoring team that's able to look at the performance of it. You should be talking with the middleware team, like the webserver teams, the .NET, the KICKS, and making sure that all their processes are working with that database. And then you migrate it into production.

I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten. The product, the support of the product, the high availability that it offers, the active-active, plus how we're managing it, has been great. We're having fun with it.

The value and impact of using IBM Db2 Database lie in its essential role in storing data. The benefits include enhanced performance, reliability, and effective data management compared to other databases.

The most valuable feature of IBM Db2 Database is its ability to perform automatic self-management, reducing the need for manual tasks such as managing logs and folders.

One area where IBM Db2 Database could be improved is its Java development environment. Similar to those found in competitors like Oracle, there could be more user-friendly tools with features such as drag-and-drop functionality, visual basics, and low-code capabilities.

We have been using the IBM Db2 Database for ten years.

The platform is stable. I rate the stability an eight out of ten.

The primary concern is related to the cost implications when scaling with multiple nodes in a database. The associated costs increase when additional nodes are added, each requiring separate storage space. We have approximately four or five Db2 instances being used in the organization.

It is a scalable platform. I rate the scalability an eight out of ten.

I have used MySQL and Oracle in my previous environments. We switched to IBM Db2 Database for auto-management features and reduced manual intervention.

The initial setup is straightforward. We have to install and register. The deployment process includes downloading the software from the vendor's website, having a customer account, copying the downloaded file to the machine, and executing the installation. It takes five to ten days to complete. We have around 50 executives working in the database administration team.

We implemented the product in-house.

We purchase the product's yearly license. Later, we have to pay support and license renewal fees. Its pricing is comparable to other database solutions such as Oracle and MySQL. If you choose to buy IBM Power Systems, there may be opportunities to receive Db2 licenses at a lower cost or even free of charge. However, if the installation is on servers other than open Power servers, standard licensing fees apply, similar to those of other database solutions.

The application has analytical tools to support day-to-day management and analytics needs. It is convenient to meet business needs objects.

Regarding integration with other tools and systems, Db2 can be integrated with comprehensive banking solutions involving various teams, including CVS, analytics, and importing teams.

As for recommendations for those considering Db2, it can effectively impact performance. If an organization predominantly uses Db2, individuals are more likely to choose Db2. However, there is a challenge related to training resources for Db2, which may be less readily available or focused on compared to other platforms like Oracle.

I rate it a nine out of ten.