IBM Promises New DB2 Will Take Better Care Of Itself
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IBM will begin shipping a new DB2 Universal Database next week that has more self-managing capabilities, extended Linux support, and geospatial technology.
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Company details how it tackled a need to improve data flow and service levels by replacing aging legacy systems which had been in use for 12 years.
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IBM on Friday gave its autonomic computing strategy is boost unwrapping an enhanced version of a toolkit designed to help developers more quickly integrate a number of self-managing functions into their existing applications and services.
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Partners who use IBM's WebSphere Application Server Community Edition or the vendor's DB2 Express-C database will be able to directly tap IBM staff for advice on integration, scalability, testing and support issues and won't have to pay for the privilege.
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Latest PECL Releases:ibm_db2 1.5.0ocal 0.1.0wbxml 0.1.0filter 0.10.0APC 3.0.12APC 3.0.12p2APC 3.0.12p1
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IBM next week will release a major revision of its DB2 database, providing fresh ammunition in the ongoing battle for supremacy in the database marketplace.
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IBM has decided to extend its support for Sybase, a competing database product to its DB2 database package, to present a Linux server-software package.
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IBM announced strong second-quarter results today, with good news for both its Americas and services businesses, which previously had underperformed.
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(InfoWorld) - IBM plans to release the final version of DB2 Viper 2, a major upgrade to its DB2 9 database software, before the end of this year, a company spokesman said this week. DB2 Viper 2 went into open beta last week and is the first major refresh of IBM's DB2 9 database since itsÂ release in JulyÂ last year. The beta program is open to DB2 customers willing to test the software and provide feedback to IBM to help it hone the product, said Bernie Spang, director of IBM data servers. IBM highlighted some of the new features in Viper 2 in a posting about the beta release last week. Among the features are new workload management tools that should give better query performance from data warehouses, and better handling of XML data within the database, IBM said. The update will also make it easier to manage new security features introduced with the first version of DB2 9, Spang said. The first version introduced label-based access control, which allows customers to set access priveliges for individual columns of data depending on what role people have in a company. DB2 Viper 2 will make it simpler to manage and administer those role-based privileges, Spang said. He wouldn't go into detail but said the improvements "do things in software that save the administrator from having to deal with it." IBM will be looking for Viper 2 to strengthen its position against database rivals Oracle and Microsoft, which both grew their 2006 database revenue more quickly than IBM, according to recent figures from Gartner. Oracle grew its database business by 14.9 percent last year to give it 47.1 percent of the market, Gartner said. Microsoft grew its business by 28 percent for a 17.4 percent share, while IBM grew by 8.8 percent to give it 21.1 percent of the market, Gartner said. The overall market in 2006 was worth $15.2 billion, up 14.2 percent from 2005, Gartner said. The research company counts revenue from new licenses, updates, subscriptions and hosting, technical support, and maintenance. It does not include professional services or hardware revenue.
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Relational databases have been powerful tools in techish hands for over 30 years, but it's time to lay the technology to rest -- and that's according to one of the men responsible for developing it. And, he says, the change is coming on fast.
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(InfoWorld) - IBM wants to encourage more of its business partners to use its open-source, low-end application server and free entry-level database by giving those companies access to IBM sales, marketing and technical expertise at no charge. Partners who use IBM'sÂ WebSphere Application Server Community EditionÂ (WAS CE) or the vendor's DB2 Express-C database will be able to directly tap IBM staff for advice on integration, scalability, testing, and support issues and won't have to pay for the privilege, IBM said Wednesday. Such IBM feedback should help business partners bring their software based on WAS CE or DB2 Express-C more quickly to market, according to Rado Nikolov, director of strategy and emerging business, independent software vendor (ISV) and developer relations at IBM. The company will also help some partners create more buzz for their products in different geographies through free ongoing telemarketing campaigns and discounted advertising. Partners can also call on IBM sales staff for assistance in closing deals, he said. Such help can be accessed virtually or in person at IBM's 30-plus Innovation Centers worldwide where IBM provides training, testing and support for its hardware, software and services to partners and customers The new reach out to partners builds on the WAS CE partner initiative that IBM ran last year and offers wider benefits than the previous program, Nikolov said. The new initiative also includes DB2 Express-C. In 2006, through the help of the WAS CE program, more than 300 ISVs and systems integrators built applications based on the IBM application server, he added. Although IBM doesn't release specific figures, Nikolov claimed that WAS CE is being downloaded in as great a quantity as the more established rival application server from Red Hat's JBoss division. IBM acquired what became WAS CE through the May 2005 purchase of open-source startup Gluecode. WAS CE is based on the open-source Apache Geronimo project steered by the nonprofit Apache Software Foundation. DB2 Express-C first appeared just over a year ago, rubbing shoulders in an already crowded market with open-source offerings from MySQL and Ingres, as well asÂ free databases from OracleÂ and Microsoft. Would IBM consider releasing DB2 Express-C as open-source software? "At this point in time, it's not a consideration," Nikolov said. For the most part, users of the database don't appear to be interested in viewing the source code or having the ability to modify that code, he added. Both products provide low-end entry points to IBM's paid enterprise offerings, its WebSphere middleware and its DB2 enterprise database, respectively. The vendor is seeing partners and users start off with the free products and then ramp up to its paid software, Nikolov said. WAS CE continues to include IBM's embedded Cloudscape database. IBM positions Cloudscape as more of a repository than a database, while the larger size DB2 Express-C has much more functionality. However, it's up to users which database they choose to use, Nikolov said.
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(InfoWorld) - It may be too early to talk plug-and-play but IBMÂ believes it can help businesses of all sizes easily cluster their servers to handle intensive computing workloads. Leveraging its expertise in high-end computing and vertical industry applications, IBM has launched several initiatives to allow small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) and the departments of large enterprises to integrate their servers -- from as few as two to many thousands -- into computing clusters designed for high-performance computing tasks, the company said Wednesday. Initially targeted at the businesses in the life sciences, computer-aided engineering, and finance sectors, IBM will offer preconfigured "snap-together" cluster systems for customers using the company's computers and storage devices. The systems are designed to run on Linux and Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 operating systems and will include networking technology from companies such as Cisco Systems. The collaboration with Microsoft will allow businesses to use parallel processing on clusters to free up client machines from long-running applications. ISVs (independent software vendors) and business partners will receive tools to help them introduce IBM's cluster systems. These include sizing guides with predefined cluster configurations for simple ordering and installation. IBM business partners have access to the company's Cluster Enablement Team for technical questions and advice. For customers, software vendors and business partners running Microsoft cluster servers, IBM has four new benchmarking facilities in Poughkeepsie, New York, Raleigh, North Carolina, Beaverton, Oregon and Montpelier, France. These centers join a network of global Linux benchmark centers. To attract businesses interested in computing clusters, IBM's Deep Computing Capacity on Demand centers will give them access to more than 20,000 processors to test the technology for themselves. IBM offers a range of products that support computing clusters, including its System x, System p and BladeCenter servers, as well as the IBM System Storage and IBM System Cluster 1350.
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IBM on Friday introduced an upgrade of its performance-monitoring software for web-based transactions, expanding its view of transaction flows by adding support for more infrastructure components.
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InfoWorld - IBM's global services organization is adding "health check" services to its repertoire of technical services for SOA deployments, looking to assist users dealing with issues resulting from poor planning or partnerships with inexperienced or so-called proprietary IT vendors.
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IBM late on Tuesday announced the  biggest update of its popular WebSphere business software in  two years, adding features such as automatically detecting and  fixing problems.
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TechWeb - IBM will work to integrate its Websphere middleware stack, DB2 database, and Cognos' business intelligence products.
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The final version of the Informix upgrade is due out sometime later this year and will offer new features for application developers, better support for hierarchical data structures and improved query capabilities across multiple instances of the database, IBM said.