This chapter provides an introduction to DB2 Universal Database and to the types of parallelism provided by DB2. This chapter describes the following:
DB2 provides the flexibility for you to run a wide range of hardware configurations. It allows you to choose how to best match your hardware and application requirements with a specific DB2 product configuration.
The remaining chapters in this book assist you in the design and implementation of your database. With the different levels of complexity in database environments that DB2 supports, there are considerations and tasks specific to one or more of these environments. These considerations and tasks are presented toward the end of each section or chapter and introduced as being for a specific environment. In some cases, entire sections or chapters are appropriate for only a specific environment. After reading this chapter, you should be able to discern which chapters are appropriate for your business needs and your environment.