What's New

New Products and Packages

This section contains information on products and packages that have joined the DB2 family or have changed for Version 7.

DB2 Warehouse Manager

This new offering brings together the tools to build, manage, govern, and access DB2 data warehouses. The DB2 Warehouse Manager simplifies and speeds warehouse prototyping, development, and deployment. It gives the data center the control for governing queries, analyzing costs, managing resources, and tracking usage. It helps satisfy user requirements for finding, accessing, and understanding information. It provides flexible tools and techniques for building, managing, and accessing the warehouse. And it meets the most common reporting needs for enterprises of any size.

The DB2 Warehouse Manager adds to the basic warehouse and analytical functions available in DB2 Universal Database by providing:

The offering applies to DB2 Universal Database Enterprise Edition and Enterprise - Extended Edition only.

QMF for Windows

QMF for Windows is included with the DB2 Warehouse Manager. It provides a multipurpose query tool for business reporting, data sharing, server resource protection, robust application development, and native connectivity to all of the DB2 workstation platforms.

QMF for Windows provides native support for TCP/IP connectivity to Version 5 and later. It is architecturally coupled with DB2 using Distributed Relational Database Architecture (DRDA). Support for a heterogeneous database environment is available through DB2 DataJoiner, which allows users to access other vendor and non-relational workstation databases. See QMF for more Version 7 information.

DB2 Query Patroller

Query Patroller for DB2 Universal Database is now available for Enterprise Edition and provides support for HP-UX and NUMA-Q, in addition to Windows 32-bit operating systems, AIX, and Solaris platforms. This allows you to manage, govern, and schedule business analysis queries and to more fully utilize the resources available on those DB2 servers. See Query Patroller for other Version 7 enhancements.

DB2 Query Patroller is now part of the Warehouse Manager offering.

DB2 Relational Connect

DB2 Relational Connect is used in a federated system to query and retrieve data located on other DBMSs, such as Oracle, Sybase, and Microsoft SQL Server. SQL statements can refer to multiple DBMSs or to individual databases in a single statement. For example, you can join data located in a DB2 UDB table, an Oracle table, and a Sybase view. See Heterogeneous Distributed Query for more information on distributed queries.

In DB2 Version 7.1, DB2 Relational Connect was available for Oracle on the Windows NT and AIX platforms. In DB2 Version 7.2, the Oracle support has been enhanced to include additional operating systems, and support for Sybase and Microsoft SQL Server data sources has been added. Supported DBMSs include Oracle, Sybase, Microsoft SQL Server and members of the DB2 Universal Database family (such as DB2 for OS/390, DB2 for OS/400, and DB2 for Windows). DB2 Relational Connect can also be used with the Data Warehouse Center to improve select performance from Oracle, Sybase, and Microsoft SQL Server sources for loading a DB2 data warehouse (see Native OLE DB Support).

DB2 Relational Connect operates under some restrictions. Distributed requests are limited to read-only operations in DB2 Version 7. In addition, you cannot execute utility operations (such as LOAD, REORG, REORGCHK, IMPORT, and RUNSTATS) against nicknames. You can, however, use a pass-through facility to submit DDL and DML statements directly to DBMSs using the SQL dialect associated with that data source. For more information about federated database concepts, see the Administration Guide: Planning.

DB2 Relational Connect is an optional product that can be used with DB2 Universal Database Enterprise Edition, DB2 Universal Database Enterprise - Extended Edition, DB2 Connect Enterprise Edition, and DB2 Connect Unlimited Edition for Windows NT, AIX, and Linux operating systems, and the Solaris Operating Environment.

Workgroup Edition on UNIX

In Version 7, a Workgroup Edition of DB2 is available for all DB2 supported UNIX-based platforms (except for NUMA-Q).

DB2 OLAP Starter Kit

DB2 Universal Database includes the DB2 OLAP Starter Kit which is functionally based on DB2 OLAP Server Version 7. The DB2 OLAP Server Starter Kit lets users of DB2 Universal Database explore and apply online analytical capabilities before acquiring the full product, DB2 OLAP Server, for more complex analysis or deployment to large groups of users. Applications developed by the DB2 OLAP Starter Kit can continue to be extended and used in the full product. Both the DB2 OLAP Starter Kit and DB2 OLAP Server are based on Essbase, the market-leading OLAP technology from Hyperion Solutions. See OLAP Capability for more information.

DB2 Spatial Extender

The DB2 Spatial Extender can now be hosted directly by DB2 Universal Database. This facilitates the inclusion of spatial attributes, such as distance or driving time, into business analyses. This integration allows spatial data to exploit the performance benefits available with a database management system (DBMS). DB2 Spatial Extender conforms to the OpenGIS Consortium (OGS) and ISO standards for storing, indexing, and querying spatial data. See the Spatial Extender User's Guide and Reference for more information.

DB2 Universal Database Text Information Extender

DB2 Universal Database Text Information Extender provides a new way to search text documents using an SQL query. Supporting HTML and XML formats, it combines the power of a fast text search engine with the intelligent strategies of the DB2 Optimizer. Built on the success of the current extenders, DB2 Universal Database Text Information Extender augments, and begins to combine, the key functionality of the DB2 Text Extender and the DB2 Net Search Extender into a single, integrated product for today's information-orientated markplace.

Using the DB2 Net Search Extender text search engine and the DB2 Text Extender search interface, DB2 Universal Database Text Information Extender provides the baseline for a new generation of text retrieval products. The result is an easy-to-use and highly integrated way to search documents in your database, or external documents using DB2 Data Links Manager. For more information see http://www.software.ibm.com/data/db2/extenders.

DB2 Net Search Extender

DB2 Universal Database Net Search Extender provides a high performance method of searching text stored in DB2 databases. Searching with it can be particularly advantageous in Internet applications where performance is an important factor.

Net Search Extender can add the power of fast full-text retrieval to Net.Data, Java, and CLI applications. Its features let you store unstructured text documents of up to 2 gigabytes in databases. It offers application developers a fast, versatile, and intelligent method of searching through such documents.

Application Development Client

The Software Developer's Kit is now called the DB2 Application Development Client.

DB2 Life Sciences Data Connect

When life sciences users need information to do their jobs, they often combine data from multiple sources to get what they need. However, in the life sciences and biotechnology industries, vast amounts of data reside in specialized data sources with proprietary query capabilities. These differences in function make it difficult for users to collect the data in a single source and format to work with it.

IBM DB2 Life Sciences Data Connect is a database middleware system that allows you to work with a virtual database, whose underlying data can be stored in multiple life sciences industry data sources. Using DB2 Life Sciences Data Connect, you run a single query against the virtual database, and are able to make connections that you might not otherwise find by querying each data source individually.

DB2 Life Sciences Data Connect is part of the IBM Sciences Solution's DiscoveryLink offering.


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