DB2 Express-C Team Blog

The release of DB2 Express-C 10.1 was accompanied by updates to drivers, extensions, and adapters for many programming languages. One of them is the ibm_db adapter for Ruby and Rails.

It's straightforward on Windows and Linux:


From experience, I would expect Linux installation to require libstdc++ and libaio packages as well as the DB2 headers included in the IBM Data Server Driver for ODBC and CLI. Windows installation shouldn't have any dependencies other than the Ruby programming language and Ruby's gem package manager.

Next steps

• Download DB2 Express-C
• Get DB2 headers via Data Server Driver for ODBC and CLI
• Learn DB2 at Big Data University

Coming on the heels of DB2 Express-C 10.1 is Technology Explorer 4.2.

The Technology Explorer (TE) is a light weight, web based console for DB2 for Linux, UNIX and Windows. The Technology Explorer strives to be a teaching tool for all users of DB2. Whether you're just starting to use DB2, or have been for years, there are tutorials for you around many aspects of DB2. Part of what makes the TE such a great teaching tool is that it doesn't just explain to you how a system should act, the Technology Explorer shows you, using your database!

The TE has a large number of views that show you how your database is actually behaving. All of the views the TE uses to teach you about DB2 can be used individually, making the TE a very powerful monitoring tool as well.

New features in Technology Explorer 4.2

• The new Data Generator (DG) can be used to create large sets of data that mimic a customer's actual data. The DG can be used in tutorials and demos where a large volume of data is necessary to show performance.
• New 10.1 tutorials and feature demonstrations
• Adaptive Compression
• Custom Analytics
• Jump Scan
• Multi-Temperature Storage
• pureXML Enchancements
• Range Partitioning
• Row and Column Access Control
• Star Schema Query Optimization
• Text Search Enhancements
• Time Travel Query

• Get Technology Explorer 4.2
• Get the DB2 extension for PHP
• Get DB2 Express-C 10.1

For two major releases, DB2 has included an industrial strength feature for running applications originally written for Oracle Database's flavour of SQL and PL/SQL. The performance for it is excellent -- many people have reported significantly faster performance after switching their applications to DB2.

Oracle compatibility feature is now part of the free DB2 Express-C edition.

Serge Rielau wrote up a fantastic article on running your Oracle applications on DB2 10. All of it applies to DB2 Express-C.

Next steps

• Download DB2 Express-C 10
• Run your Oracle applications on DB2 10
• Learn DB2 at Big Data University

On day 1 of release, you could both download and run DB2 Express-C 10.1 in the cloud. Bradley Steinfeld has put together a great guide for how to deploy DB2 in the cloud using RightScale.

RightScale is an automation layer for deploying software on Amazon Elastic EC2, Rackspace, and other environments.

DB2 cloud templates on RightScale include the DB2 Technology Explorer and other great tooling to get you started.

Next steps

• Download DB2 Express-C
• Learn DB2 at Big Data University

The free DB2 Express-C 10.1 database is now available for download, and there's a great article on developerWorks outlining what's new in DB2 Express-C 10.

The short version is:
- Time Travel Query for easy historical queries of your database
- Built-in NoSQL support with SPARQL and RDF triplestores
- 98% compatibility for the PL/SQL syntax of Oracle Database

Next steps

• Read what's new
• Download DB2 Express-C
• Learn DB2 at Big Data University