DB2 Magazine E-Newsletter

May 22, 2002

DB2 MAGAZINE EMAIL NEWSLETTER
VOLUME 3, ISSUE 5
http://www.db2mag.com

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IN THIS ISSUE:
1. IBM News: XML, XQuery Extend DB2's Future; IBM Tops Data Management List
2. Asked And Answered: Servers, Instances, and Databases
3. Skills and Certification: Earn Free Exams in June
4. At The Bookstore: Early XQuery Adopters


IBM News: XML, XQuery Extend DB2's Future
IBM estimates that the share of IT budgets dedicated to integration efforts weighs in at around 40 percent. But if the technologies sampled at the recent IBM DeveloperWorks Live conference come to fruition, developers may find their workloads favorably trimmed. The goal, laid out by General Manager of IBM Data Management Solutions Janet Perna in a keynote speech, is to make integration "as boring as possible" by letting DB2 and related tools solve the integration puzzle so application developers won't have to. IBM plans to build on key technologies already available in DB2: federation, Web services, and XML.

In fact, IBM sees XML as the next step in the evolution of its integration efforts. DB2 already handles access to heterogeneous structured data sources (including Oracle and SQL Server) through federation. (For an overview of federated databases, see database expert Richard Winter's recent article in DB2 Magazine at http://www.db2mag.com/db_area/archives/2002/q1/winter.shtml .) XML is the key to rounding out DB2's support for unstructured data. Watch for native XML support (currently available through the DB2 XML Extender) to move into the database engine itself. XQuery, an XML query language under development by a working group of the World Wide Web Consortium that includes IBM and other vendors, will provide XML views of any data DB2 can access. The same data will continue to be available using SQL. The goal is a hybrid database with equally good support for relational and XML data.

You can test drive many of these technologies (including XQuery) through the Xperanto demo, read what Janet Perna has to say about DB2's future, and read other highlights from DeveloperWorks Live at the DB2 Developer Domain ( http://www7b.boulder.ibm.com/dmdd/ ). For an example of how existing federation and Web services support can ease integration efforts, read the DB2 Magazine article "Web Services the Easy Way," at http://www.db2mag.com/db_area/archives/2002/q2/chen.shtml .

IBM Tops Data Management List
IBM passed Oracle to capture 34.6 market share (and the lead) in new license revenue for database management system software, according to a Gartner Dataquest report released earlier this month. IBM enjoyed double-digit growth in the Unix and Windows markets and the 20th consecutive quarter of growth for its database business overall. A recent Web-only article from Intelligent Enterprise magazine describes the factors that put IBM at the top of the list ( http://www.intelligententerprise.com/online_only/news/020521.shtml ). To read IBM's press release, go to http://www-3.ibm.com/software/data/news/pr3.html .

ASKED AND ANSWERED
We need to implement two bank applications using DB2 UDB Version 7.2 that will communicate through MQSeries. A Web server will use one application's database for reports over the Web. Our DBA suggested one machine with three processors and 4GB RAM--and that we create two instances on the same machine. Will combining two servers into one and increasing the number of instances on a server create performance problems with two large databases? IBM Canada's Paul Zikopoulos shares his insight online at http://www.db2mag.com/qanda/020522.shtml .

SKILLS AND CERTIFICATION
Reminder: Certification Vouchers Available Next Month
Candidates who score 75 percent or higher on a DB2 assessment test will receive a voucher for a free DB2 certification exam. The offer is valid for VUE, IBM Learning Services, or Prometric test centers. For details, go to http://www-3.ibm.com/software/data/db2/skills/voucher.html . You can browse a list of certification manuals to help you prepare (including the recently published All-In-One DB2 Administration Exam Guide and CD-ROM, by Roger E. Sanders) at http://www.db2mag.com/bookstore/certification.shtml .

AT THE BOOKSTORE
Early Adopter XQuery , by Dan Maharry, Rogerio Saran, Kurt Cagle, Mark Fussell, Nalleli Lopez

XQuery plays a significant role in IBM's vision for DB2 in coming years. This book, written for database and XML developers with a knowledge of SQL or XSLT, gives readers a chance to get familiar with and keep track of what will be an industry standard once complete (WC3 Recommendation status is expected in 2003). XQuery is to XML data as SQL is to data in relational databases and more - a single syntax that lets you specify queries on structured XML data, independent of how it's stored, and return the results as XML in a structure of your choosing. Early Adopter XQuery presents the technology's history, development, and expected pre-ratification changes. It includes introductions to the XQuery language for those familiar with SQL and XSLT and a look at the early implementations of XQuery that exist around the Internet. Written against summer 2001 W3C working drafts, the book's broad approach means that it should be valid to Recommendation status. For details, go to http://www.db2mag.com/bookstore/ .