It looked like today was not going to be useful, with the agenda for the day looking at the differences between Oracle and DB2 and trying to get you to convert, and security, with a test at the end that was really for business partners so looked like I could take a nap, but actually each part of the day had some useful content.
DB2 10 for Linux, UNIX and Windows Bootcamp – Day 3 – What have we done – my prospective
Breaking free from Oracle with DB2 10
So this from the title sounded like it would have absolutely no content that was of relevance to me, but it had several things in it that will be very useful, if not straight away. The first is that there are features developed for DB2 compatibility with Oracle, but you can use them without having the compatibility mode (ORA) on! One of these was DB configuration parameter of AUTO_REVAL can be set DEFERRED_FORCE and this will mean you don’t have to create your database objects in order e.g. you can create a view that uses a table and then create the table.
The second was that you can turn parts of compatibility mode on without having to have the full ORA or MYSQL set, this means that you could just take advantage of the TRUNCATION command that IBM developed for Oracle compatibility can be used, most useful no more LOAD into table from /dev/null!
IBM have created a free tool where you just have to supply the appropriate drivers and it will move data from nearly any mainstream database (MS SQL, MySQL, Postgres, Oracle, etc, etc). The IBM Data Movement tool looks very useful, as it has many useful features and functions from getting data from your other databases to your DB2. It will generate DDL’s and export and load data, loading takes place through files or pipes and will generate files so you can review progress and see what it has done.
DB2 Security
So this was a little boring but I got two things I got out of this ROLES, which are not new and TRUSTED CONTEXT’s. So ROLE’s look useful and if we get chance to design them and implement them properly then it could sort out a lot of issues we have. Then TRUSTED CONTEXT’s look useful for catching people out in either 1) record that the users connection is not coming from the right place 2) stopping people completely using users from the wrong location (or other connection variable). Watch out dev’s at HX.
High Availability and Disaster Recovery
This again is nothing new to us, the extra features that come with DB2 V10 like being able to have multiple standbys and the new “Super Asynchronous” mode. I also questioned the instructor over the delicacy of the standby to not having the copy files present, and the the way it takes tablespaces of line and they get fried and you have to start again, he had a smile and then said that was one of the features and in future it may be addressed; but it was good to know that I am not doing anything wrong and it is non recoverable from that state.
N18 IBM Information Management DB2 10 Technical Mastery Test v3
So this was an exam more for business partners than DBA’s and was free to take, so what the hell, I passed brilliant I have “1 point” on business partner status?
Late post
Tomorrow I will be travelling home so the likelihood is that I will not be able to post tomorrow about day four till maybe Sunday. Have a nice weekend all.