IBM Takes Sting Out of Database Management

IBM is releasing the next version of its "Stinger" DB2 Universal Database, which promises to simplify database administrators' lives.

IBM announced Thursday the general availability of the "Stinger" version of its DB2 Universal Database, which delivers to database administrators a host of new autonomic database self-management and self-healing capabilities designed to simplify data management and business process tasks. DB2 Universal Database 8.2, code-named Stinger, will begin shipping Sept. 17 with pricing the same as the most current UDB platform, said Paul Rivot, director of database servers and business intelligence for the Armonk, N.Y., company. Stingers autonomic muscle is put to use through the databases IBM Learning Optimizer feature. The technology, born from a research project at IBM, helps the database learn from its past actions to drastically speed command execution and can optimize the quickest route to appropriate business information. Other features within Stinger, including DB2 Design Advisor and Automated Maintenance, help ease the burden on DBAs by reducing manual backup and database optimization tasks. Click here to read what beta testers say are Stingers pluses and minuses. Rivot said the majority of early beta tester feedback surrounding Stinger has centered around high availability and growing interest in the databases role in disaster recovery deployments. IBM is drawing from its Informix database technology to help customers apply business intelligence rules in that area. Within its updated database, IBM has incorporated Autonomic High-Availability-Disaster-Recovery with autonomic client reroute for server-clustered environments. In addition, Stinger puts an emphasis on stronger application development through 200 new features, particularly its ability to be deployed via Microsoft .Net and Java. To streamline Web services deployment, IBM has embedded an application server within the database. Stinger is the second "next-generation" database released this year, following in the steps of Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle Corp.s release of Oracle 10g at the beginning of 2004. What are Oracle 10gs top goodies and gotchas? Find out here. By comparison, Microsoft SQL Server users have been told by the software giant that the companys updated SQL Server 2005, code-named Yukon, will not be available until the first half of 2005. Yukon is currently in its second beta release. Check out eWEEK.coms Database Center for the latest database news, reviews and analysis.

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