back to article IBM's DB2 database update does time travel, gets graphic

With the launch of DB2 10.1, Big Blue is adding a slew of new features that make DB2 more useful for modern, big-data workloads. Depending on how you want to count it, IBM is either the world's number-two or number-three seller of database management systems, and it has a lot of secondary systems and services business that are …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Time travel query! sounds fun.

    Point in time query sounds less fun but more accurate. Indeed, even a useful feature if you design your system around it. Pricings based on order time tied to currency rates at the time of order coding being something alot easier to code for with this feature. Of course would make you somewhat tied to db2 then, but even though you know IT software lasts in alot of cases until you draw a pension the accountants will swallow the fact you will replace it all in 5 years time :D.

    Still the only question left is will it backup faster?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Nice Marketing Blurb

    I would be nicely happy and send them a bouquet of flowers if they had an actually working ODBC driver installer for Windows7, 64bit.

    And no, I don't want to download 300M Db2 express, just to get the damned driver. I am forced to do that and it broke down at something like 290M through that dead-slow corporate firewall. Fsck DB2 - it's wrapped in shite.

    1. Ten Pin Tess

      Re: Nice Marketing Blurb

      Oracle's the same (ish). Big download just to get a driver. Bah!

      1. alien anthropologist
        Megaphone

        Re: Nice Marketing Blurb

        > Oracle's the same (ish). Big download just to get a driver. Bah!

        Untrue. Oracle InstantClient download is small and does not even need to be installed using a traditional installer. See <http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/linuxsoft-082809.html> for the x86_64 Linux driver download.

        Simply download. Unzip. Set your environment variables (PATH or LD_LIBRARY_PATH depending on o/s, and optionally point TNS_ADMIN to you Oracle network/tns config file). Use.

        1. alien anthropologist
          FAIL

          Re: Nice Marketing Blurb

          Downvoted for posting a *fact*!?

          Hell, you must really hate those spells of reality (dealing with facts and stuff), in-between being a giant bearded muscled warrior, with a hot elf as wife, in WoW...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Also...

    I think DB2 would actually stand a chance against Oracle and MS, if it did not require me to prefix every single stupid table reference with the schema name (or whatever it really is).

    So I could actually do

    select name,wage,department

    from employees,departments

    where employees.deptid =departments.deptid

    instead of

    select name,wage,department

    from STUPIDSCHEMAX5566-78.employees,STUPIDSCHEMAX5566-78.departments

    where employees.deptid =departments.deptid

    All your competitors allow me to specify the schema during connect time and don't require it in every single query ! DB/2 really conveys the feeling of SNA - you need 10 years of speciality knowledge to perform standard stuff. That might be OK in the world of mainframes, but it really turns off people who know Oracle or Postgres.

    1. Ten Pin Tess

      Re: Also...

      And Oracle doesn't require years of specialist knowledge how? No difference. Schema name is minor detail. Having used all big 3 RDBMS's over time and having no particular allegiance to any they're all idiosyncratic to some degree. Specialist knowledge keeps people in jobs.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Also...

        I don't think it's a minor detail, as it makes my sql more difficult to read. And no, I don't want to write code which will attach the schema name after my coding.

        1. Crack
          Go

          Re: Also...

          If you don't want to use 'set current schema' then google the CurrentSchema CLI/ODBC config keyword...

          Also, just in case you're still trying to download it... Express is a server version of DB2 - you just need a client for the odbc driver.

          No more difficult than any other enterprise-level database I'd say!

          1. Anonymous Coward
            FAIL

            Re: Also...

            They don't have anything which resembles a proper Windows installer for the ODBC driver. What they have is a "recipe" of how to do it and that one does not work. The DB/2 Express install was a kind of "let's hope this works" measure.

            They really don't get the most basic stuff working properly. Larry Ellison must laugh all the way to the bank...

      2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
        Boffin

        Re: Re: Also...

        "And Oracle doesn't require years of specialist knowledge how?...." Yes, but it seems to be the lesser pain than DB2, or maybe it's just a case of the Devil(s) you know. For our enterprise projects, we have tested out DB2 but only as a fallback should Larry go really loopy with Oracle. We really welcome all those tools added to DB2 to allow easier migration from Oracle, it's just we're not really looking to migrate away from Oracle. At the lower end, Windows or Linux, we again seem to plump by choice for Oracle or MS SQL, even though DB2 again goes through validation exercises should we need a fallback option. The DBAs and our database architects just seem happier with Oracle or MS SQL, even though DB2 seems just as capable, and I guess a lot of that is going to be down to DB2 being less liked.

    2. Jean-Luc
      Boffin

      Re: Also...

      Odd, I wrote SQL for years on PeopleSoft, and DB2 was a supported platform. I am well aware of various other DB2 limitations of old, such as self-referential updates not being allowed. DB2 was always the most idiosyncratic of the lot.

      But your case? Never. Sure you can't set it somehow at the session level? Google is yer friend....

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Dreckstool

    That's the germlish term for DB/2. Even the Db2 Express installer doesn't give me a working ODBC connection. Now it complains that "DB2INSTANCE" variable is not set. FSCK !

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Dreckstool

      You tried like, err, setting it!!! export DB2INSTANCE=/blah/blah/blah on a real OS.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Stop

        Re: Dreckstool

        Yes I did, but as far as I understand it, it appears that there must exist a real database on the Windows PC which is then referred to be DB2INSTANCE. Which is highly stupid, as I want to connect to a server in the intranet.

        Of course the installer bitched about problems with setting up a "db2admin" user and starting the db2 server process before, IIIRC.

        Everything related to the db2 setup and config procss appears to be extremely convoluted and it seems even IBM engineers can't write a proper installer for it.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    On The Second Installer Run

    It first complains that it cannot create a db2 user on Windows,can't start some process and then it breaks down. Time to call the IBM technician, I guess.

  6. Christian Berger

    So..........

    They re-invented Prolog?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolog

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