Organic Food and pureXML (now included in core DB2 license)

When I go shopping for groceries I have many choices. More and more often I choose organic products because of their better ingredients and their quality. It's not always an easy decision because organic food usually costs (significantly) more than regular food. But later, at the table, I am rewarded and it was worth the additional cost. What would I pick if the product with the better quality and better ingredients is offered at the same price? Easy answer.

That's my food talk today, now to something entirely different (really?). I am happy to tell you that the so far separately priced pureXML feature will now be included in the core DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows. I would guess that for some companies it was hard to decide between an "all-included pricing" from another database vendor and DB2 which offered some premium technology as "additional cost features" (even though DB2 is priced differently) or to make the step from all relational to adding XML columns (and thereby requiring an additional license). The announcement is great news for customers, business partners, and IBMers alike as it becomes simpler to implement XML-based solutions. The announcement itself has the rationale behind this move:

[...] The packaging for DB2 V9.5 for Linux®, UNIX®, and Windows® is being updated to offer greater value to our users and customers. With the expanded usage of Web 2.0, service oriented architecture and the increasingly ubiquitous usage of XML throughout software tools and applications customers are finding XML being used in all parts of their IT infrastructure. To meet the needs of our customers' evolving needs the pureXML feature will now be included in all editions of DB2 for Linux, UNIX and Windows. Customers will now be able to leverage the new pureXML features in DB2 V9.5 such as; parameter passing from SQL to XQuery, trigger support on XML columns, schema evolution, and sub-document update shorten development timelines, helping faster delivery of business applications. [...]

My colleague Conor adds the following to it:

[...] Strong levels of XML adoption combined with strong levels of pureXML adoption are the driving force behind this development. Essentially, pureXML has emerged to become a core data type in much the same way as the traditional relational data types.

This reflects the large amount of information in XML format in organizations around the world. XML has emerged to become the ubiquitous data format for many applications and environments, driven by the adoption of industry formats like HL7 in the healthcare industry, ACORD in the insurance industry, FIXML and FpML in the financial services industries, SEPA in European Banking, NIEM in Government, XBRL for financial reporting, and so on. [...]

For those that haven't tried pureXML yet, now is the time - no more excuses. pureXML is now included in the core DB2 product for all editions. Download the (entirely) free DB2 Express-C and start exploring the pureXML functionality.