Monday, June 17, 2013

DB2 10.5 (Kepler) and Information Center available now

The latest release of DB2, version 10.5 which was code-named "Kepler", is available now. I recommend to visit the DB2 10.5 Information Center and then to read the "What's new" and "What's changed" sections. Significant changes are not only in terms of features and functionality, but also in the packaging.

The DB2 database product editions now include both "regular" and an advanced Enterprise Server and Workgroup Server editions (AESE, AWSE, ESE, WSE as acronyms to remember) plus the Express, Express-C, and Developer editions. As you can see from the features by DB2 edition overview, the database partitioning features ("shared nothing") is now included in both advanced editions. The Infosphere Warehouse edition is gone and it is named DB2 now - the name of its  foundation for all the past years.

Technical highlights of this new DB2 release include the BLU acceleration (column-organized tables) for building in-memory Data Marts, many features for DB2 pureScale (including rolling fixpack updates and online topology changes to the cluster).