Archive for the 'Announcements' Category

The status of DB2 and Rails 2.x

I’d like to take a moment to provide a small status update on what’s been going on in the DB2 on Rails world. The Alphaworks starter toolkit hasn’t been update for a long time, so someone may wrongly assume that the project is not maintained, but nothing could be further from the truth. The toolkit will be updated in order to provide a Windows one click install alternative sometime in the near future, but the real action these days has moved to Rubyforge.

The development and improvement of the IBM_DB Ruby driver and ActiveRecord adapter is considered a priority and there is continuos work carried out by the API development team. In fact, another important update for the ibm_db gem was released just yesterday. The gem makes the installation and upgrade process very straightforward on both Windows and Linux. If you’ve already installed a previous version through RubyGems, all you have to do in order to upgrade to the current 0.9.4 version, is run: gem update (with sudo if on Linux/Unix).

The new gem fixes a few bugs and, more interestingly, adds support for XML columns in Rails 2 style migrations. This means that you can define tables that take advantage of pureXML, with the new “sexy migration” syntax. Here is an example:

class CreateCustomers < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    create_table :customers do |t|
      t.string :name
      t.xml :info

      t.timestamps
    end
  end

  def self.down
    drop_table :customers
  end
end

Concisely, the main message is: DB2 works with Rails 2, it’s supported by IBM and there are many customers who are successfully using it for their projects.

You may not be able to use minor conveniences (like rake db:create), given that these aren’t implemented for DB2 by the Rails team, but that won’t affect your ability to use DB2 on Rails. That said, on a side note, I started working on a Rails plugin called DB2 Extended in order to simplify the development process for you, and add DB2 specific functionalities to the framework. It’s a personal project, not an IBM one, and it’s still in its infancy, but feel free to take advantage of it and contribute with your own patches.

It’s all about you

The API team efforts would be wasted if they weren’t focused on what really interests you. It is therefore important that you let us know about your experiences with the DB2 on Rails stack, send us your feedback, be it encouragingly kind words or frustrated ones.

If you discover a bug, it’s crucial that you log a ticket on Rubyforge. And if you are unsure about it being an actual bug please don’t be shy, and feel free to start a discussion thread on the fora. We thank you in advance for your partecipation.

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May 02 2008 | Announcements | No Comments »

New version of DB2 Express-C is out

Just in time for halloween, we released a new version of DB2. If you are in to instant gratification, you can get DB2 Express-C v9.5 immediately from http://www.ibm.com/db2/express . I am not going to provide a detailed description of what is new in this version but I will say that if you were impressed with DB2 pureXML before you will be absolutely amazed what you can do with XML in DB2 v9.5 and DB2 Express-C includes pureXML at no charge, naturally. Oh, and it is all available to a Ruby on Rails programmer.

If you like running your database servers on Linux then you will really like DB2 Express-C v9.5. DB2  engine on Linux now uses threaded (as opposed to process) model of execution. This means that your database server will now use a lot less memory and you will be doing a lot less figuring out how to set it up for optimum memory utilization. In v9.5 you can replace a dozen or so memory tuning parameters with a single one. While threaded engine is new to Linux, DB2 for Windows has always been threaded. Less time to tune database server means more time to spend writing really cool Ruby on Rails applications with DB2. Oh, and I almost forgot … you no longer have to be root to install DB2 on Linux.

If you like counting money (and who doesn’t), there is a new datatype which is really good. It is called DECFLOAT and it allows you to do money arithmetic without loosing any of it in rounding. The really cool thing is that if you run DB2 Express-C on Linux on POWER 6servers (System p or System i) you have hardware assist right in silicone that makes these operations blazingly fast. We will have to wait for Intel and AMD to put decimal arithmetic in to their silicone. Intel, AMD, are you listening?

If you are building applications that deal with credit card data (here we go with the money again), or need to comply with privacy legislation or need to do anything to identify the actual originator of a transaction and record all actions performed in an audit log then you are also in luck with DB2 v9.5. Let’s say you are building a online store application and will want to accept credit cards. You may not know it yet, but your application will have to comply with something called PCI DSS. An whether you know it or not, if you can’t prove that you comply, your merchant account will be revoked so unless you figured out a way of how to take cash on the web, you will be out of business. I am not going to describe the exact details of how DB2 helps you comply with PCI but I say that being able to identify the end user completing a transaction rather then some proxy id you are using to connect from your code in to the database is the key component of it. Another important aspect is beign able to record everything that is going on in an audit log that can be reviewed and shown to the auditor when asked. Oh, and DB2 can encrypt data both in database and on the wire but believe it or not, the first two features I talked about are actually more important for achieving compliance and staying in business. And these features apply to more then just PCI DSS. The same requirements exist for complying with privacy and corporate governance legislation.

There are also a lot of new functions that make DB2 run faster and make it more scalable like optimistic locking. Then there is a raft of functions that make it easier to manage, back up and recover if need be. There is also a brand new and, you guessed it, free IBM Data Studio for building database objects, working with XML and creating web services (both SOAP and RESTfull) but I will save these topics for another post.

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November 01 2007 | Announcements and Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

DB2onRails.com update

As you may notice from the new look, we decided to switch blogging platforms in order to take advantage of all the powerful features available in Wordpress. As a form of spam prevention, comments are now held for moderation before being published. RSS/Atom feeds should be automatically redirected to Feedburner now, but we strongly recommend that you update your subscription with the new feed and if you wish, you can now receive each post by email. We sincerely hope that you enjoy the new site, which should also be much more reliable.

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October 17 2007 | Announcements | No Comments »

An update to ibm_db Rails adapter is available on RubyForge.com

If you are getting your DB2 (and IDS) Ruby driver and Rails adapter as a gem from RubyForge, then you would be happy to know that a new update is available. This updates brings ibm_db Rails adapter to version 0.7.0. There are no updates to the Ruby driver—only the adapter is updated.
Alex Pitigoi posted a short description of the fixes that went in to this version of the adapter. Based on our experience in Project Aurora, I recommend that anyone working with XML upgrade to this level right away.

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June 05 2007 | Announcements | Comments Off

A couple of webcasts on DB2 Express-C

One of the key components of the Starter Toolkit for DB2 on Rails is the free DB2 Express-C data server. Recently we announced that not only do we offer a free DB2 Express-C but that you now also have an option of purchasing support subscription if you need one. With this support subscription you also get data replication and high availability clustering and remote site disaster recovery. Pretty decent set of features for $2995 for a server for one year.
On June 7 we will talk about this product in a couple of free (naturally) webcasts. One of the webcasts called Premiering DB2 Express-C: The truly free database is designed to introduce developers to DB2 Express-C. The other webcast Drive revenue with DB2 Express-C is more suited for ISVs and business partners. If you don’t catch either one of the webcasts on June 7, don’t worry, they will be available for a replay. To register for these webcast or for a later replay click on the links above.

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May 30 2007 | Announcements and How-to | Comments Off

DB2 and Ruby on Rails, Part 1

Developerworks has published the first part of a long and detailed article about DB2 on Rails programming. In this article the basics of how to get started, migrations and an introduction to working with XML are covered. In the follow up article, XML will be covered in detail with informative step-by-step instructions on how to use DB2 pureXML™ in Rails. I’m sure you will find them to be extemely useful and informative.

Please visit and rate the first part of the article here.

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May 28 2007 | Announcements and How-to | Comments Off

IBM_DB-0.6.5 update available

I know it’s no longer news for many, but for some it might still be: IBM_DB 0.6.5 gem refresh is available at rubyibm on RubyForge (prepackaged for win32/*nixes, and source code under MIT). This is the first refresh since the production/stable release 0.6.0, and contains a few important fixes for db:schema:dump/load for boolean, XML data type default option, and a reconnect regression. To refresh your environment is as simple as with any other Ruby gem: “gem install ibm_db”, and choose the appropriate platform of your choice (i.e. ‘mswin32’ for Windows, or ‘ruby’ for any *nix flavour). The online documentation also serves a few simple install verification examples, too.

And yes, this is the same IBM_DB2 adapter and driver you first encountered while installing Starter Toolkit. It evolved a bit though, it became more mature, fit to support all DB2 platforms (Linux, Unix, Windows, zOS and i5 systems), and ready to expand its support to other IBM data servers. In fact, the gem install now available makes it so easy, that you may want to give it a try whenever you have a couple of minutes.

Here’s another hint, if you already have access to a DB2 server, you might even be interested to try a “thin” DB2 client environment: IBM DB2 Driver for ODBC and CLI, and the Rails enablement IBM_DB 0.6.5 gem. And that makes you ready to test your Rails application prototypes on existing DB2 8 or 9 data servers. No, I really mean it, just go download latest FP2 for IBM DB2 Driver for ODBC and CLI, unzip and place its bin in the path, then install IBM_DB gem and kick-start your db:migrate for a test.

And if you need help or you find something unexpected, make sure IBM_DB developers hear from you through rubyibm Forum or Tracker.

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May 16 2007 | Announcements | Comments Off

IBM announces new DB2 Express-C subscription option

The quickest way to get started with Ruby on Rails and DB2 is to get Starter Toolkit for DB2 on Rails. One of the key components of the Starter Toolkit is DB2 Express-C. DB2 Express-C is a full function database server that is free. It is free to use for development. It is also free for use in production once your application is ready and, it can even be redistributed with your application absolutely free.

Today, IBM is announcing availability of optional subscription and support for the DB2 Express-C product. This announcement is a response to the customers’ and business partners need for technical support and product updates. A few important points about this new offering. Customers world wide now have an ability to purchase DB2 Express-C 12-month License and Subscription and will recieve:

  • 24*7 support, regular updates and upgrade protection
  • ability to replicate data between DB2 servers, and
  • high availability clustering and disaster recovery feature called HADR

The cost of this subscription is US$2995 per server per year. Introduction of this subscription does not change the fact that DB2 Express-C is optimized for systems with a maximum of 2 processors and 4GB of memory.

Does it mean that DB2 Express-C will no longer be available for free? Not at all. DB2 Express-C continues to be available free of charge just as it has been since January of 2006. The new 12-month subscription is optional and is designed for customers that need the piece of mind provided by the IBM support, need to replicate data between multiple servers or want to ensure continuous availability of data to their applications. At US$ 2995 per server per year this represents excellent value for customers.IBM also offers flexible OEM options that allow business partners to incorporate DB2 Express-C in to their solutions at significant discounts.
To learn about DB2 Express-C and the new optional subscription visit DB2 Express-C home on the web at http://ibm.com/db2/Express.

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April 30 2007 | Announcements | Comments Off

DB2 wins the CODiE award

Some time in February I blogged about DB2 being declared a finalist for the SIIA CODiE awards. At that time I did say that the final round of judging will be completed in mid-April. Last week the award winners were announced and, in the Best Database Management Solution category, the winner is … IBM DB2 for Linux, Unix and Windows.

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April 25 2007 | Announcements | Comments Off

Starter Toolkit for DB2 on Rails on Windows Vista

Windows Vista has been out in retail since the start of the month. I am not going to debate the ultimate success that Vista will or will not achieve in the market … there are far too many keystrokes wasted on this debate already. If you want to run Vista on your PC or your Apple Mac (either in Parallels Desktop for Mac or in the VMWare Virtualization for Mac) and you want to build Ruby on Rails applications using DB2, you need to read on.

Starter Toolkit for DB2 on Rails v2.1 (current version) includes DB2 Express – C v9.1 at no charge (you did know that we give you DB2 absolutely free, right?). This version of DB2 Express – C will not run on Vista. We do have a special version of DB2 Express – C (still absolutely free) that does run on Vista. You can get it from the official DB2 Express – C website.

There is no doubt that downloading and installing yet another copy of DB2 Express – C is a pain. Rest assured we do understand that and we will be uploading a brand new version of the Starter Toolkit for DB2 on Rails shortly. Besides including a newer version of DB2 Express – C that works with Vista, the new Starter Toolkit for DB2 on Rails will contain numerous performance and functional enhancements including better support for the recently released Rails 1.2.1. Stay tuned and watch this space.

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February 25 2007 | Announcements | 3 Comments »

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