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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Posted by Leon Katsnelson | 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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Posted by Antonio Cangiano | 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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Posted by Alex Pitigoi | May 16 2007 | Announcements | Comments Off

IBM_DB2 or IBM_DB?

If you haven’t followed the IBM releases of DB2 on Rails very closely, you may be puzzled to find a Rubyforge project alongside the Alphaworks project. I’d like to shortly clarify what’s going on. The Stater Toolkit for DB2 on Rails is an easy, batteries included, one-click installer for Microsoft Windows and was last updated quite some time ago, when our driver and adapter were called IBM_DB2.

IBM’s vision of extending the driver and adapter not only to DB2 for LUW (Linux/Unix/Windows), but also for the other IBM databases, was clearly highlighted by the renaming of the DB2 enablement from IBM_DB2 to IBM_DB.

The new driver and adapter have been released in the Open Source on Rubyforge and they will be continuously improved and supported by IBM. Bugs, suggestions and questions should be posted directly on the homepage of the project at Rubyforge. This release allows users to install a gem or, if they prefer, to get a plugin on an individual project basis. So what will happen to the Alphaworks project?

An updated toolkit will be published very soon, and as you may expect it will automatically install the ibm_db gem along with Ruby, Rails, DB2 9 Fix Pack 2 and more. Windows users who already have several components installed, and users of other operating systems, can directly setup a DB2 development environment through the gem or the plugin, without requiring the toolkit. Others who prefer the comfort of a one click installer, will still find the starter toolkit to be an excellent solution to get everything setup including DB2 itself. If you are still uncertain about something, please feel free to use the comments to ask further questions.

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Posted by Antonio Cangiano | May 10 2007 | Tips&Tricks | 4 Comments »

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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Posted by Leon Katsnelson | 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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Posted by Leon Katsnelson | 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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Posted by Leon Katsnelson | February 25 2007 | Announcements | 3 Comments »

DB2 named 2007 SIIA CODiE Award Finalist

DB2 was recently declared a finalist in the 2007 SIIA CODiE awards. CODiE awards are not decided in a popularity contest or by getting general public to vote. The Codie Awards are judged in two rounds by a panel of judges. Finalists are determined during the first round of judging. First round Codie Awards Judges are representatives from the software and information industry trade press, technology writers, analysts, consultants and other experts. As a result of the first round DB2 9 was declared a finalist in the “Best Database Management Solution” category along with 4 other submissions. The second round of will begin on February 12 and will complete on March 14 and the winners will be announced on April 17.

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Posted by Leon Katsnelson | February 06 2007 | Announcements | Comments Off

Scaffolding XML columns as text area boxes

The Rails adapter and the Ruby driver for IBM DB2 enable you to take full advantage of the exclusive pureXML capabilities. XML fields are properly handled and also recognized when using migrations. We do not bind the content of XML columns to a specific XML Ruby representation (e.g. REXML) but rather let the user decide what they’d prefer to use, in light also of the fact that mapping to a simple string is often all that is required given the fast XQuery/XPath querying features provided out of the box by DB2.

The scaffolding generator ignores XML fields though. This is due to the fact that the bult-in scaffolding generates form elements for only a few datatypes. For example :time and :binary are excluded, and foreign keys are not handled as well. Users will typically want to handle XML fields in a customized way, for instance, showing only certain elements of the XML document in their forms. However if you wish to enable by default the automatic generation of text area boxes when using scaffolding, you can edit C:\ruby\lib\ruby\gems\1.8\gems\actionpack-1.12.5\lib\action_view\helpers\active _record_helper.rb (or the equivalent on your system) by replacing the to_tag method with the following:

def to_tag(options = {})
  case column_type
    when :string
       field_type = @method_name.include?(”password”) ? “password” : “text”
       to_input_field_tag(field_type, options)
    when :text, :xml
       to_text_area_tag(options)
    when :integer, :float
       to_input_field_tag(”text”, options)
    when :date
       to_date_select_tag(options)
    when :datetime, :timestamp
       to_datetime_select_tag(options)
    when :boolean
       to_boolean_select_tag(options)
   end
end

As you can see, all we are doing here is adding the XML datatype to the list of cases which require the rendering of a text area box.

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Posted by Antonio Cangiano | January 06 2007 | How-to and Tips&Tricks | 1 Comment »

Agile Web Development with Rails Second Edition is now available

This is a second edition of an excellent book that is a must have for anyone interested in Ruby on Rails. Agile Web Development with Rails Second Edition can be downloaded as PDF in its final form and, according to Pragmatic Programmer email will be available in printed form on December 15.
The best part is that it does talk about Starter Toolkit for DB2 on Rails as a way to get set up with DB2 and Ruby on Rails very quickly. It does not talk enough about it but I am a bit biased in this area.

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Posted by Leon Katsnelson | December 08 2006 | Announcements | Comments Off

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