IBM Extends Autonomic Chops with New DB2

Seeking to pry market share from rivals Microsoft and Oracle, IBM Thursday launched a new version of its
database software that bundles more of the autonomic
capabilities the Armonk, N.Y. firm has been touting as a differentiator
from the competition.

IBM has tied the DB2 v8.1 news to the mast of its on-demand
computing strategy. In this case, the goal is to help companies simplify
and automate many of the tasks associated with maintaining their database
systems.

DB2 version 8.1 database software features new self-managing and
self-tuning capabilities to help companies reduce the time and cost
associated with managing their database systems.

According to Paul Rivot, worldwide marketing manager for DB2, DB2 v8.1 is
fitted with more Web services capabilities to meet customer demand. Through
a single SQL query, DB2 can access and consolidate information from Web
Services providers, eliminating the need of parsing applications. This can
ultimately speed up integration projects for developers.

Rivot said a new Health Center feature automatically updates database
administrators (DBAs) on system performance, as well as offers advice on
problems within the database or corresponding applications and alerts them
that a fix that has been generated via e-mail, pager or PDA. This, Rivot
told internetnews.com, effectively quintuples the number of systems
that they could treat before.

V8.1 also comes strapped with new data federation capabilities to help companies integrate and manage different information sources residing in various computer systems and in different locations.

Rivot said the new Configuration Advisor feature’s “autonomic and smart”
approach allows DBAs to tune database software that would usually take as
long as two to three days in as a little as 15 to 20 minutes. DB2 v8.1 can
now set more than 100 parameters based on a few questions.

Why the intense focus on autonomic computing? Surely IT staffs feature
capable DBAs to handle such tasks. Not necessarily so, said Rivot.

Due to job cuts and a dearth of qualified professionals, Rivot claims these
features are necessary because there “are not enough skilled people out
there” to perform the demanding tasks companies need completed. The flipside, arguably, is that there is not enough money in contrained IT budgets to pay those who are qualified for adminstration tasks.

V8.1 also features Multidimensional Data Clustering, which improves the
performance of complex business intelligence queries by as much as 90
percent in some cases.

With this release, Big Blue is making overtures to small- and medium-sized businesses with its restructured pricing plan. IBM will offer the Workgroup Server Unlimited
Edition, starting at $7,500 per processor.

The DB2 Enterprise Server Edition, which includes data warehousing, advanced clustering capabilities and 64-bit support, is available starting at $25,000 per processor.

IBM’s news, interestingly, comes a day after Microsoft boasted about the 10-year anniversary of its competing SQL server as well as its current iterations, which have been released for beta testing.