IBM Db2 Database Reviews

Db2 is our primary database for applications in our two data centers. We have a large number of financial transactions that happen every day, and Db2 handles our transaction management.

The asset properties are solid.

The replication is being done well. We have two data centers and the replication that they provide has almost no lag. The maximum lag that we have seen in the past two or three years is one second.

When something goes down, the recovery process is very good.

We are dealing with millions of transactions a month and the performance is very good.

The management is very simple.

We need to have a cloud-based version of this database.

It would be helpful to have a hybrid data storage facility that includes NoSQL technologies.

I have been using DB2 for the past ten years.

We have observed some glitches with the database when the amount of data is growing quickly. This is why we are moving toward a microservices architecture, where each service has its own database.

At this time, because our data is growing, the glitches are frequent.

We have about 4,000,000 requests daily.

We have had contact with IBM for technical support and they are good. Most of our products are from IBM.

I also have experience with Oracle.

The initial setup is complex and not easy to do. It was handled by the database administrators so I do not remember exactly how long the deployment took.

We have an internal database team who took care of the deployment.

We are currently in the process of migrating some of our models to the cloud, and we are looking for a cloud-based relational database.

The suitability of Db2 depends on your environment and needs. If you want to implement an on-premises monolithic application that can handle all of your transaction management then Db2 is a good choice. 

The technical support is very good, and if you have multiple data centers, the applications are also good.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

• PureScale
• Blu acceleration
• XML and JSON datatypes
• Autonomous computing (storage, memory, and maintenance)
• HADR
• NoSQL (RDF and MongoDB).

Due to the stability, the applications can have a very long uptime, even with modifications in the application.

I have never needed to install a fix pack because there is a problem on the engine where new functions are used. Users forget to know that a DB2 is supporting the data.

Monitoring. There are very few applications that really monitor DB2.
Marketing. IBMers from other IBM brands, do not rely on DB2.

12 years.

It is easier to administer and to use than other RDBMS; however, developers like complex things and they get into trouble when using DB2 for the first time.

Not at all.

A lot of scalability can be done in DB2, it only depends on the money you want to invest in it and on the functions that you really need. It can go from a free database to a very big infrastructure.

In other countries, different to US or Canada, the support is not straightforward. This product has a small market share outside North America, and for this reason, experts outside that part of the world are very few, even inside IBM. Thus, the customer support is very basic, and any medium problem needs to go to Canada.

A six out of 10.

I have used a little bit of Oracle, SQL Server, PostgresSQL, and MySQL. They are good platforms, but they are not as easy to work with as DB2 is.

DB2 is easy to install. You just need to run the installer, and that is all. In AIX, it runs smoothly.

In Linux, it requires some libraries. Sometimes in 32 bits they are not easy to get, but once you got them, the installation is normal.

In Windows, it is just next, next. Once the binaries are installed, the instance is created in less than a minute, and it is only necessary to know what an instance means in DB2.

Finally, the database is just a command, that in some very specific cases it need extra parameters. If not, it creates a database in two minutes, and then, you have a powerful database ready to receive your data.

If you are creating a small budget project, DB2 could be your first option. You have almost no limits with the Community-C edition (the free one), and then you can scale up to a supported version. Instead, when you have a very big infrastructure, I recommend you to check what you need, then DB2 could be a very good option.

We use IBM Db2 Database to monitor the deadlock's thread pool status of a particular DB or the particular process or whatever the corresponding DB instance is. We do this for the customer's requirement.

The most valuable feature of the IBM Db2 Database is security.

 I have been using IBM Db2 Database for two years.

IBM Db2 Database is stable.

I have found IBM Db2 Database scalable.

The technical support can be faster.

I have not used other solutions in this category other than IBM Db2 Database.

The initial setup of the IBM Db2 Database is straightforward. The full implementation took approximately one month.

We did the implementation of the IBM Db2 Database in-house.

I would recommend this solution to others. If some planning is done and things are in place then the solution will work as expected.

I rate IBM Db2 Database an eight out of ten.

The solution is a major central relational database management system that maintains all of the data for our bank's core business.

The availability, reliability, consistency, security, performance, and methodology of the solution are all excellent. It's a proven product for many, many businesses in many, many different areas. It's probably one of the best products on the market.

The self-management and optimization features are probably the best on the market.

The ease of use, or ease of management, could be improved.

There are many improvements all the time on the solution. There is no one thing that I would mention. IBM invests a lot of money to improve the tool and maintain it. There are improvements all the time happening in different areas. 

I've worked with IBM products since 1989.

The solution is stable. No technical issues have ever occured.

Technical support is good.

The initial setup is quite complex. Nothing is simple on the platform. Deployment times depend on the extent of the organization. Different tests need to be done: unique tests, integration tests, user acceptance, performance, etc.

There are specialists on-premises that work for the bank and they handle everything themselves.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

The solution is suitable for big organizations, big financial institutions, government, ministries, the army, insurance companies, etc. It's not for small end-users.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

The learning curve for the Db2 specialist is high. To become a specialist, under production level, takes two years. It's a complex product.

The simplicity of installation/setup and the ability to run without requiring constant maintenance.

For applications, we have Oracle and Microsoft SQL deployed for application systems, but I prefer DB2 for my “systems” usage primarily due to its limited requirement for administration.

Not one that is relevant, it is used purely in a “systems infrastructure” setting rather than as a “business application system”.

In my limited use case, the only major thing would be improved reporting capability.

The first time was in 1989/1990.

Recently, from 2007 to the present day.

No, I had a DB2 instance running on an old IBM x3650 with Windows 2003, which ran continuously for eight years.

It was a performance data repository for our storage and fabric switches, with an average insert activity of several 1,000 per minute (had automatic record pruning setup).

No, but we never had it greater than 100TiB.

Can’t rate it as we never had to use it.

No, I selected DB2 based on previous experience with Oracle and after a brief look at MS SQL.

It was very simple to get up and running. The documentation is very good and the user forums, including IBM wikis, make it very easy to find out most things we did to it as far as setup/tuning are concerned.

As we already use Oracle and MS SQL for applications, I looked at the latest version of Oracle (at the time v9) to examine any differences pertinent to the last time I had looked at it.

MS SQL: I only briefly looked at it. IMHO, it was no match for DB2 or Oracle, as far as what I consider “Enterprise Databases” to be.

Define their use cases as exactly as they can, then look at what DB fits them.
I have seen the app/database team deploy Oracle/MS-SQL when something really simple like MySQL would have been a better option.

Also, before installing DB2 make sure full planning is done regarding scalability and performance requirements.

Definitely, use the planning worksheets and search the DB2 wiki’s and user forums to ensure the setup is optimal from the start, especially as far as layout is concerned.

I have found in the x86 world that products seem to be installed with very little pre-installation planning. With my mainframe background, you don’t install anything until you have examined all available documentation, so you are aware of all the key decision points in the install/setup/layout.

We are a bank. The banking system uses IBM Db2 Database to save data in the database.

I have found the most valuable feature to be its availability. There is almost no downtime and the performance is very good.

I would like to see some artificial intelligence brought into the solution. Additionally, we need a way to gather some reporting information from the bank.

I have been working with IBM Db2 Database for a year now.

There are no real issues with the overall stability of IBM Db2 Database.

We do not have any problems with scalability. I would say give high marks for scalability.

Technical support is excellent. I would like to see better documentation. We have to speak to a support representative when we can not find the documentation on an issue we are facing.

From a performance perspective, I prefer SAP HANA for performance.

I would recommend IBM Db2 Database as a ten on a scale of one to ten. It is very powerful and responsive. 

We are not using this with other users, it is dedicated to our backup solution.

We only have one instance, one user, one service, and we don't have any other users or clients that we connect to.

A database system is a tool used for reporting and to monitor if it is running or if there are any issues. We can set alarms and warnings. It is a backup system that manages the backup.

The most valuable feature is that it is robust. We had a crash of the backup system and the IBM DB2 was always up and consistent. It's robust, and for us, it was always up and running.

The database is deployed using the command line, so we did not test any other tools, aside from DB2 using the command line interface.

Because this solution is a big data database only dedicated to the application server, it is very difficult for us to assess areas of improvement. We use the database, so we don't have any other requirements or need to use it in any other way.

The licensing fees can be reduced. While we don't see the breakdown, we know that IBM licenses for the backup system are very expensive.

I have been working with this solution for ten years.

This solution is stable.

We don't have experience with scalability because the server is also a dedicated server and the physical hardware has always been dedicated from the beginning. After five years, we made a technical upgrade and have been the same since.

My colleague has the primary responsibility for the backup system and he has had to open tickets on two occasions. Each time, they were okay and the issue was resolved. 

The initial setup is simple and straightforward. It's easy to install with no special configuration for a big data database. They make things simple.

It took less than an hour to deploy.

The cost is embedded in the price of the backup solution. We know that the backup solution is quite expensive and with each inside license, there is also a database license.

We don't see what the specific price of the DB2 license is because we pay for the backup license as a package.

This is a robust and stable product but it's expensive.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use the solution as a query tool for requesting and updating data.

The solution has the best querying features.

They should make the process of building up queries easier for the solution.

I have been using the solution for some years.

It is a stable solution. I rate its stability nine out of ten.

Presently, we have 200 solution users in our organization.

The solution's technical support team is good.

The solution's initial setup is straightforward. The deployment process involves requesting access to different test environments and productions. It takes a couple of hours to complete.

We implemented the solution in-house.

The solution is intuitive and easy to use once you know how to build up queries. I rate it a nine out of ten.