Monday, January 30, 2006

DB2 Express-C (Free DB2)

IBM sets DB2 database free | Tech News on ZDNet.

"DB2 Express-C is the same database as IBM's commercial offerings but the company places limits on what kind of hardware it can run on.

It can be deployed on systems with two processor cores or up to two dual-core chips on Advanced Micro Devices- or Intel-based servers. The memory limit is 4GB but there are no limits on the size of database or number of users.


IBM's decision to add a free database to its lineup follows moves by its largest rivals in the database business, Oracle and Microsoft.

…"

Nice. I’ve always been interested in DB2…

You can download the Windows x86 32 bit version here (Registration required to download it).

(via SlashdotIBM Sets DB2 Database Free (Beer))

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This would be better news if DB2 weren't so awful to develop on.

DB2 has to be the worst database I've worked with from a development perspective. The tools are awful, although you can buy other development environments products that are a bit better (AquaFold, for one). The stored procedures are compiled, there's no support for some common SQL keywords (see http://www.craigsmullins.com/dbu_0502.htm for the crazy workarounds for the lack of a TOP keyword, for instance), it takes very skilled DBA's to support, our upgrades between versions went poorly, and when it crashed it sometimes took days to recover.

But, like Oracle, you can tweak the hell out of it, and supposedly well tweaked DB2 installations can run pretty fast.

Anonymous said...

Oh, and another thing... the documentation is written by and for guys with labcoats. Check out the documentation on a SELECT statement, for instance:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/db2luw/v8//topic/com.ibm.db2.udb.doc/admin/r0000879.htm

I'll stop there, but not for lack of material. ;-)

Greg said...

LMAO... Wow, those are some Doc's!

Okay, I see your point.

I don't have time to build my rocket, I just want to fly the damn thing.

;)

Anonymous said...

Nice information
Regards,
Jack
http://db2examples.googlepages.com/