When you are defining replication sources for non-IBM database tables, data typing often requires extra steps. When the source table is a DataJoiner nickname, DataJoiner handles any data-typing transformations when the nickname of the source table is created outside of DJRA. For more information, see the IBM DB2 DataJoiner Application Programming and SQL Reference Supplement.
During the subscription process, the final data mappings occur. When the target is a table that is accessed through a DataJoiner nickname, the DataJoiner nickname process does not always create the correct type, because:
For example, when you replicate from DB2 to Microsoft SQL Server, and one of the DB2 columns has a type Date, the target SQL Server table has a type DateTime. When you create a nickname in DataJoiner for the SQL Server table, DataJoiner maps that column to Timestamp. DJRA, because it understands the data type of the source tables and the target tables, alters the nickname to use a type Date.
In general, you should let DJRA create the target table and ALTER NICKNAME statements. Otherwise, you must take care to choose the same data-type mappings that DataJoiner would generate if you want to create your own target tables on non-IBM databases, and you must ensure that these types are compatible with the source tables.
This section discusses how DJRA with DataJoiner handles data typing in six specific scenarios.