In Version 6, numerous enhancements are introduced that impact various aspects of DB2 Connect, such as:
Some of these topics are covered in other sections of this book, but the following sections highlight the key enhancements for Version 6.
Establishing a connection from the DB2 Connect server to the host (referred to as outbound connection) is much more expensive than establishing a connection from a client to the DB2 Connect server (referred to as inbound connection).
In an environment where thousands of clients frequently connect to and disconnect from the host through the DB2 Connect server, a substantial portion of the processing time is spent in establishing outbound connections. Consequently, outbound connection pooling translates into a significant performance improvement for DB2 Connect.
When a client disconnects from the host, the DB2 Connect server drops the inbound connection with the client, but keeps the outbound connection to the host in a pool. When a new client establishes a connection to a host server, the DB2 Connect server reuses an existing outbound connection from the pool. Outbound connection pooling reduces the overall connection time and saves the high CPU connect cost on the host.
Connection pooling is transparent to clients that access the host database server through the DB2 Connect server.
Numerous enhancements are introduced in Version 6 to improve usability.
With its smaller disk and memory footprint and file server install, with no code on the client workstation, it is easy to deploy and maintain DB2 Connect Personal Edition and DB2 Client products on hundreds and even thousands of Windows workstations. If you install DB2 Connect Personal Edition or the DB2 Client component of DB2 Connect Enterprise Edition on a code server, you can easily update the code server and its associated clients. Once you apply a FixPak to the code server, every Windows workstation running from that code server automatically uses the updated version of the DB2 Connect Personal Edition or DB2 Client.
The DB2 Connect Version 6 support for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) allows an administrator to store host and AS/400 connection information in an global directory and to make that information available to all users. The information stored in an LDAP directory frees DB2 Connect users from having to catalog information for accessing host and AS/400 database servers.
For Version 6, the configuration of connections to host systems is simplified in environments where there is at least one DB2 Connect Enterprise Edition server; that is, in the following environments:
The Control Center is expanded to help system administrators discover and catalog host and AS/400 database servers.
In addition the Client Configuration Assistant and its Add Database SmartGuide are also expanded to make it easier to manage all aspects of host connection configuration. The expanded Export/Import capabilities make it easier than ever before to configure host and AS/400 database server access from multiple DB2 Connect clients.
A new SmartGuide makes it easier to enable multisite update (two-phase commit) by:
The DB2 Universal Database Version 6 Control Center enables you to easily perform administration tasks through a graphical user interface on database objects for both DB2 Universal Database for OS/390 Versions 5 and 6, and DB2 Universal Database for the OS/2, UNIX, and Windows 32-bit operating systems. To use the Control Center with DB2 Universal Database for OS/390 database objects, you must install either DB2 Connect Personal Edition or DB2 Connect Enterprise Edition. The Control Center provides complete support for DB2 Universal Database for OS/390's existing database commands, including CREATE, ALTER, and DROP, and utilities such as REORG and LOAD.
The fully integrated Control Center allows the user to manage DB2 regardless of the platform on which the DB2 server runs. DB2 Universal Database for OS/390 objects are displayed on the Control Center main window along with DB2 Universal Database objects. The corresponding actions and utilities to manage these objects are invoked by selecting the object. For example, a user can list the table spaces of a particular database, select one of the table spaces, and perform actions including: alter, drop, copy, run statistics, check data, get a report on a table space, modify table spaces, load data, reorganize, recover, or display the database.
For information on configuring the Control Center to perform administration tasks on DB2 Universal Database for OS/390 objects, refer to the DB2 Connect User's Guide and the Installation and Configuration Supplement .
DB2 Connect Enterprise Edition Version 6 servers can now be managed and monitored using DB2 Control Center. DB2 Connect administrators can use graphical tools provided by the Control Center to list users and applications that are currently using DB2 Connect Enterprise Edition Server, monitor their performance and obtain statistics on the server usage and performance.
DB2 Connect Enterprise Edition Version 6 fully integrates performance information with the Windows NT Performance Monitor. This allows DB2 Connect Enterprise Edition server administrators to use native Windows NT performance monitoring tools and to correlate DB2 Connect server performance information with other system performance data to better understand the cause of potential performance problems.
For example, a DB2 Connect administrator can chart the transaction time of a DB2 Connect server together with network performance and system memory parameters to analyze the impact of memory utilization and network on database transaction times.
In Version 2, DB2 System Monitor counters were added to the NT Performance Monitor for 3 objects: Database Manager, Database and Application. With the addition of these new counters, 2 new objects have been added to the NT Performance Monitor: Host or AS/400 database servers; and Applications which access host or AS/400 servers.
You can select these objects only if there is an active application accessing host or AS/400 database servers through the DB2 Connect server.
Password encryption is supported between clients and a DB2 Connect Enterprise Edition server, and between clients and a DB2 Universal Database for OS/390 host.
For more information on DB2 Connect security, refer to the DB2 Connect User's Guide .
Developing stored procedures can be challenging in an environment where DB2 Universal Database for OS/390 is the database server and the application is deployed on the web or Windows 32-bit, UNIX, or OS/2 workstations. The traditional model for developing stored procedures for DB2 Universal Database for OS/390 requires you to use host development tools and to have experience with application development on the S/390.
To help you use familiar tools and environments to develop DB2 Universal Database for OS/390 stored procedures, DB2 Connect Version 6 provides the Stored Procedure Builder. You can integrate the Stored Procedure Builder with Microsoft Visual Studio products, including Microsoft Visual Basic and Microsoft Visual C++, or IBM VisualAge for Java to form a seamless, consistent process for stored procedure development.
The Stored Procedure Builder helps you to build both the client application and the stored procedure whether the database server is DB2 Universal Database for OS/390 or DB2 Universal Database for the OS/2, UNIX, or Windows 32-bit operating systems.
DB2 Connect Version 6 provides performance improvements over previous versions. These performance improvements are most significant for applications that use ODBC, DB2 CLI, JDBC and SQLJ APIs. These improvements are achieved through a combination of improved drivers, optimized code, reduced network flows, and the addition of new APIs. Specifically contributing to improved performance is the full support for the Microsoft ADO 2.0 specification, implementation of the SQLDescribeParam ODBC and DB2 CLI API, and improved handling of OPTIMIZE FOR n ROWS with stored procedures.
DB2 Universal Database for OS/390 Version 6 delivers numerous improvements that make it a truly "Universal Database". DB2 Connect Version 6 provides enhancements that allow web, OS/2, UNIX, and Windows 32-bit applications to fully exploit the new object-relational functions of DB2 Universal Database for OS/390 Version 6. Specifically, DB2 Connect Version 6 provides support for:
In addition to object-relational functions, DB2 Connect Version 6 also supports DESCRIBE INPUT, Predictive Governor, and DDF Connection Pooling.