IBM next month will release the next version of its DB2 Universal Database,
a software server loaded with the ability to process XML
data.
IBM and Oracle have been leapfrogging each other with new
technological capabilities every two years or so in the multi-billion-dollar
market for managing data. But IBM believes the DB2 9 will stay ahead of Oracle
Database 10g, the last offering from the top database maker.
Now all Big Blue needs is for customers to prove the product’s worth by
buying it when it hits the market.
Code-named Viper, DB2 9 is tuned for a service-oriented architecture (SOA)
rows and columns of data process Web pages, documents, pictures and audio
and video files.
The software includes pureXML technology, which allows clients to manage
traditional relational data and XML data without requiring the XML data to
be reformatted, said Bob Picciano, vice president of data servers at IBM.
Instead of storing XML as a file or a blob in a cell in a database, admins
can store and navigate among XML in its structure, allowing them to run
analyses against the XML data similar to the way they could analyze columns
and rows of relational data.
This technology includes support for XQuery,
language that is designed for processing XML data. Application developers
can use one or all of XQuery, XPath and standard SQL to retrieve data from
XML and relational storage formats.
IBM expects adding the ability to process relational and XML data will help
customers improve the speed at which they pull information from the server.
“There are some estimates that say 40 percent of the world’s information
already exists, either in an interchange format or a persistent format, in
XML today,” Picciano said.
“Because there is such a large demand out there, we think we’re at the cusp
of something that is really tremendous in terms of opportunity.”
DB2 9 has the potential to do well in the next couple years. Thanks to
compliance regulations, the market is hungry for new data management
technologies and is clearly growing.
Gartner said
database software revenue totaled $13.8 billion in 2005, an 8.3 percent
spike from 2004 revenue.
The research firm said Oracle’s database share grew 7.8 percent to 48.6
percent from 2004 to 2005, with IBM coming in at a distant second at 22
percent on 6.3 percent year-over-year growth.
Microsoft tallied 15 percent of the market in 2005, but boasted a 16.6
growth rate, thanks to pent-up demand for SQL Server 2005.
IBM is banking on the new features to help it gain market share versus
Oracle.
DB2 9 will also feature Venom, a storage compression utility
that allows database administrators to use row compression to compress data.
Picciano said this approach, which IBM adapted from its mainframe machines,
will result in disk, I/O and memory savings for large tables with repetitive
data patterns.
DB2 9 will also boast security enhancements, including Label Based Access
Control (LBAC). LBAC allows
users to set up policies for controlling access to sensitive data stored on
rows and columns in the server.
Also, security administrator authority level (SECADM) collects security
privileges under one user, providing more control over who can access
certain information.
Disaster recovery features in the server include the ability to restart
interrupted recovery operations; better support for performing redirected
restore operations with scripts that are automatically generated from
existing backup images; and the ability to rebuild databases from table
space backup images.
The software will also pull data from Oracle and MySQL databases and
support Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2005.
DB2 9 will begin shipping July 28 in three different packages, each with a
year of maintenance support from IBM.
DB2 Enterprise Edition will be $938 per user (minimum 25 users) or $36,400
per processor; DB2 WorkGroup Edition will be $350 per user (minimum 25
users) or $10,000 per processor; and DB2 Express Edition will cost $165 per
user (minimum 25 users) or $4,874 per processor.
IBM Database Adds a New Coil in The Market
