Try the next version of DB2 in the Cloud

The DB2 Early Experience program lets you try the latest version of DB2 under development. Your feedback then helps build a better DB2.

By participating in the DB2 Early Experience program on the cloud, you can create your own DB2 server without having to obtain hardware, install and patch operating systems, or install the DB2 Early Experience code. Simply boot your database server when you want to use it and shut it down when you’re finished.

• Request participation from db2beta at ca.ibm.com
• Watch quick videos for instructions

Cheers,

Leons Petrazickis
DB2 Community Team

DB2 and Ubuntu whitepaper

Andre, Boris, and Hua just put out a new whitepaper:

• IBM DB2 and Canonical Ubuntu

The synopsis promises that you will:

• Get started with DB2 on Ubuntu 10.04
• Understand the differences between all DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows editions.
• Practice simple SQL queries against a sample database.

I've made a few blogposts on the same topic in the past couple months:

• Install DB2 Express-C from official Ubuntu repository
• RPM and DEB packages for DB2 Express-C

Cheers,

Leons Petrazickis
DB2 Community Team

Check out the Task Launcher in Data Studio 2.2.1

Data Studio V2.2.1 is out and available for download:

• Download: Data Studio Standalone 
• Free Book: Getting Started with IBM Data Studio

I found the new Task Launcher to be a pleasant surprise. It is a very good reorganization of all the different things that Data Studio can do into five simple tabs: Design, Develop, Administer, Tune, and Monitor.

I minimized it in the screenshot above, but the usual interface is still there. There's been a few tweaks, and I think that overall Data Studio V2.2.1 is a great improvement over Data Studio V2.2. I use it regularly myself, and I recommend that anyone who administers or develops with DB2 pick up a free copy:

• Download: Data Studio Standalone
• Free Book: Getting Started with IBM Data Studio

Cheers,

Leons Petrazickis
DB2 Community Team

Chat about development and test with cloud computing

There's an upcoming DB2 Chat with the Lab on Friday, November 19th:

Leverage Cloud Computing to Accelerate Development and Test

Date: Thursday, November 18, 2010
Time: 11:30 AM - 1PM EST

Are your application development and prototyping projects being put on hold due to budgetary constraints? Do you continually have to wait for new hardware and software to be procured and provisioned before your developers can start new projects? Are your current development and test systems sitting idle most of the time? Do you spend long cycles creating copies of your development or production environments for testing new changes and updates?

Join Sal Vella, VP (IBM), Uri Budnik, Director (RightScale) and Leon Katsnelson, Program Director (IBM) to learn more.

Next steps

• Register to attend

Cheers,

Leons Petrazickis
DB2 Community Team

Meet some IBMers at the RightScale conference on Nov 3

You might run into some DB2 Community Team folks at the RightScale conference in Santa Clara on Wednesday, November 3rd. We'll be down there both as attendees and as a Gold Sponsor.

RightScale provides an automation wrapper around Amazon EC2 and other clouds, simplifying the management of multiple machine deployments, allowing instant cloning of existing deployments, and automating automatic growth of server clusters based on load among other features. You can find DB2 and WebSphere templates for RightScale today.

One of the things that folks on my team do is build the DB2 templates for RightScale.

• Check out the conference
• Run DB2 in the cloud

Cheers,

Leons Petrazickis
DB2 Community Team

RPM and DEB packages for DB2 Express-C

RPM and DEB are two standard installation package formats on Linux. RPM is the default on Red Hat, SuSE, and CentOS, while DEB is used by Debian and Ubuntu among others.

DB2 Express-C is available for download both of these formats. You can also get it directly through the official Ubuntu repositories.

• Get RPM and DEB packages for DB2 Express-C
• Get DB2 Express-C from the official Ubuntu repositories
• Get the regular DB2 Express-C for Linux

Cheers,

Leons Petrazickis
DB2 Community Team