Database Reference
In-Depth Information
17.2.4 IBM InfoSphere Warehouse
The DB2 UDB suite provides four editions of a data warehousing software. The editions of
InfoSphere Warehouse provided are tailored to meet the varied needs of the organization.
They are as follows:
•
InfoSphere Warehouse Departmental Edition
•
InfoSphere Warehouse Departmental Base Edition
•
InfoSphere Warehouse Enterprise Edition
•
InfoSphere Warehouse Enterprise Base Edition
With these resources, you can construct simple departmental data warehouses from
departmental databases, or more complex data warehouses for an entire enterprise or
group of enterprises.
17.3 Shortcomings of DB2
DB2 represents a huge effort by IBM to develop and market a top quality product. To a
large extent the company has succeeded. There have not been many serious complaints
about the product. Nonetheless, as the saying goes, there is no perfect software. A few
complaints have been made against the product, as summarized below:
Backup and Recovery:
DB2 offers a very basic set of backup
and recovery capabilities, but lacks the completeness and
depth of high availability functionality required by most
e-businesses today. One is therefore forced to rely on cold
backups at the operation system level. More improvement is
needed in this area.
Support of Domains:
Some users would like to see DB2
support domain-based calculus. It is felt that by adding
domains to the DBMS, stronger data integrity constraints can
be achieved.
Affordability:
Like Oracle, DB2 is prohibitively expensive for
small and medium size companies. In recognition of this,
IBM provides a special educational program for colleges and
universities in North America. Under this program, enrolled
institutions purchase the products for a nominal fee, and
are able to use them for education and research purposes.
Additionally, IBM provides the public with the flexibility of
choosing from five different editions according to prevailing
needs and financial constraints.
