Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) vs. Db2

If your application needs a relational data store and uses other AWS services, AWS RDS is a no-brainer. It offers all the traditional database features, makes it a snap to set up, creates cross-region replication, has advanced security, built-in monitoring, and much more at a very good price. You can also set up streaming to a data lake using various other AWS services on your RDS.

Incentivized

I have primarily used it as the basis for a SIS - but I have migrated more than a few systems from there database systems to DB2 (Filemaker, MySQL, etc.). DB2 does have a better structural approach, as opposed to Filemaker, which allows for more data consistency, but this can also lead to an inflexibility that can sometimes be counterintuitive when attempting to compensate for the flexibility of the work environment as Schools tend to have an all in one approach.

Incentivized

• Automated Database Management: We use it for streamlining routine tasks like software patching and database backups.
• Scalability on Demand: we use it to handle traffic spikes, scaling both vertically and horizontally.
• Database Engine Compatibility: It works amazingly with multiple database engines used by different departments within our organization including MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, and Oracle.
• Monitoring: It covers our extensive monitoring and logging, and also has great compatibility with Amazon CloudWatch

Incentivized

• While we query a large set of data, the results are generally available within a minute or so.
• Always reliable - I have never experienced an application going down.
• It is easy to write queries and find tables and columns.
• We can log in smoothly without any headaches.

Incentivized

• It is a little difficult to configure and connect to an RDS instance. The integration with ECS can be made more seamless.
• Exploring features within RDS is not very easy and intuitive. Either a human friendly documentation should be added or the User Interface be made intuitive so that people can explore and find features on their own.
• There should be tools to analyze cost and minimize it according to the usage.

Incentivized

• Learning curve for DB resources - Improvements to UI or native command line built-ins can help with increasing efficiencies for DB resources
• Better resource utilization monitoring and recommendations
• Continue to adopt support for modern frameworks and languages making it easier for organizations to see making Db2 the easy first choice

Incentivized

We do renew our use of Amazon Relational Database Service. We don't have any problems faced with RDS in place. RDS has taken away lot of overhead of hosting database, managing the database and keeping a team just to manage database. Even the backup, security and recovery another overhead that has been taken away by RDS. So, we will keep on using RDS.

Incentivized

The DB2 database is a solid option for our school. We have been on this journey now for 3-4 years so we are still adapting to what it can do. We will renew our use of DB2 because we don’t see. Major need to change. Also, changing a main database in a school environment is a major project, so we’ll avoid that if possible.

Incentivized

I've been using AWS Relational Database Services in several projects in different environments and from the AWS products, maybe this one together to EC2 are my favourite. They deliver what they promise. Reliable, fast, easy and with a fair price (in comparison to commercial products which have obscure license agreements).

Incentivized

You have to be well versed in using the technology, not only from a GUI interface but from a command line interface to successfully use this software to its fullest.

Incentivized

I have never had DB2 go down unexpectedly. It just works solidly every day. When I look at the logs, sometimes DB2 has figured out there was a need to build an index. Instead of waiting for me to do it, the database automatically created the index for me. At my current company, we have had zero issues for the past 8 years. We have upgrade the server 3 times and upgraded the OS each time and the only thing we saw was that DB2 got better and faster. It is simply amazing.

Incentivized

The performances are exceptional if you take care to maintain the database. It is a very powerful tool and at the same time very easy to use. In our installation, we expect a DB machine on the mainframe with access to the database through ODBC connectors directly from branch servers, with fabulous end users experience.

Incentivized

I have only had good experiences in working with AWS support. I will admit that my experience comes from the benefit of having a premium tier of support but even working with free-tier accounts I have not had problems getting help with AWS products when needed. And most often, the docs do a pretty good job of explaining how to operate a service so a quick spin through the docs has been useful in solving problems.

Incentivized

Easily the best product support team. :) Whenever we have questions, they have answered those in a timely manner and we like how they go above and beyond to help.

Incentivized

the material was very clear and all subjects have been handled

Incentivized

the online training & digital content available on the web from AWS was having sufficient information to deploy and run the service

Incentivized

db2 work well with the application, also the replication tool can keep it up

Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) stands out among similar products due to its seamless integration with other AWS services, automated backups, and multi-AZ deployments for high availability. Its support for various database engines, such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Oracle, provides flexibility. Additionally, RDS offers managed security features, including encryption and IAM integration, enhancing data protection. The pay-as-you-go pricing model makes it cost-effective. Overall, Amazon RDS excels in ease of use, scalability, and a comprehensive feature set, making it a top choice for organizations seeking a reliable and scalable managed relational database service in the cloud.

DB2 was more scalable and easily configurable than other products we evaluated and short listed in terms of functionality and pricing. IBM also had a good demo on premise and provided us a sandbox experience to test out and play with the product and DB2 at that time came out better than other similar products.

Incentivized

By
using DB2 only to support my IzPCA activities, my knowledge here
is somewhat limited.

Anyway,
from what I was able to understand, DB2 is extremely scallable.

Maybe the information below could serve as an example of scalability.

Customer have an huge mainframe environment, 13x z15 CECs, around
80 LPARs, and maybe more than 50 Sysplexes (I am not totally sure about this
last figure...)

Today
we have 7 IzPCA
databases, each one in a distinct Syplex.

Plans
are underway to have, at the end, an small LPAR, with only one DB2 sub-system,
and with only one database, then transmit the data from a lot of other LPARs,
and then process all the data in this only one database.

The
IzPCA collect process (read the data received, manipulate it, and insert rows
in the tables) today is a huge process, demanding many elapsed
hours, and lots of CPU.

Almost
100% of the tables are PBR type, insert jobs run in parallel, but in 4 of the 7
database, it is a really a huge and long process.

Combining
the INSERTs loads from the 7 databases in only one will be impossible.......,,,,

But,
IzPCA recently introduced a new feature, called "Continuous
Collector".

By
using that feature, small amounts of data will be transmited to the central
LPAR at every 5 minutes (or even less), processed immediately,in
a short period of time, and with small use of CPU,
instead of one or two transmissions by day, of very large amounts of data and
the corresponding collect jobs occurring only once or twice a day, with long
elapsed times, and huge comsumption of CPU

I
suspect the total CPU seconds consumed will be more or less the same in
both cases, but in the new method it will occur in small bursts
many times a day!!

Incentivized

• The overall cost increases, but we spect this and we can mitigate other risks.
• Is easy to work from the cloud. Is reliable, but we keep our local solution as well where RDS works quite good.
• RDS allow us to focurs on owr objetives instead of the other matters regarding databases.

Incentivized

• Negative: Difficult and manual deployment
• Negative: Missing assistants from common monitoring metrics
• Positive: Stability
• Positive: Performance
• Positive: Resiliency and high availability (HADR)
• Positive: Data Replication (Q-Rep)
• Positive: Interaction with storage subsystems for backups (TSM, SVC)
• Positive: Gigantic monitoring features in the form of table functions

Incentivized