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Great Product, with a Terrible Name
December 26, 2018

Great Product, with a Terrible Name

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with DB2

This review will be for Db2, which is the distributed version, running on Linux/Unix/Windows. The fact that IBM has a separate product called Db2 (for z/os) is totally unfortunate and extremely confusing. We run Db2 off zLinux guests, which are virtualized off our mainframe. These databases support a variety of applications, the most important being that it handles each and every card swipe that is done by one of our members. This is thousands per minute, 24/7. We also use Db2 as a repository for a few applications, and as a gateway between the mainframe and our legacy Oracle databases. This portion is called Federation Server.
  • Simplicity. It's way easier to maintain and administer than its red counterpart.
  • Avoids the terrible GUI trap of its contemporary from the Seattle area. Command line access is wonderful.
  • HA/DR works well out of the box, and we also use block-level replication for DR, which is a huge benefit.
  • Stability. I hate to bring a curse on myself for saying this, but Db2 itself is extremely stable and we keep incredible up time.
  • Supports some of Oracle's SQL
  • Tight-knit community.
  • Support is fantastic.
  • IBM is really behind in delivering developer tools. They pride themselves on Data Studio, but it is just frustrating.
  • Marketing. Horrible to do a Google search and get returns for a COMPLETELY different product, for z/os. Why they share the same name is beyond me. Better marketing would also increase the user base and help the product mature.
  • Slower than the competition to roll out next-generation features.
  • Hard to calculate, given the bundled pricing. Virtualization from the mainframe IFLs saves us considerably.
  • Management tools like Data Server Manager are great and FREE. Other vendors charge big bucks for those.
We don't use the scalable options, such a PureScale.
We run thousands of transactions per second on 6GB of memory.
Never had a problem due purely to the software. Never.
The most straightforward and easiest to use. Probably the biggest bang for the buck of any of the vendors. Handles our business needs perfectly.
It's probably more common in the financial and government sectors. Given that user base, it's nice to have common customers.

Given that development tools are a little lacking, shops with lots of outsourced development talent might want to think about it.