Effective immediately IBM DB2 10.1 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows is available for SAP Systems based on SAP NetWeaver 7.0 or higher (see SAP note 1700631). Let me share some details regarding this new DB2 release with you.
How To Get There
- Installation media are uploaded to SAP service marketplace.
- The guide Upgrading to Version 10.1 of IBM DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows describes the necessary steps for the database upgrade in a SAP environment.
- A direct upgrade to DB2 10.1 is possible form DB2 9.5 and DB2 9.7.
- As mentioned above, DB2 10.1 is certified for SAP NetWeaver 7.0 and higher (AS ABAP as well as AS Java). Older SAP releases are not supported.
- DB2 10.1 is available on the same OS platforms as DB2 9.7.
New Functionality
To highlight some of the new functionality, let me mention the following:
- Adaptive Compression: Additional to row compression (now also called classic compression) DB2 includes a new compression algorithm on page level. This will further reduce the size of large tables.
- Log Archive Compression: By setting a configuration parameter log files can now be compressed by DB2 when they are archived.
- Insert Time Clustering (ITC) Tables: Based on the existing MDC infrastructure, records in ITC tables are ordered based on their insert time. Space reclamation is possible without data movement, the "REORG... RECLAIM EXTENS ONLY" command just marks empty extents as "free". The newest version 5.20 of DB6CONV is able to suggest suitable candidates for ITC tables - see the latest DB6CONV documentation attached to SAP note 1513862.
- Index Space Reclaim: A new function is included in DB2 10.1 that reclaims free space in index objects in an online fashion.
- Storage Groups: As an addition to the existing automatic storage infrastructure, storage groups can be defined and assigned to certain tablespaces. Based on these definitions data with a different "temperature" (based on how often data is accessed, e.g. hot and cold data) can be placed on different storage media.
- Hidden Columns: Table columns can be marked as "implicitly hidden". Such columns are invisible as long as they are not explicitly references.
- Performance Improvements: DB2 10.1 includes many performance improvements like smart data and index prefetching, hash join improvements, zig-zag joins, index jump scans and more.
- Multiple HADR Standby Servers: You can now install up to three HADR standby servers with or without time delayed replay.
DB2 pureScale
The DB2 pureScale feature is now included into the DB2 10.1 installation image. Therefore, the pilot program for DB2 pureScale 9.8 (see SAP note 1419433) has ended with the availability of DB2 10.1. The guide Running an SAP system on DB2 pureScale was updated and takes now the new features of DB2 10.1 pureScale into account.
You will find more information about SAP on IBM DB2 10.1 soon in our on SCN.
