IBM Cloud Pak for Data Db2 Extended Service
Most organizations in today’s environment are adopting Hybrid Cloud model for at least part of their workloads. To become cloud-ready, microservices based container architecture enables enterprises to create portable, lightweight, agile and scalable applications that can be deployed quickly on any cloud environment. In the customers’ growing journey towards cloud, a container orchestration platform becomes essential as well, so that the containers can be handled in aggregation and managed seamlessly and securely. According to an Ovum report, containerized deployment of applications and choosing the right container orchestration platform can help the customers reduce significant operational overhead.
Data is a key asset in today’s enterprise environment. In order to experience the true value of data, it needs to be analyzed quickly and effectively, so that the enterprises can drive insights and data driven intelligent decisions. Data is diverse and doesn’t only reside in relational databases anymore, it also comes from various other data sources like text, noSQL and object-oriented databases. This brings a need for an integrated, high performance, and scalable data platform where customers can not only collect their data but also consolidate the data coming from a variety of data sources, analyze it and drive insights.
IBM Cloud Pak for Data is a fully-integrated data and AI platform that modernizes how businesses collect, organize and analyze data to infuse AI throughout their organizations.
IBM Db2 enriches IBM Cloud Pak for Data Ecosystem
IBM Cloud Pak for Data Db2 Extended Service is positioned at the beginning of customer’s journey in the ‘Collect’ layer of IBM Cloud Pak for Data. It is powered by AI and delivers advanced data management and analytics capabilities to the workloads. It is based on the same native IBM Db2 core engine that customers are familiar with and comes with all core functionalities of IBM Db2. At the same time, there are several enhancements done specific to the container, making it highly secure, available and scalable without any performance compromises.
IBM Db2 has a significant contribution to the rich data and AI ecosystem offered by IBM Cloud Pak for Data. Customers can install IBM Db2 from the IBM Cloud Pak for Data User Interface (UI), manage it with the integrated IBM Db2 Data Management Console, and get automated fixpack updates.
AI Capabilities in IBM Db2 such as Machine Learning query optimizer, support for popular languages including Python and Go and Jupyter Notebooks collaborative development environment along with the whole suite of available IBM Watson AI products are catalysts in accelerating the AI journey.
Data virtualization reduces extract, transform, load (ETL) requests, time and infrastructure associated with staging tables to realize cost benefits. Check out the study which states that with Data virtualization, customers can expect significant reduction in ETL requests resulting in major cost savings.
IBM Db2 available in Cloud Pak for Data marketplace:
IBM Cloud Pak for Data provides unified experience across the various IBM Db2 form factors. Customers can choose the IBM Db2 form factor they would like to deploy and get it up and running in less than 10 minutes.
Cloud Native Database
IBM Cloud Pak for Data Db2 Extended Service is designed with keeping hybrid cloud environments in mind. It is a big leap forward from monolithic database deployments. IBM Db2 is now deployed as a set of microservices running in a container environment. It is a fully integrated plug-and-play IBM Db2 environment in IBM Cloud Pack for Data and works seamlessly with the Data Governance and AI foundational services available in IBM Cloud Pak for Data.
Cloud Ready Deployment:
IBM Db2 can be deployed standalone on RedHat OpenShift or in IBM Cloud Pak for data as an extended service from the marketplace.
IBM Cloud Pak for Data provides a simpler UI, faster deployment and a rich ecosystem of AI Foundational services along with several optional extended services. Customers are up and running within minutes with rapid deployment, auto provisioning and configuration of the IBM Db2 database.
Upcoming Key Features
IBM Cloud Pak for Data extended Db2 service 11.5.3 runs on RedHat OpenShift 4.3 container platform, which provides enterprise grade, secure and simplified Kubernetes management. Customers can benefit from lower IT infrastructure and development costs with RedHat OpenShift as a consistent application development platform for hybrid cloud development. Click here for detailed report on return on investments with RedHat OpenShift.
IBM Db2 Containerized deployment can also be leveraged standalone on RedHat OpenShift 4.3 without IBM Cloud Pak for Data as a part of 11.5.4 release.
There are several new enhancements that focus on security, high availability, usability and cost benefits.
Security
IBM Cloud Pak for Data has security certifications required by all products included in foundational or extended services. IBM Db2 has done significant work in the following areas to make the containers fully secure:
Leverage UDB RedHat base image designed for OpenShift Containers
RedHat image certification
SELinux enforcing mode on OpenShift
All IBM Db2 containers running as non-root users
Helm Charts certified by Cloud Pak for Data
Usability
To make the database management simpler for the customers, there is an integration with the IBM Db2 Data Management Console, providing an option to the command line for administration and monitoring tasks. It also provides optional support for the IBM Db2 REST Service API container, allowing customers to build their own applications to manage and monitor IBM Db2. (* IBM Db2 REST Service is only available with IBM Db2 11.5.4 standalone deployment on RedHat OpenShift at present*).
High Availability
IBM Db2 supports Hight Availability with 1 standby on various topologies, such as:
Primary and Standby on the same OpenShift/Kubernetes cluster (same or different namespaces)
Primary and Standby on different OpenShift/Kubernetes clusters
The upcoming release also provides automated HADR Failover to an IBM Db2 container deployed as a standby node.
Storage
IBM Cloud Pak for Data Db2 extended Service supports all traditional storage (SAN for performance, NFS, Cluster file System such as GPFS and local disks).
A major value-added feature in the upcoming release is the support for the following container defined storage solutions providing significant cost benefits to our customers:
OpenShift Container Storage 4.3
Portworx 2.5.1 and above
The additional NFS solution now supported is IBM Cloud File Storage with OpenShift provisioner for IBM Cloud.
Customers can experience more Input/Output Operations per second in a fraction of rack space with OpenShift Container Storage.
IBM Cloud File Storage offers major cost savings for the customers as well.
For a quick Product Demo, visit:
If you would like to try out the IBM Cloud Pak for Data Db2 extended service, visit:
DTE Hands -on lab:
https://www.ibm.com/cloud/blog/containerizing-your-database-on-hybrid-cloud
