Interesting Db2 items in the latest TR!

Today, IBM announces the latest IBM i 7.2 and IBM i 7.3 Technology Refresh (TR). 

The availability of the respective TRs via group PTF is scheduled for October 27, 2017.

More information on the IBM i TRs can be found here.

More detailed information on the Db2 for i TRs can be found here.

Looking through the database enhancements, we find some very interesting items to consider...

Db2 Web Query extends the community of users to the true data analyst and/or data scientist. New powerful data discovery capabilities make it even easier to navigate through data in pursuit of  understanding and actionable information.  More information can be found here.

Db2 for i JSON support extends database capability via new publishing functions:

    JSON_ARRAY
    JSON_ARRAYAGG
    JSON_OBJECT
    JSON_OBJECTAGG

Joining XML, JSON is fast becoming the go to mechanism for storing and sharing unstructured data. Composing a JSON document from the structured, relational (row and column) data via the integrated JSON functions represents expanded "data centric" development capabilities in Db2 for i.

SQL DML LIMIT and OFFSET enhancements (Hi Jon Paris!) including the ability to use them in both DELETE and UPDATE statements.

IBM i Access Client Solutions enhancements to database support. ACS is fast becoming the main tool for the IBM i database engineer.  Make it part of your toolkit today!

Alerts when approaching database limits.  IBM i will produce alerts for a subset of System Limits tracking. Once per day, the operating systems will look for new occurrences where consumption of some limits exceeded 90% of the maximum allowable size. For these instances of extremely high consumption, messages will be sent to the QSYSOPR system operator message queue. Limit alerting is available for:

    Maximum number of all rows in a table (partition)
    Maximum index size
    Maximum encoded vector index size
    Maximum number of variable-length segments

Trust me, when one hits a database limit unexpectedly, the fun stops. Allowing IBM i to provide an alert to the database engineer is the first step in avoiding a painful issue.  By the way, all of the Db2 for i limits can be found in the SQL Reference, appendix A.

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If you need assistance with getting more value out of your data residing in IBM i, or determining how best to make use of these, or any Db2 features and functions, please reach out - we are here to help.

Note: if you are currently running IBM i 7.1, these new features and functions are not available to you.  Please upgrade your operating system as soon as possible to take advantage of all that Db2 for i can offer!