DB2 11 for z/OS: Coming Soon!

Today, October 3, 2012, IBM announced the Early Support Program for the next version of DB2. Heretofore code-named Sequoia, the DB2 11 ESP is planned for March 8, 2013 availability. So if you are still lagging behind running DB2 9 (or, heaven forbid, DB2 V8) now is the time to get yourself to DB2 10 so you'll be ready for the imminent onslaught of DB2 11 for z/OS.


The announcement (212-364) offers up a bit of information on some of the features that are planned to be available in DB2 11, including:

• Performance improvements for some types of online transaction processing (OLTP), heavy insert, select query workloads, and when running queries against compressed tables;
• Improved-data sharing performance and efficiency;
• Improved utility performance and additional zIIP eligible workload (particularly with LOAD and RUNSTATS);
• Cost-effective archiving of warm and cold data with easy access to both within a single query;
• Intelligent statistics gathering and advanced optimization technology for efficient query execution in dynamic workloads;
• Additional online schema changes that simplify management, reduce the need for planned outages, and minimize the need for REORG;
• Productivity improvements for DBAs, application developers, and system administrators;
• Efficient real-time scoring within your existing transaction environment;
• Enhanced analysis, forecasting, reporting, and presentation capabilities, as well as improved storage management, in QMF;
• Expanded SQL, SQL PL, temporal, and XML function for better application performance;
• Faster migration with application protection from incompatible SQL and XML changes and simpler catalog migration.

One of the more intriguing tidbits is the new SQL PL ARRAY support. IBM is claiming this feature may be able to offer up to 10 percent CPU savings for OLTP workloads with high read-to-write ratios. 

So get ready for DB2 11 - I'm sure we'll hear more about it at the IOD conference, coming up at the end of the month.