DB2 is a family of relational database software solutions offered by IBM. It includes standard Db2 and Db2 Warehouse editions, either deployable on-cloud, or on-premise.
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Progress OpenEdge
Score 8.3 out of 10
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Progress OpenEdge is an application development environment to keep businesses running, that enables users to leverage technology advancements to more quickly deliver business applications.
I have primarily used it as the basis for a SIS - but I have migrated more than a few systems from there database systems to DB2 (Filemaker, MySQL, etc.). DB2 does have a better structural approach, as opposed to Filemaker, which allows for more data consistency, but this can also lead to an inflexibility that can sometimes be counterintuitive when attempting to compensate for the flexibility of the work environment as Schools tend to have an all in one approach.
Openedge is very well suited for financial based applications for 2 reasons. First, it has very powerful transaction scoping that will commit or back out of all changes in a transaction at once. This ensure that your data is "in sync." Second, it offers after imaging roll forward and replication for environments that require high availability or powerful disaster recovery in place.
DB2 maintains itself very well. The Task Scheduler component of DB2 allows for statistics gathering and reorganization of indexes and tables without user interaction or without specific knowledge of cron or Windows Task Scheduler / Scheduled jobs.
Its use of ASYNC, NEARSYNC, and SYNC HADR (High Availability Disaster Recovery ) models gives you a range of options for maintaining a very high uptime ratio. Failover from PRIMARY to SECONDARY becomes very easy with just a single command or windowed mouse click.
Task Scheduler ( DB2 9.7 and earlier ) allows for jobs to be run within other jobs, and exit and error codes can define what other jobs are run. This allows for ease of maintenance without third party softwares.
Tablespace usage and automatic storage help keep your data segmented while at rest, making partitioning easier.
Ability to run commands via CLI (Command Line Interface) or via Control Center / Data Studio ( DB2 10.x+) makes administration a breeze.
Openedge databases are practically bulletproof, even when shot down abnormally. The offer complete transaction scoping, before imagining, and also after imaging for roll foward capability.
Openedge has a very powerful and easy to learn 4GL programming language that can be used in a traditional or object oriented manner.
Openedge also has powerful web services components, fully integrating both SOAP and RESTful web services.
Openedge is completely scaleable from 1 user to a fully distributed global enterprise solution.
The DB2 database is a solid option for our school. We have been on this journey now for 3-4 years so we are still adapting to what it can do. We will renew our use of DB2 because we don’t see. Major need to change. Also, changing a main database in a school environment is a major project, so we’ll avoid that if possible.
You have to be well versed in using the technology, not only from a GUI interface but from a command line interface to successfully use this software to its fullest.
I have never had DB2 go down unexpectedly. It just works solidly every day. When I look at the logs, sometimes DB2 has figured out there was a need to build an index. Instead of waiting for me to do it, the database automatically created the index for me. At my current company, we have had zero issues for the past 8 years. We have upgrade the server 3 times and upgraded the OS each time and the only thing we saw was that DB2 got better and faster. It is simply amazing.
The performances are exceptional if you take care to maintain the database. It is a very powerful tool and at the same time very easy to use. In our installation, we expect a DB machine on the mainframe with access to the database through ODBC connectors directly from branch servers, with fabulous end users experience.
Easily the best product support team. :) Whenever we have questions, they have answered those in a timely manner and we like how they go above and beyond to help.
With the other two mentioned above, I needed to have processes and frameworks that executed outside of the environment driving DB management operations. Yes, these are completely different solutions; however, the support you get for framework, library, and language support allows for runtime at a different layer than with other solutions.
The decision to use openedge with our particular product was made such a long time ago that I certainly was not around to make the decision. And most of the other products that would have been compared at the time are likely no longer around. Which does speak to the longevity and benefits of this product. When you look back and see how long the same product has been going forward with constant improvements and remaining relevant without major disruptive changes, it is worthy of some credit.
DB2 can be configured and can work with a variety of applications as opposed to how it was designed initially to only with with IBM mainframes. It's easy implementation process makes it a good buy for many organizations to scale their applications to be the best in terms of versatility, resilience and application performance
