March 5, 2019 By Jon Lind 3 min read

From students to seasoned enterprise developers, the hoops one typically must jump through to install and use the types of commercial software most enterprises run their businesses on can be unnecessarily frustrating and expensive.

Many of these packages don’t offer free versions, which can be prohibitively expensive for students trying to learn a new technology or organizations trying to equip them with tools. Then there are “free” versions of commercial offerings with missing features, time-limited licenses, outdated code and even adware. It’s no wonder developers have jumped on the open source bandwagon, given the cost and complexity of enterprise software. Regrettably, some of these limitations were even true for IBM Db2 downloads until now.

One Db2, no strings attached

Instead of choosing between multiple download options, anyone can now download and use a single, full-featured version of Db2 for as long as they want, without paying fees, providing a credit card or enduring adware. It can be deployed and redeployed almost anywhere and installed on a laptop or workstation. When it’s time to prototype work, users can deploy it in the data center, allowing them to test it in a live environment.

Some of the Db2 features and functionality in this download include:

  • IBM BLU Acceleration. This in-memory technology provides breakthrough performance for actionable insights and is SAP-certified, providing higher performance with fewer resources on SAP investments.
  • IBM pureScale. Designed for business processes that require high availability for online transaction processing (OLTP), this technology provides access to data through multiple hosts for continuous availability.
  • Storage optimization. These features transparently compress data to decrease disk space and storage infrastructure requirements improving performance, reducing elapsed time and significantly reducing processing power consumption.
  • Advanced storage optimization. In-memory columnar technology, parallel vector processing, data skipping and further data compression help deliver faster insight without the limitations of in-memory-only systems.
  • SQL compatibility. By using existing SQL skills and assets for quicker, easier migrations users can greatly reduce the cost and risk of moving legacy applications built for other databases to Db2.
  • Disaster recovery. Replicating data changes from a source database helps protect against data loss from partial and complete site failures.

Downloading Db2 also means joining a storied user community. Db2’s use by the world’s largest enterprises and over 25-year heritage on distributed systems has resulted in a vibrant community with tens of thousands of active professional developers who are willing to share their broad range of experience. Within the community’s online home, users will find education, code samples and information on upcoming events.

Commercial support and scale

Deploying at scale, is a seamless and transparent process. The free license provides up to 4 cores and 16 gigabytes of RAM, but for users who need additional scale, they can apply a license key against existing implementations to unlock more. They can also try your solutions at scale for 90 days, free of charge.

Db2 is available as a cartridge or extension of IBM Cloud Pak for Data. As such, not only can Db2 scale by purchasing additional VPCs, but data warehousing, data lake and fast data solutions can be added as part of the same platform by purchasing VPCs too. Other solutions across the AI ladder can also be added as part of IBM Cloud Pak for Data like Watson Studio Open Scale meaing that a business can grow their AI practice as needed when they are ready.

Simply purchase IBM FlexPoints and allocate them to Db2 and any other data management technology. A convenient single sign-on dashboard lets users transfer FlexPoints easily, so they can add and switch entitlements as needed. They can not only experience the benefits of Db2, but they can also dynamically allocate data resources where they need it and when they need it.

Check out our simpler Db2 download

Experience the simplified Db2 path to production today with a registration optional download. Also, download Db2 as a docker image on your Linux, Unix, or Windows or MacOS workstation for testing and development or install it in your data center on the deem most appropriate platform (Windows, Linux, Solaris, or AIX).

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