DB2 Version 9.7 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows

DB2 database system plug-ins for customizing database management

DB2® database products come with plug-in interfaces that you and third-party vendors can use to customize certain database management functions.

Currently, DB2 database systems have three types of plug-ins:

Security plug-ins for customizing DB2 database system authentication and group membership lookup behavior
Backup and restore plug-ins for backing up and restoring data onto devices that are not supported by backup and restore facilities provided by DB2 database systems
Compression plug-in for compressing and decompressing backup images

The functionalities provided through the above three plug-ins come with DB2 database system products, however if you want to customize or augment DB2 database system behavior then you can write your own plug-in or purchase one from a vendor.

Each plug-in is a dynamically loadable library of APIs and data structures. The prototypes for the APIs and data structures are provided by DB2 database systems and the implementation is provided by the vendor. DB2 database systems provide the implementations for some of the APIs and data structures. For a list of plug-in APIs and data structures that are implemented by DB2 database systems, refer to the individual plug-in topic. The implementation is in the form of a shared library on UNIX systems and a DLL on Windows platforms. For the actual location of where DB2 database systems look for a particular plug-in, refer to the individual plug-in topic.

A plug-in API differs from a DB2 API (for example, db2Export, db2Backup) in two ways. First, the implementation for a plug-in API, in most cases, is provided by the vendor. Whereas the implementation for a DB2 API is provided by DB2. Second, a plug-in API is called by DB2 whereas a DB2 API is called by the user from a client application. So if a plug-in API topic lists a parameter as input then it means that DB2 fills in a value for the parameter and if the parameter is listed as output then the vendor's implementation of the API is responsible for filling in a value for the parameter.