IBM® Db2® is undergoing a renaissance. We feel the optimism and excitement when we talk to our customers and business partners. And we see it in our numbers: quarter after quarter, Db2 continues to grow revenue and gain market share. Customers trust Db2 more than ever before to run their mission-critical applications and workloads. These applications run the world’s economy. Db2 deeply embeds itself in and directly ensures the quick, secure and accurate processing of trillions of daily transactions across financial services, manufacturing, supply chains, retail and healthcare. This is an awesome responsibility, and at IBM, we take it extremely seriously.

Last year, we announced a major strategic collaboration agreement with AWS that united IBM, the leading enterprise software vendor, and AWS, the leading provider of cloud services. Together, we have been delivering jointly engineered solutions to customers who are modernizing their applications and workloads on AWS. However, the modernization journey of our Db2 customers to AWS has not always been smooth. Db2 database customers have had to manage their infrastructure and cloud deployments themselves, which severely limited their innovation potential. When database administrators (DBAs) manage their database provisioning, scaling, business continuity and integrations with other services, they find little time for anything else. Companies migrate to the cloud to avoid encountering these types of issues.

Today, we are taking a giant leap forward in solving this problem. We are proud to announce the immediate availability of IBM Db2 as a fully managed service on Amazon RDS, in collaboration with our partners and colleagues at AWS.With Amazon RDS for Db2, customers can deploy their mission-critical databases with confidence.

Db2 cloud migration acceleration benefits

The new Amazon RDS for Db2 offering allows customers to migrate their existing, self-managed Db2 databases to the cloud and accelerate strategic modernization initiatives. Customers will benefit from:  

• Spending less time on tedious administrative tasks: Amazon RDS for Db2 automates time-consuming, repetitive administrative tasks, such as provisioning, backup/restore and software patching enabling DBAs to manage up to 60% more databases, freeing DBAs to focus on higher value work like application modernization and query optimization.  
• Ensuring secure and highly available deployments: The deployment of the Db2 database engine is hyper-secure to help ensure businesses keep their most sensitive data with them and support compliance programs, such as HIPAA, FedRAMP, and more. Automated Amazon RDS multi-availability zone replication ensures that operations are always on, minimizing the impact of disruptions. 
• Integrating natively with AWS and IBM tools: The offering integrates with key AWS services like Amazon Key Management System, Amazon Identity Access Management, Amazon CloudWatch, AWS Database Migration Service, Amazon S3, and others, along with IBM data and AI SaaS running on AWS, such as IBM® Db2® Warehouse and IBM® watsonx.data™ data store, providing businesses with a full stack of data, analytics and AI capabilities.  
• Using a pay-for-what-you-use pricing structure: The pricing structure allows for pay-as-you-go pricing and offers a bring-your-own-license option for existing Db2 customers. 
• Experiencing easy migration: On-premises Db2 customers can seamlessly migrate without schema conversions or disruptions to existing applications. Customers can deploy using the familiar code, features and tools within their existing Db2 database. For clients running IBM Db2 in a self-managed model, either on-premises or in the cloud, moving to a fully managed offering frees up time to innovate and drive new business value. 

Collaborative efforts enhance Amazon RDS for Db2

IBM and Amazon have closely collaborated on the Amazon RDS for Db2 service, bringing together our expertise in engineering and product development to ensure the best possible experience. IBM Db2 11.5.9 has been released alongside the service and is the first version available on Amazon RDS. This latest version of Db2 includes several feature enhancements specific to Amazon RDS, such as using AWS-native services, implementing performance improvements for backup/restore to Amazon S3, and applying security enhancements that adhere to IBM and AWS standards rigorously. Additionally, IBM and Amazon have jointly developed migration tools to ensure a smooth transition from on-premises to Amazon RDS. We have made a multi-year commitment to enhancing the platform collaboratively.

All applications can easily use the standard Db2 driver to talk to Amazon RDS for Db2. IBM is certifying a set of products that work with the managed service, including IBM Cognos, IBM Sterling Order Management, and IBM OpenPages with more to come soon. IBM and AWS are working together on technical blogs that will assist customers as they implement Amazon RDS for Db2 with these products. New Amazon Machine Images are planned to support fast deployment of IBM products and tools through the AWS Marketplace. As our partnership continues to grow these efforts will accelerate the adoption and scaling of Amazon RDS for Db2 in the larger application infrastructure.

With the launch of Amazon RDS for Db2, we have reached a significant milestone, as IBM has made its entire portfolio of commercial databases available as a fully managed SaaS on AWS. This allows customers to fully capitalize on cloud economics and scale while benefiting from some of the best data management features available. These offerings include IBM Db2 Warehouse and IBM® Netezza®, our fully managed cloud data warehouses, and IBM watsonx.data, our fully managed lakehouse solution designed for AI. All these products are already available on the AWS Marketplace.