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75 ways to demystify DB2 #62: Techtip : Hypervisors and DB2 software compatibility

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Abstract

75 ways to demystify DB2 #62: Techtip : Hypervisors and DB2 software compatibility

Body

Nowadays, DB2 is running on many hypervisors based on various cloud and virtualized environment.

And virtualised environment has various types including bare metal or operating system(O/S) hosted architecture.
So sometimes there can be a confusion when we interpret a compatibility document in terms of Virtualisation technology experts.
The point is that hypervisor itself is also a kind of O/S technology basis.
For example, PowerVM is actually working on AIX O/S and we should be able to differentiate this from the target O/S where DB2 will be installed.
On this blog, I would like to pick up one example and help to find the O/S for your existing virtualized environment accordingly. 


If you want to find out the support requirement and compatibility of DB2 produce on Virtualization Hypervisor environment, you can find on Hypervisors supported by a specific product page.

Following picture is the example of searching for a specific DB2 version and edition.
And for the first search filters, you can check the operating system(O/S) type.
These operating system is the target O/S where DB2 will be installed.

NOTE : Usually there is two hypervisors types which is native bare metal and hosted.
( For the detail information, refer to the hypervisors wiki page. )

And the operating system on this page does not mean the host O/S and hypervisor layer software.

 

image

From the generated PDF document, you will see the section on left window like below picture.
The top section is 'Hypervisors' but the listed O/S at third top section means the final target O/S where DB2 will be installed as the result of search filters from above page.
Under each O/S item, the various supported hypervisors are listed up including bare metal and hosted hypervisors.


image



For example, on AIX WPAR is the operating system level virtualization technology and PowerVM provides the virtualization of adapters and storage subsystems to the target AIX O/S from other logical partitions.
Regarding Linux, VMWare ESXi is bare metal type and Microsoft Hyper-V is a type of the hosted hypervisors.

Therefore when you refer the document, select the target O/S for DB2 installation and the hypervisor you are using or planning to use.

Thank you for checking this blog and hope this clarifies your concern.
 

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