Another great feature that is in the new Version 9.7 of DB2 is its new compatibility with Oracle. This compatibility takes many forms within the database such as understanding operational syntax, stored procedures keyword syntax and improved operational concurrency that I covered in this DB2 Performance blog.

The DB2 compatibility with Oracle was developed because many clients are migrating from Oracle to DB2 for its improved DB2 performance, lower licensing costs, ease of use and lower total cost of ownership (TCO). All of these factors are very compelling given the current economic times for cost savings, consolidation of servers and lower CPU and energy costs of processing within DB2 as compared to other DBMSs.

DB2 Handles Oracle’s Non-Standard Names

Many of the operational aspects of standard databases such as the data definition language (DDL), data manipulation language (DML) and structured query language (SQL) and data control language (DCL) are standard across databases such as SQL Server Oracle and DB2 Family. Over the years Oracle has called parts of these DDL, DML and DCL, non-ISO standard names, to perform operations. DB2 has added these unique Oracle non-standard operational keywords to its lexicon of syntax to perform these operational activities. The most popular is the Oracle TRUNCATE statement that is used everywhere to clear the contents of a table.

DB2 and Oracle Stored Procedures Compatibility

Another major item is stored procedures compatibility because they are utilized everywhere. Again with all the standard programming languages such as Java C++ C# and others, over the years the syntax was controlled by the ISO and other standards committees. The various DBMS vendors took liberties with their stored procedure languages do perform certain processes. Again DB2 has added these Oracle syntax items so that any developer that is familiar with Oracle will be able to quickly and effectively code for any of these DBMSs. This one feature is critical for many companies because all companies have multiple different DBMS vendors and have a programming staff that needs to write stored procedures on all of them.

Oracle to DB2 Migration Success

I recently worked with a client during the DB2 Version 9.7 Cobra program and found that the syntax for both the operational aspects and the stored procedures is about 95% there for general conversions from Oracle to DB2. Working with the dedicated client staff, some of my consultant associates and the IBM Cobra people, we were able to migrate a vendor product from Oracle to DB2 Cobra and then take the DB2 code from the Linux, UNIX and Windows platform and run the application on DB2 for z/OS environment. Given these Oracle to DB2 compatibilities, the client is positioning to leverage the lowest TCO in the industry of DB2 on z/OS with a vendor and their solution. This is remarkable because they didn’t even understand the mainframe concepts only three months ago.

Another Oracle to DB2 migration project done by a friend of mine was completed in only three days, so the conversion work can be done very quickly and you can become the next hero lowering your company’s total costs within IT. Migrate to DB2 today and save your company money, it might even save your job or your coworker’s job.

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