Category: DB2

Feed: Data Henrik; Author: Henrik Loeser (data_henrik); External Tables - New in Db2 Db2 Warehouse recently added a new feature named external table. Because I was interested in that feature for a while and I have an instance of Db2 Warehouse on Cloud running in the IBM Cloud datacenter in Frankfurt, Germany, I performed some quick tests. Here is what it is and how I got it to work. Overview: External Tables According to the Db2 documentation ... Read More

Feed: Data Henrik; Author: Henrik Loeser (data_henrik); Db2 and Cloud Storage happily combined Since a while, Db2 has built-in support to directly access Cloud Object Storage (COS) like Amazon S3 and IBM COS (Softlayer / IBM Bluemix IaaS). It allows to perform backups (and restores :) as well as data load operations to and from the cloud. Phil Nelson wrote an excellent overview and introduction on the IDUG blog with his examples focussed on S3 ... Read More

Feed: Data Henrik; Author: Henrik Loeser (data_henrik); Db2 Security - Trusted Context You have that new app, maybe even in the cloud, with that user needing read and write access to the database? Don't want to open the floodgates for that favorite users? Ok, here is a way to secure your Db2 data and still provide that access. Even if that sounds impossible, trust me. And, I am going to put that "trust me" in context. Read on. Db2 has a security ... Read More

Feed: Data Henrik; Author: Henrik Loeser (data_henrik); Today, it is time for another Db2-related quiz. Take a look at the screenshot below. What do you see, what is it? Db2 Quiz Need a hint? The quiz is related to my upcoming presentations at the IDUG and DB2 Aktuell conferences ... Read More

Feed: Data Henrik; Author: Henrik Loeser (data_henrik); The title of this blog entry is how I have named a new presentation I am currently preparing. It hope that this tour will provide fun and many useful insights into understanding the Db2 catalog and make better use of it. New data for the Db2 Catalog?! What is an empty database? How did the entries for system tables make it into the system tables? What are packed descriptors? How can I ... Read More

Feed: Data Henrik; Author: Henrik Loeser (data_henrik); IBM Cloud with Bluemix: DB2, Db2, dashDB This week I am going to acknowledge that I have been with IBM for 16 years. Looking back, everything might seem brighter and better than it was. However, I remember working in great teams, interesting and challenging projects, many successes and some failures to learn from, and the constant changes. During the time with IBM I got used to those many ... Read More

Feed: Data Henrik; Author: Henrik Loeser (data_henrik); DB2 Security Today's blog entry is about an old topic: Who I am, why I am and what I am (allowed) to do? Users and their privileges are at the core of database security. Information about them are stored in the IBM DB2 catalog (or IBM ashDB catalog) which can be queried. Thus, it is good to know your way around and being able to extract that information. Kind of as a reference for myself, here ... Read More

Feed: Data Henrik; Author: Henrik Loeser (data_henrik); DB2 Security Question Recently, I was contacted regarding an older blog entry discussing the DB2 security feature of surrogates. During an audit a strange entry was found in the catalog table SYSCAT.SURROGATEAUTHIDS. Whether I could take a look. So, let us take the security-themed tour through some DB2 catalog tables together. What is the strange entry? In a new database, created as regular ... Read More

Feed: Data Henrik; Author: Henrik Loeser (data_henrik); Are you ready for a new DB2 quiz? Here is a tricky question for you. It is about DB2 security, it is (kind of) hardware-related and deals with a relatively new DB2 feature. Curious...? The following shows the output of a DB2 tool, shipped with your regular DB2 LUW these days: Keystore Password: Password successfully stashed to db2_pkcs11_pwd.sth  xxxxx completed sucessfully. Have a clue? ( ... Read More

Feed: Data Henrik; Author: Henrik Loeser (data_henrik); Manage Watson Conversation Workspaces I am a big fan of using the command line as most of you know by now. This applies to interacting with IBM Bluemix cloud and its services and for database systems like DB2 or dashDB. Thus, I was excited when the IBM Watson Conversation service added API functions to manage workspaces. To test the new API I wrote a small Python-based tool to manage my ... Read More