IBM pushes DRDA link to relational data; DRDA is key to Information Warehouse framework, but skeptics claim the architecture is proprietary - Distributed Relational Database Architecture - SAA: Data Management Update

Software Magazine, Nov 15, 1991 by Mary Alice Hanna

OS/2 AND DB2 LINK

One large IBM shop in Munich, Germany, that looks forward to the link between OS/2 and DB2 is the Hypobank. The bank has tried to push OS/2 Extended Edition Data Manager without much success yet.

"OS/2 1.3 is not stable yet. There are a few bugs, especially on the database side," said Dr. Karl-Rudolf Moll, MIS manager. The fifth largest bank in Germany, Hypobank has 7,000 devices connected on a Systems Network Architecture (SNA) network hosted by three 3090 Model 600 mainframes.

The bank decided two years ago to convert its branch network terminals, now hooked to IBM 4700 controllers, to OS/2 destop machines. "We wanted to put a new face on the old applications," Moll said. The bank decided to use the LU6.2 communications protocol to link the desktop machines to IMS and DB2 host databases.

However, "There are cases when the database breaks down and loses data, and it's hard to recover," Moll said. "They are missing standard functions, such as recovery when the power goes off, which are features in IMS and DB2."

Such performance will not meet the bank's production application requirements. "To go to the branches, the system has to be foolproof," Moll said. In mid-October, he was requesting that IBM send a technician from the U.S. to fix the problems, but had no commitment yet.

A major point in favor of the OS/2 solution for Hypobank is the $250 cost per workstation for OS/2, which includes the database. To buy database licenses for each server required in a Unix network, such as from Oracle Corp., would be a much more expensive solution on a per-user basis, Moll explained.

Also, because of promised integration between OS/2 Data Manager and DB2, Moll believes, "In the long run, OS/2 Data Manager will be the way to go."

Harry Sundberg, product manager of extended services products at IBM's Austin, Texas, development laboratory, responsible for the development of the OS/2 Database Manager, indicated that the December 1990 separation of the OS/2 standard edition operating system from its database and the communication manager was among IBM's most important SAA announcements. "The unbundling of the database from the operating system was done because we want to be able to run the database on alternative platforms, like AIX, Unix and Unix-like platforms," Sundberg said.

The future of OS/2 calls for development of a restructured database manager that can isolate the DBMS from the operating system layer. Therefore, Sundberg said, IBM can offer improved server capability and a more protable DBMS.

Sundberg stated that IBM is also developing a forward recovery feature--to resolve the EBCDIC/Ascii collating problem--and a process model for requesting resources as needed instead of dedicating them for each process.

"Database Manager for OS/2 has always been solid," said Howard Fosdick, president of Fosdick Consulting Inc., Chicago. "It has a good design, having been designed from scratch by IS people. It is very robust; it's like having a DB2 on a desktop."