I am a UDB DBA and according to me I should start working on mainframes. In your opinion what do you feel? Which among these has more demand.
UDB on unix and windows.
DB2 on mainframes
oracle on unix and windows.

A little pet peeve of mine is that people use the term UDB DB2 in reference to non mainframe DB2. The UDB term is part of ALL DB2 instances. So it's UDB DB2 for xxxxxxxxxx (substitute your version in there). So for you it would be LUW.

For other people it would be z/OS. Others it would be System i. I know IBM has renamed them all in the past few years, but lets try and use the propper names.

Complaining over.

Thanks

Effective with DB2 V9, the UDB label has been dropped.

Thank you for the replies.
Yes you are right. People refer to that as UDB when its on LUW and DB2 when its on mainframes.
But what about my previous questions. Which one has more requirements coming in? Basically with which one can I hope to get work quicker. I know the market share and all.

Why I asked the question was because I am trying to learn a new things to my skill set. So trying to decide which one to add.
DB2 mainframe skillset.
Oracle DBa
SQL DBA
Would greatly appreciate any input on this.

I did see that IBM will be dropping the UDB name, I think they will be replacing it with BTO ("Better Than Oracle").

In most places there are more Oracle DBA jobs. But Oracle is more difficult to learn.

I have the feeling that the need for mainframe specialists (not just DB2 DBAs) is growing. Difficult to predict on the longer run, of course.

Hi

Oracle has better job market compared to db2 any given day.The market share of oracle is 44% and it also a clear winner in the datawarehouse areana.Oracle is also widely popular in the LUW area but not so much on the mainframe.

I dont necessarily agree that oracle is tougher to learn it depends.

IBM has 39% market share but how much of that sahre comes from Mainframe and AS/400 and LUW is unknown they sledom publish the breakup.

I had asked a similar question sometime ago and the response i got was

USA and europe demand for DB2 on LUW is increasing and it is good.
But strangely in India you will find a lot of demand for DB2 on Z/os.

Many companies tried to migrate the Z/OS beast to LUW to oracle and Db2 but they have failed after billions of dollars went down the drain.

IBM is also partly responsible for not maing Db2 popular.
My personal experiences with IBM were like this
I asked for the DVD editions of IBM trial software advertised on their site after 5 requests till date they havent shipped me the CD's.This is what i call bad promotion.
They conducted a seminar on Viper but failed to give out these CD's.
Only when Db2 8 was released the market was flooded with db2 books.
How many forums and presentations can you see on the net of db2 as compared to oracle or sql serve or informix.
They advertised about partitioning xml etc in db2 viper with a bang but did you realise that mysql also has partitioning and they are catchin up and gawd nows xml capabilites might jsut be around the corner.
At Oracle even their BI tools and technologies are freely downloadable what about IBM they have ascential DB2 DWE alpha box etc but are they downloadable ?easy to learn ?

Ever been to oracle open world on how oracle gives freebies to wannabe DBA and developers .

In my opinion IBM should take up db2 on a war footing make lots of multimedia presentations on Db2 make case studies (like on developerworks) push certification at NO CHARGE etc etc..

You need to watch out IBM if IBM becomes active on them then and only then will IBM's market share will increase and jobs will grow.

I am not a oracle lover its just my experience with the database industry and my 10 years of experience navigating databases.

regards
Hrishy

well i am not an expert..
but i sincerely feel that instead of having such a robust DB as db2, somewhere IBM has failed it to bring it too masses.
Maybe time for IBM to replace there Marketing Guys....

sometimes lack of popularity of DB2 LUW especially in INDIAN IT scenario, fears me , if i really hold a good chance of getting next *good* job ???

HrishyHave a look at http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/db2/express/ where you can download a free (as in beer) version of DB2 Express-C (Viper). I will do so shortly.

I work now on DB2 on z/os. There is a growing shortage of people who can work on a MF. So there is a niche market for MF-specialists (government, banks, insurances, ...). But I think the real growth (and competition) will be in LUW.

Hi,
as Marcus_A wrote in DB2 version 9 there is no UDB and there is also not version label.

So incorect:
- DB2 UDB version 9
- DB2 version 9

Correct:
- DB2 9

The UDB label is something that IBM was not capable of doing. The main idea behind UDB was to create only one database that will work on all operating systems. But IBM was not able to make one database. Now IBM has 4 database systems. This systems are:
1. DB2 for Linux, Unix and Windows (Unix -> HP-unix, Sun-Solaris, IBM-AIX),
2. DB2 for zOS (for IBM mainframie hardware: z9; previous name was zSeries and previos name was S/390),
3. DB2 for iSeries (previous name was AS/400),
4. DB2 for VM and VSE (same hardware as zOS).

Back to the UDB label. There was UDB label only for first three database systems (1,2,3). There was never UDB label to DB2 VM/VSE database (4)!

So what about "mainframe database" label. The 2, 3 and 4 are mainfraime database systems and only 1 is not mainframe database. There is also one more confusion. There is "DB2 for zLinux" (Linux for zSeries hardware) which is LUW database but it is running on mainframe hardware.

By the way, there is also one term "Multiplatform" which is used to express database DB2 for Linux, Unix and Windows.

OK, back to the origional question by kaushys. Mainframe databases are more difficult to learn and require more administrative skills. Mainframe databases also requires some knowleadge about operating system, because there systems have some special configurations that are not present on LUW systems.

Hope this helps,
Grofaty

Stange thing in this respect is that the z/OS website is still called http://www.ibm.com/software/db2zos/db2zosv91.html
which seems to suggest the z/OS version number is 9.1 ...

Kaushys, I guess it depends on where you are based ... If your location has loads of demand for the mainframe, it is a good idea to pick up the skill ...

As already pointed out, in Europe and Americas, DB2 LUW has more demand. This is especially true if you have less than 5 years experience on the mainframe, and in the market, you'll compete with people in the mid to high 2-digit experience ...

About Oracle, it is your personal choice ... Remember, the number of jobs may be high, but the competion is higher ..

Sathyaram

Also true in China, DB2 on z/OS has big demand. The reason is IBM is still focusing on it's mainframe DB2 in developing countries. Mainframe DB2 is much more profitable than DB2/LUW, and those countries just trust the old big name - IBM.
I was a mainframe DB2 DBA. but I am now a DBA of DB2/LUW because it was hard to find a mainframe DB2 DBA postion in th US.

One reason is , yes, in the developing countries, governments and big corps like the IBM brand ... The other reason is outsourcing ...

I have a client in the States, who is a part-mainframe shop .. They are looking for a developer or two to be based abroad, not because they want to outsource, but because they are unable to find the right resource.

Sathyaram