We run a Linux Websphere 5.0 server connecting to a Win2000 DB2 UDB server using DB2 Connect. I have IBM support telling me that Websphere has built-in APIs and DB2 Connect should not be used unless connecting to mainframes or other special circumstances. Our developer (an IBM partner) says that DB2 Connect is the proper way to do it. Whom should I believe?

Also, in our properties file we have this line:
jdbcDriver=COM.ibm.db2.jdbc.app.DB2Driver

Am I correct to assume that if we weren't using DB2 Connect it would say "jdbcDriver=COM.ibm.db2.jdbc.net.DB2Driver" instead? Is changing app to net all that's needed to switch?

Thank you.

We use Db2 Connect and the the driver you are stating. All seems to function properly and throughput is good. I haven't really used the NET driver so I can't comment.

As far as I understand DB Connect serves pretty much as a protocol gateway. I would assume you don't need to use DB2 Connect in your situation if DB2 is configured to communicate over TCP/IP. However, there may be other reasons to use DB2 Connect that I don't know about but your developer does...

Thanks to both of you.

I believe that some of the features that were once only available with DB2 Connect (like connection pooling) are now available within DB2 version 8 without the need for DB2 Connect (unless you access the mainframe or AS400).

Hi,

IBM support is right, DB2Connect makes sense only if you want to connect to mainframe databases. I don't see any reason to use DB2Connect in your situation, but may be your developer has got some more elaborate reasoning than just claiming this to be the proper way to do it.

There is another point: DB2Connect needs to be extra licensed, unless you employ an enterprise edition on your windows box, whereas the client application enabler, i.e. the DB2 client, comes free.

Johann