Chapter 1, Application Development Enhancements in DB2 9.7, introduces the application development enhancements in DB2 9.7, which help most of the developer community to use the existing DB2 features, instead of building the application logic.

Chapter 2, DB2 Application Techniques, introduces all the basic techniques and aspects of application development that are very generic, and can be used with any programming language.

Chapter 3, General Application Design, introduces some advanced techniques that can be used to design efficient applications, including security aspects in a three-tier architecture, various methods of data encryption, extending the data type support, and so on.

Chapter 4, Procedures, Functions, Triggers, and Modules, introduces the different types of functional database objects that can be used to encapsulate business logic at the database server, including stored procedures, user defined functions, triggers, and modules.

Chapter 5, Designing Java Applications, introduces Java as a programming language, focusing on advanced topics, such as different ways of connecting to data sources, designing enhanced security in Java applications, handling XML data, and so on.

Chapter 6, DB2 9.7 Application Enablement, provides DB2 9.7 application enablement recipes, along with step-by-step instructions to port Oracle 11g database objects to DB2 9.7 using the IBM DataMovementTool (DMT). It also illustrates, with examples, how to use new functionalities, such as ROWNUM, DUAL, CUR_COMMIT isolation level, and ANONYMOUSPL/SQL blocks.

Chapter 7, Advanced DB2 Application Features and Practices, introduces some advanced DB2 features that are useful for analysing and troubleshooting application performance. This chapter also discusses some OLAP functions, which are very powerful for computing complex use cases in a very simple manner.

Chapter 8, Preparing and Monitoring Database Applications, discusses various tips and techniques that can be used to prepare an application environment. This chapter also focuses on the latest monitoring techniques introduced in DB2 9.7.

Chapter 9, Advanced Performance Tuning Tips, focuses on various tips and techniques that can be used to enhance application performance. It also discusses some best practices that should be followed while writing SQL statements for better performance.

Ensure that the system meets the necessary operating system, memory, and disk requirements for a DB2 9.7 installation. The most recent requirements for DB2 9.7 data server installations are available on the Web at http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/db2luw/v9r7/topic/com.ibm.db2.luw.qb.server.doc/doc/r0025127.html.

Along with DB2 9.7 code base, ensure that the system also meets the requirements for the IBM Data Movement Tool installation. The most recent update is available at: http://www.ibm.com/services/forms/preLogin.do?lang=en_US&source=idmt.

If you are an IBM DB2 application developer who would like to exploit the advanced features provided by DB2 to design and implement high quality applications, then this book is for you.

This book assumes you have a basic understanding of DB2 application development.

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: "We can include other contexts through the use of the include directive."

A block of code is set as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<OPTPROFILE VERSION="9.1.0.0">
<!-- Global optimization guidelines section. -->
<OPTGUIDELINES>............</OPTGUIDELINES>
<!-- Statement profile section. -->
<STMTPROFILE ID="Guidelines for Q1">
<STMTKEY SCHEMA="TEST">
<![CDATA[SQL Query]]>
</STMTKEY>
<OPTGUIDELINES>...........</OPTGUIDELINES>
</STMTPROFILE>
</OPTPROFILE>

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

<OPTGUIDELINES>
<MQTENFORCE>

<NAME='MQT1'/>
<TYPE='REPLICATED'/>

</MQTENFORCE>
<OPTGUIDELINES>

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

CREATE TABLE REPLACE1 (c1 INT, c2 INT)
CREATE TABLE REPLACE2 (c1 INT, c2 INT)
CREATE VIEW v1 AS SELECT * FROM REPLACE1
CREATE VIEW v2 as SELECT * FROM v1
CREATE FUNCTION fun1()
LANGUAGE SQL
RETURNS INT
RETURN SELECT c1 FROM v2
CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW v1 AS SELECT * FROM REPLACE2

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "In the previous section, we can observe following information for Operator#2:".

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