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IBM WebSphere Information Integrator

DB2 II provides users with a single-site image of disparate data that may be stored in different formats, retrieved using different APIs, and managed by different remote servers. Such servers may be owned by different lines of business within a single enterprise, by business partners, or by third parties providing services to the public. Programmers can work transparently with data from these various sources, relying on DB2 II's global query optimizer to select an efficient data access strategy for such work.

These capabilities are sometimes referred to as "federated data services." With such services, DB2 II supports access to a variety of relational DBMSs, spreadsheets, message queues, XML documents, Web content, Web services, and file systems. Another member of the DB2 II family, DB2 II Classic Federation for z/OS®, can be added (or used separately) to offer comparable access to mainframe data sources, such as VSAM, IMS™, CA-IDMS, CA-Datacom, and Adabas. Partner offerings provide DB2 II with access to other sources as well.

In addition to these federated data services, DB2 II also supports local caching of remote data (usually for performance reasons), replication of data between two or more sources, and local persistent storage of user data. However, this article focuses on its federated data services.