NSFDB2 overview
CategoryA very interesting session I attended outlining the architecture of the NSFDB2 interaction a few days ago. With all the sessions and the party last night, I am only getting to post my thoughts today. Since there are no WLAN's I can find in Orlando Airport, this most likely won't be published until I get home. Main points were:
The integration between DB2 and Notes is deep, very deep. It lies below the API and also NIF/NSF layer. Interaction between the two products only takes place at the disk writing level. This is a good indication of how much time has been put into the architecture. When a user creates a DB2 database through notes, all data is stored in a tablespace in BLOB format to prevent data translation. This makes for very fast storage of data. BLOB format is for unstructured data (e.g. graphics). The notes information is stored in this way so DB2 doesn't have to manipulate data before storage, reducing time taken to save. If the data is accessed from the DB2 side (for example, in a SQL query), the data is converted to UTF8 format at that point so indexing can take place.
If you are using ND7 Beta 3 (out now), you use DB2 8.17a.
Iseries, Solaris and Linux support will be available in later releases of 7.
Domino is still responsible for full text indexing of data for searches (even when stored in the DB2 back-end. Handy point to note if you consider that we are talking usually about large quantities of data and the Domino CPU will still have the index hit).
DB2 is not configured to work with Domino data out of the box. For example, bufferpool values on the DB2 back-end need to be increased dramatically or you will have trouble. A batch file to reconfigure the DB2 server for domino data comes with the product. Use it. It is also recommended that the Domino admins learn DB2 architecture.
Notes clients, be aware that streaming replication will not work if the data is stored on the DB2 server. Also local encryption is also a no no at the moment.
It was quite obvious that Lotus have put a lot of energy to the DB2 back-end. As was highlighted though, it is not there to replace .nsf file structure.
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