Apart from the hottest AI stuff that is continuously being poured into new versions/releases/modpacks of Db2, and also advertised at every corner, here’s the list of my favourite (non-AI) Db2 enhancements that became available in Modpack 05:
1. Db2 HADR clusters now support up to 31 standby databases.
If I might not immediately see the benefit of setting up a cluster with all 31 standby databases (other than for academic purposes), the ability to set up (just a few) more than 3 standbys is more than welcome!
Here’s just an example of such a cluster:
- on the main site: primary + main standby
- this is of course where all activities are routed to
- on the DR site: two AUX standbys
- these nodes can quickly assume the role of a new primary + main standby, in a case where the whole main site goes down
- on the tertiary site: a time-delayed AUX standby
- this node can be used to recover from user errors such as accidental deletion of important data
2. New Tiebreaker policy available for two-node Pacemaker managed HADR clusters.
The new policy can be setup with the following command:
db2cm -set -option tiebreakerPolicy -value preferPrimary
And it ensures that the HADR primary node is always favoured to survive during a Split-brain scenario
(previously, which node would survive depended on the node’s cluster ID, not very intuitive).
3. Simplified process of rolling updates of HADR clusters.
With the Db2 12.1.5 release, running the installFixPack command automatically detects, stops, and restarts the Pacemaker, Corosync and Corosync-qdevice services on the primary and standby nodes.
Disabling and re-enabling the automation by running the db2cm cluster manager utility still has to be done by hand, though, so here’s some room for future enhancements!
4. GSKit 9 is now available.
Db2 12.1.5 ships with GSKit 9, which includes new FIPS 140-3 certified modules and TLS 1.3 quantum-safe key exchange groups.
Also, the GSKit key management utility gsk8capicmd is renamed to gsk9certutil, which means I will have to revisit all my Pacemaker/HADR installation procedures, as well as some blog articles I wrote on the subject previously 🙂
Read about these (and many other) enhancements in more detail here.
If you have any questions, please get in touch:
Email: damir.wilder@triton.co.uk
Call: +44(0) 870 2411 550
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