Forgive me if this is a nieve question, I'm new to java.

I'm a consultant and my customer is developing a java application to sell to IBM mainframe customers.   They want to target DB2 (z/OS and LUW) and they have little control over what version their customers/prospects have.    The following links indicate there are a LOT of JDBC drivers.   

https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/db2-jdbc-driver-versions-and-downloads-db2-zos
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/db2-jdbc-driver-versions-and-downloads

Does the latest driver work with all previous versions of DB2 or are we going to have to include every driver with our install and force the customer to choose which one to use?


Ben

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Ben Bolton
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#Db2

Hi Ben,

The driver versions are important for the functionality that they facilitate. If you would for instance use only insert/update/delete/select etc, you could probably work with an older driver. It is not recommended of course.  However, if you want to start using new functionality that has come available in Db2 in certain releases, you need to have the JDBC driver that is capable of handling it.

Also make sure you keep using a supported version of the database client and driver to prevent support issues once you run into problems. So yes, there is a need to upgrade the drivers on a regular basis, mostly after upgrades to a major Db2 release, or when certain functionality needs to be used that will only be available through a newer driver.

kind regards
Guido Verbraak

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Guido Verbraak
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Hi Ben,

Those links contain All the Db2 JCC driver versions WRT LUW release and z/OS PTFs.
Even it is good to use the latest fix pack of the drivers WRT the server version, All the latest drivers are backward compatible and can successfully work with older server. Latest drivers supports new JRE and new specification.

Regards
Kollol

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Kollol Kumar Misra
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Thanks!

Kollol, that was what I was expecting and hoping for.   Since the latest driver is backward compatible we could deliver with the latest and it would support older versions of DB2 should a customer have an older DB2 installation.

I take your point Gukdo that in order to use the latest features we would need a driver that supports those features.   But as a software vendor, we'll build our application with the then-latest driver leveraging the needed features (it will mostly be CRUD but that may change.)  We can then deliver a working product for the version we built to and all prior versions.    Should the customer choose to advance their DB2 version, they will be responsible for adding new drivers if required, which we, of course, will eventually pick up when we come out with a new release.  

I appreciate the timely and helpful responses.

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Ben Bolton
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Original Message:
Sent: Thu August 13, 2020 01:45 AM
From: Kollol Kumar Misra
Subject: Why so many JDBC drivers?

Hi Ben,

Those links contain All the Db2 JCC driver versions WRT LUW release and z/OS PTFs.
Even it is good to use the latest fix pack of the drivers WRT the server version, All the latest drivers are backward compatible and can successfully work with older server. Latest drivers supports new JRE and new specification.

Regards
Kollol

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Kollol Kumar Misra
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