IBM Db2 is IBM's relational database for transaction systems and operational analytics, sold as self-managed editions and as a managed service on IBM Cloud.
IBM Db2 stores the structured records behind systems that have to stay up, such as order processing, inventory, billing and financial ledgers. IBM builds and sells it as its own relational database. The current Db2 AI Editions use agentic AI to automate and simplify database management. It runs self-managed on premises, on cloud infrastructure or platform services, or as Db2 Database SaaS. High availability comes from HADR, which ships changes to standby databases and lets those standbys answer read-only queries. HADR runs in synchronous or asynchronous modes, and a cluster manager can promote a standby when the primary fails. Row and column access control (RCAC) limits what each user, group or role can read. Db2 native encryption protects data and logs on disk, and Db2 Text Search adds ranked keyword search over text columns. Roll-forward recovery replays archived logs to a chosen moment, and the companion Db2 Genius Hub console automates tuning, patching and health checks across a Db2 estate. Db2 suits enterprises whose core business systems already depend on a relational database and need standby copies, failover and access policies enforced in the engine. Database administrators and platform teams with a hybrid estate get one engine for their own data centre and the cloud. Developers can start on a serverless single-schema instance or the Community edition before a production rollout. IBM sells the self-managed engine as three Db2 AI Editions and the managed service on IBM Cloud, and AWS teams can run it through Amazon RDS for Db2. A typical deployment keeps the order and billing database on Db2, with an HADR standby that also serves read-only reports. AI teams build retrieval-augmented generation and semantic search over the same enterprise data instead of copying it elsewhere. Developers work on Db2 inside Visual Studio Code with the IBM Db2 Developer Extension, and Db2 Bridge handles migration and ongoing data movement across hybrid environments. Profile Centevo moved its mission-critical financial services applications to a managed cloud deployment of Db2 on AWS. Db2 fits the organisation that wants its most important transaction records and the AI work built on them on one governed engine.
Pricing
View plans-
Db2 SaaS Free
Free
- Perpetually free tier of Db2 Database SaaS on IBM Cloud
- Serverless trial configuration with a single schema
- Up to 200 MB storage
- 5 connections
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Db2 SaaS Performance
$630 per month
Starting figure per month, billed hourly on metered usage
- Hourly rates: storage $0.000138 per GB, compute $0.22 or $0.29 per vCPU, IOPS $0.000078 per IOP
- Dedicated compute and storage, starting at 4 vCPUs and 50 GB storage
- Scales to 128 vCPUs, 40 TB and 196K IOPS, storage and compute independently
- 2 cross-AZ HA nodes, cross-region disaster recovery, private endpoint and VPC
- Unlimited connections
- Prices indicative, vary by country and exclude taxes and duties
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Db2 AI Community
Free
- Self-managed download for new apps and services
- Limited to 4 CPU cores and 16 GB memory
- Community support
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Db2 AI Standard
Custom pricing
- Price on request
- For production business-critical applications
- Limited to 16 CPU cores and 128 GB memory
- Enterprise support
- Licences standalone perpetual or monthly, cartridge perpetual or subscription
- Also available on Amazon RDS for Db2 with your own licence
Features
- Not included: ACID transactions with row-level locking
- Not included: Declarative table partitioning
- Not included: Native JSON column type with indexing
- Included: Built-in full-text search indexes
- Included: Streaming physical replication to standbys
- Not included: Logical replication of selected tables
- Included: Synchronous multi-replica commit
- Included: Automatic failover to a standby
- Included: Point-in-time recovery from archived logs
- Not included: Online schema changes without table locks
- Included: Columnstore indexes for analytics
- Included: Row-level security policies
- Included: Transparent data encryption at rest
- Not included: Stored procedures in multiple languages
- Not included: Extension or plugin architecture
- Not included: Query store or plan history
- Included: In-place major version upgrade tooling
- Not included: Open source core under a permissive license
Additional Features
- HADR high availability and disaster recovery
- Reads on standby for read-only workloads
- SYNC, NEARSYNC, ASYNC and SUPERASYNC HADR modes
- Automated failover to an HADR standby
- Row and column access control (RCAC)
- Db2 native encryption and audit
- Db2 Text Search with relevance scoring
- ROLLFORWARD recovery to a point in time
Best for
- Enterprises running ERP, order processing, billing and financial systems
- Teams that need hot standbys and failover for always-on transaction systems
- Organisations running databases both on premises and in a cloud
- Security teams that need row and column access policies inside the database
- Teams building AI applications over enterprise data they already hold
- AWS customers who want Db2 managed through Amazon RDS for Db2
- Developers trying Db2 on a serverless instance or the Community edition
Use cases
- Running order processing, inventory and billing systems
- Analysing operational data as it is generated
- Building RAG and semantic search applications over enterprise data
- Serving read-only reports from an HADR standby
- Protecting committed transactions with synchronous HADR replication
- Restoring a database to a point in time from archived logs
- Restricting rows and columns by user, group or role
- Encrypting table spaces, logs and backups at rest
- Adding ranked keyword search to text columns
- Moving a self-managed Db2 workload to a managed cloud deployment
- Prototyping on a serverless single-schema instance
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