(February 27, 2003) - The IBM DB2 Universal Database .NET Enablement beta program is now underway with the IBM DB2 UDB .NET Data Provider as the first technology available for preview. This beta program is open to all programmers interested in developing applications that use the Microsoft .NET Framework. With this beta, you can develop high-performing WinForm, WebForm, and mobile WebForm applications using the ADO.NET API.

These applications can be developed to work with data managed by DB2 Universal Database V8.1 servers running on Windows, UNIX and Linux servers as well as DB2 for OS/390 and z/OS database servers. When used in conjunction with stored procedures and the federated database capabilities of DB2 Universal Database and DB2 Connect servers, this data access can be extended to include a wide variety of other data sources, including non-DB2 mainframe data (such as VSAM, CICS, IMS), Informix Dynamic Server (IDS), Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase, and Oracle databases as well as any data source that has an OLE DB Provider available.

The IBM DB2 UDB .NET Data Provider is written in managed C# code to deliver high-performing, secure access to DB2 UDB data. The DB2 .NET Data Provider has been designed by IBM to deliver the best possible access to DB2 UDB features and functions for .NET developers.

In addition to the DB2 UDB .NET Data Provider, a planned refresh of the beta will include DB2 UDB add-ins for Microsoft Visual Studio .NET. These add-ins, designed to greatly simplify the task of building ADO.NET applications, let you use Visual Studio .NET to build DB2 UDB server-side objects such as stored procedures and user-defined SQL functions (UDFs).

To learn more about this beta program and to download the beta code, visit: www7b.software.ibm.com/dmdd/downloads/dotnetbeta/