About This Book

Overview

This book is divided into two parts:

• Part 1: DB2 9 Certification (Chapter 1)

  This section consists of one chapter (Chapter 1), which is designed to introduce you to the DB2 Professional Certification Program that is available from IBM. In this chapter, you will learn about the different certification roles available, along with the basic prerequisites and requirements for each role. This chapter also explains what's involved in the certification process, and it includes a tutorial on the IBM Certification Exam testing software, which you will encounter when you go to take any IBM certification exam.

• Part 2: DB2 9 Fundamentals (Chapters 2–7)

  This section consists of six chapters (Chapters 2 through 7), which are designed to provide you with the concepts you will need to master before you can pass the DB2 9 Fundamentals exam (Exam 730).

  Chapter 2 is designed to introduce you to the various products that make up the DB2 Family and to the comprehensive toolset provided with DB2. In this chapter, you will learn about the various editions of DB2 that are available, the functionality each edition provides, the functionality each DB2 client component provides, and the purpose of each of the more common add-on products that make up the remainder of the DB2 Family. You will also see what graphical user interface (GUI) tools are available and what each tool looks like on the Windows XP operating system, as well as learn what each tool is designed do.

  Chapter 3 is designed to introduce you to the concept of database security and to the various authorization levels and privileges that are recognized by DB2. In this chapter, you will learn how and where users are authenticated, how authorities and privileges determine what a user can and cannot do while working with a database, and how authorities and privileges are given to and taken away from individual users and/or groups of individual users.

  Chapter 4 is designed to introduce you to the concept of servers, instances, databases, and database objects. In this chapter, you will learn how to create a DB2 9 database, and you will see what a DB2 9 database's underlying structure looks like as well as how that structure is physically stored. You will also learn about the DB2 directory files, and you will see how to how to catalog and uncatalog DB2 databases and remote servers. Finally, you will see how to create the various data objects that can exist in a DB2 database, and you will discover what each object is used for.

  Chapter 5 is designed to introduce you to the Structured Query Language (SQL) and XQuery statements that can be used to query and manipulate data. In this chapter, you will learn what SQL is, as well as which SQL statements are classified as Data Manipulation Language (DML) statements. You will also learn and how DML statements are used to store, manipulate, and retrieve relational data stored in tables and views. Finally, you will learn what XQuery is, and you will learn and how XQuery statements can be used to store, manipulate, and retrieve XML documents stored in tables and views.

  Chapter 6 is designed to provide you with everything you need to know about DB2 data types and table constraints. In this chapter, you will learn about the various built-in data types available with DB2 9, as well as what constraints are and what types of constraints are available. You will also learn how data types and constraints can be incorporated into a table's definition, and you will see how constraints and triggers can be used to enforce business rules.

  Chapter 7 is designed to introduce you to the concept of data consistency and to the various mechanisms that DB2 uses to maintain data consistency in both single- and multi-user environments. In this chapter, you will learn what isolation levels are, what isolation levels are available, and how isolation levels are used to keep transactions from interfering with each other in a multi-user environment. You will also learn how DB2 provides concurrency control through the use of locking, what types of locks are available, how locks are acquired, and what factors can influence locking performance.

The book is written primarily for IT professionals who have some experience working with DB2 9 and want to take (and pass) the DB2 9 Fundamentals exam (Exam 730). However, any individual who would like to learn the basic fundamentals of DB2 9 will benefit from the information found in this book.