How to connect Aion Business Rules Expert 11.0 to a DB2 database on z/OS?

Products

• Aion Business Rules Expert

Issue/Introduction

It is possible to make a connection from Aion Business Rules Expert 11.0 on Windows, to a remote DB2 database on z/OS. This document will describe what is necessary in order to make this connection.

Environment

Release:
Component: AIONBR

Resolution

In order to make a connection from Aion Business Rules Expert 11.0 on Windows to a remote DB2 database on z/OS, the following steps will need to be followed.

1. Obtain access to a TSO session. In most cases, a DB2 instance will be already available.
   
   
2. Install DB2 on Windows. It is sufficient to have just the DB2 client installed. The client must not be of a major version greater than that of the one on z/OS.
   
   
3. In the DB2 Configuration Wizard, define a system connection to an existing DB2 database instance on the Mainframe.
   
   
4. You will need to know the hostname, service name, the port number to DB2 (if it is not set to the default 50000), database name, whether to register the database for CLI/ODBC, and choose from one of the three:
   
   
   1. As a system data source
      
      
   2. As a user data source
      
      
   3. As a file data source
      
      Note the preferred data source is the "system data source".
      
      
5. Follow along the default choices until you create your alias. Confirm this in the list of aliases once the creation is completed.
   
   
6. Test your connection on Windows, to DB2 on Mainframe.
   
   
7. In your Aion application, your connection should point to the alias that you created in DB2. You should not need to use the domain name along with the host name. Your database should be the alias you created in the DB2 Configuration Wizard. Or you could try SYSPROG.PRODUCTS($DOCDB2). Note it is generally unnecessary to define a ODBC connection if you happen to know the database name, hostname, user id, and password, of your database. With the Aion connection, you should generally be able to use the "DB2" connection interface, as well as the ODBC interface. You can use either implementation for a DB2 database connection.