Visit IBM developerWorks to download a free trial of IBM Informix Dynamic Server Enterprise Edition V11.5. Informix Dynamic Server offers outstanding online transaction processing (OLTP) database performance, while helping to simplify and automate many of the tasks associated with deploying databases for medium to enterprise business applications.

Visit IBM developerWorks to download IBM DB2 Express-C 9.5, a no-charge version of DB2 Express 9 database server. DB2 Express-C offers the same core data server base features as other DB2 Express editions and provides a solid base to build and deploy applications developed using C/C++, Java, .NET, PHP, and other programming languages.

Download IBM Informix Dynamic Server Developer Edition at no cost. Use IBM Informix Dynamic Server Developer Edition for applications development and prototyping. It is integrated with IBM Data Studio to provide you with full range of tooling for development. Developer Edition is available free of charge, for development use only, with no time limits, and no support.

Get the free trial version of IBM Informix Dynamic Server Express Edition. Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) Express Edition offers outstanding online transaction processing (OLTP) database performance, while helping to simplify and automate many of the tasks associated with deploying databases for small business applications.

The IBM DB2 Deep Compression ROI tool is designed for DBAs and IT management personnel to perform a clinical analysis of the cost savings gained from the Storage Optimization feature of DB2 9 for Linux, UNIX and Windows. The feature, also known as Deep Compression, compresses data that lies within a database by up to 80% at times.

Visit IBM developerWorks to download the latest trial version of IBM Data Studio V1.1 at no cost. IBM Data Studio is a comprehensive data management solution that helps you effectively design, develop, deploy and manage your data, databases, and database applications throughout the data management life cycle utilizing a consistent and integrated user interface. Unlike other client-side data management solutions that focus on only one aspect of the application lifecycle or database administration, Data Studio complements the Rational Software Delivery platform, providing unparalleled flexibility for a heterogeneous data server environment across platforms.

Download a free trial version of IBM DB2 9.5 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows. DB2 9 is the result of a five-year development project that transformed traditional (static) database technology into an interactive data server that merges the high performance and ease of use of DB2 with the self-describing benefits of XML.

Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) Express Edition offers outstanding online transaction processing (OLTP) database performance, while helping to simplify and automate many of the tasks associated with deploying databases for small business applications. IDS 11 further extends the ease of management and applications integration with the Admin API and Scheduler, high availability with Continuous Log Restore for backup server recovery in case of a primary server failure, and column level encryption to protect personal and company private data.

Experience the combined power of DB2 Query Patroller and DB2 Performance Expert. To further improve data server performance, these complementary tools have been bundled together to form the Performance Optimization feature of DB2 9. The contents of this eKit will teach you how the DB2 9 Performance Optimization feature for DB2 Linux, UNIX and Windows can help improve your performance, throughput, and response times.

(OK, well, maybe not the world but... at least it saves you money)
You think you have data management problems? See what happens to our developer, Justin Whitney, when he is presented with a large, mysterious (and dangerous) XML data set. DB2 Express-C saves the day for him and it can for you, too. Take back control of your build, production-ready deployment, and distribution of pure XML, even in 64-bit environments.

With IBM's free DB2 Express C database you get more for your money:

• Support for pure XML data not found in MySQL
• Support for production-strength deployment not found in Oracle 10g Express Edition
• Support for pure 64-bit environments not found with SQL Server 2005 Express Edition
• Optional support for high-availability disaster recovery, 24*7 product support and regular product updates

The next generation of IBM's Informix Dynamic Server (IDS)—code-named "Cheetah"—is now available for an open test run. The IDS Cheetah "Administration Free Zone" makes it easier than ever to manage distributed environments with minimal remote administration, delivering these features and more remote standalone secondary servers.

IBM PLACESadmin helps developers to create, modify, and manage indoor, location-based Web applications through a simple-to-use, Internet-based Web interface. The term PLACES stands for Point-of-interest, Locations, and Assest Catalog for Enterprise Services.

DB2 Viper test drive is now available. Take the DB2 Viper test drive now to learn about all the new and exciting features.

The Starter Toolkit for DB2 on Rails is a conveniently-packaged set of products and technologies that enables the quick creation of a configuration for building DB2 Web applications using Ruby on Rails technology.

Download a free trial version of IBM Rational Data Architect and get to work designing relational and federated databases, understanding data assets and their relationships and streamlining database projects.

Learn a unique approach to set up your service-oriented architecture (SOA) deployment environment from bare metal to the basic software stack and start your journey towards service orientation.

DB2 Express-C is a no-charge data server for use in application development and deployment. Download today to experience the power, function, and reliability of an open standards-based database server that includes the pureXML advancements of DB2 9 (formerly known as Viper), and much more.

With a full-featured relational database management system (RDBMS) platform, IDS offers extensive capabilities to meet unique business requirements with the speed of native database functions. Download a free trial version today.

IBM recently acquired Solid Information Technology, a leading provider of in-memory, relational database software that is now part of IBM Information Management. Join this webcast for a technical overview of the architecture and capabilities of IBM solidDB, with a focus on the in-memory database implementation, and how it has been built to provide micro-second response times, high transaction throughput, and sub-second failover.

Listen to this Webcast to get an overview of Info 2.0 and a technical demo of how to quickly build an enterprise mashup. IBM's Info 2.0 technology leverages emerging Web 2.0 technologies such as mashups, feeds, AJAX, and JSON in order to simplify assembly of information using feeds and services. Come learn about the technical elements of Info 2.0 including the Feed Generation framework, Mashup Engine, and mashup assembly components. Learn how to pull information from databases, departmental information, and the Web to create mashups critical to your company's success. We will also discuss best practices to help you get started.

The latest version of IBM's DB2 database, version 9.7, helps lower operational costs and automates routine tasks, which means your IT staff is free to work on those projects that lead to innovation and revenue.

Moving your solutions online opens up tremendous opportunities in the Software as a Service (SaaS) arena. But to do it right, you need a database that can start strong, scale well, and fit your budget at every stage of development. Learn why IBM DB2 Express-C makes sense for your SaaS application, what it offers (for free!), and what you should be aware of when architecting your SaaS. Best of all, find out why XML, the lifeblood of any SaaS, comes naturally to Express-C and how to get native support for your highly responsive code.

DB2 9 provides pureXML storage and offers XQuery and SQL/XML as query languages. XML indexes are essential for high query performance, but their usage for query evaluation depends on how query predicates for formulated. This article presents a set of guidelines for writing XML queries and creating XML indexes in a consistent manner so that indexes speed up your queries as expected. Plus, learn what to look for in XML query execution plans to detect performance issues, and find out how to fix them. A downloadable "cheat sheet" summarizes the most important guidelines.

If you're a database specialist interested in growing your DB2 9 skills, there's a good chance that you've already developed database skills with another relational database product somewhere along the way. Recently updated for the latest versions of DB2 and Oracle, this article shows you how to use your current knowledge of Oracle to quickly gain skills in DB2 9 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows.

For many kinds of applications, DB2 Content Manager may need to communicate with external applications and third party products. Content Manager V8.3 addresses this critical requirement by supporting user exit routines, which communicate with external applications from within the workflow. This article explores how user exit routines can be implemented within a Content Manager workflow, as well as alternatives to using them.

In this article you'll explore the Drupal database abstraction layer, a very thin layer of code that wraps the low-level PHP database routines. Drupal comes standard with support for MySQL and PostgreSQL, but adding an additional database is relatively easy if it supports a PHP interface. As a module developer, you should use this database layer as much as possible to reduce your development time and increase your module's portability.

You can't escape it—XML is everywhere. From RSS to Ajax, XML has become the de facto standard for today's rich Internet applications. This walkthrough covers how to build an Ajax application from scratch using DB2 9's new XML functionality. You'll go from installing and configuring your free download of DB2 9 Express-C to creating Web Services in Visual Studio 2005 using the DB2 9 Add-ins to interacting with those services using asynchronous JavaScript.

In this second installment, author Justin Whitney shows how painless XML programming can be and how creating a Web Service in Visual Studio 2005 using the DB2 9 Add-ins and interacting with those services using asynchronous JavaScript can make you a hero.

With the release of DB2 Viper, IBM has also announced the availability of the DB2 Developer Workbench. Formerly packaged with DB2 as the Development Center, the new Workbench, based on Eclipse, allows DBAs more flexibility in their development process and gives them a load of new toys to play with. This article walks through one of the new features: the XQuery Visual Builder.

Get this in-depth analysis of both DB2 and Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) for the professional PHP developer. A fully functional example Web app is provided using the new object-oriented features of PHP 5 and the IBM supported extensions for accessing DB2 and IDS. It also includes many code samples and discussions of both PDO and Zend Core.

The latest in the evolution of DB2, DB2 Viper gives developers more power than ever for managing large amounts of XML. This article highlights DB2 Viper's key new features and walks through the import of a sample XML data set featuring your favorite bard, Shakespeare.

IBM's new Rational Data Architect gives database administrators powerful new tools for visually modeling and documenting databases, as well as integrating federated data sources by creating mappings, discovering relationships, and building transformations. This article gives new users a top-level view of RDA and touches on some of its core features with a couple of quick walkthroughs.

IBM offers its first free version of DB2, DB2 Express-C. But what is it, exactly, and how does it differ from the other versions? This article gives developers an overview of the new database. As a bonus, watch a couple of demos of some hidden treasures of the DB2 family, including the Auto-Maintenance Configuration utility.