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IBM Db2 Plug-in for Oracle Enterprise Manager — Open Beta

Pre-release notice and terms of use. Please read before installing.

   
Product Integration Plumbers IBM Db2 Plug-in for Oracle Enterprise Manager
Release Open Beta — plug-in ip.em.xdbb, versions 24.1.9.N.0 (EM 24ai) and 13.5.9.N.0 (EM 13.5); the current drop is 24.1.9.9.0 / 13.5.9.4.0
Beta period From 2026-09-01 until general availability (expected late 2026); beta licence keys expire 2026-10-31
Intended use Evaluation in non-production Enterprise Manager environments
Reference IBM Db2 plug-in User Guide — the authoritative description of what the plug-in does

1. What this release is

This is a pre-release build of the plug-in, made available so that you can run it against real Db2 estates, judge it critically, and tell us what you find before general availability. Every metric group, threshold, compliance standard and console page in it has been deployed and exercised against live Db2 databases in our lab; what a beta cannot have yet is the breadth of validation that only other people’s environments provide.

The beta is a separate plug-in from the GA release, by design:

  Open Beta General availability
Plug-in ID ip.em.xdbb ip.em.xdb2
Target type ip_db2_database_beta — shown as IBM DB2 Database (Beta) ip_db2_database
Versions 24.1.9.N.0 / 13.5.9.N.0 (N = beta drop) 24.1.<n>.0.0
Licence keys Issued for ip.em.xdbb; expire 2026-10-31 Issued for ip.em.xdb2

2. Terms of use — installing means you accept

Integration Plumbers IBM Db2 Plug-in for Oracle Enterprise Manager — Open Beta

This is a pre-release (beta) build provided for evaluation. By installing, deploying or using it you accept the following:

  1. Not for production. Deploy it to a non-production Enterprise Manager and monitor non-critical Db2 databases. Do not use it for production monitoring, for compliance-of-record, or as the basis for operational decisions about production systems until the general-availability release.
  2. No warranty and no service level. The software is provided “as is”. There is no guarantee of availability, accuracy, fitness for a particular purpose, response time or resolution. Integration Plumbers is not liable for loss, damage or cost arising from its use during the beta.
  3. Behaviour may change. Metric names, collection intervals, default thresholds, compliance standards and console pages may change between beta drops and before GA. Changes that need action on your side are recorded in the changelog.
  4. Support is best effort. Findings go to helpdesk@integrationplumbers.io — every email opens a ticket you can follow in the customer portal — and are handled on a best-effort basis during business days, not through a production support queue (section 6).
  5. Licensed for the beta only. Beta licence keys are issued for the beta plug-in, expire on 2026-10-31, and do not license the GA release. For a key with an instance limit, the licence check confirms your instance count with the OMS as part of validating the key.
  6. Your environment, your data. You are responsible for the credentials you grant the plug-in (a read-only monitoring user is all it needs — The monitoring role) and for the systems you point it at.

If you do not accept these terms, do not install the software.

3. Before you install

4. Installing the beta

The steps are the standard plug-in lifecycle; Install and upgrade has the full procedure. In brief:

4.1 Import the plug-in

emcli login -username=<em administrator>
emcli import_update -file=/tmp/<artifact>.opar -omslocal

4.2 Deploy to the OMS, then to the agents

emcli deploy_plugin_on_server -plugin=ip.em.xdbb:24.1.9.9.0 -dbUser=SYS -dbPassword=<repository password>
emcli get_plugin_deployment_status -plugin=ip.em.xdbb       # wait for Success
emcli deploy_plugin_on_agent -plugin=ip.em.xdbb:24.1.9.9.0 -agent_names="<agent host>:<port>"

Use 13.5.9.4.0 in place of 24.1.9.9.0, and -sys_password=<repository password> in place of -dbUser/-dbPassword, on Enterprise Manager 13.5. Always pin the :version on both commands — without it, a redeploy of the same or a lower version is silently skipped as “already deployed”.

4.3 Add an IBM DB2 Database (Beta) target

In the console, Setup → Add Target → Add Targets Manually, choose the IBM DB2 Database (Beta) type, and fill in the database name, host, port, the monitoring credentials and the Plugin Licence Key. With emcli:

emcli add_target -name="<target name>" -type="ip_db2_database_beta" -host="<agent host>" \
  -properties="ip_db2_database_dbname:<DBNAME>;ip_db2_database_host:<db host>;ip_db2_database_port:50000;ip_db2_database_license:<key>" \
  -subseparator="properties=:" \
  -monitor_creds="ip_db2_database_beta:DB2DatabaseMonitoringCreds:DB2Username=<user>;DB2Password=<pwd>"

4.4 Verify the first collection

Within a few minutes the target shows Up, its Home page fills in, and the License metric reports Active. If the License status is anything else, section 7 explains what it means and what to change.

4.5 Moving between beta drops

Beta-to-beta upgrades in place: import the new drop’s OPAR and deploy it the same way as the first install (4.1–4.2), over the existing plug-in — targets, their credentials and their collected history are kept. Pin the :version on both the server and agent deploy commands, or the redeploy is silently skipped. Run, or schedule, Purge Stale Plugin Cache once per agent after every upgrade — see Jobs.

4.6 Removing the beta

Remove every IBM DB2 Database (Beta) target first, then undeploy from the agents (emcli undeploy_plugin_from_agent -plugin=ip.em.xdbb -agent_names=...), then from the OMS (emcli undeploy_plugin_from_server -plugin=ip.em.xdbb -dbUser=SYS -dbPassword=<repository password>, or -sys_password=... on EM 13.5). GA is installed fresh (section 1). Full steps, including the Self Update cleanup: Install and upgrade.

5. What is verified, and known limitations

Certification matrix (as of this release)

Area Status
Db2 LUW 12.1, on EM 24ai Certified — deployment, collection, the credential model, licensing and the console pages verified against a live instance
Db2 LUW 11.5 Supported by design; a full live collection run has not yet been completed — see What’s new
HADR standby pair Certified in PEER state against a live primary+standby pair; a controlled takeover/failover exercise has not yet been exercised — see HADR monitoring
Amazon RDS for Db2 Documentation-verified only — see Troubleshooting
EM 24ai (24.1) Certified, including the console
EM 13.5 Offline build validation passed; not yet exercised through live deploy and console verification the way 24ai has — treat 24ai as the reference platform until 13.5 catches up

Db2 LUW versions below 11.5 (9.1–10.5) are not supported by this release — see Supported versions and platforms.

What is not yet verified

Known limitations

  1. Amazon RDS for Db2 is documentation-only in this release. On RDS the five local administrative jobs and diagnostic-log monitoring are unavailable, because the agent cannot be co-located with the instance. All JDBC-based metric collection continues to work over the network. See Troubleshooting.
  2. SQL workload analytics are numeric-only. Top-SQL trends are keyed by a statement-ID hash and carry CPU-time and execution-count trends; statement text is not collected in this release.
  3. Local-only features need a co-located agent. Diagnostic-log monitoring and the five administrative jobs (startup, shutdown, quiesce, unquiesce, kill application) require the agent to be on the same host as the Db2 instance — see Network and ports.
  4. Out of scope for this release: Workload Management (WLM), lock/deadlock event capture, BLU/columnar, pureScale, AI Query Optimizer monitoring, Q Replication, auto-discovery, remote administrative operations, and Db2 for z/OS.

6. Feedback and support during the beta

The beta exists for your findings: bugs, metrics that look wrong or differ from what your previous tooling reported, thresholds that fire when they should not (or stay quiet when they should fire), console pages that render badly in your browser, unclear documentation. Send them to helpdesk@integrationplumbers.io — every email opens a ticket you can follow in the customer portal, or open the ticket there directly. Include the plug-in version (emcli list_plugins_on_server), your EM version (24ai or 13.5), the Db2 version (11.5 or 12.1), the metric group or page involved, and any deploy log, agent log or collection-error text.

Support during the beta is best effort, during business days, with no service level: we read everything, fix what we can in the next drop, and tell you when we cannot. Findings feed directly into GA certification.

7. Licensing during the beta

Every IBM DB2 Database (Beta) target needs a beta licence key in its Plugin Licence Key property (ip_db2_database_license). The plug-in checks the key on the agent host every 15 minutes — and again as soon as the property changes — and reports the result in the target’s License metric:

Status Meaning What to do
Active The key is genuine, issued for ip.em.xdbb, and in date Nothing
License Required No key has been entered Enter your beta key in the Plugin Licence Key property
Invalid Signature The key text was altered, or it was issued for a different plug-in identity Paste the key exactly as issued, as one line, or request a key issued for ip.em.xdbb
Expired The key’s expiry date has passed Request a new key
Exceeded Limit More ip_db2_database_beta targets exist than the key’s instance count. Only this plug-in’s own targets count Request an increased instance count, or remove a target

For a key that carries an instance limit, checking the count means the plug-in calling the OMS to ask how many ip_db2_database_beta targets exist. That connection validates the OMS certificate by default; if it cannot complete, see Troubleshooting. An Unlimited licence key never contacts the OMS at all.

While the status is anything but Active, the plug-in stops ordinary collection on that target. Every metric group except License, Response and Version reports a collection error reading Collection stopped by license status: <status>, and a CRITICAL incident is raised on the License metric. Availability keeps reporting through Response, which is why the target stays Up rather than going Down — the incident and the collection errors are the signal. Collections resume at their next interval once a valid key is accepted.

Open Beta build. Not for production monitoring or compliance-of-record. See section 2.

↑ IBM DB2 Plug-in documentation