Spatial Support for DB2 9 for z/OS

With DB2 Spatial Support, you can:

• Generate and analyze spatial information, and store and manage the data on which this information is based--all in the same database.

• Perform spatial operations by invoking stored procedures and functions from applications

• Use a single SQL interface to retrieve business and spatial data from the same database. If your business data is stored on other platforms through IBM's federated capability, you can combine this data with your local spatial data. You do not need to go to the trouble of moving business data to your local database or to the expense of modifying existing applications.

• Use DB2 9 for z/OS, its sophisticated SQL interface, and it's cost-based query optimizer to let you run complex queries to manipulate spatial data with great efficiency.

Better and faster analysis using spatial data

Your business decisions can be enhanced by adding the location factor to your queries. For example, you can:

• Decide where to build new offices on the basis of not only costs and statistics, but also the proximity of competitors and potential clientele.

• Determine which customers live inside and outside sales areas, whether the center of a sales area is too far away from most of the customers in the area, or to what extent your sales areas overlap with those of competitors.

• See which customers own homes valued at over $400,000 that are within one mile of an earthquake fault.

Enhance your database with spatial data

• Import external spatial data (such as census data) in a variety of common spatial formats, such as well-known text, well-known binary, and shape representation.

• DB2 Spatial Support functions allow you to derive new spatial data from existing spatial data and create spatial data from existing non-spatial data (e.g. Convert customer address into latitude/longitude coordinate pair)

Leverages long-proven benefits of the mainframe platform

• Reliability, availability, security and scalability.

• Effectively and efficiently manage high-volume information.

• Lowers the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

Extend your capabilities with GIS and BI tools

You can use geographic information system (GIS) and business intelligence (BI) tools to enhance your decision-making power. For example, if query results indicate where proposed sites for new offices are located with respect to the residences of potential customers, a GIS tool can show these relative locations on a map, and a BI tool can supplement the map with tables or graphs.

Optimize Spatial Indexes

The spatial index performance can be optimized by providing the appropriate values in the grid index specification based on the actual data values to be indexed.