Replication and publishing overviews

IBM® provides two different solutions that you can use to replicate data from and to relational databases: SQL replication and Q Replication. IBM also provides a solution called Event Publishing for converting committed source changes into messages in an XML or delimited format and for publishing those messages across IBM MQ queues to applications.

In SQL Replication, committed source changes are staged in relational tables before being replicated to target systems. In Q Replication, committed source changes are written in messages that are transported through MQ queues to target systems.

What's new and release notes
"What's new" topics and release notes describe new and changed function for recent releases of Q Replication, Event Publishing, and SQL Replication.
Supported sources and targets
The following table shows the replication sources and targets that are supported for SQL Replication, Q Replication, and Event Publishing.
DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows support in InfoSphere Data Replication
To replicate to or from different versions of DB2® for Linux, UNIX, and Windows, you might need to install a specific version of InfoSphere® Data Replication.
Replication Center supported on Linux and Windows platforms
The Replication Center is supported on Linux and Windows platforms.
Introduction to SQL Replication
SQL Replication captures changes to sources and uses staging tables to store committed transactional data. The changes are then read from the staging tables and replicated to corresponding target tables. With staging tables, data can be captured and staged once for delivery to multiple targets, in different formats, and at different delivery intervals.
Introduction to Q Replication
Q Replication is a replication solution that can replicate large volumes of data at low levels of latency. Q Replication captures changes to source tables and converts committed transactional data to messages.
Introduction to Event Publishing
Event Publishing captures changes to source tables and converts committed transactional data to messages in an XML or delimited format. Each message can contain an entire transaction or only a row-level change. These messages are put on IBM MQ message queues and read by a message broker or other applications. You can publish subsets of columns and rows from source tables so that you publish only the data that you need.
Comparison of Q Replication, SQL Replication, and Event Publishing
Q Replication, SQL Replication, and Event Publishing differ in their uses. You can compare these differences to determine which solution best works for your environment.
Comparison of Q Replication to high availability disaster recovery (HADR)
DB2® high availability disaster recovery (HADR) provides a high-availability technology to help you recover from complete site failures, as well as to support applications that demand ultrafast failover for partial site failures.
Comparison of Event Publishing to DB2 MQ user-defined functions
You can use IBM MQ functions that are available in DB2 as user-defined functions in scenarios similar to those scenarios that you can set up with Event Publishing. These functions allow users to use SQL to access MQ message queues from DB2.
Administrative interfaces for replication and publishing
Replication and publishing provide three administrative interfaces for setting up, operating, and monitoring the health of your environment.
Utilities for replication and publishing
Three utilities that work with the replication and publishing technologies help you monitor your replication and publishing environments and keep sources and targets synchronized.