DSXchange

So we've seen some issues with MySQL Support with DS 8.1 - particularly on AIX. I thought I'd at least report to this forum.

1) MySQL 5.3 isn't supported with 8.1 out of the gate. The DataDirect drivers don't recognize 5.3 version as being a valid version greater than 5.1 so you get an error stating something like: Only versions greater than 5.1 are supported.

2) Support will give you a new version of the branded_odbc folder.

3) The new version does seem to recognize the version correctly, however then, after all that hassle, you'll find that the community version of MySQL is not supported (wtf???), only the commercial and enterprise versions are supported.

Seriously, why is IBM even messing around with DataDirect? unixODBC is more than adequate for getting stuff done, and you get the added advantage of having a whole mess of drivers available that don't exist with DataDirect.

Truth is, we were really excited about this feature - to be able to use MySQL properly with Datastage. You certainly can hack it by writing a java library that'll retrieve the data using the SQLConnector/J from MySQL. The other way I got around this was to make a shell call to the MySQL client and dump to text file and load that into datastage.

Why does this have to be so difficult?

Not to stir anything up here as I've never worked with MySQL in any capacity, let alone with DataStage. But as a serious musing on my part, do you really think there would be much call for support for the "community" version of MySQL amongst companies that would invest in a tool like DataStage? Wouldn't the vast majority have a commercial / enterprise license?

Looking at this list of version differences the community version seems to be more of an "enthusiast" or home user version. Or is that not really the case?

Just wondering aloud...

No, that's not the case at all. Many apps we use only need the community version; there is no need to purchase a license for that product. In fact, most apps out there you buy that require MySQL don't actually ship with it because MySQL AB charges a hefty sum for a redistribution license. They fully expect you to use the app with the community version.

There is very little difference between the two versions except for support and an enterprise monitoring tool:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySQL_Enterprise

This is simply a licensing restriction - possibly imposed by MySQL themselves.

Further to that, I can go and use the Windows version of Datastage with the correct drivers. Datastage shouldn't honestly even be using DataDirect; they should be using unixODBC as it's a much more open standard with support for many more databases.

So here is the email from IBM:

I checked with the product managers on DataStage and the drivers, and unfortunately, there is nothing we can do to change this. It is all a matter of licensing.

DataDirect's agreement with MySQL only allows for integration/support for the commercial/professional/enterprise versions of MySQL, so that's all they can provide/support for in their driver for us/IBM and other customers. Same goes for the PostgreSQL driver.

Sorry but hope that helps somewhat.

They later suggested giving the open source driver a shot, but it's a no go for us. Didn't work.

Datastage shouldn't honestly even be using DataDirect; they should be using unixODBC as it's a much more open standard with support for many more databases.

I believe the original justification for using the DataDirect ODBC Drivers was based on the significantly improved performance from the Wire Protocol implementation they use.

http://www.datadirect.com/products/odbc ... /index.ssp

It looks like Datadirect/IBM has patched ODBC for release 8.1.

For Solaris the patch is is8_ddodbc53_64bit_solaris. This is documented as:

DataDirect (OEM) ODBC Drivers, Release 5.3 for use with Information Server. These drivers have been tested for basic compatibility, but are not completely qualified with releases prior to 8.1. Fixes and other information regarding this release are contained inside the distribution package

This may be the patch that is referred to in an earlier post on this topic. Also, although this is the Solaris file, I am assuming that other versions AIX, etc are also available.


Regard

You can find instructions for getting to IBM software patches at tinyurl.com/dsfixes. You need a Passport Advantage account to get to Information Server software downloads but anyone can access patch and fix downloads.

That's correct - there's an update for the datadirect odbc drivers, but it only supports MySQL Enterprise because that's all Datadirect was licensed for by MySQL AB.

I believe this has to do with the GBL nature of MySQL community edition's APIs, because any derivative work of those APIs would have to be released under GPL as well.

I hacked it anyway, but it annoys me that I have to do this. I call the mysql client with the execute stage and make a text file, and use datastage to read the text file. It's an amazingly stupid waste of time, and I intend to build a java library that'll do this instead so I don't have to waste time building this file.