A new generation of smarter products, embedded with increasingly sophisticated software and instrumentation, able to connect to other devices, and respond intelligently to user needs, is transforming the way the world works. These products are the building blocks of smarter solutions in every industry, from hospitals to manufacturing to the energy grid.

IBM® Smarter Planet™ software solutions are primarily event-driven. The trigger for an action is not typically a direct user query or an administrative command. It is an event triggered by an IT system, an automated business process, or a physical sensor, such as the reading of an RFID tag or an anomaly detected in the flow of electricity in a smart energy grid. Although event-driven systems can be created based on software passing messages (using message-oriented middleware or an enterprise service bus), the simplest and most flexible way to achieve the same result is to monitor changes to data from existing applications. This technique, using IBM InfoSphere® Change Data Capture (InfoSphere CDC) technology, requires no changes to the application generating the event. This technique allows the consumer of events to use a single and unified change tracking interface.

In today's demanding environment, businesses expect real-time access to personalized information and instantaneous updates, setting a new level of expectations within organizations. To make more informed business decisions, better serve customers, and increase operational efficiencies, organizations need to be aware of changes to key data as they occur. These changes must be immediately delivered to the people and processes that need to act upon them. This ability to sense and respond to data changes is fundamental to Dynamic Warehousing, Master Data Management, and other key initiatives. How would you tie all these independent systems together and process the immense data flow requirements while using your existing IT infrastructure?

In this IBM Redbooks® publication, we provide examples of InfoSphere Data Replication change data capture technology being used to achieve a wide variety of business purposes. We also demonstrate how to implement this technology to best use your existing infrastructure and achieve the scalability you require.

In this book, we introduce you to InfoSphere Data Replication, which is composed of a number of IBM technologies. One of those technologies is IBM InfoSphere Change Data Capture (InfoSphere CDC). We provide an overview of InfoSphere CDC and position it within the InfoSphere architecture.

In addition, we describe the various InfoSphere CDC topologies that can be used to develop business solutions in various environments. We show how InfoSphere CDC can scale to satisfy the requirements of enterprise environments, including high availability. We also describe the flexibility and choices available for managing your InfoSphere CDC environment.

InfoSphere CDC V6.5 and IBM InfoSphere Change Data Delivery V6.5 play roles in capturing and delivering data across enterprise systems in real time. By distributing real-time data across disparate information silos and key systems, they enable businesses to gain immediate awareness of market landscape and operational statistics to streamline business processes, improve customer service, and capture time-sensitive opportunities. InfoSphere Change Data Capture V6.5 and InfoSphere Change Data Delivery V6.5 introduce new capabilities that continue to extend and improve real-time data integration across heterogeneous environments. These advancements include enhanced monitoring, debugging, and improved multi-byte character set (MBCS) configuration. InfoSphere CDC V6.5 also addresses the need for increasing data volumes by providing performance improvements while continuing to achieve and reduce impact on mission-critical production systems.

This book was produced by a team of specialists from around the world working with the International Technical Support Organization, in San Jose, California.

Chuck Ballard is a Project Manager at the International Technical Support organization in San Jose, California. He has over 35 years experience, holding positions in the areas of Product Engineering, Sales, Marketing, Technical Support, and Management. His areas of expertise are database, data management, data warehousing, business intelligence, and process re-engineering. He has written extensively on these subjects, taught classes, and presented at conferences and seminars worldwide. Chuck has both a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University.

Alec Beaton is a Change Data Capture Specialist and member of the IBM InfoSphere Change Data Capture Center of Excellence. He is focused on making specialized knowledge about this product available to tech sales and IBM Business Partners through the InfoSphere CDC wiki and FAQ systems. Before the acquisition of IBM DataMirror® by IBM in 2007, Alec was involved with the PointBase product line acquired earlier by DataMirror. PointBase remains his secondary focus due to the use of the pure Java database by InfoSphere CDC as its metadata repository. He has an IT background that began in the 1980s, and has worked with various database products, including IBM DB2®, Oracle, and SQL Server, and has programmed in Java and C.

Mark Ketchie is a senior Client Technical Specialist (CTS) focused on InfoSphere CDC for the North American tech team. He was previously a DataMirror employee and joined IBM as part of the DataMirror acquisition. Mark assists regional CTSs in conducting InfoSphere CDC Proof of Technologies (POTs) and Proof of Concepts (POCs). He also assists as a liaison between customers and IBM Support on critical support issues. Mark began working with IBM Transformation Server® (now InfoSphere CDC) in 2000 as a Sales Engineer (SE). His duties included customer presentations and demonstrations, producing POTs and POCs, customer training, and consulting. His primary experience is with DB2 / UDB, DB2/400, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL Server. His prior IT experience includes acting as a Project Lead, IT Manager, and Sr. Programmer / Analyst.

Frank Ketelaars is a senior technical field specialist for a worldwide team focused on IBM Replication solutions. In this capacity, Frank conducts change data capture enablement sessions for IBM tech sales teams and IBM Business Partners across the globe. He assists IBM teams with the design of replication configurations to meet client requirements. Before the acquisition of DataMirror by IBM in 2007, Frank fulfilled an international role in the DataMirror organization for almost 10 years, being involved both in pre-sales and professional services engagements. He has hands-on experience on various databases, programming languages, and platforms, with a high level of expertise with IBM System i®. Frank has a Bachelor of Science degree from Hogeschool Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and has 22 years of experience in the information business.

Anzar Noor is a Senior Consultant with the Information Management Professional Services World Wide Team based in Markham, Canada. His main focus has been IBM InfoSphere Change Data Capture and iReflect (Oracle to Oracle High Availability) product implementations around the world. He has performed many implementations of InfoSphere CDC and iReflect since joining IBM in 2007. He has successfully implemented InfoSphere CDC on various platforms, including IBM AIX®, Sun, HP-UX, Linux, AS/400®, and Windows, and multiple database technologies (Oracle DB2 and SQL Server). Anzar came to IBM as part of the IBM acquisition of the DataMirror corporation. He has been working with the InfoSphere CDC technology for over 11 years.

Judy Parkes is a manager with IBM Platform Integration & Deployment Services, with responsibilities for InfoSphere CDC Product Management, in IBM Software Group, Information Management. Judy is based in Markham, Canada.

 

 

Deepak Rangarao is a Senior Certified Technical Sales Specialist with the IBM Netezza® Analytics team. He has over 13 years of cross-industry experience in data warehousing and analytics working for customers and vendors in both a pre-sales and post-sales capacity in retail, banking, telecommunication, and public services. Deepak has taught at universities, on subjects that include electrical engineering, Java network programming, and multimedia and web development. Deepak holds a Master’s degree in Information Technology from R.M.I.T in Melbourne, Australia.

Bill Shubin is a technical specialist focusing on the InfoSphere CDC products in a technical pre-sales role. He has over 13 years experience with replication software solutions and also has experience with IBM System i High Availability replication solutions. Bill has hands-on experience with various databases, including DB2 for AS/400, DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows, Oracle, and SQL Server. Before the acquisition of DataMirror by IBM in 2007, he was with the DataMirror organization for almost 10 years, and had a pre-sales role covering the United States and a professional services role covering North America. Bill is based in Southern California and has a total of 25 years of experience in IT.

Wim Van Tichelen is a Principal Consultant within IBM Software Group Benelux. He started his IT career as an IT manager in a hospital over 20 years ago. Over the years, he worked intensively with the InfoSphere CDC products all over Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. As a principal consultant, Wim guides customers at the business and technical levels to implement IT solutions to deliver value to organizations. His main focus is on InfoSphere CDC and InfoSphere Foundation Tools.

Jerome Chailloux, Channel Technical Sales, IT Specialist, Client Technical Professional IBM Sales & Distribution, IBM France

Laura Cuell, Senior Data Replication Specialist, InfoSphere CDC Center of Excellence, IBM Software Group, Information Management, Markham, Ontario

Mike Jory, Senior Software Development Manager, IBM Software Group, Information Management, Markham, Ontario

Matthias Reiss, Senior Technical Sales Professional, IBM Sales & Distribution, Software Sales, IBM Germany

James Spyker, Senior Architect, InfoSphere CDC, IBM Software Group, Information Management, Markham, Ontario

Victor Szabo, Software Developer, InfoSphere CDC, IBM Software Group, Information Management, Markham, Ontario

Thanks also to the following people for their contributions to this project:

Elaine Pang, Change Data Capture Specialist, InfoSphere CDC Center of Excellence, IBM Software Group, Information Management, Markham, Ontario

Glen Sakuth, Sr. Manager, World Wide CDC Center of Excellence, IBM Software Group, Information Management, Markham, Ontario

Dan Snoddy, Development Manager UI Applications, IBM Software Group, Information Management, Markham, Ontario

Igor Siljanovski, Information Management Development Manager - InfoSphere CDC for IBM z/OS®, Markham, Ontario

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