* IBM DB2 Data Provider
<ul>
	<li>ADO.NET Data Provider for <a href="http://www-3.ibm.com/software/data/db2/">IBM DB2 Universal Database</a>.</li>

	<li>Exists in namespace IBM.Data.DB2 and assembly IBM.Data.DB2. The source code is located in the mcs/class/IBM.Data.DB2 directory.</li>

	<li>This IBM DB2 data provider is built on top of Call Level Interface, a C interface similar to ODBC.</li>
	The required libraries are db2cli.dll on Windows and db2_36.so under Linux.

	<li>The data provider is maintained by <a href="http://www.hqsoftconsult.com">HQSoftware Consulting</a> team.</li>
	Our objective in developing this managed provider is to simplify the process of migrating enterprise solutions with demanding data processing requirements from Windows to Linux. For questions, complaints or anything else regarding the managed provider please <a href="mailto:office@hqsoftconsult.com">contact us</a>.

	<li>Bugs with Mono or the data provider should be reported in Mono's Bugzilla <a href="http://bugzilla.ximian.com/">here</a>.  If you do not have Bugzilla user account, it is free and easy to create one <a href="http://bugzilla.ximian.com/createaccount.cgi">here</a>.</li>

</ul>

** Current Status

<ul>
	This IBM DB2 managed provider is in a stable stage. It was tested on Linux and Windows platforms on x86 hardware. All the features one would expect from a .NET managed provider are implemented, including:
	<ul>
		<li>Connecting / disconneting to local and remote datasources</li>
		<li>Connection pooling</li>
		<li>Statement execution support using the ExecuteNonQuery(), ExecuteScalar(), ExecuteReader() methods of the DB2Command</li>
		<li>Transactions support</li>
		<li>Filling datasets with the DB2DataAdapter from direct statement execution or from stored procedures cursors</li>
		<li>Updating datasources with the changes in DataSets using DB2DataAdapter.Update() method</li>
		<li>Full stored procedures invocation support; IN/OUT/INOUT and return parameters</li>
		<li>Generating Insert/Update/Delete commands with the DB2CommandBuilder</li>
	</ul>
</ul>

** Action Plan

<ul>
		<li>Future plans:
		<ul>
			<li>Fixing all the bugs as soon as they will be discovered</li>
			<li>Exhaustive test cases suite</li>
			<li>Enhanced bulk insert operations support</li>
			<li>Switching from the C interface to the DB2 wire protocol </li>
		</ul>
		</li>

</ul>

** Testing
<br>
In order to test.
<ul>
	<li>Download and install mono from <a href="http://www.go-mono.com/download.html">http://www.go-mono.com/download.html</a></li>
	<li>Make sure you have a working C compiler on the machine you will install DB2 on, since this will be required for compiling stored procedures</li>
	<li>Install IBM DB2 and make sure you have created the links for the DB2 files using the db2ln command. </li>
	You can register and download IBM DB2 Personal Developer Edition from <a href="http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/download/search.jsp?rs=db2pde">here</a>.
	If you cannot install DB2 using the automatic installation due to the java user interface issues, you can perform a manual installation following these <a href="http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/db2help/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.db2.udb.doc/start/t0006742.htm">instructions</a>.

	<li>Make sure the assembly IBM.Data.DB2.dll was built and installed where the other class libraries are installed.</li>
</ul>