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Wikipedia says DB2 is no longer Platform-specific:

Historically and unlike other database vendors, IBM produced a platform-specific DB2 product for each of its major operating systems. However, in the 1990s IBM changed track and produced a DB2 "common server" product, designed with a common code base to run on different platforms.

If this is the case, why are there different drivers to connect to DB2 for iSeries and DB2 for Linux, UNIX and Windows? (I'm not sure if DB2 for z/OS has its own driver as well.)

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I don't think your assumption about "different drivers to connect to DB2 for iSeries and DB2 for Linux, UNIX and Windows" is correct. There is a single IBM Data Server Client that is used to connect to DB2 for LUW, DB2 for System i, DB2 for z/OS, and Informix servers.

However, what you quote seems to reference DB2 server software, not drivers, and there are still different versions of DB2 servers for LUW, System i, and z/OS. They used to have quite different SQL dialects, but these differences are being reduced.

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  • I'm talking about having to use "IBM.Data.DB2.iSeries.dll" to connect to iSeries DB2, and "IBM.Data.DB2.dll" for LUW DB2. Different DB2s, different (client) drivers. Am I wrong? – John Assymptoth Dec 11 '14 at 18:18
  • That's not drivers, that's .Net plugins (or whatever they are called - providers?) They both use the same ODBC/CLI driver. – mustaccio Dec 11 '14 at 18:58
  • So, even though different DB2s can have different SQL dialects, the ODBC/CLI driver is the same? Why are different .NET plugins needed? – John Assymptoth Dec 11 '14 at 22:34
  • That I don't know. – mustaccio Dec 12 '14 at 1:02
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I believe the "common server" product is the one known as DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows. As that one uses the same code base (for the most part) across those platforms. And the driver is the same. I'm guessing the code bases for these products differed at one point.

DB2 for z and DB2 for i are different as they are more integrated into the operating systems that IBM wrote (z/OS and i5/OS respectively). As such, those require different drivers.

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