Federated access to Excel from DB2 9.1.1 on Linux

[peteh]

Hi All;
I have tried to find this info on the IBM site, but alas... We are
running DB2 v9.1.1 and making extensive use of Information Integrator
(now known as Websphere Federation Server?!) to access Oracle and
other DB2s (LUW, AS400 and z/OS).

We have some requirements to integrate Excel data. In looking at our
options 18 months ago (v8.2), we needed some additional Windows
components (drivers and ODBC communication software) to make this
happen beyond just installing a new wrapper. Some very high level
marketing-oriented docs imply this is no longer the case with v9. Can
anyone point me to the technical docs - manuals or Redbooks - for
Federation Server access to Excel from a Linux database server?

I'm trying to see what work we need to do to simply treat Excel as
another "relational" data source (never mind whether I actually think
this is a GOOD idea or not, I just want the technical requirements and
issues) using the power of federation. Thanks for any help or
direction.

Pete H

[gimme_this_gimme_that]

On Mar 13, 11:05*am, peteh <[e-mail]:

Hi All;
I have tried to find this info on the IBM site, but alas... We are
running DB2 v9.1.1 and making extensive use of Information Integrator
(now known as Websphere Federation Server?!) to access Oracle and
other DB2s (LUW, AS400 and z/OS).

We have some requirements to integrate Excel data. In looking at our
options 18 months ago (v8.2), we needed some additional Windows
components (drivers and ODBC communication software) to make this
happen beyond just installing a new wrapper. Some very high level
marketing-oriented docs imply this is no longer the case with v9. Can
anyone point me to the technical docs - manuals or Redbooks - for
Federation Server access to Excel from a Linux database server?

I'm trying to see what work we need to do to simply treat Excel as
another "relational" data source (never mind whether I actually think
this is a GOOD idea or not, I just want the technical requirements and
issues) using the power of federation. Thanks for any help or
direction.

Pete H

Hi Pete,

I'm unclear on a few things:

1. Do you *have* to use Information Integrator? Or would you be happy
with a solution that pushed data from Excel to DB2 or Oracle?

2. You mentioned "drivers and ODBC communication software". This has
me confused about your environment. Is the machine running Federation
Server running Windows or Linux? Or you running Linux only - and
you're using ODBC and driver software from (say) actual.com?

3. How are the Excel Worksheets supposed to be uploaded so the Excel
Workbooks are made available?

4. If you have Windows machines around - what is stopping you from
pushing the data from Excel into a database using VBA or Excel's data-
export?

5. Is it necessary to only to read Excel Workbooks? Or do you need to
write them as well?

[peteh]

Thanks Gimme - my responses inline...

On Mar 13, 5:29*pm, "[e-mail]"
<[e-mail]:

Hi Pete,

I'm unclear on a few things:

1. Do you *have* to use Information Integrator? Or would you be happy
with a solution that pushed data from Excel to DB2 or Oracle?

We're trying to implement a "pull" pattern so we can take advantage of
our existing infrastructure and patterns (scheduler. standard scripts,
etc). There are a variety of ways to "push" from Excel that we may be
able to live with. I just want to fully understand the Info Integrator/
Federation Server implementation in v9.

>
2. You mentioned "drivers and ODBC communication software". This has
me confused about your environment. Is the machine running Federation
Server running Windows or Linux? Or you running *Linux only - and
you're using ODBC and driver software from (say) actual.com?

The Federation Server is a DB2 v9.1. Linux (DPF) data warehouse. We
have no current ODBC/driver config. We just looked into it when we
were running v8.x.

>
3. How are the Excel Worksheets supposed to be uploaded so the Excel
Workbooks are made available?

They will be stored on a Windows file server in a standard location
and naming convention.

>
4. If you have Windows machines around - what is stopping you from
pushing the data from Excel into a database using VBA or Excel's data-
export?

See number 1..

>
5. Is it necessary to only to read Excel Workbooks? Or do you need to
write them as well?- Hide quoted text -

Read only. We want to pull and integrate the data with other content
in our data warehouse.

>

Thanks again for the response Gimme. Anyone able to offer the
Federation Server/Infomation Integrator/v9/Excel answer or a reference
to relevant manuals/Redbooks?

Pete H

[peteh]

On Mar 14, 12:09*pm, "Jan M. Nelken" <[e-mail]>
wrote:

>
...In addition to my last post - you can also set up all pieces of that
on Linux (using virtal machine hosting Window based "staging server").

Jan M. Nelken- Hide quoted text -

Many thanks to all. This is exactly what I need to confirm. We have
considered setting up such a Windows "staging server", but wanted to
be sure it was still necessary. It may serve other functions for us as
well, since in a DPF configuration, we do not have access to many
"pureXML" features. This "staging server" could be a non-DPF Windows
box and provide ODBC/Excel federation and XML interfaces to our main
(Linux) data warehouse.

Pete H