Re: Data conversion from IBM to UNIX

From: Bill Manry - MainframeBmanryIntegration <bmanry_at_ibmgate-aix.us.oracle.com>
Date: 1995/09/13
Message-ID: <435adn$hsk_at_inet-nntp-gw-1.us.oracle.com>#1/1


Ewald Ziervogel (zedez_at_safmarine.co.za) wrote:
>We are in the process of moving some systems from an IBM/MVS DB2
>database to Unix/Oracle. We have uncovered a major problem (for us)
>which I am sure has been solved by others.
>Some of our data fields are held on the DB2 database as binary, and
>when transfered to the UNIX platform the conversion from EBCDIC to
>ASCII screws them up!
>Also the Oracle load utility will ignore any data fields containing
>nulls (x'0000' for eg), with disasterous results.

Three suggestions:

  1. Unload the DB2 data so that numbers are converted to a character representation (using, say, a COBOL program written for this purpose). Change your Oracle load (SQL*Loader, I assume) to take the input in this form. You can get Loader to do the ASCII translation if you want, using the CHARACTERSET option.
  2. Use the data you have currently as input to SQL*Loader on MVS with a SQL*Net (TCP/IP or LU6.2) connection to the target Oracle db. This means you have to have SQL*Loader on MVS and SQL*Net on both sides (MVS and UNIX). Oracle licenses an "MVS Client" product package that includes SQL*Loader, SQL*Net, and some other goodies.
  3. Use an Oracle Transparent Gateway product to access the DB2 data as though it was part of Oracle. This will let you do something from the UNIX side like INSERT INTO ORA_TABLE(...) SELECT ... FROM DB2_TABLE or, even simpler, CREATE ORA_TABLE AS SELECT * FROM DB2_TABLE There are two Transparent Gateway products that will do this. The T.G. for DB2 runs on MVS and relies on SQL*Net; the T.G. for IBM DRDA runs on the UNIX box and talks to MVS using native LU6.2 (not SQL*Net).

The third choice probably gives you the most flexibility. Note that the gateways cited also allow UNIX-side Oracle applications to update DB2 data. The T.G. for IBM DRDA can also access DB2/VM and DB2/400.

/b



Bill Manry - Mainframe and Integration Technologies - Oracle Corporation Standard disclaimer applies. Received on Wed Sep 13 1995 - 00:00:00 CEST

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