IBM has announced the general availability of the Db2 Warehouse SaaS on Azure, using the Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) model.

The solution for Azure Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) comes built on Db2 Warehouse on Cloud, and is described by Big Blue as a high-performing, elastic cloud data warehouse with storage capacity for petabytes of data. Included is support for real-time ingestion and an AI-powered query optimizer to accelerate results.

The offering showcases a new hyperscaler partner for IBM, after recent years have seen a deepening relationship between it and Amazon Web Services (AWS); Db2 Warehouse on Cloud has offered general availability of its AWS support since 2023.

For any customers using IBM Cloud or AWS, the added Azure support means the same database can be connected by modern SD-WAN links.

Deeper into Db2 Warehouse SaaS

The Azure solution – also available as a joint managed service – promises to leverage scalability for customers, offering multi-petabyte-scale leveraging MPP architecture, local caching, and AI-based query optimization.

Storage tiers include support for a high-performance block storage solution and storage auto-increase.

On the open data side, Db2 Warehouse SaaS offers queries of multiple open table and data formats in Iceberg, Parquet, ORC, and CSV.

For lakehouse integration, customers can share data catalogs with the watsonx.data lakehouse service to bring Db2 data into AI and machine learning pipelines.

There is also public and private network support for maximum security and privacy of deployed warehouses, better helping to meet telecom security regs.

The BYOC model can also allow customers to run the database instance inside their Azure Cloud Account or VPC, allowing for better speed and security – and possibly lower network costs.

It can also allow for granular monitoring and auditing, including network-level controls for greater visibility and control, handy for 5G data network data. Companies with mini-5G networks on site could potentially benefit from running Db2 in their own Azure instance to keep machine and sensor data local in order to meet privacy regulations.

The need for external networking comes removed with Big Blue's offering, as clients are better able to collocate data sources within their own VPCs or Azure account.

The IBM press release also mentions upcoming features such as pause compute to reduce the cost of running dev/test or production environments; self-service maintenance windows for product and database engine updates.

Azure Blob storage support is upcoming, plus cross-region snapshot backup to Azure Blob for disaster recovery.

A simple migration option is also promised by IBM, with backup of on-premises database and restore to Db2 Warehouse on Azure.