Chapter 10. DB2 and the Web
The Web changed the way that companies conduct business. Corporations, both large and small, use Web sites to describe the services and products they provide. Shipping companies enable customers to track the progress of their shipments online. Bank customers can view their accounts and initiate online transactions from the comfort of their homes. Companies routinely distribute information about company programs, policies, and news by using company-wide intranets. Individual investors submit online buy and sell orders through their brokerages every day. Online retailing continues to increase in popularity. Buyers use specialized software for the following types of business-to-business transactions:
Tracking procurement activity
Intelligently selecting preferred suppliers
Electronically initiating business-to-business transactions with suppliers
These are just a few examples of the many ways that businesses are benefitting from the power of the Web by transforming themselves into e-businesses. 
The world of e-business might seem a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. Before you work on a puzzle, you want to know what the picture on the puzzle should look like when you are finished. Likewise, before building or working on an e-business application, you should have a high-level understanding of the overall environment. You should also know something about the various products and tools in that environment. Developing and implementing your application probably involves products and tools on more than one operating system (such as z/OS, Linux, and Windows 2000). Figure 10.1 shows some of these products and tools.
Figure 10.1. The e-business puzzle pieces
Note:This chapter does not provide details about all components of the IBM e-business solution.
Access to data is central to the vast majority of e-business applications. Likewise, the business logic, which transforms data into information or which defines a business transaction, is another key component. Many organizations already store a large amount of mission-critical data in DB2 UDB for z/OS. They also typically have a considerable investment in application programs that access and manipulate this data. Companies that are thinking about moving parts of their business to the Web face the challenges of determining how to build on their existing base of data and business logic and how to expand the usefulness of this base by using the Web.
The IBM premier application server, WebSphere Application Server, helps companies “Web-enable” their data and business logic. The WebSphere Application Server supports server-side programming, which you can learn more about in this chapter.
By using Web-based products and tools, companies can build, deploy, and manage portable e-business applications.
This chapter provides a high-level overview of the concepts and components for the Web environment in which DB2 operates. It highlights one of the Web-based tools in the WebSphere product family: WebSphere Studio Application Developer.