I need to create a linked server to a DB2 database on a mainframe. Has anyone done this successfully on a 64-bit version of SQL Server 2005? If so, which provider and settings were used?
It’s important that the linked server work whether we are using a Windows authenticated account to login to SQL Server or a SQL Server login. It’s also important that both the 4-part name and OPENQUERY query methods are functional. We have one set up on a SQL Server 2000 machine that works well, but it uses a provider that’s not available for 64-bit SS 2005.
We had this same issue with a production system late last year (sept 2007) and the official word from our Microsoft contact was that they had a 64 bit oledb driver to connect to ASI/DB2 but it was in BETA at the time.
Not sure when it will be out of beta but that was the news as of last year.
We decided to move the production server onto a 32 bit machine since we were not comfortable using beta drivers on production systems.
I know this doesn’t answer your question but it hopefully gives you some insight