IBM will this week preview the next version of its DB2 Universal Database, with improved support for clustering and better administration tools.

The update, codenamed Stinger, is due for commercial release this year, and will compete with Oracle's 10g database that is also optimised for clusters.

At the LinuxWorld Conference, which begins 20 January, IBM will show a feature called DB2 Partition Advisor that automates partitioning and performance tuning.

"Knowing how to partition data and work out how performance will be [affected] is one of the hardest jobs for database administrators," said Nicole Cook, senior product manager at database management tools maker BMC Software. "Do I think it's going to be the end [of manual tuning]? No, but it's something to put in your toolbox."

IBM will also show the Linux 2.6 kernel's ability to take advantage of 64bit databases, including DB2. Under the 2.6 kernel, databases can exploit support for multiprocessor servers that can be clustered to offer alternatives to mainframes and top-end Unix servers. Although 64bit systems such as Sun's Sparc and IBM's Power have tended to be expensive, recent processors such as Intel's Itanium and AMD's Opteron will act to bring prices down.

Late last year, IBM disclosed some details of Stinger application development, saying it was building tools for Microsoft's dot-Net, including the ability for DB2 to host Microsoft's Common Language Runtime.

"That's the surprising feature," said Rob Hailstone of research firm IDC. "It gives much greater access to the huge number of Microsoft developers and it gives those developers the chance to break out of a [Microsoft] environment."

BMC's Cook added, "It looks like [IBM is] trying to hit heavily on application development on the dot-Net platform. That's going to be very good from a database administrator standpoint."

The upgrade may attract more users of Informix, the database firm IBM acquired in 2001. Some have not moved over to DB2, citing the need to rewrite programs and the fact that some key Informix features have not been moved over to DB2.

The looming presence of Stinger and the release of Oracle 10g will put the progress of Microsoft's SQL Server database under the spotlight. The next version, codenamed Yukon, is expected this year and will include business intelligence tools and links to Longhorn, Microsoft's next major refresh of Windows. Open-source vendors are also progressing with an early test version of the MySQL 5.0 database released last week.