IBM is offering users of its no-cost DB2 Express-C data server a new paid-support option.

This announcement makes IBM the first company of the three largest database players to offer an annual support option for the no-cost version of its respective database.

The option includes technical support around the clock, seven days a week, as well as regular maintenance and upgrade protection, high-availability clustering free of charge, and off-site disaster recovery. Customers also have the ability to replicate data with remote data servers at no additional cost, IBM officials said.

The support option is available at a price of $2,995, according to IBM.

"First off, we don't believe that MySQL competes against DB2 Express-C at all," said Zack Urlocker, MySQL's executive vice president of products. "Our user bases have completely different database needs and applications. Most of the time, we see MySQL co-existing with the big three databases in the IT data center. If IBM's DB2 Express-C users need support for their applications, we think it's great that IBM is offering it to them."

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Prashanth Rai