PowerExchange can efficiently move large amounts of data between different operating systems in a single operation. You can use this bulk data movement capability to materialize or completely refresh a data target, resynchronize a data source and data target, or create a data warehouse, data mart, or operational data store.

After you materialize a target, you can use PowerExchange Change Data Capture (CDC), if this option is available at your site, to update the target on a continuous basis. By moving only the change data, you can refresh data on the target faster.

PowerExchange can move bulk data between sources and targets of different types on the same operating system or on different operating systems. PowerExchange works in conjunction with PowerCenter® to extract data from and write data to relational databases, nonrelational databases, flat files, and sequential data sets. The types of data sources and targets that you can use for bulk data movement depend on your PowerExchange license.

On Linux, UNIX, and Windows systems, PowerExchange can move bulk data for the following types of data sources and targets:

On i5/OS systems, PowerExchange can move bulk data for DB2 for i5/OS tables and flat files.

On z/OS systems, PowerExchange can use the following types of databases and files as either bulk data sources or targets, except where noted:

For DB2 for z/OS, PowerExchange can use the DB2 LOAD utility to load data to DB2 tables. For IMS, PowerExchange can use an IMS unload data set as the source.

If the source data resides on tape, PowerExchange can read the data from the tape data sets, including data sets that have a block size greater than 32,760 bytes.