IBM announced that <A HREF="http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/21189.wss">the DB2 9 Viper data server</A> is now available for System z customers. Featuring hundreds of new features for mainframe customers, DB2 9 for z/OS will provide unmatched security, enhanced data storage compression and, for the first time, allow the seamless management of relational and XML data in the same database.