With each new release of DB2, there is a list of three different categories of old functionality that is somehow different in the new version. The use of these terms can be confusing if you don’t look at them every day.
Discontinued
Discontinued means that a feature or function is no longer available. If you try to use it, it will not work – an error message will be returned.
Deprecated
Deprecated means that a feature or function is no longer being improved by IBM. The feature or function is still available and will likely still work like it did in previous versions, but deprecated also means that IBM is likely to remove this feature or function in the future and you may want to stop using it. How long is a feature or function deprecated before it is fully discontinued? It is highly variable. For some, it seems to be a single version while others it can be many versions.
Changed
A function or feature can also be changed – meaning that the outcome, syntax, or options are not the same as they were in previous versions. This can be as simple as an additional option on a command or can be more significantly different.
Finding What Falls into These Three Categories
For DB2 10.5, the best page in the IBM DB2 Knowledge center to find all of this information is the What’s Changed page. From this page, you can drill down to the individual items that fall into each of the three categories above.
