IBM Data Server DB2 - Manual (Page 203)

Chapter 4. Deploying applications with DB2 189
4.6 Python
Python (also known as CPython) is a general purpose, high level scripting
language well suited for rapid application development. It is influenced by
languages such as C, Perl, Haskell, and Java. Python supports different
programming paradigms such as procedural, object-oriented, aspect-oriented,
metaprogramming and functional programming.
SQLAlchemy is an open source Python SQL toolkit and object-relational mapper
(ORM) that gives application developer the full flexibility and power of SQL.
SQLAlchemy’s philosophy is that SQL databases behave less and less like
object collections the more size and performance start to matter, while object
collections behave less and less like tables and rows the more abstraction starts
to matter. It is one the prominent ORM tools in usage by Python community. You
can learn more about SQLAlchemy from the site:
http://www.sqlalchemy.org/
Python has a Database Interface (DBI) specification that aims to standardize the
way Python modules access different databases. It specifies the module
interface, objects, and methods that are independent of the database being
used.
In the following sections, we describe the open source products that IBM
provides to access DB2 databases.
4.6.1 IBM_DB driver
IBM_DB is DB2 Python driver which is used to connect to IBM databases. The
IBM_DB driver is the C extension module that wraps IBM Data Server Driver for
ODBC and CLI APIs. It provides the means to issue SQL queries, call stored
procedures, work with large objects, persistent connections, pureXML, and
metadata information against IBM data servers.
4.6.2 IBM_DB_DBI wrapper
IBM_DB_DBI is a module that implements the Python DBI API. The Python DBI
API is defined by the Python community, and it uses IBM_DB internally to
connect to DB2 databases. It is an open source product and is written in Python.
The IBM_DB_DBI provides the means to issue SQL queries, call stored
procedures, work with large objects, and use pureXML.