Are you attending IDUG EMEA in Vienna? I hope so! The hard working volunteers at IDUG asked me to repeat my extremely successful and popular Ed Seminar from North America 2010 - "DB2 LUW Performance Analysis and Tuning Workshop".

To obtain maximum value from this class, you should follow the preparation instructions from THIS EARLIER BLOG POST (Click Here).

If you are not attending IDUG EMEA in Vienna, try to upgrade your plans! This class is worth the trip! You will be receiving over thirty six (36) SQL Snapshot commands that will help you analyze and tune your DB2 LUW databases!

Finally, please don't plan on leaving early if you can avoid it. At IDUG North America, there were so many good questions and so much lively discussion that we actually ran long by a couple of hours. After class, we'll find the nearest pub and have a graduation ceremony to celebrate your success.

See you at IDUG,
Cheers,
Scott

[ more .. ]

Are you attending IDUG AP in Sydney? I hope so! The hard working volunteers at IDUG asked me to repeat my extremely successful and popular Ed Seminar from North America 2010 - "DB2 LUW Performance Analysis and Tuning Workshop".

To obtain maximum value from this class, you should follow the preparation instructions from THIS EARLIER BLOG POST (Click Here).

If you are not attending IDUG AP Sydney, don't worry - you have another chance at IDUG EMEA in Vienna Austria! This class is worth the trip! You will be receiving over thirty six (36) SQL Snapshot commands that will help you analyze and tune your DB2 LUW databases!

Finally, please don't plan on leaving early if you can avoid it. At IDUG North America, there were so many good questions and so much lively discussion that we actually ran long by a couple of hours. After class, we'll find the nearest pub and have a graduation ceremony to celebrate your success.

See you at IDUG,
Cheers,
Scott

[ more .. ]

What's all this fluffy cloud stuff about? Finally someone is explaining it in a way that makes sense to technical humans!

The DB2Night Show™ hosted special guest Mark Wilding, IBM STSM & DB2 Cloud Architect, in episode #26, and replays are available for your enjoyment and education!.

This Friday, 27 August 2010, Mark Wilding joins us again to offer "Part 2" of the technical details - a deeper dive into what this fluffy stuff is about, how it works, and tips and considerations for your success. Registration links are available on www.DB2NightShow.com

Amazingly, whether you realize it or not, your DB2 is already in the Cloud - along a journey of tiers that offer increasing cost savings. So, don't miss episodes #26 and #27!

The DB2Night Show™ is sponsored in part by IDUG, FREE DB2, and www.DBISoftware.com.

Cheers, your host,
Scott Hayes

[ more .. ]

The DB2Night Show™ Episode #25 TELLS ALL

Seems like comparing a race car and a bicycle to me...

Did you miss today's episode of The DB2Night Show™? No worries. Replays are now available for your download and enjoyment! Just visit www.DB2NightShow.com and click the REPLAYS link at the top left. Also be sure to check out upcoming shows and register!

Cheers, your host, Scott Hayes

[ more .. ]

During today's episode of The DB2Night Show™, we kicked off Season 2 with a special 90 minute show on "DB2 LUW Enablements for Oracle and Sybase". Our special IBM guests included Serge Rielau and Dwaine Snow - these guys did a great job bringing us up to date on DB2 9.7 FP2, FP3, and even a peek into the future. Did you miss this show? No worries! REPLAYS are available! Visit www.DB2NightShow.com

While you are there, check out and register for upcoming shows:

• 13 AUG 2010: Comparing DB2 LUW and Oracle Autonomics
• 20 AUG 2010: DB2 in the Cloud - Technical Details - Part 1
• 27 AUG 2010: DB2 in the Cloud - Technical Details - Part 2
• 10 SEP 2010: DB2 LUW Table Partitioning - The IMPORTANT Stuff
• 24 SEP 2010: DB2 LUW Recovery Best Practices and Tips
• 01 OCT 2010: DB2 LUW Security Tips, Best Practices, SQL, Scripts, and How-Tos

Attending The DB2Night Show Webinars is FREE and so are the REPLAYS! FREE is a good price that works for most budgets! Get Educated!

Speaking of DB2 Education, I hope to see you at IDUG in Sydney (AP), Vienna (EMEA), and Minneapolis MN (Regional) where I am giving technical sessions and Ed Seminars. Sign up!

Cheers, Scott

[ more .. ]

A few weeks ago, I invited you to attend my new IDUG Education Seminar "Z06: DB2 for LUW Performance Analysis and Tuning Workshop". View the invitation and class preparation instructions. I'd like this Seminar to be the best attended Ed Seminar of the conference, and I've heard that Z06 is in the #2 position.

As we like to say in Texas, let me shoot you straight. I'm going to make you an unprecedented offer and guarantee. If you attend this Ed Seminar, and if, by the end of the class, you can't (in good faith) give the class a four or five star review, I'll buy a copy of Roger Sanders DB2 LUW certification book for you. Shoot, I might even give away a couple of copies as prizes.

A bit more...

[ more .. ]

Dear DB2 LUW Professionals,

We need your help to improve DB2 LUW. We just ran Episode #16 of The DB2Night Show™ with special guest Adam Storm, Software Developer, DB2 Kernel Development, IBM Toronto Lab. We talked about Autonomic Memory and STMM updates. Watch the Replay. The studio audience asked a few good questions, but a vigorous email discussion ensued after the show.

Long story short, STMM is either "ON" for a parameter or "OFF". It has a VERY LONG LEASH to grow and shrink memory pools. There are some people in the DB2 LUW community that have experienced performance degradation or problems with STMM (about 20 percent in our audience survey), and a number of professionals would be more interested in using STMM if it were possible to give STMM "a short leash" - that is, for each memory pool under STMM's control, be able to specify a minimum and maximum value range. By specifying a range, one could keep STMM from making a pool too small or excessively large.

Adam told us that ranges had been considered, but were dismissed in favor of ON/OFF (I guess that was easier to implement). He also told us that range limits for STMM could be implemented if there was enough interest within the DB2 LUW community in favor of range specification capability.

Here's where you can help. We've made it really easy. Just click this MAILTO:ibmdb2stmm.developers@dbisoftware.com?subject=I support STMM Min Max Value Ranges link, add some text to the body of your message (optional), then click your SEND button.

Read just a bit more...

[ more .. ]

Did you miss today's episode of The DB2Night Show™? We had a very special guest on the show - Adam Storm, Software Developer, DB2 Kernel Development, IBM Toronto Lab. Adam gave our virtual studio audience a great presentation on recent updates to DB2 LUW Autonomic Memory and the Self Tuning Memory Manager (STMM). His slide deck was insightful, information packed, and very informative.

Check out replays of this and prior episodes at http://www.DBISoftware.com/blog/db2nightshow.php.

While we're at it, I should bring your attention to these upcoming episodes:

• 30 April 2010, "DB2 LUW Performance Updates and Best Practices" with the one, the only, the infamous Berni Schiefer, IBM Toronto
• 7 May 2010, "Top 10 DB2 LUW Mistakes that people make" with special guest Klaas Brant, IBM DB2 GOLD Consultant, Owner KBCE, The Netherlands (Klaas' Dutch is excellent, and so is his English).

Find details and registration links at: www.DB2NightShow.com

And, one last thing for today - did you see the freely available SQL Snapshot command that analyzes memory for a database located here?

[ more .. ]

Did you miss The DB2Night Show™ Episode #15 on "DB2 9.7 Online Table Moves" with special guest Ergin Babani from the IBM Toronto Lab? Make sure you check out the recorded replay. This show also set a new record for lively and excellent questions from the virtual studio audience - so be sure to listen through to the end to gain extra insights!

With this particular episode, we've also broken precedent and made Ergin's slide deck available as a PDF. He provided excellent examples of how to use DB2 ADMIN_TABLE_MOVE during his talk. You'll find the PDF link on the show replay page.

Have you registered for IDUG North America in Tampa Florida yet? There are still a few good seats left in my full day seminar Z06: DB2 for LUW Performance Analysis and Tuning Workshop. Attendees will receive over three dozen amazingly helpful SQL Snapshot commands (see a sample and learn more) ...

[ more .. ]

Dear DB2 LUW Professional,

I invite and encourage you to attend my Education Seminar, Z06: DB2 for LUW Performance Analysis and Tuning Workshop, at IDUG NA 2010 in Tampa Florida. Without exception, I've never before put so much effort into preparing a full day seminar. In this class, you will receive over three dozen SQL Snapshot commands to help analyze YOUR database. Together, we will learn about what to measure, we will discover the problems and "opportunities for improvement" in your database, we will discuss solutions, and you will return to your office fully equipped to make measurable performance improvements.

In terms of preparation for this class, here's what you will want to do to optimally prepare:

1. Make copy tables of SYSIBMADM snapshot views and some catalog tables (CREATE LIKE)
2. INSERT INTO copy table SELECT * FROM original table or view
3. EXPORT TO IXF file SELECT * FROM copy tables
4. Binary transfer the IXF files to a laptop running DB2 LUW (Express-C (free DB2) will suffice)
5. IMPORT FROM IXF file REPLACE_CREATE INTO local copy of tables on laptop

All of the SQL commands provided to you during the class will reference the schema name IDUGCONF. The rest of this blog post contains the specific commands that you can use to prepare for the class. When you return back to your office with electronic copies of the SQL Snapshots, all you will need to do is change IDUGCONF to SYSIBMADM and you'll be ready to analyze your databases locally!

This should be a $5,000 course. IDUG is making Ed Seminars available "for a song" relatively speaking - only $425 with a conference badge or just $475 for the seminar alone. Click the IDUG logo above to register now! Early registration ends 26 March 2010.

[ more .. ]

OH WOW! Right now I am slapping myself on my back so hard that it hurts! In an earlier blog post on I/O Optimization and Solid State Disk (SSD), I referenced a recent IBM DM Magazine article and discussed an improved weighting formula for determining which tablespaces would benefit most from SSD storage. WELL, I just created a masterpiece SQL Snapshot command that implements best practices weighting factor calculations for SSD! This SQL Snapshot command is amazing...

[ more .. ]

DB2 LUW Database Professionals: If you can only get budget to attend ONE class this DECADE, I strongly encourage you to do whatever it takes to get yourself enrolled in my NEW Ed Seminar DB2 for LUW Performance Analysis and Tuning Workshop being given at IDUG in Tampa, Florida, on 10 May 2010.

For this lab, you should bring with you copies of SYSIBMADM Snapshot Catalog Views (detailed instructions and scripts will be provided separately). In this lab, you will receive dozens and dozens and dozens of SQL Snapshot commands (on CDROM) to analyze your database's performance data, you will learn what the numbers and metrics mean, and you will graduate fully equipped to conquer amazing performance tuning miracles for your organization...

[ more .. ]

IBM is generating a lot of buzz with DB2 pureScale, and there is plenty of press to read on Database and Hardware wars. The DB2Night Show™ Episode #4 featured special guests from the IBM Toronto Lab who gave us an outstanding introduction to DB2 pureScale - catch the WMV replay if you missed it. On the heels of DB2 9.7 Oracle enablement, DB2 pureScale is an exciting response to Oracle RAC. But is pureScale right for your organization, or should you be considering Xkoto GRIDSCALE instead? First and foremost, IBM DB2 PureScale is NOT a Disaster Recovery solution, but Xkoto GRIDSCALE is. How else are these technologies different?

[ more .. ]

IBM Data Management Magazine Q1 2010 arrived today and I was excited to find an article on Unleashing the value of Solid State Drives. Of course, I was thrilled to see DBI's new ad as well (grin). The article puts forth several good ideas about I/O tuning and begs for greater details. Whether you have SSD or not, the principle ideas of the article still apply to "faster storage" versus "slower storage". Let's take a deeper look...

[ more .. ]

In the wake of recent claims by Larry E, I'm joining Craig Mullins and re-cycling a former blog post with updates...

29 Jan, 2010 - Redrock Shores, CA. In late breaking news today, Orickle announced preliminary plans for the next version of its world dominating database 13G. Version 13G will include new features such as DB3 LUW Enablement and nano compression. A senior Orickle executive who requested anonymity said "We skipped 12 because 13 is a lucky number, and 'G' now stands for Global domination. We lost some serious market share to DB3 9.7 but we believe we can win global database dominance back with our superior marketing, sales, and negotiation tactics." Continued...

[ more .. ]

Recently a customer wrote me and asked if there was a way to run a query that would report on any pending (deferred) DB CFG or DBM CFG changes. More specifically, he wanted to create an alert in DBI's Brother-Hawk™ that would alert him if any changes would occur upon the next database restart. With V9+ SQL Snapshots, this is easy...

[ more .. ]

This blog post is for developers, testers, and QA professionals. If you are a production/operations DBA, it is okay if you'd like to read it too so that you can be aware of the proposed suggestions and best practices. I think we can all agree that discovering performance problems in production is NOT ideal, so let's see what can be done to arrest issues before they become detrimental, damaging, or costly to your organization. We'll begin by busting some myths and unwise practices...

[ more .. ]

Very few DB2 LUW performance blog posts have delivered so many emails to my Inbox as the prior posting on VOLATILE tables. One of our blog readers brought some very important information to my attention that I feel an obligation to share...

[ more .. ]

Do you have a table that has statistical mood swings? Sometimes the table has a few rows, and sometimes it has many? Or would you like to strongly encourage the DB2 optimizer to use available indexes? VOLATILE isn't a nice description for a person, but you can assign this label to a moody table and often get excellent results. More...

[ more .. ]

Watch The DB2Night Show™ Episode #10 on 8 January 2010 at 10am CST! Our topic is "DEAR IBM..." and DB2 LUW users from around the globe have sent their comments and questions into our show! Our guests include senior IBM executives Sal Vella, Tim Vincent, and Drew Bradstock!

You can obtain your free seats to our virtual studio audience and find replays of previous episodes at http://www.DB2NightShow.com

The mission of The DB2Night Show is to Educate, Inform, and Entertain. In just a few months, we've had hundreds of DB2 professionals in our virtual studio audience and show replays have been watched thousands of times. If you haven't joined us yet, please be our guest! And if you've become one of our many loyal "groupie" followers, thanks for watching!

Cheers,
Scott Hayes

The IBM IOD Conference will be buzzing with news on DB2 for LUW 9.8 pureScale - amongst many other breakthrough announcements. But if you are not able to attend IOD this year, or if you are but want to be amongst "the first to know" the details, don't miss episode #4 of The DB2Night Show™ - Special guests Matt Huras and Aamer Sachedina from the IBM Toronto Lab will take us on a deep dive into this new release of DB2 LUW that offers breakthrough scalability without limits. Join us on 22 October 2009 at 9am CENTRAL/10am EASTERN for this in-depth first look at IBM's latest performance miracle. Claim Your Front Row Seat HERE. More...

[ more .. ]

We heard it hear first - live from IDUG Europe in Rome Italy! In the wake of Orickle's 13G announcement, clearly IBM has its boxing gloves on!

DB2 LUW pureScale is somewhat akin to DB2 z/OS sysplex data sharing - multiple "member" hosts share storage and are interconnected by a high speed switch, although, in DB2 LUW's case, the switch is facilitated by innovative software running on a robust Power series server. The architecture and scalability is ideal for organization's having extremely high OLTP transaction processing requirements. More...

[ more .. ]

IDUG is a great conference for learning from other users, consultants, and top shelf IBM people. It is also a great place to meet with vendors to discover the latest products and services that are available. DBI and our Italian partner Expertise4IT look forward to meeting you in the exhibit hall.

And just in case you would like to invite some of your associates or executives who are unable to attend the full conference, just click THIS LINK and print your FREE pass!

Also, have you signed up yet for my Ed Seminar "300 Fast Fabulous DB2 Performance Facts"? The SQL Snapshots I'll be sharing with attendees are worth the price of the class alone!

Cheers, Scott

Are you Joe the DBA? Or Jane? Do you have questions about DB2 LUW Performance? Would you like to learn about DB2 Performance in real-time? Join the studio audience for The DB2Night Show and get the latest tips, techniques, and answers to your questions --- like this question about PCTFREE that we recently received.

[ more .. ]

Keep your skills sharp and your databases optimized - attend IDUG Europe in Rome to advance your career, learn the latest DB2 tips, tricks, and techniques, and improve your business performance. Visit the IDUG Europe web site for details! And be sure to sign up for my Ed Seminar "300 Fast Fabulous DB2 Facts and Performance Tips"!

[ more .. ]

We just completed our Webinar on DB2 LUW Index Design Best Practices and Case Studies. Clustering Indexes were discussed, and one of the Webinar participants sent an email asking this question:

Great webinar today, thank you. A quick question on clustering indexes. When trying to determine the best columns by looking at the highest aggregate sort time, what should one do if there is already a cluster index on the table? That is, what to do if the existing cluster index is suspected to not be the right one? Here's my answer...

[ more .. ]

Hello DB2 LUW Performance fans,

Just a quick note to let you know you can save $100 off your IBM IOD 2009 Conference registration by using Promotion Code G09BOND. This promo code is valid for a long as IOD registrations are open and available.

[ more .. ]

Despite all the hype about AUTOMATIC tuning, a remarkably large number of DB2 LUW customers are still suffering from inadequate and sub-optimal performance. AUTOMATIC tuning can provide some benefits, BUT it only works well when the database is free of significant physical design defects.

We have heard from DB2 LUW users that their ETLs take too long. Index changes were the solution.

We have heard that response times were too slow. Index changes were the solution.

We have heard that CPU utilization is too high, or that there are periodic spikes in CPU utilization. Index changes were the solution.

We have seen OLTP applications appear to "seize up" or "stall". Index changes were the solution.

We have seen DB2 users struggle to complete year end and quarter end reports on a timely basis. Again, Index changes were the solution...

[ more .. ]

Rumor has it that www.ibmdatabasemag.com will be going off the air on 30 April 2009. We are sad to see this valuable resource to the IBM Database community go.

Hundreds of database professionals from around the world have driven thousands and thousands of hits to the DB2 LUW Performance blog series. The good news is that we have preserved this valuable content and reference material on our site for your continued reference and benefit. You can find the blogs at:

www.dbisoftware.com/blog/db2_performance.php

Thank you,
Scott

It was about a year ago that a DBA in Sydney Australia asked me if I knew of a way to correlate database tuning efforts to Energy savings. IBM's Smarter Planet campaign gave me renewed inspiration to research this important topic, for the fourth pillar of Smarter Planet involves seeking new ways to improve efficiency and lower costs of existing processes. What you are about to learn might be a real eye opener.

[ more .. ]