Planet DB2

Using common connections with Optim solutions

2009-07-16T13:10:38Z

Creating database connections requires users to provide specific information, including the database vendor, version, and URL information. In version 2.1, Data Studio Developer and Administrator introduced a simple and efficient way to manage database connections, allowing users to easily store and retrieve connection parameters for multiple databases. With the 2.2 release (in which these products have been renamed to Optim(TM)), there have been additional usability improvements. Support for common connections has also been added to InfoSphere(TM) Data Architect 7.5.2. This article describes how to use common connections for greater efficiency in managing database connection information.

Fun with databases: How cereals turn into silverware

2009-07-16T10:28:00Z

This morning my wife came back from grocery shopping. Among other things, she brought back a new organic cereal mix that just had started to hit the shelves. My wife was happy because she got it for free - more or less.While paying at the cash register, my wife checked the receipt because the amount seemed to be higher than expected. Then she noticed an item on the list that wasn't in her cart: A

Data Governance on System Z Events Confirmed

2009-07-16T09:30:41Z

We’re pleased to announce that we will be running 2 events on data governance for z/OS in November: 10th November - IBM Southbank 11th November - Apex Waterloo Place - Edinburgh Look out for more details and booking information soon!

Information on Demand (IOD) 2009 is on it's way

2009-07-15T23:35:54Z

Information on Demand (IOD) 2009 must be getting closer. Speakers are receiving their acceptance e-mails (mine arrived a few days ago), keynote speaker are being advertised, portions of the agenda is now available, and the end to discounted registrations is drawing nearer. All signs that IOD 2009 can't be all that far away. If you love DB2 and can only attend one major conference this year, this is without a doubt the event you want to be at.

Details about DB2 Certifcation Program

2009-07-15T20:54:10Z

First I gave you the benefits of getting certified, then the overall procedure to follow to get certified, now the details on the DB2 certification program.

Each exam has a time limit of 90 minutes, except the upgrade exam which has a time limit of 60 minutes. The number of questions and the cutscore for each exam varies. For example, exam 730 has 64 questions and you must score 59 percent or higher to pass it.

How do I prepare to pass an exam?
Here is the recommended path I suggest you take to prepare for a DB2 exam:

1) Choose the exam you want to take based on your job role. The DBA and AppDev certifications first require that you are certified as a Database Associate. To help you decide where to start, see the certification roadmaps.

2) Read through the exam objectives. Every question on the exam relates directly to one or more of the exam objectives. For a breakdown of the exam objectives and the recommended study materials, see ibm.com/software/data/education/certprep.html

Here are the exams that cover the DB2 9 product:

* Exam 730 - DB2 9 Fundamentals

* Exam 731 - DB2 9 DBA for Linux, Unix, and Windows

* Exam 732 - DB2 9 DBA for z/OS

* Exam 733 - DB2 9 Application Developer

* Exam 734 - DB2 9 Advanced DBA for Linux UNIX and Windows

* Exam 735 - DB2 9.5 Developer. Although not specifically written for this exam, the book DB2(R) SQL PL: Essential Guide for DB2(R) UDB on Linux(TM), UNIX(R), Windows(TM), i5/OS(TM), and z/OS(R) (2nd Edition) might help you prepare for this exam.

* Exam 736 - DB2 9 Database Administrator for Linux UNIX and Windows Upgrade. See also Kate's blog entry about the upgrade exam!

* Exam 737 - DB2 9 System Administrator for z/OS

3) If you are experienced with DB2 and feel that you are prepared to pass the exam based on what you saw in the exam objectives, take an assessment exam. You'll get a report after taking the assessment exam that can help you pinpoint your weaknesses. Assessment exams cost $10 per take, so if you really think you are ready, come and take the exam to see.

4) If you are NOT experienced with DB2, download a free version of DB2 Express-C and give it a try!

5) Decide on how you want to increase your skills:

a) Consider buying one of the Certification Study Guides to refresh and deepen your skills: ibm.com/software/data/education/bookstore.

For exam prep, the best books are these:
DB2 9 Fundamentals Certification Study Guide by Roger Sanders
DB2 9 Database Administration Certification Study Guide for Exam 731 by Roger Sanders
DB2 9 Database Administration Certification Study Guide for Exam 732 by Susan Lawson and Daniel Luksetich
DB2 9 Database Administration Upgrade Certification Study Guide for Exam 736 by Roger Sanders
DB2 9 Advanced Database Administration Certification Study Guide for Exam 734 by Roger Sanders and Dwaine Snow.

All five of these certification prep guides were written by members of the exam development team. That is, they created the questions for the certification exam that you are about to take! Also, each chapter of the book corresponds directly to a section on the exam. So, if you take the assessment exam and find out that you are week on a single topic, you simply need to read the chapter that corresponds to the topic where you need improvement. Lastly, the authors created a set of sample questions for the book that provides you with the correct answer to the question as well as an explanation as to why the correct answer is correct and the incorrect ones are not.

For reference and guidance beyond the exam, I suggest the following: DB2 9 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows: DBA Guide, Reference, and Exam Prep (6th Edition) by George Baklarz and Paul Zikopoulos

b) For self-study, also check out the free tutorials that IBM provides for most of the exams. The tutorials are broken into hour long segments of information based on the exam objectives. If you have a great deal of experience, this may be all you need to prepare for the exam. To see the full set of exam prep tutorials that are available, see ibm.com/software/data/education/selfstudy.html.

c) Take an education class from IBM or one of its partners. These classes typically have a fee, even for employees, so check with management to see if you can take one of these classes. Classroom education is an excellent way to learn, but may be difficult to justify due to costs. Don't forget to look into ILO training as this type of training gives you all the benefits of classroom education, but eliminates the travel costs. The best place to start to determine the classroom education that best fits your needs is with the training roadmaps: ibm.com/software/data/education/roadmaps.html.

6) If this is your first time taking a certification exam, review the steps on this site: ibm.com/certify/process/t_proc.shtml.

Can I gain experience by reading DB2 Forums and Blogs?

Absolutely! There are several DBAs who firmly believe helping out on the various forums have helped us gain a deeper understanding of subjects that were on the exams. So, contribute to those forums. You're not only helping other people, you're helping yourself as well! Most likely you'll find members of the DB2 development team actively taking part in the forums as well.

Here are the sites that I recommend, at the least:
Planet DB2 - a blog aggregator that combines DB2 blogs from around the world.
IBM developerWorks - DB2 Portal
IDUG -- International DB2 User's Group
My blog: https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/SusanVisser/
Kate's blog: ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/katedawson

I hope you find this information useful! Good luck on your journey towards certification!

Susan

IBM engineers on data mining algorithms

2009-07-15T20:08:19Z

Christoph Sieb and Alexander Lang, senior engineers from the IBM Boebligen Lab talk about the value of the DB2 data mining algorithms and how the work they are doing is bringing this value not just to statisticians but to people on the front line making every day business decisions.

Microsoft announce free Office 2010 … kinda

2009-07-15T16:51:17Z

Cloud based version of Microsoft Office 2010 is supposed to be a free offering. Will Microsoft really set Office free or will it cripple it like it did with SQL Server Express to protect revenue.

Cognos 8.4 RTM - BI stability package

2009-07-15T16:00:00Z

The Stability Package describes how to use Apache JMeter to test stability of an IBM Cognos 8 install. It contains a ready to use JMeter plan and a document describing setup and usage. This version is for IBM Cognos 8.4 RTM only.

Handling Security Changes

2009-07-15T16:00:00Z

This document provides best practices around handling security changes, both reactive and proactive. Things like changing namespaces, moving external users, CAMID details are covered.

How to Prepare to Pass a DB2 Certification Exam

2009-07-14T23:47:26Z

Yesterday I blogged about the benefits of getting certified.

Today I want to tell you about how to prepare to take and pass an exam.

How to Prepare to Pass a DB2 Certification Exam

1. 1. Read the exam objectives. The website ibm.com/certify lists the objectives for every IBM certification exam. Read these carefully as each question on the exam links directly back to one or more of these objectives! (That's a huge hint!)

2. 2. Use the recommended study materials to refresh your skills. For each DB2 exam, you can find the recommended study material on this site: ibm.com/software/data/education/certprep.html.

3. 3. Take an assessment exam. These exams cost $10 per take. See ibm.com/software/data/education/cert/assessment.html for the latest information.

4. 4. Take the test. Where? IBM exams are offered worldwide at Prometric Testing Centers. To find a site near you call 1-800-959-EXAM or visit www.prometric.com.

5. 5. If you do NOT pass, use the score report to determine the areas you need to increase your knowledge and start these steps over again.

6. 6. If you PASS, make sure you let your manager know! Your results are confidential to YOU and no one will know you passed unless you tell them!

** DB2 Certification exams are experience-based, so the more practical experience you have using DB2, the easier it will be for you to prepare and pass the exams.

DB2 for z/OS and Web Services

2009-07-14T23:34:08Z

Are you a DB2 for z/OS user? Are you starting to get more involved in the creation of web services? Or maybe you are ready heavily into Web Services. If you are any or all of the above, here are a couple of web based articles you will want to check out.

New announcements for Z: Optim Query Tuner, Optim Query Workload Tuner, and Optim pureQuery Runtime for z/OS

2009-07-14T23:33:48Z

It was just over a month ago that I posted the information about our new releases under the Optim name. Today we announce the z/OS versions of some of those products.

IBM Optim Query Tuner for DB2 for z/OS, V2.2 and IBM Optim Query Workload Tuner for DB2 for z/OS, V2.2

Optim Query Tuner is designed for single-query tuning, and Optim Query Workload Tuner provides both single query and workload tuning capability. Both offer seamless integration with Optim Development Studio. Optim Query Workload Tuner is a renamed enhancement of IBM Optimization Expert for z/OS and is the upgrade path included with your subscription and support when you are ready to move to the next release. Note that future query tuning enhancements will be made to these products. OSC is still available but will not be enhanced. It will be replaced by similar capabilities in Data Studio under development today.

And a reminder, we did add new discussion forums, including the Optim Query Tuning solution discussion forum.

IBM Optim pureQuery Runtime for z/OS V2.2

This product is for deployment natively on z/OS systems (for example, with a WebSphere Application Server for z/OS deployment). Some of the capabilities we added were in response to requests from z/OS customers, including the ability to replace literals with parameter markers, making more statements eligible for static execution. You can find out more about this capability in Sonali’s article on developerWorks.

Thanks for reading.
--Curt Cotner

Too Many Performance Features in DB2 Version 9 for z/OS

2009-07-14T19:00:20Z

DB2 Version 9 for z/OS has over 50 plus great performance features. Many of these really stand out and can provide a dramatic impact on your existing applications. Over the coming weeks I will write about these performance features.

After converting to Version 9, the first performance feature that should be evaluated for your environment and will probably have the greatest application performance impact is the indexes on expressions feature. The ability to put an index over a subset of a single column or derivatives of multiple columns, a formula, or a function used within your application can make a huge difference in application performance. By creating a customized index on an expression, you can change the access path of your problem applications from using a tablespace scan or a combination of multiple indexes to the use of a single customized index over the desired key. This key can be made from any SQL that is used for accessing your result set data. This can have a major impact on many applications and can be applied on any large or small table in your environment.

An index on an expression can be as simple as grabbing the date from the insert timestamp of the row, for example DATE(IN_TIMESTMP). An application that was previously doing a tablespace scan because it didn’t have the date portion of the timestamp can now use index access through this customized index expression. The index expression can also use multiple columns or expressions on multiple columns to create the index. In fact almost any expression that can be done in an SQL statement can be used to create an expression for an index.

Date and any other functions used in your application’s SQL are great candidates for index on expressions. So analyze your applications and understand the various columns functions or bad access that your application use and see if index over expressions might help your application performance.

Use DB2 Enterprise in the IBM Developer Cloud

2009-07-14T18:41:59Z

DB2 Express-C and DB2 Enterprise are now available in the IBM Developer Cloud

You can sign up and instantiate as many image as you need today.

Transcript:
Hi, my name is Leons Petrazickis. I am on the DB2 team at the IBM Toronto lab.

This video will go through how you can create a DB2 instance in the IBM Developer Cloud, and then it will go through the ways you can connect to your DB2 cloud instance.

***

Let's go ahead and create an instance.

Go to your IBM Developer Cloud Control Panel, and click on the Add Instance button in the top right corner.

Scroll down to one of the DB2 instances, such as DB2 Express-C or DB2 Enterprise. Let's create a DB2 Enterprise instance.

Enter an instance name, such as My Instance Name, and an administrative password for the three Linux and DB2 users on your instance.

Click next and, once everything is ready, you can double-check what you entered. We then accept a license agreement for the IBM Developer Cloud.

Over the next few minutes, the instance will be created, provisioned, and then boot. This is a three step process.

You now have a copy of DB2 running in the cloud.

***

Let's take a look at your instance.

One way is to connect to the command line on your virtual cloud instance using ssh. On Windows you can use an ssh client such as PuTTY, and on Linux you can use the ssh command directly.

Let's copy the hostname of your newly created instance. Since I am working on Windows, I will bring up PuTTY.

I want to connect as the db2inst1 user at that hostname. Let's paste the hostname in.

Now we can log in using the password we entered while creating the instance.

Let's open up DB2.

There's a copy of the standard SAMPLE database already on the instance.

Let's select from one of the usual tables, Act.

Since the query worked, your copy of DB2 in the cloud is ready for use.

***

We can also connect to your cloud DB2 instance using a local copy of DB2. On Windows, let's open up the DB2 Command Window. On Linux, you should log in as the DB2 instance owner, usually db2inst1.

I am on Windows, so I'm going to bring up the DB2 Command Window.

Let's run the local copy of DB2 prompt.

The exact syntax for the next few commands in the getting started docs for your instances.

We'll catalog the remote DB2 instance using the TCPIP, meaning the internet, to connect to the hostname. The port we want is 50001.

We'll then catalog the SAMPLE database on the remote instance as MYDB. You'll then be able to access it just like a local database.

We can now connect to it as the DB2INST1 user. The password is what you entered while creating the cloud instance.

Let's select from one of the tables in it, such as Act.

Your remote DB2 instance is ready for use.

***

Now that you have added the cloud instance of DB2 to your local DB2 catalog, you can use any DB2 tool with it.

Let's open the DB2 Control Center. The newly cataloged node and database should be there. If it's already open, you may need to right-click and Refresh.

Let's right-click on MYDB and open up the Query tool. As before, the user is db2inst1 and the password is what you entered during instance creation.

We can query one of the tables in MYDB, such as Act.

Your cloud DB2 instance is ready for use.

***

You can check out the IBM Developer Cloud at the URL given.

You can also contact us at db2cloud AT ca.ibm.com

As always, any questions and comments are welcome in the associated forum.

Use DB2 Express-C in the IBM Developer Cloud

2009-07-14T18:36:19Z

DB2 Express-C and DB2 Enterprise are now available in the IBM Developer Cloud

You can sign up and instantiate as many image as you need today.

Transcript:
Hi, my name is Leons Petrazickis. I am on the DB2 team at the IBM Toronto lab.

This video will go through how you can create a DB2 instance in the IBM Developer Cloud, and then it will go through the ways you can connect to your DB2 cloud instance.

***

Let's go ahead and create an instance.

Go to your IBM Developer Cloud Control Panel, and click on the Add Instance button in the top right corner.

Scroll down to one of the DB2 instances, such as DB2 Express-C or DB2 Enterprise. Let's create a DB2 Express-C instance.

Enter an instance name, such as My Instance Name, and an administrative password for the three Linux and DB2 users on your instance.

Click next and, once everything is ready, you can double-check what you entered. We then accept a license agreement for the IBM Developer Cloud.

Over the next few minutes, the instance will be created, provisioned, and then boot. This is a three step process.

You now have a copy of DB2 running in the cloud.

***

Let's take a look at your instance.

One way is to connect to the command line on your virtual cloud instance using ssh. On Windows you can use an ssh client such as PuTTY, and on Linux you can use the ssh command directly.

Let's copy the hostname of your newly created instance. Since I am working on Windows, I will bring up PuTTY.

I want to connect as the db2inst1 user at that hostname. Let's paste the hostname in.

Now we can log in using the password we entered while creating the instance.

Let's open up DB2.

There's a copy of the standard SAMPLE database already on the instance.

Let's select from one of the usual tables, Act.

Since the query worked, your copy of DB2 in the cloud is ready for use.

***

We can also connect to your cloud DB2 instance using a local copy of DB2. On Windows, let's open up the DB2 Command Window. On Linux, you should log in as the DB2 instance owner, usually db2inst1.

I am on Windows, so I'm going to bring up the DB2 Command Window.

Let's run the local copy of DB2 prompt.

The exact syntax for the next few commands in the getting started docs for your instances.

We'll catalog the remote DB2 instance using the TCPIP, meaning the internet, to connect to the hostname. The port we want is 50001.

We'll then catalog the SAMPLE database on the remote instance as MYDB. You'll then be able to access it just like a local database.

We can now connect to it as the DB2INST1 user. The password is what you entered while creating the cloud instance.

Let's select from one of the tables in it, such as Act.

Your remote DB2 instance is ready for use.

***

Now that you have added the cloud instance of DB2 to your local DB2 catalog, you can use any DB2 tool with it.

Let's open the DB2 Control Center. The newly cataloged node and database should be there. If it's already open, you may need to right-click and Refresh.

Let's right-click on MYDB and open up the Query tool. As before, the user is db2inst1 and the password is what you entered during instance creation.

We can query one of the tables in MYDB, such as Act.

Your cloud DB2 instance is ready for use.

***

You can check out the IBM Developer Cloud at the URL given.

You can also contact us at db2cloud AT ca.ibm.com

As always, any questions and comments are welcome in the associated forum.

Free Big Database on Free Blue Cloud

2009-07-14T16:47:00Z

Did you know IBM has made available a Cloud service with stuff like database software and development tools, and its FREE to use?You're probably thinking - Free and IBM in the same sentence ... is that an oxymoron? Yeah, its hard to picture IBM when you talk of free anything let alone a free cloud service and free database software. Many folk would associate IBM with a company that only sells

pureXML for your well-being!

2009-07-14T14:33:00Z

The new IBM Data Management magazine is out and one of the articles is about how DB2 pureXML is helping to improve the healthcare system. Next time you visit a doctor's office, ask them how they manage your patient records...

Migrating from DB2 Private Protocol to DRDA

2009-07-14T13:12:37Z

For years IBM has been warning people that DB2 private protocol would go away. With DB2 V9, it became official -- DB2 private protocol has...

Job vs. Life: The importance of tools and ROI

2009-07-14T13:09:00Z

When you have a new home or a new garden - or both - one of your spare time jobs is to install things, assemble furniture, remove weeds, plant and water, etc. Usually you have a choice of really manually performing a tasks, e.g., using a regular screwdriver, or trying to simplify and speed up what you want to accomplish, e.g., using a power screwdriver. For most tasks you have the choice of using

Craig gives us his perspective on zPrime's General Availability

2009-07-13T18:27:00Z

Watch a very short video on the benefits of zPrime for database workload.

Benefits of Earning a Certificaton

2009-07-13T17:57:24Z

In the past 10 years, I've met many people who have taken and passed one or more DB2 certification exam. I like to chat with people, so I usually ask them to tell me if they see benefits to passing an exam. I also meet with many people who are reluctant to take an exam and must convince them of the benefits. I'll put a few of my findings in this post, but I hope that I hear from people if they agree or disagree!

People who are reluctant to take a certification exam are usually reluctant due to fear. Fear of failure, fear of taking a test, fear of having others learn their scores, or fear of being judged or ranked. I totally understand these fears! The first thing I want to stress about certification exams is YOUR SCORE IS CONFIDENTIAL TO YOU. Sure the score is captured by a computer system and is sent to IBM to be stored in a DB2 database, but we are governed by very strict privacy laws that prevent any of this information to be given to anyone except for the candidate who is taking the exam.

This should give you a sense of comfort that you can take the exam without anyone knowing. So if you fail, feel free to try again! Use the score report to help you strengthen your knowledge in the areas where you didn't do so well. If you do pass the exam, you must tell your managers, customers, clients, etc. Only you can brag about your certification!

Another thing that you should keep in mind is that each exam has a cutscore assigned to it. You can think of a cutscore as the mark you must reach to pass the exam. To come up with a cutscore, we have a team of experts take the exam and then rank each question in terms of difficulty, importance to the job role, and frequency that the task is performed. As an example, the cutscore for Exam 731 is 59%. Since there are 64 questions on the exam, you must answer 38 questions correctly to pass the exam. As a result of passing the exam, you will be sent a certificate stating that you are now IBM Certified. Your certificate will look the same whether you score 59% or 100%!

I also suggest that you don't play the "score" game. I've heard conversations where people are bragging about their score or candidates who are pressuring themselves to score better than one of their co-workers. I can tell you that most of the people bragging about their score are embellishing slightly! It's best to not discuss your score in the first place.

One of the biggest benefits of passing a certification exam is that it proves that you are very proactive at keeping your skills up to date. Anyone can say that they know about the latest features of a product, but by passing a certification exam, you have validation that you do indeed understand the latest features. Although DB2 certifications are very popular and still growing in numbers, the number of people who actually [i]have[/i] a certification is a fraction of the number of people who [i]could[/i] have a certification. If you are certified, consider yourself as part of a relatively small group! A second benefit is that studying for a certification will expose you to areas of the product that you wouldn't normally care about. Very few people have hands-on knowledge of EVERY feature in a product, so when studying for, and taking the exam, you will be exposed to more features than you normally use. Perhaps you'll discover a feature that will really help your application or in the usage of the product.

One of the benefits that I mention to the developer in the Toronto Lab who create the DB2 product is that it will allow them to see the product as our customers use it. Not many of us in the Toronto Lab work as DBAs, so by passing the DBA exam, it exposes us to the tasks that DBAs must perform in their daily jobs. It seems to me that this will help IBM create better products! The same is true for those who are writing about the product, supporting it, testing it, or even selling it.

A team of us are trying to scientifically determine the actual benefits of being certified, but in the mean time, my team ran an informal survey asking what the benefits were. Here are some of the responses:

Certification adds credibility when addressing customers
Certification is a partner requirement
Certification gives my company a business advantage
Certification helps me pinpoint problems faster
Certification gives me confidence and respect
Certification gives me credibility with younger workers and my peers
Certification gives me leverage and job security
Certification led to my membership in a competency network
Certification gives me professional recognition
Certification helps me set up a training plan to keep my skills current
Certification is valued by management
Certification earned me better performance ratings
Certification helped me earn a promotion
Certification earned me management recognition
Certification gave me additional skills
Certification led to a raise

What do you think? Have you experienced any of these benefits? Are there other benefits that you experienced?

I'm looking forward to hearing from people.

Susan

Enabling Oracle Database Applications to use DB2…the Easy Way!

2009-07-13T13:40:30Z

On Wednesday, IBM will host another Chat with the Labs Webcast. These free events are run by the IBM engineering team, and are intended to be more technical in nature. This Wednesday's topic is Enabling applications from Oracle to DB2...the easy way! The Webcast will have some ...

Data Architect Training (and Kim whining)

2009-07-13T13:05:17Z

The Fillmore Group is an IBM delivery partner for Rational Data Architect - now renamed InfoSphere Data Architect. As the foundation for any new database or data warehouse, I expected the two-day Data Architect class to be fairly popular…but we have NEVER had sufficient enrollment to run it in an open enrollment session. Oh, and to be clear, by sufficient enrollment, I mean a whopping four students. It’s on the IBM schedule once a quarter and I promote it with outbound emails and DB2-L postings and still, nothing…

My guess is that either no one is adopting InfoSphere Data Architect, or that new users are finding alternate ways to get the training they need. Most folks I’ve spoken to that are being tasked with learning IDA know Erwin…is there a class somewhere I’ve overlooked? Hmmm…or perhaps the online lessons put together by IBM’s Wei Liu (which ARE excellent) are enough?

Any feedback would be most appreciated! Thanks!

Alabama's Largest School District Turns to IBM to Build a Smarter Education System

2009-07-13T06:58:51Z

IBM announced today that Mobile County (Alabama) Public Schools has selected IBM analytics technology to more effectively measure student performance, immediately identify students "at risk," and adjust academic programs in real-time in order to best deliver smarter education services that prepare students with 21st century skills.


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Database Security: DB2 vs MySQL and how to make a million …

2009-07-10T20:35:16Z

I recently blogged about Oracle killing one of its recent acquisitions a company called Virtual Iron. I posed a question if the same fate awaits MySQL. This proved to be a popular post and there was no shortage of comments. One particular comment identified what the person believes is a shortcoming of DB2: The way DB2 [...]

Welcome to JuiceDB

2009-07-10T20:31:00Z

Watch this space for musings about data management and cloud computing topics ...

New DB2 Web Banners

2009-07-10T14:40:29Z

IBM recently created some nice new horizontal and vertical Web banners for DB2. You can see the new banners on the sidebar and footer of the Information Agenda Website. If you refresh that Web page, you will likely see additional new banners. Here is my favorite of ...

Moving DB2 from one hostname to another

2009-07-10T14:20:17Z

SQL6031N  Error IN the db2nodes.cfg file at line number "1".  Reason code "10".

DB2 caches your machine’s hostname in several places. If your machine is changing its hostname, or if you are somehow moving an existing installation to a machine with a different hostname, you will need to adjust the hostname stored by DB2. Hostname change is common in virtual and cloud environments, so even better than adjusting it would be writing a script that adjusts it for you.

Here’s my rudimentary stab at a such a script:

#!/bin/sh
echo -n "Discovering the new hostname "
UNAME_CACHE=$(uname -n)echo -n "Adjusting hostname list for unconfigured database partitioning feature "

# this may need to be changed if DPF preconfigured

if [ -e /home/db2inst1/sqllib/db2nodes.cfg ]; then

    chmod 666 /home/db2inst1/sqllib/db2nodes.cfg

    su - db2inst1 -c "cp /home/db2inst1/sqllib/db2nodes.cfg /home/db2inst1/sqllib/db2nodes.cfg.old"

    su - db2inst1 -c "echo 0 $UNAME_CACHE 0 > /home/db2inst1/sqllib/db2nodes.cfg"

fi
echo -n "Making registry writable "

chmod 666 /var/db2/*
echo -n "Adjusting the DB2 hostname "

UNAME_CACHE=$(uname -n)

/opt/ibm/db2/V9.7/adm/db2set -g db2system=$UNAME_CACHE
echo -n "Updating DAS configuration "

# todo

# db2 uncatalog node <old_hostname>

db2 catalog admin tcpip node $UNAME_CACHE remote $UNAME_CACHE system $UNAME_CACHE

db2 update admin cfg using DB2SYSTEM $UNAME_CACHE

db2 update admin cfg using SMTP_SERVER $UNAME_CACHE

This doesn’t cover all cases. For example, if you use extended operating system security, you may also need to set the db2accountname and db2instowner parameters. A quick check with db2set -all should tell you if this applies in your case — if there is something that looks like a hostname in those parameters already, you need to change them.

I may also have missed other necessary changes. Please let me know if I did.:-)

References

Edit: Revised to use proper authorities, incorporate official instructions

Migrating DB2 9 for z/OS Native SQL Procedures

2009-07-10T13:31:00Z

Last week, a friend who works for a big DB2-using company in the American Midwest sent me a question concerning the migration of native SQL procedures from DB2 subsystem A to subsystem B (e.g., from a development to a test subsystem, or from test to production). This person's organization had been using DB2 for z/OS stored procedures for some time, and they had an automated process - utilizing IBM's Software Configuration and Library Manager product (SCLM) - tha…

RSU0906 service package now available

2009-07-10T13:04:56Z

Testing for RSU0906 is now complete. It contains all service not already marked RSU along with PE resolution or HIPER/Security/Integrity/Pervasive PTFs and their associated requisites and supersedes through May 2009.

DB2 Keynote Presentation for Break Free Roadshow

2009-07-09T21:00:40Z

Here is a keynote presentation that I recently put together for the Break Free roadshow events. This presentation describes the staff, server, and storage costs for DB2 when compared with its major competitors. There is also a section that talks about moving from Oracle Database to DB2. [slideshare id=1691474&doc=breakfreekeynote0619-090707082905-phpapp01]

Welcome, Conor and Mark

2009-07-09T20:29:00Z

PlanetDB2 now includes two more DB2 blogs. The first is Conor O'Mahony's DB2 News. The second is Mark Wilding's DB2 and Data as a Service, which is off to a great start with the Zero to HADR in 10 minutes on Amazon EC2 first post.

Cheers,

Leons Petrazickis
PlanetDB2 Admin<div cla…