2019-12 Fun with Db2 12 PBR RPN

I have recently enhanced our SpaceAssuranceExpert (SAX) product to automatically help out if partitions, or partitioned indexes, are getting too big for their boots in a productive system.

SAX – What is it?

The idea behind SAX, is to stop any and all chances of getting a dreaded SQLCODE -904 in production, especially “out of the blue”.

Our idea was, in Db2 12, with the new PBR RPN to do an on-the-fly ALTER to the DSSIZE, just like SAX does now with the SECQTY to avoid running out of extents.

RTFM Time

A quick look in the manual tells you that :


it is an immediate ALTER (as long as you make the new DSSIZE larger than the old one!) and there are no package invalidations or REORGS required.


This is fantastic!

So I created a nice little PBR and then ran a horrible Cartesian join SPUFI to flood the first partition with data. This join had a TIME card of (,1) to limit it to one second of CPU before getting an Abend S322.

SAX Monitor

The SAX monitor reacted perfectly and did the TP alter to 513 GB DSSIZE (I had an increment size of 512 as a test), and got an SQLCODE -666 (I just love that SQLCODE…), as the INSERT was still running.

This ALTER was then internally queued to be attempted later, like in any other failure case.


All well and good.

Wham! Nasty errors !

Then I did the same for a DPSI on my PBR RPN… Oh dear!I got a nasty IO Error and then an even nastier ROLLBACK loop, meaning I had to cancel the IRLM to stop Db2… (There is an APAR for this problem PH18977.)

Rollback loop?

The ROLLBACK loop was caused by me choosing to use NOT LOGGED as a tablespace attribute. We have a finite amount of log space, and when the transaction was S322’d after one second of CPU,

the rollback could not find one of the archive logs and then we had to cold start Db2

– Not pretty!

Proper test!

I then wrote a couple of little test programs that actually COMMITted after 5000 inserts and then the ALTERs all worked as designed.


Do I worry too much about extended format and extended accessibility?

Next, I worried about the ominous “extended format and extended addressability“ attributes in the DATACLASS for a PBR RPN, and wondered what would happen if a customer has SAX running and it happily ALTERs a TP to say 6 GB when they can only address 4 GB…


IBM to the rescue!

Luckily for us, Db2 development had thought about this!

  • If you attempt to create a PBR RPN (even with a very small size) and your DATACLASS does not have the two attributes set, you get an error message 00D70008 telling you this detail.

  • If you ALTER an existing tablespace to be a PBR RPN and your DATACLASS does not have the two attributes set, then the ALTER works fine. But remember, this is a pending alter and you *must* do a REORG at the TS level with inline TP level copies. This REORG then fails – also with 00D70008.

So, in other words, SAX cannot hurt you here!


What about PBGs?

After all this we also considered PBGs. They have a limit as well – MAXPARTITIONS in their case. So we added an ability to also ALTER MAXPARTITIONS as well. Here you must be more careful though, as these ALTERs are still immediate *but* they invalidate any referring packages!

ABIND YES or NO?

If you work with ABIND set to YES all is good as the ALTER comes in, Db2 invalidates your packages and the auto rebind happens so fast that you do not even notice it happening, however, if you work with ABIND NO then any packages, even the package actually running and doing the inserts, will fail! If you are just using dynamic SQL then it is 100% OK otherwise – Buyer beware!

Aha!

I have opened an Analytics Idea (DB24ZOS-I-1057) to try and get this loophole closed, as I cannot see what access path change could be affected by going from 32 to, say, 36 MAXPARTITIONS.

Db2 keeps adding the parts dynamically and nothing happens then… Go figure… Anyway, if you would like it – Please vote for it!


There are already some nice comments attached to it:

  • DP commented

    this is just a limit in the catalog.  So how could access path be affected?  The actual growth of a partition doesn’t invalidate the package so how just changing the limit do so ?
  • BW commented

    I opened a Case on this asking why packages are being invalidated in this situation and it is still open waiting for a reply.
  • BD commented

    With only impact to catalog, not sure how Access Path would be impacted.  Seems wasteful and counter productive to invalidate packages.

Remember – You never stop learning!

As always I would be pleased to hear from you!

TTFN,
Roy Boxwell
Senior Architect

2019-08 FTB (Fast Traversal Block): Just another TLA?

So we get a new TLA (Three Letter Abbreviation) to try and wrap our heads around in the busy busy world of mainframe databases. This time it comes with a twist, as FTB is actually not “Feed The Beast” sadly, but “Fast Traversal Block”.

In reality, it is referred to everywhere as:

FIT (Fast Index Traversal)

All clear on this and still with me? Good then I may begin!

The problem with modern indexes

The core problem these days is time… the time it takes to go through the leaf pages down to the actual data page is just too long. The vast amount of data we have forces upon the index a large number of layers which, in turn, forces a lot of non-leaf page accesses.

Index structure

We all know how indexes look in Db2, but remember they all have a root page (which is always technically speaking a non-leaf page) which points, normally, to non-leaf pages which, in turn, point to either more non-leaf pages – so you are getting extra levels in the index here  – and finally they point to a leaf page which actually contains pairs of keys and RIDs so that Db2 can get the data from the table page.

Which level are you?

One of the quirks of Db2, is that the leaf pages are called Level 0 and then the non-leaf pages directly above them are Level 1. The root page above these is then Level 2 and so you have a “two level” index.

So how many fetches for a random data access?

The first thing Db2 does is read the root page, looking at the root page it sees which non-leaf page must be fetched and it repeats this until it lands on the leaf page and then it fetches the data. So in my two level index it takes four fetches to get to the data. Now imagine you have a seven level index? Yep you end up fetching a ton of non-leafs!

The solution? FTB!

In Db2 12, IBM introduced the Fast Traversal Block to keep a copy of the non-leaf data in a new area, separate from the buffer pools.

The major reasons for the expected performance boost, are the facts that the structure is L2 cache-aware and each page is equal in size to one cache line (256 bytes), and I/O is massively reduced for the “other” non-leaf pages.

One size fits all?

The size of the FTB is determined by the new ZPARM INDEX_MEMORY_CONTROL with valid values AUTO, DISABLE or 10 – 200,000 MBs. By default AUTO is on. With this value, the size of the FTB is either 20% the size of all available buffer pools or 10MB, whichever is the highest.

The devil is in the detail

To actually start working with FTBs, you have to wait until the FTB Daemon has found an eligible index. From all of your indexes there will be quite a few candidate indexes. These must follow the following rules:


  1. It cannot be longer than 64 bytes

  2. It cannot be versioned (So the OLDEST_VERSION and CURRENT_VERSION must be the same!)

  3. It cannot contain a TIMESTAMP column with TIMEZONE

  4. It cannot have more than 2,000,000 leaf pages


Once through that selection list, the Daemon starts seeing what is happening to this index, is it a random select? That’s is a good thing! Is it an index only access? That’s even better! A split! Oh dear, that’s very bad…from all this, every two minutes, the daemon decides whether or not to use FTB for this index.

Control is in your hands

This is all well and good, but there are a lot of people who like to see *exactly* what is going on and where! So IBM introduced a new command:

-DIS STATS(IMU)

From this you get to see which indexes are being processed and how much space they are using. The Daemon also spits out console messages so you can see what happened and why. Further there is a new Catalog table SYSIBM.SYSINDEXCONTROL where you can micro-manage exactly which indexes to attempt to force into FTB and which ones to exclude. I would try and avoid this option and just let Db2 do the business!

Gotcha’s?

Always! FTB is limited to 10,000 per member which is probably ok! When a MASS DELETE (or TRUNCATE TABLE) happens then the FTB is removed for the related indexes and, even more importantly, is to keep up with current Db2 maintenance! As always with new things, it takes a while to get the birthing pains out of the way!

INCLUDE can kill you!

Finally, remember that the length cannot be greater than 64 bytes. So if you decide to add that one byte character column to the index to get Index Only access, you might then push the index over the edge and up to 65 bytes…

Before ALTERing indexes always check if they are in the FTB (or were!) and check if your alteration will disallow the FTB!

A little SQL to show you what you have

WITH INPUT (NLEVELS, LENGTH, INDEX_NAME) AS                            
 (SELECT  COALESCE(E.NLEVELS , A.NLEVELS )  -- FIRST RTS THEN INDEXES   
       , SUM(CASE D.COLTYPE                                             
             WHEN 'DECIMAL ' THEN                                       
 -- IF , SEPERATOR           SMALLINT( CEILING(( D.LENGTH + 1,0 ) / 2 ))
                             SMALLINT( CEILING(( D.LENGTH + 1.0 ) / 2 ))
             WHEN 'GRAPHIC'  THEN D.LENGTH * 2                          
             WHEN 'VARG'     THEN D.LENGTH * 2                          
             WHEN 'LONGVARG' THEN D.LENGTH * 2                          
             ELSE D.LENGTH                                              
             END)                                                       
       + SUM(CASE A.PADDED                                              
             WHEN 'Y' THEN 0                                            
             ELSE                                                       
               CASE D.COLTYPE                                           
               WHEN 'VARG'     THEN 2                                   
               WHEN 'LONGVARG' THEN 2                                   
               WHEN 'VARCHAR'  THEN 2                                   
               WHEN 'LONGVAR'  THEN 2                                   
               WHEN 'VARBIN'   THEN 2                                   
               WHEN 'DECFLOAT' THEN 2                                   
               ELSE 0                                                   
               END                                                      
             END)                                                       
       + SUM(CASE D.NULLS                                               
             WHEN 'Y' THEN 1                                            
             ELSE 0    
                END) AS LENGTH  
       , STRIP(A.NAME) CONCAT '.' CONCAT STRIP(A.CREATOR) AS INDEX 
 FROM SYSIBM.SYSINDEXES        A                                       
     ,SYSIBM.SYSKEYS            C                                       
     ,SYSIBM.SYSCOLUMNS         D                                       
     ,SYSIBM.SYSINDEXSPACESTATS E                                       
 WHERE A.UNIQUERULE     <> 'D'              -- NOT DUPLICATE            
   AND D.COLTYPE        <> 'TIMESTZ'        -- NOT TIMEZONE             
   AND A.OLDEST_VERSION = A.CURRENT_VERSION -- NOT VERSIONED            
   AND A.TBNAME         = D.TBNAME                                      
   AND A.TBCREATOR      = D.TBCREATOR                                   
   AND A.NAME           = C.IXNAME                                      
   AND A.CREATOR        = C.IXCREATOR                                   
   AND A.NAME           = E.NAME                                        
   AND A.CREATOR        = E.CREATOR                                     
   AND C.COLNAME        = D.NAME                                        
 GROUP BY A.NAME, A.CREATOR , E.NLEVELS, A.NLEVELS)                     
 SELECT NLEVELS, LENGTH , INDEX_NAME                                    
 FROM INPUT                                                             
 WHERE LENGTH <= 64   
 ORDER BY NLEVELS DESC
 FOR FETCH ONLY       
 WITH UR              
 ;                                                    

I have limited it to just show you just the eligible unique, non timezone, non-versioned indexes with a length of 64 or less of course!

Blog time


Here’s an excellent write up from John Campbell with even more technical details:

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/897a7c98-57af-4523-9cfa-07ebc3f996b4/entry/Db2_12_greatest_hits_with_John_Campbell_fast_index_traversal?lang=en


and from Akiko Hoshikawa: a very good IDUG Blog:

https://www.idug.org/p/bl/et/blogaid=646


As always I would be pleased to hear from you!

TTFN,
Roy Boxwell
Senior Architect

2019-06 A little quote from Terry Purcell: It just takes one

This is a little quote from Terry Purcell which I think should be understood much better than it possibly is today!

Really? Just one?

The quote is based on the idea that :

One single SQL statement can bring your entire system to its knees.

Many people think this is a huge exaggeration – However it is not!

It happened to me

This is not a friend of a friend story, but a story that really happened. Names have, of course, been changed but the story itself is 100% accurate.


The story


It was a normal Db2 PTF Maintenance night…

At this shop they always put maintenance in at midnight on Saturdays. All done automatically, and then roll the update around the data-sharing group so that, relatively quickly, all sub-systems have the same PTF level.

So far so normal

Sunday is not that busy at the site and no-one noticed any change.

Monday was different

Monday morning the machine started acting up. Customers could not login and the help desk was 100% busy. The lead DBA, George, had by around 08:00 a.m. received the first escalation to management and so the number of calls went up.

The bad guy

Using our WorkloadExpert (WLX) software together with our Bind ImpactExpert (BIX) the other DBAs, Fred and Ringo, quickly identified one single SQL statement that was taking 30,000 times more resources than in the prior week!

This was an SQL with table functions and LEFT, INNER JOINs etc.

What was it?

The comparison in BIX showed that all that had changed was one index access was now matchcols one instead of matchcols two! That was it! This one tiny change on one little SQL killed this machine…

The fix?

They decided to roll back the PTFs and quickly did this and everything returned to normal…


The lesson?

Always test any PTF before you go live – as just one SQL can kill ya!

Terry had indeed warned us all!


How can we help?

Well, thank you for asking: Our product CDDC contains an SQL replay and compare function that would have spotted this SQL in two different complementary ways. Firstly the BIX part of CDDC would have spotted it straightaway and secondly the replay itself would have thrown this out as a major outlier and bad guy candidate!

Different ways to Rome

They could possibly even have fixed this without backing out the PTF apply. They could have tried using our RUNSTATS Rescue to attempt to use older statistics and see if one of them would have given them a matchcols two access path. This time, however, with all the managers breathing down their necks it was decided – Undo all the changes!


In your shop

How would you have handled this situation in your shop?

Would/Could you have seen this before it happened?

Feel free to send me your comments and ask questions.

TTFN,
Roy Boxwell
Senior Architect

Machine Learning for Db2 z/OS: Artificial Intelligence – Hype or Reality?

Now that the Db2 Optimizer has gone all Artificial Intelligent (AI from now on) on us, I thought it would be interesting to review where we are in this brave new world!

Keeps you out of a BIND

My firm created our BindImpactExpert (BIX) software many moons ago to compare access paths, typically before a program non SQL change or a REBIND after RUNSTATS etc. Just to warn you not to do the REBIND or whatever you were going to do, as it would change the access plan to something you may well not really want to have. This means not just no-brainers like index access to tablespace scan, but also different index usage or table access order changes.

Apples and Oranges

So, what has that got to do with AI?
Well, we used a marketing slogan of trying to compare oranges and apples to try and make it clear :

how tough it really is to try and match SQL statements across different program releases and to compare the results.

ML and AI – The new buzzwords

Now in Db2 12, the optimizer has got machine learning (ML from now on) to help it study which host variables are used the most and how many rows are usually returned by a given query.

Do you “know” your data?

When the optimizer “knows” this info it can of course make much better “guesses” at good repeatable access plans that help everyone! Now the usage of AI and ML always gets me interested because of all the fun you can have with them.


There was recently a great article in my favourite science magazine “New Scientist” all about how to fool image recognition AI:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24232270-200-machine-mind-hack-the-new-threat-that-could-scupper-the-ai-revolution/
(subscribe to read this article)


Now you should see the connection back to our BindImpactExpert slogan. So much for Oranges and Apples – AI cannot even see that an Orange is an Orange…

this is not good or even perhaps “suboptimal”…

Adversarial Images and the fun you can have with them…


From 2018 this article

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/artificial-intelligence-hacking-machine-learning-adversarial

Within this article is a great paper all about graffiti changed road signs! Here is a direct link to the article https://arxiv.org/pdf/1707.08945.pdf


Fooling Deep Learning

Another great paper where Deep Learning AIs jump off the deep end:

http://www.evolvingai.org/fooling


Disappearing Humans

and finally this joyous article and a link to a You Tube video:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/23/18512472/fool-ai-surveillance-adversarial-example-yolov2-person-detection


But do not wear this picture as a T-Shirt down the street anytime soon!!!

Would you sit in a driverless car?

What this all boils down to is that I, for sure, will never sit in a driverless car within the next 40 years!
Why?

  • Firstly, I believe a true AI does not exist yet and will not exist for at least another 40 years.
  • Secondly, when I see an Orange I see an Orange because I “know” what an Orange looks like! As you have seen AIs have no concept of what an Orange *is* and so can easily see a drill instead or mistake skiers for dogs…
  • Thirdly, I am a programmer and someone somewhere is writing and testing – I hope! – the code… need I say more? Don’t even get me started with Agile or KANBAN.

extract from © 2019 – „We need to talk, AI” – Dr. Julia Schneider und Lena Kadriye Ziyal
A Comic Essay on Artificial Intelligence

https://weneedtotalk.ai


Room full of CTO’s

Have you heard about the hopefully apocryphal story of a room full of CTO’s at a software conference when they were asked “Would you fly in a computer controlled aircraft?” All their hands went up. Then they were asked “Would you fly if it was your software teams that had written the flight control software?” all their hands went down!

Flying is strangely different

While talking about flying my answer would be different?

Why?
Because in the air you have no-one else apart from other highly automated devices anywhere near you! This is the one hope that I can see for the whole driverless car stuff – Driving on the Interstate, Motorway or Autobahn. In the air, the environment is much more rigid. No lights, no crossings, no opposite traffic, no foot traffic, no children chasing a ball across the road etc.

They will come…

I am sure that driverless cars will come soon and I am equally sure that people will die because of them – However, I am also sure that lots of accidents will be avoided as well. After all the AI will always react faster than a human.

With this comes the ethics of AI and ML of course which will also play a major role. If the car has to decide in a crash scenario :

  • who gets hurt, should it protect itself and its cargo above all others?
  • What about a group of playing children or a bus full of nuns?
  • How can it decide who lives and who dies?

Looking on the bright side at least it will not get drunk, or high, and drive! I would also seriously hope that AI does not get road rage!

But even with these “bonus” points, I still have massive doubts and serious worries about the quality of the software and the true image recognition potential of current AIs.

AI everywhere

We were recently asked by a customer to add AI and ML to our SpaceAssuranceExpert (SAX) software. This has been happily running for years, capturing dataset allocations and extent usage in Db2 and making sure they never ran out of space or extents without getting told about it well beforehand.

I had to do a real double take and think “How on earth could AI help here?”

You are approaching 32 Linear Datasets with your segmented tablespace. You have to ALTER and REORG before you use up all the space in the 32nd. Where can AI help here?
We already have extrapolation from current usage…

Don’t get me wrong

I am not against AI and ML…

but I think we *all* need to get a bit more skeptical about what can actually be delivered now.

On the one hand host variable contents and row counts – Yes indeed, but even here outliers will cause grief and then on the other hand the complete and utter science fiction of self-driving cars in our towns and cities.

The money being spent is also amazing, in 2019 it is estimated, by Syncsort,

that the AI budget will be $35.8 Billion 44% more than in 2018.


What do you think?


I am sure that autonomous cars will be a plague upon us – are you?

TTFN,
Roy Boxwell
Senior Architect

PS: I am looking forward to the first Adversarial Images for Db2 z/OS !!!

2019-04 ZOWE for Continuous Delivery – It’s worse than that – he’s tested Jim!

Terrible quote usage I know… But now, with the all new and Agile Db2 12 being picked up and used globally, I think it is time to review a few things that companies and individuals must do, or at least plan, in this “Brave New World” of ours.

To wrap up at the end, I will delve into the idea of using ZOWE to help you test!


This Db2 12 testing checklist, helps to navigate into the Db2 Continuous Delivery world, well supported by Zowe, the modern IBM z/OS GUI

Table of contents – Db2 12-testing-checklist
  1. Cloning
  2. Workload collection
  3. Dynamic & Static SQL storage
  4. IFCID376 & co
  5. EXPLAIN-& Access Path
  6. Execute the SQLs
  7. Db2-12 Test Review
  8. Zowe – Open Source z GUI – for CD

The Db2 12 Testing Checklist


1. Do not be afraid of the clones!

To even begin to start testing Db2 12, you’ll need to start with a complete production clone. I know a lot of people get suddenly scared about this due to audit requirements or, more commonly, space requirements. I mean, who can possibly support a complete 100% data clone of their productive system?

A real clone or a partial clone?

Of course you do not actually need all of your data! All you must have is the Db2 Catalog and Directory, all of the user objects should be DEFINE NO style empty shells. After all, do you really need TBs of productive data to do a test run? Nope! So now we have removed two major problems (Space and Audit) from the list of testing problems.


2. Collect as much workload as you can

You’ll need to gather as much of your current executed SQL as you possibly can. At best 13 months is a good target. “Not possible” I hear you all scream – “Oh yes it is!” say I.


3. Dynamic & Static SQL: Store it cleverly away

You do not need the same SQL statement 12,000,000 times. Just once, but with an execution count. Store the dynamic SQLs and the retrieved Static SQLs away somewhere nice and safe with a COMPRESS YES to save room, and then you can easily get 13 months of data. Another major problem gone from the list of testing problems.


4. Gather your friends close but your enemies closer – IFCID376

Make sure you are running with IFCID 376 always on and everywhere! Test, QA and Prod. The moment it starts spitting out possible “problems”, start trying to track down the causing event (SQL) and verify that it is OK, or get a code change implemented. This only has a little to do with agile Db2 12 but should be on at every shop anyway!

But I don’t get the Dynamic SQL!

You do if you are fast and good enough! If you are permanently snapping the DSC and catching the flushed statements, then you can indeed find out the SQL that caused the IFCID. Another major problem disappears from the list of testing problems.


5. Access Paths a go go

Now it really makes a lot of sense to EXPLAIN all of the SQL that you have before and after the Db2 12 Functional Level (FL) change to see if just flipping to, for example, FL 504 caused access paths to head south… This is something you should all be doing now as well of course. Always validate the access path before being forced to do a REBIND or PREPARE. This way you will not get any nasty surprises… Another major problem vanishes from the list of testing problems.


6. Execute the SQLs

I have one last thing for you…

Take all of the SQL that you have just processed and transform it so it can actually execute.

  1. Logarithmically reduce the execution count and execute all of the SQL while monitoring all of the Db2 KPIs – On the Clone, of course.
  2. Then reset the world back to your starting Clone, do the FL change and then re-execute all the SQL again.
  3. Once finished, compare all of the KPIs – looking for outliers as there has only been the FL change then.

Any differences you see should be just “background noise” but there could also be some nasties in there. This will light them up so that the root problem(s) can be found and corrected way before you actually do the FL change in production.


Well done, you’ve made it!

That’s it! With all these processes set up and fully automated you can actually do repetitive pipeline tests within hours instead of weeks or months or never!


7 – Db2 12 test-Review:


What does this mean for me?

Well,…

  • You need to get a fast, good, automated Cloning system in place.
  • You need to get a fast, good, automated IFCID 376 system in place.
  • You need to get a fast, good, automated SQL workload collection system in place.
  • You need to get a fast, good, automated Access Path comparison system in place.
  • You need to get a fast, good, automated SQL replay system in place.

… this means :

” Continuous testing in a continuous development world “…


You might, in fact, need to actually buy some software that does all this for you…

May I introduce you to our newest member of the SEGUS/SEG Family:

Db2 Continuous Delivery Deployment Check

is the software that does all of this, and more!

Check out our website for details of how this software really helps in :



  • Reducing the time to test

  • Enabling you to actually go forward with a good, clear conscience!

Visit our CDDC

CDDC for Db2 z/OS - Continuous Delivery Deployment Check - Agile & Environment simulation, Zowe IBM mainframe GUI

8 – ZOWE – Open Source zUI – to the rescue?

You have probably heard of ZOWE by now, the first open source software on z/OS from IBM, Rocket Software and CA Technologies (A Broadcom company). It was launched last year and is growing very quickly.

Introduction to Zowe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX20ZMRoTtk

My firm is also using it now and all future developments will also be ZOWE enabled.

In a nutshell,

it allows users to interact with the Mainframe using a modern GUI.

This is based upon z/OSMF and uses work flows to actually do stuff. You define a “micro service” to do one thing and then you can string as many of these together as you like to get something done like, e.g. Provisioning a Db2 system or Cloning a Db2 subsystem etc.


The IBM web based UI for Db2 z/OS


Zowe at SEGUS and

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING?



We will be using ZOWE for two things:

1 – For the Installation and Maintenance of our software at customer sites

ZOWE enables people to do things that normally require “green screen” and we are keenly aware that green screen people are disappearing. If we want the z/OS platform to survive, it must be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the modern world.

2 – For using ZOWE as the front end for the users of our products

The CDDC product that I described in this newsletter will be built around ZOWE, thus expanding its usability in the market of tomorrow.


We are convinced that ZOWE is the way to go – are you?


TTFN,
Roy Boxwell
Senior Architect

2019-03 EXPLAIN data review

A quick history of EXPLAIN and a new standard Db2 EXPLAIN Query to bring out the best and most underused columns.

EXPLAIN has been with us from nearly the start of Db2 (DB2 V2R1 when the b was B!) and, over the years, the number of Explain tables has mushroomed up to 20 in Db2 12. Not *all* of this data is really useful but there are bits and pieces that are well worth adding to your standard repertoire of explain queries!

Table of contents
  1. PLAN_TABLE
  2. DSN_DETCOST_TABLE
  3. DSN_FILTER_TABLE
  4. DSN_PREDICAT_TABLE
  5. New Standard Explain SQL

PLAN_TABLE

This can be used to see in which release the PLAN_TABLE was created:

V2.1 – 25 column format
V2.2 – 28 column format
V2.3 – 30 column format
V3.1 – 34 column format
V4.1 – 43 column format
V5.1 – 46 column format
V6.1 – 49 column format
V7.1 – 51 column format
V8.1 – 58 column format
V9.1 – 59 column format
10 – 64 column format ending with MERGN
11 – 66 Column format ending with EXPANSION_REASON
12 – 67 column format ending with PER_STMT_ID

What could be interesting here?? Well what about:

PREFETCH                           D, S, L, U, or Blank?

  • D for Dynamic
  • S for pure Sequential
  • L for through a page list
  • U for unsorted RID list
  • Blank for Unknown or no prefetch

COLUMN_FN_EVAL R, S, X, Y, or Blank?

  • R for while data is read
  • S for while performing a sort
  • X for while data is read but using OFFSET
  • Y for while performing a sort but using OFFSET
  • Blank for after data retrieval and any sort

PAGE_RANGE Y or Blank.

  • Y for yes the table qualifies for page range screening
    so that only the needed partitions are scanned
  • Blank for no

PRIMARY_ACCESSTYPE D, P, S, T, Blank. Is direct row access attempted first:

  • D it tries to use direct row access with a rowid column. If it cannot do this it uses the access path that is described in the ACCESSTYPE column
  • P it uses a DPSI and a part-level operation to access the data
  • S it uses sparse index access for a sideways table reference
  • T the base table or result file is materialized into a work file, and the work file is accessed via sparse index access. If a base table is involved, then ACCESSTYPE indicates how the base table is accessed
  • Blank it does not try to use direct row access by using a rowid column or sparse index access for a work file.

DSN_DETCOST_TABLE

There are a ton of interesting columns here but most are “IBM internal only”, however, these are available for our enjoyment:

ONECOMPROWSThe number of rows qualified after applying
local predicates.
IMLEAFThe number of index leaf pages scanned
by Data Manager.
IMFF  The filter factor of matching predicates only.
IMFFADJ  The filter factor of matching and screening
DMROWS  The number of data manager rows returned
(after all stage 1 predicates are applied).
RDSROWThe number of data manager rows returned
(after all stage 1 predicates are applied).
IXSCAN_SKIP_DUPSWhether duplicate index key values
are skipped during an index scan.
  • Y Duplicate key values are skipped
  • N Duplicate key values are not skipped
IXCAN_SKIP_SCREENWhether key ranges that are disqualified
by index screening predicates are
skipped during an index scan.
  • Y Disqualified key ranges are skipped
  • N Key ranges are not skipped
EARLY_OUTWhether fetching from the table stops
after the first qualified row.
  • Y Internal fetching stops after the first
    qualified row
  • N Internal fetching continues after the first
    qualified row
BLOCK_FETCH or N Was block fetch used?

DSN_FILTER_TABLE

Sometimes it is really interesting to see when the predicate is applied and whether or not it could be pushed down.

STAGEThe stage that the predicate was evaluated.
MATCHING, SCREENING, PAGERANGE,
STAGE1, or STAGE2.
PUSHDOWNWhether the predicate was pushed down.
  • I for the Index Manager evaluates it
  • D for the Data Manager evaluates it
  • Blank means no push down was used

DSN_PREDICAT_TABLE

Here lives the really good stuff that most people do not use! The Bubble Up is normally an SQL coding error and the T is “forgetfulness”…

ADDED_PREDIf this column is non-blank it means that Db2 has
rewritten the query to some extent.
This is not good as it adds CPU to the process.
In my opinion any “added predicate”
should already be coded correctly in the SQL!
  • Blank Db2 did not add the predicate
  • B for bubble up
  • C for correlation
  • J for join
  • K for LIKE for expression-based index
  • L for localization
  • P for push down
  • R for page range
  • S for simplification
  • T for transitive closure

CLAUSE

Is this a SELECT, HAVING, ON, or WHERE clause?
ORIGIN  Where did it come from?
  • C for a column mask
  • R for a Row Permission
  • U specified by User
  • Blank generated by Db2

New Standard Explain SQL

Just adding these to your standard Explain query like this:

SET CURRENT SQLID = 'BOXWELL' ;                                   
SELECT SUBSTR(P.PROGNAME, 1 , 8 ) AS PROGNAME
,SUBSTR(DIGITS(P.QUERYNO), 6, 5) AS LINE
,SUBSTR(DIGITS(P.QBLOCKNO), 4, 2) AS QNO
,SUBSTR(DIGITS(P.PLANNO), 4, 2) AS PNO
,SUBSTR(DIGITS(P.MIXOPSEQ), 4, 2) AS SQ
,SUBSTR(DIGITS(P.METHOD), 5, 1) AS M
,SUBSTR(P.TNAME, 1, 18) AS TABLE_NAME
,P.ACCESSTYPE AS A
,P.PRIMARY_ACCESSTYPE AS PA
,SUBSTR(DIGITS(P.MATCHCOLS), 4, 2) AS CS
,SUBSTR(P.ACCESSNAME, 1, 12) AS INDEX
,P.INDEXONLY AS IO
,SUBSTR(CASE SORTN_UNIQ WHEN 'N' THEN '-' ELSE 'Y' END ||
CASE SORTN_JOIN WHEN 'N' THEN '-' ELSE 'Y' END ||
CASE SORTN_ORDERBY WHEN 'N' THEN '-' ELSE 'Y' END ||
CASE SORTN_GROUPBY WHEN 'N' THEN '-' ELSE 'Y' END
, 1 , 4) AS UJOG
,SUBSTR(CASE SORTC_UNIQ WHEN 'N' THEN '-' ELSE 'Y' END ||
CASE SORTC_JOIN WHEN 'N' THEN '-' ELSE 'Y' END ||
CASE SORTC_ORDERBY WHEN 'N' THEN '-' ELSE 'Y' END ||
CASE SORTC_GROUPBY WHEN 'N' THEN '-' ELSE 'Y' END
, 1 , 4) AS UJOGC
,P.PREFETCH AS P
,P.COLUMN_FN_EVAL AS CE
,P.PAGE_RANGE AS PR
,P.QBLOCK_TYPE AS TYPE
,P.MERGE_JOIN_COLS AS MJC
,S.PROCMS AS MS
,S.PROCSU AS SU
,D.EARLY_OUT AS EO
,D.BLOCK_FETCH AS BF
,F.ORDERNO AS ON
,F.PREDNO AS PN
,F.STAGE AS STAGE
,F.PUSHDOWN AS PD
,R.TYPE AS TYPE
,R.ADDED_PRED AS AP
,R.CLAUSE AS CLAUSE
,R.ORIGIN AS OR
,R.REDUNDANT_PRED AS RP
,R.TEXT AS TRANSFORMED_PREDICATE
FROM PLAN_TABLE P
FULL OUTER JOIN
DSN_STATEMNT_TABLE S
ON P.QUERYNO = S.QUERYNO
AND P.APPLNAME = S.APPLNAME
AND P.PROGNAME = S.PROGNAME
AND P.COLLID = S.COLLID
AND P.GROUP_MEMBER = S.GROUP_MEMBER
AND P.SECTNOI = S.SECTNOI
AND P.VERSION = S.VERSION
AND P.EXPLAIN_TIME = S.EXPLAIN_TIME
FULL OUTER JOIN
DSN_DETCOST_TABLE D
ON P.QUERYNO = D.QUERYNO
AND P.APPLNAME = D.APPLNAME
AND P.PROGNAME = D.PROGNAME
AND P.COLLID = D.COLLID
AND P.GROUP_MEMBER = D.GROUP_MEMBER
AND P.SECTNOI = D.SECTNOI
AND P.VERSION = D.VERSION
AND P.EXPLAIN_TIME = D.EXPLAIN_TIME
AND P.QBLOCKNO = D.QBLOCKNO
AND P.PLANNO = D.PLANNO
FULL OUTER JOIN
DSN_FILTER_TABLE F
ON P.QUERYNO = F.QUERYNO
AND P.APPLNAME = F.APPLNAME
AND P.PROGNAME = F.PROGNAME
AND P.COLLID = F.COLLID
AND P.GROUP_MEMBER = F.GROUP_MEMBER
AND P.SECTNOI = F.SECTNOI
AND P.VERSION = F.VERSION
AND P.EXPLAIN_TIME = F.EXPLAIN_TIME
AND P.QBLOCKNO = F.QBLOCKNO
AND P.PLANNO = F.PLANNO
FULL OUTER JOIN
DSN_PREDICAT_TABLE R
ON F.QUERYNO = R.QUERYNO
AND F.APPLNAME = R.APPLNAME
AND F.PROGNAME = R.PROGNAME
AND F.COLLID = R.COLLID
AND F.GROUP_MEMBER = R.GROUP_MEMBER
AND F.SECTNOI = R.SECTNOI
AND F.VERSION = R.VERSION
AND F.EXPLAIN_TIME = R.EXPLAIN_TIME
AND F.QBLOCKNO = R.QBLOCKNO
AND F.PREDNO = R.PREDNO
WHERE 1 = 1
AND P.QUERYNO IN (1 , 2 )
ORDER BY 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 24 , 25
;

Here I limit it to just the QUERYNO 1 and 2 as these were the numbers used for the EXPLAIN command:

EXPLAIN ALL SET QUERYNO = 1 FOR              
SELECT INSTANCE, CLONE
FROM SYSIBM.SYSTABLESPACE A
WHERE ( SELECT B.TSNAME
FROM SYSIBM.SYSTABLES B
,SYSIBM.SYSINDEXES C
WHERE C.CREATOR = ?
AND C.NAME = ?
AND C.TBCREATOR = B.CREATOR
AND C.TBNAME = B.NAME ) = A.NAME
AND A.DBNAME = ?
;
EXPLAIN ALL SET QUERYNO = 2 FOR
SELECT A.INSTANCE, A.CLONE
FROM SYSIBM.SYSTABLESPACE A
,SYSIBM.SYSTABLES B
,SYSIBM.SYSINDEXES C
WHERE C.CREATOR = ?
AND C.NAME = ?
AND C.TBCREATOR = B.CREATOR
AND C.TBNAME = B.NAME
AND A.DBNAME = ?
AND A.NAME = B.TSNAME
AND A.DBNAME = B.DBNAME
WITH UR
;
--------+--------+------+--------+---------+---------+--------+------+---
PROGNAME LINE QNO PNO SQ M TABLE_NAME A PA CS INDEX IO UJOG UJOGC
--------+--------+------+--------+---------+---------+--------+------+---
DSNESM68 00001 01 01 00 0 SYSTABLESPACE I 02 DSNDSX01 N ---- ----
DSNESM68 00001 01 01 00 0 SYSTABLESPACE I 02 DSNDSX01 N ---- ----
DSNESM68 00001 02 01 00 0 SYSINDEXES I 02 DSNDXX01 N ---- ----
DSNESM68 00001 02 01 00 0 SYSINDEXES I 02 DSNDXX01 N ---- ----
DSNESM68 00001 02 02 00 1 SYSTABLES I 02 DSNDTX01 N ---- ----
DSNESM68 00001 02 02 00 1 SYSTABLES I 02 DSNDTX01 N ---- ----
DSNESM68 00002 01 01 00 0 SYSINDEXES I 02 DSNDXX01 N ---- ----
DSNESM68 00002 01 01 00 0 SYSINDEXES I 02 DSNDXX01 N ---- ----
DSNESM68 00002 01 02 00 1 SYSTABLES I 02 DSNDTX01 N ---- ----
DSNESM68 00002 01 02 00 1 SYSTABLES I 02 DSNDTX01 N ---- ----
DSNESM68 00002 01 02 00 1 SYSTABLES I 02 DSNDTX01 N ---- ----
DSNESM68 00002 01 03 00 1 SYSTABLESPACE I 02 DSNDSX01 N ---- ----
DSNESM68 00002 01 03 00 1 SYSTABLESPACE I 02 DSNDSX01 N ---- ----
DSNE610I NUMBER OF ROWS DISPLAYED IS 13
--+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+--------
P CE PR TYPE MJC MS SU EO BF ON
--+---------+---------+--------+---------+---------+---------+---------
SELECT ------ 1 2 N N 1
SELECT ------ 1 2 N N 2
NCOSUB ------ 1 2 N N 1
NCOSUB ------ 1 2 N N 2
NCOSUB ------ 1 2 N N 1
NCOSUB ------ 1 2 N N 2
SELECT ------ 1 2 N N 1
SELECT ------ 1 2 N N 2
SELECT ------ 1 2 N N 1
SELECT ------ 1 2 N N 2
SELECT ------ 1 2 N N 3
SELECT ------ 1 2 N N 1
SELECT ------ 1 2 N N 2
---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+-----
PN STAGE PD TYPE AP CLAUSE OR RP TRANSFORMED_PREDICATE
---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+-----
3 MATCHING EQUAL WHERE U N "A"."DBNAME"=(EXPR)
2 MATCHING EQUAL WHERE U N "A"."NAME"=(SELECT "B"."TSNAME"
5 MATCHING EQUAL WHERE U N "C"."CREATOR"=(EXPR)
6 MATCHING EQUAL WHERE U N "C"."NAME"=(EXPR)
7 MATCHING EQUAL WHERE U N "C"."TBCREATOR"="B"."CREATOR"
8 MATCHING EQUAL WHERE U N "C"."TBNAME"="B"."NAME"
2 MATCHING EQUAL WHERE U N "C"."CREATOR"=(EXPR)
3 MATCH EQUAL WHERE U N "C"."NAME"=(EXPR)
4 MATCH EQUAL WHERE U N "C"."TBCREATOR"="B"."CREATOR"
5 MATCHING EQUAL WHERE U N "C"."TBNAME"="B"."NAME"
9 STAGE1 EQUAL T WHERE N "B"."DBNAME"=(EXPR)
6 MATCHING EQUAL WHERE U N "A"."DBNAME"=(EXPR)
7 MATCHING EQUAL WHERE U N "A"."NAME"="B"."TSNAME"

It shows you a lot more data than the normal bare bones Explain PLAN_TABLE data especially here the TYPE, STAGE and ADDED_PREDICATE (AP Column).

Feel free to send me your comments and ask questions.

TTFN,
Roy Boxwell
Senior Architect

2019-02 Global Temporary Confusion

Global Temporary Table usage in Db2 z/OS

Learn, through examples, why CGTT (CREATEd Global Temporary Tables) are possibly better than DGTT (DECLAREd Global Temporary Tables) and how to use them to speed up performance.

When Global Temporary Tables were first introduced (DB2 V5.1) it was all pretty clear! You used normal DDL to CREATE a GLOBAL TEMPORARY Table that existed in the Db2 Catalog, but every process got “their” own copy. There were limitations like No UPDATE, No Single DELETE, no Default Values and ROLLBACK / COMMIT and data reuse was not simple but it all sort of worked…

Global – but not as you know it!

Then along came the brand new Global Temporary Table (DB2 V6.1) which, just to make matters clearer, they prefixed with DECLARE so that it was 100% obvious that it had *nothing* to do with the “other” temporary table… I tell ya, if I ever meet the developer who came up with these names in a dark alley one night…. But I digress… So with the new DECLARE version you suddenly *could* do Update and Delete and it came with an ON COMMIT clause to make it simpler to handle data with COMMIT – Hoorah!

Global Temporary Table in Db2 12 – All new and improved

As of Db2 12, the full list of things you can do with a CREATE GLOBAL TEMPORARY TABLE (from now on simply CGTT) as opposed to a DECLARE GLOBAL TEMPORARY TABLE (from now on simply DGTT) is:

 What            CGTT           DGTT
MERGE No Yes
UPDATE No Yes
Single DELETE No Yes
DEFAULTs No Yes
ROLLBACK Deletes all Yes (Plus NOT LOGGED ON ROLLBACK)
COMMIT Deletes all Depends on ON COMMIT
(unless WITH HOLD)
Indexes? No Yes
WITH RETURN Yes Yes <- This is very good news
TO CLIENT

CGTT why?

So, looking at the list, you have to wonder – “Why would anyone be using CGTTs?”
Well the reason is “Performance!” –
DGTTs might do all the tricks but they also run like a dog!

Belief is ok, test is trust!

I wrote a couple of small COBOL programs that did the same thing: one using a DGTT and one using a CGTT. All the programs did, was call a section 1000 times that DECLARED the table (or obviously not!) and then called another section that inserted 10 rows and opened a cursor to then fetch these rows right back with an ORDER BY. I chose this test as most DGTT/CGTT usage is low-volume but high called rate (Think stored procedures here!) so I wanted to see what sort of overhead 1000 DGTTs caused.

No EDMPOOL here!

Monitoring is not easy as DGTT usage is not in the EDMPOOL, so I did it the “good old way” by running my tests when I was alone on the system and five times each. I was a bit shocked by the results…

What               CGTT                   DGTT
DBM1 EXCPs      0               8,817
MSTR EXCPs      0              59,653
Db2 CPU         0.140 secs       3.546 secs
Program cpu      4.506 secs     101.124 secs
Program elapsed 4.958 secs     118.730 secs

I then changed the DGTT to also be NOT LOGGED

What                   DGTT 
DBM1 EXCPs           66
MSTR EXCPs      47
Db2 CPU           2.446 secs
Program cpu     100.818 secs
Program elapsed 116.426 secs

Not that much better! But remember, I did not do any DELETE or UPDATE processing so your performance data may be better than mine.

Impressive!

Now the reason for all of the I/O and CPU is
all of the internals that Db2 must do for the DGTT, remember the CGTT has *already* been declared and exists in the catalog. The DGTT naturally not…
This can, as be seen, add a lot of overhead!

ROT still correct

Now the good old Rule of Thumb still holds true:

A CGTT is great for doing zero updates and sequential access!

Db2 10 improvement

When a cursor is declared with the attribute RETURN TO CLIENT then this cursor is available from the originating calling client even if the current stored procedure is down line. This is very neat as the cursor is “invisible” to all the intermediate procedures.

Death by DGTT

The problem in the past was the “hand shaking” of the final stored procedure result set. It had to be read out and put into another DGTT and then this handling was repeated all the way back up the calling chain. Now, if you have a “final cursor”, you can simply declare it as RETURN TO CLIENT – This saves tons of CPU and elapsed time!

Final tip!

Remember if you use STATIC SCROLLABLE cursors then they *must* use DGTTs in the background to actually work!

Even more work…

Then a colleague who proof-reads all my newsletters, a nasty job but someone must do it, asked me:

“I wonder what the numbers would be if you declared the GTT only once, then INSERTED/SELECTED/DELETED a bunch of rows 1000 times? Because that’s how I’m using it …“

So then I changed the programs to only DECLARE once, insert a 1000 rows, Select a 1000 rows and then do a MASS DELETE of the data.

What             CGTT           DGTT            DGTT NOT LOGGED
DBM1 EXCPs      7,572         7,720           7,769
MSTR EXCPs      0               672           238
Db2 CPU         0.220 secs     0.310 secs      0.410 secs
Program cpu     0.346 secs     0.482 secs      0.468 secs
Program elapsed 0.704 secs     0.836 secs      0.818 secs

Much closer, in terms of performance, but still the CGTT is quicker – Time to check your usage of these Temporary Tables if you ask me!


Feel free to send me your comments and ask questions.

TTFN,
Roy Boxwell
Senior Architect

2018-08 SOUNDEX and other “cool” features – Part six All new for Db2 12

Part six of my – everlasting – walk through of new Aggregate and Scalar functions.
Following with :  HASH & WRAP


Previous “SOUNDEX” Newsletters

SCALARS

Now I move on to the new scalar functions, really only two new ones came with Db2 12, HASH and WRAP.

HASH it

Four new HASH Scalar functions are supplied. The first runs every time:

SELECT HEX(HASH_CRC32  ('ROY LIKES BEER A LOT!')) 
FROM SYSIBM.SYSDUMMYU;                            
---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+----------+---------+
4FA13CD
DSNE610I NUMBER OF ROWS DISPLAYED IS 1

Then I tried MD5

SELECT HEX(HASH_MD5    ('ROY LIKES BEER A LOT!'))
FROM SYSIBM.SYSDUMMYU;
---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+--
DSNE610I NUMBER OF ROWS DISPLAYED IS 0
DSNT408I SQLCODE = -20223, ERROR:  THE ENCRYPT_TDES OR DECRYPT FUNCTION
FAILED.  ENCRYPTION FACILITY NOT AVAILABLE 12 0
DSNT418I SQLSTATE   = 560BF SQLSTATE RETURN CODE
DSNT415I SQLERRP    = DSNXRBIN SQL PROCEDURE DETECTING ERROR
DSNT416I SQLERRD    = 1032 0  0  -1  0  0 SQL DIAGNOSTIC INFORMATION
DSNT416I SQLERRD    = X'00000408'  X'00000000'  X'00000000'  X'FFFFFFFF'
X'00000000'  X'00000000' SQL DIAGNOSTIC INFORMATION

Oops! What is that?

–  20223 THE OPERATION FAILED. ENCRYPTION FACILITY NOT AVAILABLE return-code, reason-code

Explanation: The encryption facility is not available, or not able to service the encryption or decryption request.

System action: The statement cannot be processed.

Programmer response: If the encryption facility is not installed, install it before you use the ENCRYPT_TDES, DECRYPT, HASH_CRC32, HASH_MD5, HASH_SHA1, HASH_SHA256 functions or data set encryption. If the encryption facility is installed, verify that it is working correctly. The returncode and reason-code might give further information about why this message was issued.

Digging deeper into the “ICSF and cryptographic coprocessor return and reason codes” docu

Reason codes for return code C (12)
Reason Code Hex (Decimal)Description
0 (0)ICSF is not available. One of the following situations is possible:

  • ICSF is not started

Yep – We have no crypto here in the labs, so no big surprise! But hey, at least the CRC32 worked!

Let’s WRAP it up

WRAP is useful for people like me that write software that other people buy! If you are using any of these:

  • CREATE FUNCTION (compiled SQL scalar)
  • CREATE FUNCTION (inlined SQL scalar)
  • CREATE PROCEDURE (SQL - native)
  • CREATE PROCEDURE (SQL table)
  • CREATE TRIGGER (basic)
  • CREATE TRIGGER (advanced)

Then you are aware that the code is in clear text and easy to read – Not good for my intellectual property rights! WRAP solves this dilemma by letting me obfuscate the code completely.

Here are two examples with the problems they can pose:

SELECT WRAP ('CREATE FUNCTION SALARY(WAGE DECFLOAT) RETURNS DECFLOAT RETURN WAGE * 40 * 52')
FROM SYSIBM.SYSDUMMY1
;
SELECT WRAP('
CREATE TRIGGER BOXWEL2.TESTTRIGH
   AFTER
   UPDATE OF COL1 ON BOXWEL2.TESTTRIG
   REFERENCING NEW AS NTABLE
   FOR EACH ROW
   MODE DB2SQL
   WHEN (NTABLE.COL1 = ''2'')
   UPDATE MVNXTEST.MVNXT80 A
   SET UT_STATUS = ''X''
')
FROM SYSIBM.SYSDUMMY1
;

The output looks like this:

CREATE FUNCTION SALARY(WAGE DECFLOAT) WRAPPED DSN12100 
ablGWmdiWmtGTmdCTmtaTmtmUntqUmJeUmZi2mdKZidaWmdaWmdaWmZG1mIaGicaGi6TRm8Eu4e30 AmlGUcEdToUnWtd2:hIfdEN_bBCpEmtl1lKH:UAzaqaa

One very long line that you must then “reverse” parse to get it back into, e.g. 72 byte chunks for SPUFI use.

The second example is even better, because of the whitespace being not encoded/encoded as well:

                                                            CREATE TRIGGER
BOXWEL2.TESTTRIGH                                           WRAPPED DSN1210
ablGWmdiWmtGTmdCTmtaTmtmUntqUmJeUmZm0otKXidaWmdaWmda1nJKGicaGicaGQ:TRO87Axb:VP8p_d8E9N887FL:EnRZ:8ltM:4sMnV5iyw3QGPUu0hDP4uwUK4lkDz0xvk3PU6lCMBGOCZar_sbJSQyaHYumRRSkATFXus8DesyjqaYmOLMD2HWdLt6GFDTxkNr4g8ht874tPZXN5ZIpJW4Xx15CI:VZ4f7ENGxV6_jxL4tVN0MFF2:tFR6EcD:g3nZurpPzOd2PYTuslWXKWXEWsWk2Q1KuT1VjPlY_MeNhCnpppEFEoQgp:dudFUcPhFyesEPIrPYTZxKAHlj1sDOKQTp1fYWoQ5nQBXOZGGtBreN2j9oSdSJNgf3roCpVJS8EFxdZ5DuoI_PDP5t7d1DPTL7Vtlp2EMsESTnl6s80KH4O13Wr72s4y56iQwBwB0KuOUYKxUZb:zNdchpguBUNZom2p2yyTpOXXkcHhKGnFnbBaUd2rlMbRmKZdgDiNwi7rEKHTLYulpLOa7kqrHKLymXZKurj64TGpF2IjXUmYkMbgbn4CFnOLk20rArSOIWIzbpajemWcmyHWmWdWfhyr8dJWZ8ghXJ5mF_nKr3ZyNUNw7Co9OqUxuEPuocFy4vUswVtOmonhr23d4VgBQz3Zf8nV2p5AVOEYLsJ7QDnNq7Bb132t3R7Rn603gF0PUi_PdCH6ef8Kmk4a8uWr2hkicHj8apO7hQf5w3Tc2tsvOCvOe5RaopCLKgg5BmnnYYzAl7lLiNGAvob1_Dd7PkoX51LDZ3QlBJUugQm5WsPJKKtwDjM81Wa


Notice that I had to double up the apostrophes due to this being passed as input to WRAP now – so you do have to watch out for that.

Remember too, that this is not encryption, it is just encoding and can be broken – It just makes it a tick harder to read your code, that is all. IBM writes:

Important
The encoding of the statement is meant to obfuscate the content and is not considered a form of strong encryption.


 

Well that wraps up this newsletter! Sorry….

 

Feel free to send me your comments and ask questions.

TTFN,
Roy Boxwell
Senior Architect

2018-07 – SOUNDEX and other “cool” features – Part five All new for Db2 12

Part five of my – everlasting – walk through of new Aggregate and Scalar functions. This time I will start with the new AGGREGATE functions introduced in Db2 12.

LISTAGG

This is mainly of interest due to the fact that it was the very first Agile Function Level feature in Db2. You must be at FL501 to use this in SQL otherwise you get a

DSNT408I SQLCODE = -4700 ATTEMPT TO USE NEW FUNCTION BEFORE FUNCTION LEVEL IS ACTIVATED

Or a

DSNT408I SQLCODE = -4743, ERROR:  ATTEMPT TO USE A FUNCTION WHEN THE APPLICATION COMPATIBILITY SETTING IS SET FOR A PREVIOUS LEVEL

What this function does, is basically a horizontal recursive join which can be sorted in a different sequence. Here’s the SQL example:

SELECT WORKDEPT,                                       
LISTAGG(LASTNAME, ', ') WITHIN GROUP(ORDER BY LASTNAME)
AS EMPLOYEES                                           
FROM SAMPLE.EMP                                        
GROUP BY WORKDEPT;

Which returns:

---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+-----+
WORKDEPT  EMPLOYEES                                                        
---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+-----+
A00       HAAS, LUCCHESI, O'CONNELL 
B01       THOMPSON 
C01       KWAN, NICHOLLS, QUINTANA    
D11       ADAMSON, BROWN, JONES, LUTZ, PIANKA, SCOUTTEN, STERN, WALKER,
          YOSHIMURA
D21       JEFFERSON, JOHNSON, MARINO, PEREZ, PULASKI, SMITH
E01       GEYER  
E11       HENDERSON, PARKER, SCHNEIDER, SETRIGHT, SMITH  
E21       GOUNOT, LEE, MEHTA, SPENSER 
DSNE610I NUMBER OF ROWS DISPLAYED IS 8

So you can see it adds the LASTNAME and a comma repeatedly for each WORKDEPT value.

Db2 Catalog Docu

This function is actually very handy for one of the things I create for our programmers here in the labs. It is always a good idea to “know the catalog” and so I created a little word document years ago with all the tablespaces, tables, indexes and index columns with sort order so that they did not have to look in three separate books to find the data. Here is the SQL for listing out the tables with indexes:

SELECT SUBSTR(A.DBNAME, 1, 8) AS DB      
      ,SUBSTR(A.NAME, 1, 8 ) AS TS       
      ,SUBSTR(B.NAME, 1, 18) AS TABLE    
      ,SUBSTR(C.NAME, 1, 8 ) AS INDEX    
      ,B.TYPE                            
      ,CASE C.UNIQUERULE                 
        WHEN 'D' THEN '-'                
        ELSE 'Y'                         
       END AS U                          
      ,D.COLSEQ                          
      ,SUBSTR(D.COLNAME, 1, 18) AS COL   
      ,CASE D.ORDERING                   
        WHEN ' ' THEN 'I'                
        WHEN 'A' THEN '-'                
        WHEN 'D' THEN 'D'                
        WHEN 'R' THEN 'R'                
       END AS ORDER                      
FROM SYSIBM.SYSTABLESPACE A              
    ,SYSIBM.SYSTABLES     B              
    ,SYSIBM.SYSINDEXES    C              
    ,SYSIBM.SYSKEYS       D              
WHERE A.DBNAME IN ('DSNDB01','DSNDB06')  
  AND A.DBNAME  = B.DBNAME               
  AND A.NAME    = B.TSNAME               
  AND B.CREATOR = 'SYSIBM'               
  AND B.NAME    = C.TBNAME               
  AND B.CREATOR = C.TBCREATOR            
  AND C.NAME    = D.IXNAME                
  AND C.CREATOR = D.IXCREATOR            
ORDER BY DB, TS , TABLE , INDEX, D.COLSEQ ;

It returns 855 rows of data on my test Db2 12 Fl501 system:

---------+-------+-------+---+-------+------+--------+------------------+--
DB        TS      TABLE         INDEX     TYPE  U  COLSEQ  COL       ORDER
---------+-------+-------+---+-------+------+--------+------------------+--
DSNDB01   DBD01   DBDR          DSNDB01X   T   Y      1   DBID         -
DSNDB01   DBD01   DBDR          DSNDB01X   T   Y      2   SECTION      -
DSNDB01   SCT02   SCTR          DSNSCT02   T   Y      1   SCTNAME      -
DSNDB01   SPT01   SPTR          DSNSPT01   T   Y      1   SPTLOCID     -
DSNDB01   SPT01   SPTR          DSNSPT01   T   Y      2   SPTCOLID     -
DSNDB01   SPT01   SPTR          DSNSPT01   T   Y      3   SPTNAME      -

And ending with

DSNDB06  SYSXML   SYSXMLRELS    DSNXRX02   T   -      1  XMLTBOWNER    -
DSNDB06  SYSXML   SYSXMLRELS    DSNXRX02   T   -      2  XMLTBNAME     -
DSNDB06  SYSXML   SYSXMLSTRINGS DSNXSX01   T   Y      1  STRINGID      -
DSNDB06  SYSXML   SYSXMLSTRINGS DSNXSX02   T   Y      1  STRING        -
DSNE610I NUMBER OF ROWS DISPLAYED IS 855

Then I used my amazing WORD skills to move all the COL columns after each other to get a DOC file that looks like this:

DSNDB0n.     SYSIBM.       SYSIBM.      U  INDEX FIELD
DBD01        DBDR          DSNDB01X     Y  DBID.SECTION
SCT02        SCTR          DSNSCT02     Y  SCTNAME
SPT01        SPTR          DSNSPT01     Y  SPTLOCID.SPTCOLID.SPTNAME.etc.

Which, of course, the programmers loved, as it enabled them to quickly find which columns, in which sort order, (I convert the ORDER D COL column to be in bold by the way), are available on the catalog and directory tables. I started this with DB2 V5…

Now with LISTAGG the query looks like:

SELECT SUBSTR(A.DBNAME, 1, 8)                                 
      ,SUBSTR(A.NAME, 1, 8 )                                  
      ,SUBSTR(B.NAME, 1, 18)                                  
      ,SUBSTR(C.NAME, 1, 8 )                                  
      ,B.TYPE AS T                                            
      ,CASE C.UNIQUERULE                                      
        WHEN 'D' THEN '-'                                     
        ELSE 'Y'                                              
       END AS U                                               
      ,LISTAGG( CHAR(SUBSTR(D.COLNAME, 1, 18) CONCAT           
                     CASE D.ORDERING                          
                     WHEN ' ' THEN 'I'                        
                     WHEN 'A' THEN '-'                        
                     WHEN 'D' THEN 'D'                        
                     WHEN 'R' THEN 'R'                        
                     END                                      
                    )                                         
               , ' ') WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY D.COLSEQ ASC)    
FROM SYSIBM.SYSTABLESPACE A                                   
    ,SYSIBM.SYSTABLES     B                                   
    ,SYSIBM.SYSINDEXES    C                                   
    ,SYSIBM.SYSKEYS       D                                   
WHERE A.DBNAME IN ('DSNDB01','DSNDB06')                       
  AND A.DBNAME  = B.DBNAME                                    
  AND A.NAME    = B.TSNAME                                    
  AND B.CREATOR = 'SYSIBM'                                    
  AND B.NAME    = C.TBNAME                                    
  AND B.CREATOR = C.TBCREATOR                                 
  AND C.NAME    = D.IXNAME
  AND C.CREATOR = D.IXCREATOR                                 
GROUP BY A.DBNAME, A.NAME, B.NAME, C.NAME, B.TYPE, C.UNIQUERULE
;

And the output:

---------+---------+-------+-----------+---------------------------+---
                                            T  U 
---------+---------+-------+-----------+---------------------------+---
DSNDB01   DBD01   DBDR            DSNDB01X  T  Y  DBID     - SECTION  -     
DSNDB01   SCT02   SCTR            DSNSCT02  T  Y  SCTNAME  -  
DSNDB01   SPT01   SPTR            DSNSPT01  T  Y  SPTLOCID - SPTCOLID - SPTNAME

And ends

DSNDB06   SYSXML  SYSXMLRELS      DSNXRX02  T  -  XMLTBOWNER - XMLTBNAME
DSNDB06   SYSXML  SYSXMLSTRINGS   DSNXSX01  T  Y  STRINGID   -         
DSNDB06   SYSXML  SYSXMLSTRINGS   DSNXSX02  T  Y  STRING     -         
DSNE610I NUMBER OF ROWS DISPLAYED IS 287

Which is a lot less data for my poor little fingers to work with!

Of course it is not perfect… the really big GOTCHA, is ORDER BY is *not* allowed!

PERCENTILES

For the next couple of examples, I will be using the table SAMPLE.EMP that contains these rows and columns of interest:

---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+-----
EMPNO   WORKDEPT       SALARY        BONUS         COMM
---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+-----
000210  D11          18270.00       400.00      1462.00
000190  D11          20450.00       400.00      1636.00
000180  D11          21340.00       500.00      1707.00
000160  D11          22250.00       400.00      1780.00
000170  D11          24680.00       500.00      1974.00
000150  D11          25280.00       500.00      2022.00
000200  D11          27740.00       600.00      2217.00
000220  D11          29840.00       600.00      2387.00
000060  D11          32250.00       600.00      2580.
DSNE610I NUMBER OF ROWS DISPLAYED IS 9

PERCENTILE_CONT

Calculates the requested percentile as a continuous value. Use this if you want a calculated value based upon your input. E.g.:

SELECT PERCENTILE_CONT(0,50)
WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY SALARY ASC )
FROM SAMPLE.EMP
WHERE WORKDEPT = 'D11'
;
---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------

---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------
+0.2468000000000000E+05                    (EMPLOYEE 150 row 5)
DSNE610I NUMBER OF ROWS DISPLAYED IS 1

Here you can see that I require the 50th percentile, and as the data happens to have nine rows it would be the 5th row If you look at the data you will see that that is indeed the case.

Now, reversing the direction of the percentile, I want the 90th descending value. This row does not exist in the input, so the function computes the value that will probably best fit

DSNE616I STATEMENT EXECUTION WAS SUCCESSFUL, SQLCODE IS 100
---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------
SELECT PERCENTILE_CONT(0,90)                              
       WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY SALARY DESC)                
FROM SAMPLE.EMP                                           
WHERE WORKDEPT = 'D11'                                    
;                                                         
---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------
                                                           
---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------
+0.2001400000000000E+05     (value between first and second rows)
DSNE610I NUMBER OF ROWS DISPLAYED IS 1

PERCENTILE_DISC

Calculates the requested percentile as a discrete value. Use this if you do not want a calculated value based upon your input. E.g.:

SELECT PERCENTILE_DISC(0,50)             
       WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY SALARY ASC )
FROM SAMPLE.EMP                          
WHERE WORKDEPT = 'D11'                   
;                                        
---------+---------+---------+---------+--
                                        
---------+---------+---------+---------+--
   24680.00                 (EMPLOYEE 150 row 5)
DSNE610I NUMBER OF ROWS DISPLAYED IS 1

Here you can see that I still require the 50th percentile, and, as the data happens to still have nine rows, it would be the 5th row again.

Now, reversing the direction of the percentile, I want the 90th descending value. This row does not exist in the input so the function returns the nearest input value.

DSNE616I STATEMENT EXECUTION WAS SUCCESSFU
---------+---------+---------+---------+--
SELECT PERCENTILE_DISC(0,90)             
       WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY SALARY DESC)
FROM SAMPLE.EMP                          
WHERE WORKDEPT = 'D11'                   
;                                        
---------+---------+---------+---------+--
                                       
---------+---------+---------+---------+--
   18270.00        (90th is not in the input data but this is the nearest)
DSNE610I NUMBER OF ROWS DISPLAYED IS 1

 

Feel free to send me your comments and ask questions.

TTFN,
Roy Boxwell
Senior Architect

2018-03 RTS RUNSTATS

 „Breaking the rules is often fun, although we cannot condone it. But breaking the rules of Real Time Statistics (RTS) in Db2 12 can really land you in hot water.

We provide two queries that may give you a Get Out of Jail Free Card – at least as far as RTS is concerned…”

In this short newsletter, I wish to briefly discuss a change in behavior of the Real Time Statistics (RTS) tables that I have now seen at customer sites. I am not too happy about it! Before we start, a quick resumé of the RTS is required.

The Arrival of RTS

The Real Time Statistics were basically created by Dr Jim Teng in Db2 V7 and have always obeyed a few quite simple rules.


Real Time Statistics (RTS) rules:


  1. Rule Number one
    If in doubt set to NULL.
    This might read a bit odd but the idea from Jim was that if any value is not 100% known then the column must be set to the NULL value.


  2. Rule Number two
    Externalize when asked, or by timer.


  3. Rule Number three
    No DEFINE NO data.


  4. Rule Number four
    Utilities will always update the RTS unless it cannot – see Rule Number one.


  5. Rule Number five
    SQL updates the counters unless they cannot – Think Mass Delete in a multi-table tablespace. Totalrows cannot be updated.

Rules are made to be broken

A couple of years into RTS usage and the clamor for changing various insert values got too big, so IBM enhanced the RTS so that on creation the REORGLASTTIME got set to the created timestamp and all the counter columns got set to zero instead of NULL. Now this was a good change as adding 1,000,000 to NULL you get NULL, whereas adding 1,000,000 to zero means you get 1,000,000 which is obviously better for working out whether or not you need a utility to run. The REORGLASTTIME was also accepted as when you create a nice empty object or you insert one row into an object, then by definition, it is in a perfectly reorganized state!

RTS rule one broken

Mass delete always caused problems, as mentioned earlier, so IBM then made a “half way” fix for the INDEX statistics in Db2 9 by zeroing the TOTALENTRIES when there is a Mass Delete as Db2 knows that the index is now empty.

(PM34730: RTS SYSINDEXSPACESTATS TOTALENTRIES INCORRECT AFTER MASS DELETE.)

Of course it did not update the TOTALROWS, as it didn’t “know” how many rows were mass deleted or truncated. This causes “drift” between the TS and IX statistics, but is only a minor annoyance.

Db2 12 breaks rule one

Now in Db2 12 Rule one has been broken again. Not that much of a break, but still not brilliant! What they have done, is change the STATSLASTTIME to now also be, nearly, the created TS – as if creating an object sets the runstats columns to valid data!

Naturally, the Db2 Catalog is still all -1’s. This makes generating utilities based on the RTS a little bit tricky, as you cannot trust the STATSLASTTIME to now ever actually be the time a RUNSTATS utility really ran – which was the *whole*, and only, purpose of this column! If only they had set the STATSLASTTIME to ‘0001-01-01-00.00.00.00.000000’ then all would be well…

Who woke the dogs up? (Or: Who let the dogs out? I.e. American jargon)

PI79234: SYSIBM.SYSTABLESPACESTATS.STATSINSERTS IS NOT UPDATED BY RTS EXTERNALIZATION SINCE OBJECT IS CREATED.
Is the APAR (PTF UI48494) that caused me all the trouble.

Where’s the beef?

Well, the problem is, if you are generating RUNSTATS based on the RTS – and who isn’t these days? – Then you are probably using this column. Now it *looks* like a RUNSTATS has been run at least once.

This is false and can lead to the not running of RUNSTATS when it most definitely should have been run.

Check all your home-grown RUNSTATS checkers. Remember DSNACCOX is also a little bit broken, as it uses these predicates:

(STATSLASTTIME IS NULL OR
 STATSLASTTIME<LOADRLASTTIME OR
 STATSLASTTIME<REORGLASTTIME OR
 STATSLASTTIME< latest PROFILE_UPDATE for the table space1 OR

Make sure you do not use the STATSLASTTIME, but instead join across to the SYSINDEXPART or SYSTABLEPART and pull out the STATSTIME column. This data is still ok and not fake news!

The scope of the problem

To find out the scope of the problem at your site, or even if you have this problem, you can run these two queries which simply list out all the objects that have, according to the Db2 Catalog, never been RUNSTATted, but according to the RTS they have been RUNSTATted:

Query 1

-- SELECT LIST OF TABLESPACES THAT ACCORDING TO DB2 CATALOG HAVE NOT 
-- BEEN RUNSTATTED BUT ACCORDING TO RTS HAVE BEEN.  
-- IGNORE DSNDB01 AS NO RUNSTATS FOR DIRECTORY OBJECTS 
-- IGNORE WORK DEFINED DATABASES AS NO RUNSTATS FOR THESE 
-- ONLY CHECK FOR TABLE TYPES H,M,P,R AND T 
-- DISTINCT IT FOR MULTI TABLE TABLESPACES 
SELECT DISTINCT A.DBNAME, A.NAME, A.PARTITION 
      ,A.REORGLASTTIME, A.STATSLASTTIME 
      ,B.STATSTIME, B.CREATEDTS 
FROM SYSIBM.SYSTABLESPACESTATS A 
   ,SYSIBM.SYSTABLEPART        B 
   ,SYSIBM.SYSDATABASE         C 
   ,SYSIBM.SYSTABLES           D 
WHERE B.STATSTIME = TIMESTAMP('0001-01-01-00.00.00.000000') 
  AND NOT COALESCE(A.STATSLASTTIME 
                   ,TIMESTAMP('0001-01-01-00.00.00.000000')) 
                  = TIMESTAMP('0001-01-01-00.00.00.000000') 
  AND NOT A.DBNAME = 'DSNDB01' 
  AND A.DBNAME = C.NAME 
  AND NOT C.TYPE = 'W' 
  AND A.DBNAME = B.DBNAME 
  AND A.NAME = B.TSNAME 
  AND A.PARTITION = B.PARTITION 
  AND A.DBNAME = D.DBNAME 
  AND A.NAME = D.TSNAME 
  AND D.TYPE IN ('H' , 'M' , 'P' , 'R' , 'T') 
ORDER BY 1 , 2 , 3 
; 

Query 2

-- SELECT LIST OF INDEXSPACES THAT ACCORDING TO DB2 CATALOG HAVE NOT 
-- BEEN RUNSTATTED BUT ACCORDING TO RTS HAVE BEEN. 
-- IGNORE DSNDB01 AS NO RUNSTATS FOR DIRECTORY OBJECTS 
-- IGNORE HASH INDEXES AS NO RUNSTATS ALLOWED 
-- ONLY CHECK FOR TABLE TYPES H,M,P,R AND T 
SELECT A.DBNAME, A.INDEXSPACE, A.PARTITION 
      ,A.REORGLASTTIME, A.STATSLASTTIME 
      ,B.STATSTIME, B.CREATEDTS 
FROM SYSIBM.SYSINDEXSPACESTATS A 
    ,SYSIBM.SYSINDEXPART       B 
    ,SYSIBM.SYSINDEXES         C 
    ,SYSIBM.SYSTABLES          D 
WHERE B.STATSTIME = TIMESTAMP('0001-01-01-00.00.00.000000') 
  AND NOT COALESCE(A.STATSLASTTIME 
                  ,TIMESTAMP('0001-01-01-00.00.00.000000')) 
                  = TIMESTAMP('0001-01-01-00.00.00.000000') 
  AND NOT A.DBNAME = 'DSNDB01' 
  AND A.CREATOR = B.IXCREATOR 
  AND A.NAME = B.IXNAME 
  AND A.PARTITION = B.PARTITION 
  AND A.CREATOR = C.CREATOR 
  AND A.NAME = C.NAME 
  AND NOT C.HASH = 'Y' 
  AND C.TBCREATOR = D.CREATOR 
  AND C.TBNAME = D.NAME 
  AND D.TYPE IN ('H' , 'M' , 'P' , 'R' , 'T') 
ORDER BY 1 , 2 , 3 -
;

You can run these in any version of Db2 you like, but you will only get results from a Db2 12 system with this APAR applied and you have created an index or a tablespace. When I run them here on my Db2 10 and 11 systems I get zero rows back and on my test Db2 12 FL501 system I get 172 rows.

The good news is…

Our product for helping you all get “agile” in Db2 12, CDDC – ContinuousDelivery DeploymentCheck, detects and reports these data constellations as does our Statistics Health Check, of course.

I would be very interested to hear your opinions about this “little change in behavior”. Have you come across this at your site?

 

As always, any questions or comments would be most welcome!

TTFN,

Roy Boxwell