DataGeek.blog

June 12, 2018 Featured

What do I Think Data Science is?

This is one of those blog entries that I write and I know it will be obsolete and I will show my own ignorance and cringe at it in five years, but I have to write it anyway. I know that Iam biased. I come from a relational database background, and am working hard to open my mind the new data techniques that seem so popular these days.

June 7, 2018 Featured

The db2support Problem with Db2 11.1, Fix Pack 3 (LUW)

IBM released fix pack 3, mod pack 3 for Db2 11.1 earlier this year, and there was a high-severity problem in the initial version of that fix pack. IBM fixed the problem and re-released the fix pack within about a day, but the bug was reported far and wide, while I’m not sure the resolution of the bug was, so I thought I’d cover it quickly.

June 5, 2018 Featured

RDBMS Basics: Indexes and Clustered Indexes

What is an index in an RDBMS(Relational DataBase Management System), and what are the benefits and drawbacks of using an index? Why don’t we index everything? How is a clustered index different? Indexes are powerful tools in relational databases. They can speed up performance of queries exponentially, but they can also slow down inserts, updates, and deletes. Let’s take a look at indexing and why it is so important to RDBMS performance, good or bad.

June 1, 2018 Featured

db2commerce.com is now DataGeek.blog!

I'm renaming db2commerce.com to datageek.blog - learn my motivations and my path going forward...

May 3, 2018 Uncategorized

Determining Which IP Address Db2 Connections are Connecting To

Database servers these days sometimes have a profusion of IP Addresses. IP V4, V6, management networks, and Virtual IP addresses all add to the ways applications connect in to a database server. I ran into an issue recently where I really needed to know what IP address was being used by an application, and thought I would share what I learned.

April 26, 2018 Uncategorized

DB2 Basics: What Port Number is Db2 Listening for Connections on?

DB2 has one or two ports that it is listening on for each and every Db2 instance. Two Db2 instances cannot share a port to listen on. Remember that Db2 allows multiple instances per server and also multiple databases per instance, and has for years.

April 19, 2018 Uncategorized

DB2 Administrative SQL Cookbook: Listing Database Authorities that an ID/Group Holds

Purpose

To list the database authorities held by an ID or group – authorities, not privileges. This information is not available in sysibmadm.privileges. The format of syscat.dbauth has columns with ‘Y’ or ‘N’ in them, and reading that quickly to answer the question “What permissions does this ID have?” can be a bit frustrating. This SQL could also be union-ed with SQL to query sysibmadm.privileges to include the privileges on database objects in one result set.

April 12, 2018 Uncategorized

IDUG North American Technical Conference 2018

Last year I crossed the line. The IDUG conference in Europe is now my favorite. But the North American technical conference is a very close second. Nowhere else can you get this level of detail and the contacts with IBMers and peers. I now get two favorite weeks a year!

March 29, 2018 Uncategorized

RSCT APAR Affecting TSAMP

Some of my clients, instead of engaging me for day-to-day support, engage me for expert assistance only when it all really hits the fan. This issue occurred for one of those clients, who had other support performing the HADR failovers while the Linux kernel was upgraded. The version of RedHat did not change, but the kernel did.

March 22, 2018 Featured

Index of Introductory Db2 Topics

This blog entry is designed to serve as a roadmap for current blog entries directed at those newer to Db2. In my mind, this likely includes anyone who has been working with Db2 for less than 2 years. However, often there are areas we spend more time in than others, so I think of these topics also as “spackle” – to fill in gaps for the self-taught. Note that some of the topics below are not links. This is because they’re areas I plan to blog about in the future.

March 13, 2018 Uncategorized

Db2 Basics: Error Messages

When I do work in other domains – even something as connected as scripting – I find the error messages confusing and unhelpful. Most of the time, this is mostly because I don’t know much about the language or the the area. I’d like to think that my opinion that Db2 error messages are really quite helpful and useful is unbiased, but having built a career on focusing on IBM Db2, I’m sure I am biased.

March 6, 2018 Uncategorized

Db2 Basics: Introduction to IBM Db2

What is Db2? This article is one of my few that is not directed at a Db2 DBA or someone trying to fill some of the roles of a Db2 DBA. This is directed, as much as I can manage, at any technologist trying to understand what Db2 is and the role it plays in an IT organization.