24

SAP is challenging at the best of times and it definitely requires a different DBA mindset to deal with it! SAP is now quite prolific and can now be found in most shops, but not all have SAP running on DB2 on OS/390 and z/OS. At the European Patent Office we are users of SAP. During this presentation a SAP overview will be given. SAP workload characteristics and challenges are discussed. And you will also be given an insightful view of the Housekeeping, Monitoring and Tuning issues you can encounter.

Opening up DB2 to the big wide world out there usually means you have more questions that answers! During this presentation we try to answer questions like: What are the different options to access data? What is best dynamic SQL or static? What are the pros and cons of each? There are so many JDBC driver types, which is best/appropriate for my needs? Is there is anything I can do to improve my performance?

Db2 and the WEB – types of applications accessing data
JDBC
Description
Driver Types
Pros and Cons
SQLJ
Description
Implementation
Pros and Cons
Performance Considerations for JDBC and SQLJ

In many companies DB2 tuning is now more about reducing costs than about improving response times. Wise trade-offs require up-to-date knowledge of hardware prices on a common scale (CPU second, 1 GB of central storage per month, 1 GB of read cache per month, 1 GB of disk space per month).
The presentation suggests a cost model, which can be tailored to your environment. It also discusses the tuning areas that have the highest potential for cost reduction. Index improvement is covered in detail with numerous examples.

The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) has been gaining in the popularity and adoption in the last several years. It's a data exchange mechanism of choice in e-business environments because of its ability to provide a standardized way of including semantic information within documents. But XML is increasingly getting into the focus of database experts because the large amount of XML data needs to be efficiently stored, retrieved and manipulated. This presentation will introduce XML from the database point of view and concentrate on those aspects of XML relevant to the database specialists.

During 2003 the world was shocked by the story of the longest outage in the history of DB2. How long can you afford to be down? Do you have the idea that your DB2 system is safe? During this day Jan will cover all angles of this multi-discipline problem. Since it requires a thorough planning and significant investment, technical people and managers should tackle it both. Make sure you don't get in the news and learn the latest about High Availability.

Topics:
The different dimensions of the problem:
Hardware solutions: PPRC (XD), XRC, SRDF, Sysplex
Software solutions: Data Sharing, Online utilities, (V8) schema evolution
Version management, Suspend/Resume, Backup/Restore system
Reducing Restart times, Storage Management, Application Design

Stored Procedures, a DBA view - Part I
Although Stored Procedures have been available since DB2 version 4 many shops are now starting to use them. And even if you don’t use them yourself you will probably install some software that will use them. This session will not only explain what they are but also how DBA’s should take care of them. There are many aspects of Stored Procedures from ZPARM settings to Security. This session will give a DBA a jumpstart but also some food for thought when starting with Stored Procedures. Topics covered are:
a.What are SP’s and how do I deal with them
b.DDL parameters
c.Commands
d.Programs and binding
e.Security
f.Tuning

Stored Procedures, a Programmer view - Part II
Stored Procedures are programs executed by DB2. But there are many aspects to programming Stored Procedures. Which parameter style to use. What programming language to use. What are the pitfalls and what are smart techniques. In this session you will see it all. From making the right choices to advanced techniques like Stored Procedures which call each other or the use of temporary tables. Armed with this knowledge you should be able to get going with Stored Procedures in no-time. Topics covered are:
a.Programming languages
b.Types and parameters
c.Programming aspects
d.Nesting
e.Use of temp tables
f.Development Center

You may still have those DB2 guidelines that where written ages ago. Do you really think they make sense in today's world with the latest version of DB2 installed? This session will take a look at some of the guidelines that people use but that are not longer applicable. Jan will cover application-related questions such as the effect of isolation levels on the result of the SQL, the use of parallelism, SQL coding hints. He will also cover system tuning and configuration questions regarding the IRLM, bufferpool settings and some of the misunderstood ZPARMS.

Fact #1- SQL is the only way an application can get data from DB2 (outside of utilities).
Fact #2 - SQL can make DB2 fly or crawl.
Fact #3 - 70% of the performance gains can be achieved by tuning SQL

During this presentation you will get a better understanding of how DB2 dissects SQL. We delve into the mechanics of the DB2 optimiser. DB2 EXPLAIN is explained – this helps the programmer gain insight on how the SQL will perform. Accounting Records offer vital information about how efficient the SQL actually is, here we look at what to concentrate on to spot problems quickly. And finally we have a look at best practise techniques on how to write good SQL.

Part I
The Anatomy of an SQL statement
Predicate processing
Join Processing
Stage 1 vs Stage 2 – Important things you need to know
Explaining EXPLAIN

Part II
Impact of Locking on SQL Performance
Working with Optimization Hints
Accounting Records
Best Practice Techniques for writing SQL

Stored Procedures, a DBA view - Part I
Although Stored Procedures have been available since DB2 version 4 many shops are now starting to use them. And even if you don’t use them yourself you will probably install some software that will use them. This session will not only explain what they are but also how DBA’s should take care of them. There are many aspects of Stored Procedures from ZPARM settings to Security. This session will give a DBA a jumpstart but also some food for thought when starting with Stored Procedures. Topics covered are:
a.What are SP’s and how do I deal with them
b.DDL parameters
c.Commands
d.Programs and binding
e.Security
f.Tuning

Stored Procedures, a Programmer view - Part II
Stored Procedures are programs executed by DB2. But there are many aspects to programming Stored Procedures. Which parameter style to use. What programming language to use. What are the pitfalls and what are smart techniques. In this session you will see it all. From making the right choices to advanced techniques like Stored Procedures which call each other or the use of temporary tables. Armed with this knowledge you should be able to get going with Stored Procedures in no-time. Topics covered are:
a.Programming languages
b.Types and parameters
c.Programming aspects
d.Nesting
e.Use of temp tables
f.Development Center 

Ever run a DB2 beta? Curious about how it’s done and what’s involved? This presentation discusses what an ‘ESP’ (Early Support Program) is and how we the European Patent Office set up our ESP environment. It also delves into the issues we encountered with Unicode, problems we had during the install, and frankly talks about the milestones we set ourselves for testing and how they were achieved, and finally the results of our testing.