Db2 DPF SQL Network Test

The Database Partitioning Feature (DPF) is available on DB2 UDB Enterprise Server Edition (ESE). With DPF your database is scalable as you can add new machines and spread your database across them. This means more CPUs, more memory and more disks from each of the additional machines for your database! DB2 UDB ESE with DPF is ideal to manage data warehousing, data mining and online analytical processing (OLAP) workloads. It can also work well with online transaction processing (OLTP) workloads.

When a database is partitioned, you split your database into different independent parts, each consisting of its own data, configuration files, indexes and transaction logs. Each of these parts is a database partition. You can assign multiple partitions to a single physical machine. These are called ‘logical partitions’ and they share the resources of the machine. When a database is partitioned, you split your database into different independent parts, each consisting of its own data, configuration files, indexes and transaction logs. Each of these parts is a database partition. You can assign multiple partitions to a single physical machine. These are called ‘logical partitions’ and they share the resources of the machine. To monitor the availability and responsiveness of the server, and collects statistics pertaining to the traffic into and out of the database server, eG Enterprise offers the Db2 DPF SQL Network Test.

This tests monitor the availability and responsiveness of the server, and collects statistics pertaining to the traffic into and out of the database server.

Target of the test : A DB2 database server with DPF enabled

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results DB2 database server being monitored

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter	Description
Test Period	How often should the test be executed.
Host	Specify the IP address of the DB2 server in this text box.
Port	Specify the port at which the target host is listening. The default port is 50000.
User, Password and Confirm Password	Specify the name of the user who has any of the following privileges to the specified DATABASE: SYSADM or SYSCTRL or SYSMAINT or SYSMON. You can create a separate user on the OS hosting the DB2 server for this purpose, and assign any of the aforesaid privileges to that user. The steps for the same are detailed in the Creating a Special User for Monitoring DB2. Specify the name of such a user in User text box. In the Password text box, specify the password of the user. Confirm the password by retyping it in the Confirm password text box.
Database	Specify the name of the database on the monitored DB2 server to be used by this test, in the Database text box.
Query	Select the query to execute in this text box. By default, this is set to selectTABSCHEMA,TABNAME,TYPE,COLCOUNT,KEYCOLUMNS,KEYINDEXED,KEYUNIQUE FROM, SYSCAT.TABLES WHERE TYPE=‘T’
Additional Databases	Specify the additional list of databases that you wish to monitor in a comma-seperated list in this text box. By default this is set to None.
SSL	If the target database server is SSL-enabled, then set the SSL flag to Yes. If not, then set the SSL flag to No.
Trust Store file name	The trust store file contains certificates from trusted Certificate Authorities (CAs). These certificates are used by eG agent to verify the authenticity of servers hosting DB2 UDB and establish a secure connection with the server using SSL. Specify the filename for Trust store file in Trust Store file name text box.
Trust Store Password	The trust store password is the passphrase or key used to encrypt and decrypt the trust store file. This password is required by the eG Agent when it needs to access the trust store file to establish secure connections. Specify the password in Trust Store password text box.
Detailed Diagnosis	To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option. The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled: The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability Both the normal and abnormal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Availability	Indicates the availability of the server.	Percent	The availability is 100% when the server is responding to a request and 0% when it is not. Availability problems may be caused by a misconfiguration/malfunctioning of the database server, or because the server has not been started. The availability is 100% when the instance is responding to a request and 0% when it is not. Availability problems may be caused by a misconfiguration/malfunctioning of the database instance, or because the instance is using an invalid user account. Besides the above, this measure will report that the server is unavailable even if a connection to the database instance is unavailable, or if a query to the database fails. In this case, you can check the values of the DB connection availability and Query processor availability measures to know what is exactly causing the database instance to not respond to requests - is it owing to a connection unavailability? or is it due to a query failure?
Response time	The time taken by the database to respond to a user query. This is the sum total of the connection time and query execution time.	Seconds	A sudden increase in response time is indicative of a bottleneck at the database server.
Database connection availability	Indicates whether the database connection is available or not.	Percent	If this measure reports the value 100 , it indicates that the database connection is available. The value 0 on the other hand indicates that the database connection is unavailable. A connection to the database may be unavailable if the database is down or if the database is listening on a port other than the one configured for it in the eG manager or owing to a poor network link. If the SQL availability measure reports the value 0, then, you can check the value of this measure to determine whether/not it is due to the unavailability of a connection to the server.
Connection time to database server	Indicates the time taken by the database connection.	Seconds	A high value could indicate a connection bottleneck. Whenever the SQL response time of the measure soars, you may want to check the value of this measure to determine whether a connection latency is causing the poor responsiveness of the server.
Query processor availability	Indicates whether the database query is executed successfully or not.	Percent	If this measure reports the value 100, it indicates that the query executed successfully. The value 0 on the other hand indicates that the query failed. In the event that the SQL availability measure reports the value 0, check the value of this measure to figure out whether the failed query is the reason why that measure reported a server unavailability.
Query execution time	Indicates the time taken for query execution.	Seconds	A high value could indicate that one/more queries to the database are taking too long to execute. Inefficient/badly designed queries to the database often run for long periods. If the value of this measure is higher than that of the Connection time measure, you can be rest assured that long running queries are the ones causing the responsiveness of the server to suffer.
Records fetched	Indicates the number of records fetched from the database.	Number	The value 0 indicates that no records are fetched from the database.