Recommended Reading

20 June 2008

I am able to answer the majority of questions that I am asked by consulting the manuals in the DB2 for Linux, Unix and Windows (LUW) Technical Library and I believe that anyone using or administering DB2 should become familiar with the manuals. You are always free to consult me, but you can frequently get your answers more quickly by looking them up. I do not discuss all of the manuals here, but will highlight some of the ones that I find most useful. I have provided links to the some of the more widely used v9.5 manuals here, but manuals are available for older versions too. I like to down load copies of these manuals to my laptop so that I can access them in situations where my internet access is limited. Links to the libraries for all versions are on my Favorite Links page

Installing DB2

The following manuals should be consulted whenever you are installing DB2 as a client or for a database, especially if you have never installed it before or if it has been a long time since you have performed an install.

Quick Beginnings for IBM Data Server Clients

Quick Beginnings for DB2 Servers

Getting started with DB2 installation and administration on Linux and Windows

General Administration

The following manuals should be read by anyone administering DB2, especially if you have not attended any DB2/LUW administration courses. These manuals discuss all aspects of database administration and provide good practices. They also discuss various aspects of performance.

Data Servers, Databases, and Database Objects Guide

Data Recovery and High Availability Guide and Reference

Administrative Routines and Views

Performance, Tuning and Configuration

The Tuning Database Performance manual describes all aspects of designing a database for good performance as well as the Self-tuning memory manager.

Tuning Database Performance

One of the keys to having a well performing database is Registry, Database Manager (instance) and Database configurations. Chapters 19 and 20 of the Data Servers, Databases, and Database Objects Guide contains descriptions of all of these parameters:

Data Servers, Databases, and Database Objects Guide

Other manuals discussing measuring your system with Snapshots and Event Monitors, but the System Monitor Guide and Reference explains how to use them and defines all of the measurements that those tools show. The Administrative Routines and Views manual describes how to look at these things through table functions and the new administrative views.

System Monitor Guide and Reference

Administrative Routines and Views

Command Definition

The following manuals contain descriptions of all commands that you can run in DB2 along with a description of all optional parameters. The Command reference describes all utilities like “db2move and “LIST DATABASE DIRECTORY”. Volume 1 of the SQL Reference describes all of the DB2 data types and storage required for them as well as the catalog views like “SYSCAT.TABLES” and built-in functions like COS and STRING. The second volume shows detailed descriptions of all SQL commands like SELECT and INSERT.

Error Codes, Messages and States

Whenever you get an error or other return code from DB2 the first place that you should look is in one of the Message Reference Volumes. These volumes give a longer description of the error, definitions of “Reason Codes” and often provide tips about what you can do to resolve the problem. If I don’t get what I need from these manuals, then I go to Google next. I don’t really recommend reading these volumes, but I do recommend scanning the Tables of Contents to get familiar with what they contain to be prepared for when you need them.

Message Reference Vol.2 SQL Codes (i.e. SQL0911N) and SQL States

Message Reference Vol.1 All other codes.

Best Practices for Export, Import, Load and Moving data and Tablespaces.

Data Movement Utilities Guide and Reference

Best Practices for Backup, Recovery, HADR and DB2 Clusters

Data Recovery and High Availability Guide and Reference

Useful papers and Red Books

DB2 Best Practices

High Availability and Scalability Guide for DB2 on Linux, UNIX, and Windows

HADR Configuration Setup using the IBM DB2 High Availability Instance Configuration Utility (db2haicu)

DB2 Workload Manager for LUW

Database Partitioning, Table Partitioning, and MDC for DB2 9