Overview of database administration

You can run database administration commands for hosts, instances, and databases that are displayed in the Administration Explorer and for databases, table spaces, tables, and indexes that are displayed in the Object List.

As a database administrator, you might be responsible for maintaining, managing, and administering DB2® instances, databases, and database objects such as table spaces, tables, and views. For example, your backup and recovery strategy might require you to take periodic backups of your databases. As another example, over time, the data in your tables might become fragmented, which can increase the size of your tables and indexes as the records are distributed over more and more data pages. To reclaim wasted space and improve data access, you likely will need to reorganize your tables and indexes.

Managing and maintaining your database systems might require you to run database administration commands, which include:
When the Database Administration feature of IBM® Data Studio is installed, task assistants are available for DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows databases. These task assistants guide you through typical database administration tasks. From the Administration Explorer, you can do the following types of administration tasks:
When you click a data object folder (also called a flat folder in the Administration Explorer to display database objects in the Object List, you can do the following types of administration tasks: You can also manage databases in the Object List.

When you right-click an object in the Administration Explorer or the Object List, a context-sensitive menu displays the list of the database administration commands that are available for that object. When you select a database administration command for that object, a database administration task assistant is displayed. The task assistant guides you through the process of setting any options for the database administration command, previewing the commands that are automatically generated, and running the commands for the object.

For databases that are not DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows, you can use the SQL and XQuery editor to create and run your database administration commands.

Database administration for partitioned databases

The DB2 Database Partitioning feature (DPF) allows the partitioning of a database into two or more partitions that can reside on either the same server or on a different server.

For partitioned databases, the task assistants that guide you through the process of setting up the options for the commands include the ability to specify whether to run the commands against all of the partitions, one or more specific partitions, or partition groups. You can also choose to run the commands against the partitions in parallel, which is particularly useful for long-running commands. If you save the commands to a script, the commands will be run sequentially.

The control to run commands on individual partitions gives you more flexibility in managing your databases and resources. The granularity of an operation can determine how long it will take. For example, if a database has hundreds of partitions, backing up sets of partitions at different times or on different days might make more sense than backing up all of the partitions at the same time. As another example, depending on the system resources that are available to each partition, you might want to set certain configuration parameters across non-catalog partitions and customize the parameters for the catalog partition to optimize performance.

Database administration for the DB2 pureScale Feature for DB2 Enterprise Server Edition

In a DB2 pureScale environment, task assistants provide these additional database administration operations for members and cluster caching facilities (CFs):
Start
To start members or CFs, select Start on the context-sensitive menu for the instance object. You can start selected members or CFs, all members and CFs, or an instance on a host.
Stop
To stop members or CFs that are currently active, select Stop on the context-sensitive menu for the instance object. You can stop selected members or CFs, all the members and CFs, or an instance on a host.
Quiesce
To quiesce members, select Stop on the context-sensitive menu for the instance object and select the option to Quiesce member with timeout.
Configure
To change the configuration parameters for one or more members, select Configure on the context-sensitive menu for the instance object.

In addition, you can manage the maintenance mode for a DB2 pureScale host.


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