Db2 for z/OS and its ecosystem

By Jim Pickel and Paul McWilliams.

In Db2 12 with APAR PH16111 applied, you can now use more detailed location statistics to better understand the behavior of your remote applications, how work coming from network connections is changing, and the impact on your Db2 system.

Location statistics were originally introduced as part of the Db2 10 for z/OS release, but they have seen limited use until recently. However, we've now heard from users who are now trying to use location statistics to monitor their distributed networks to identify incorrectly configured clients or non-optimized applications. They have reported several problems with the existing location statistics:

• Statistics for connections were collected only after the connection was authenticated and started executing SQL, which made it difficult to determine which clients were causing a flood of unused connections.
• Some statistic counters had discrepancies because of how they were collected.
• More information was needed about how the connection and thread usage behavior of each remote application impacts the availability of Db2.

This APAR introduces significant updates to the Class 7 (IFCID 0365) DRDA location statistics in the Db2 statistics trace, including details on incoming connections per originating IP address. The updates include new or more detailed data for the following statistics:

• New connection requests before accepted by Db2
• Connection and thread high-water marks per interval
• Authentication statistics
• More detailed connection level statistics
• More detailed abnormal termination statistics
• More detailed thread pooling level statistics