First I would say DB2 has no problem on the Open Systems :

• Performances : very good
• Price : Competitive except of course in front of OpenSource
• Functionality : Good security
• Evolution : Regular version of the product

An image problem or something else ?

An image problem : According to me it is because of the story of DB2/IBM and his “Big system” image. It mostly stay associated with “Owner system”.
Indeed, when we talk about DB2 we usually think MVS, VSE ans even AS/400, we associated it rarely to Windows (where we prefer SQL-serveur) Unix (here it is Oracle) or Linux (with of course MySQL).

Linked sales : When we buy an application “key in hand” it is usally delivered in standard on an limitate number of data bases (usaully SQL-Serveur and Oracle). And if we want the support of an other base it implies an additional cost.
Yet I find that DB2 is very rarely supported in standard by his applications and SQL-Serveur is usually included with a Window Serveur.

Less “owner” system: : Actually ( and since many years), the Big Systems are stalling and it have a direct impact on the part of markeks and the notoriety of DB2 because it is teh leader on these Systems.
The companies using a “Owner System” also use “cover systems” (Unix/Linux/Windows) for littles applications, delivered with their own data base (Oracle ou SQL-Serveur). This data bases are administrated and if the administrator have no problems, it is natural to chose these data bases that we already now if we abbandon the “Mainframe”.

Sale team : IBM use “partners” to commercialize his products, but often his “partners are multi-casquettes and as data bases, they mostly recommend Oracle ou SQL-Serveur by praising the merit of their team qualified in these technologies.

The futur…

I think IBM perfectly knows this problem and I hope he would be able to solve it to gove back the place DB2 merit on the “Open Systems”. Finally I invite you to test this data base if it is not already done and to verify that your application work on this base.

http://www.mysql.fr/why-mysql/marketshare/ Evolution of the markek part
http://troels.arvin.dk/db/rdbms/ Comparatif fonctionnalités
http://www.ibm.com/software/data/db2/ The official site
Downloads

After my news about DB2 backup script under Windows, I give you in this small article a solution to do the same thing under Linux.

To Backup a database this IBM/DB2 gives you a graphic interface quite simple to use “Control-Center”, but if you want you include this backup in a batch script you must write a backup script without GUI.

In this new I explain how to write a windows script procedure (.bat or .cmd) to backup your DB2 database.

In this sample I considered that you must close your database before backup ( It’s possible to do this in “ONLINE” mode but it’s more complexe — include log file, rollforward…–) and I use a database SAMPLE (it is his name) for this test .

the goal of this scripts is to :

• Quiesce database (close)
• Backup your data
• UnQuiesce database (open)
• Zip backup file
• Clean/Delete old backup rows in DB2 catalogue
• Delete old backup files

Warning ! If you want to do a backup between two differents OS you must use db2move tools (for exmple a backup/restore between Windows and Linux not work).

DB2 command

To execute in a script a command you must initialize DB2 working context. In Windows it is made by a db2cmd but in linux/unix you can do this with the execution of db2profile.

Commands :

• QUIESCE
• UNQUIESCE
• BACKUP DATABASE
• PRUNE

File sample_backup.db2

CONNECT TO sample ;
QUIESCE DATABASE IMMEDIATE FORCE CONNECTIONS;
CONNECT RESET;
 
BACKUP DATABASE sample TO "/db2_backup" WITH 2 BUFFERS BUFFER 1024 PARALLELISM 1 WITHOUT PROMPTING;
 
CONNECT TO sample;
UNQUIESCE DATABASE;
CONNECT RESET;
 
TERMINATE ;

Warning : If your current user can not be connected to your database to make a backup you must change this user in CONNECT with these parameters.

CONNECT TO sample USER monuser USING monpassword;

DB2 saves in his catalogue somes informations about each backup. I advise you to clean it often with the command PRUNE HISTORY .

PRUNE HISTORY 20071021 AND DELETE;

This command will delete from the catalogue the informations on previous backup and will delete associated log files

Batch script file

In my opinion I’m not a Windows batch specialist and according to me the date calculation (delmax) of this script can be amelirated (more simple).

#!/bin/sh
 
# +----------------------------------------------------------+
# +   Script de sauvegarde DB2 avec gestion de delete        +
# +----------------------------------------------------------+
# + Ver. + Auteur   + Remarques                              +
# +------+----------+----------------------------------------+
# + 1.00 + RBerthou +                                        +
# +----------------------------------------------------------+
 
# definition de l environnement de travail DB2
. /home/db2inst/sqllib/db2profile
 
NBHISTO=12
MINDATE=`date --date "$NBHISTO days ago" +%Y%m%d`
REM +- Fin initialisation    -+
 
destdir=/db2_backup
db2backupdir=$destdir/SAMPLE.0/DB2/NODE0000/CATN0000
 
echo "DB2 Backup"
db2 -v -f$destdir/sample_backup.db2 -z$destdir/sample_backup.log
returnCode=$?
if [ "$returnCode" != "0" ]
then
   echo "Erreur BACKUP DB2 : $returnCode"
   exit $returnCode
fi
 
echo " Suppression historique backup DB2 PIB "
db2 -v CONNECT TO SAMPLE user myuser using mypassword
db2 -v prune history $MINDATE and delete
db2 -v connect reset
returnCode=$?
if [ "$returnCode" != "0" ]
then
   echo "Erreur BACKUP DB2 PRUNE : $returnCode"
   exit $returnCode
fi
 
# Suppression physique des anciens fichiers
DELTA=50
while [ $DELTA -gt $NBHISTO ]
do
      MAXDATE=`date --date "$DELTA days ago" +%Y%m%d`
      rm /db2data/SAMPLE.0.db2inst.NODE0000.CATN0000.$MAXDATE*
      DELTA=$((DELTA - 1))
done
 
echo "Fin BACKUP DB2 : $returnCode"
exit $returnCode

Remarques

• I advise you, of course, to test this script in developpement environnement and mainly to try to test a restore procedure.
• You can also make an Online database or tablespace backup but it’s more difficult (include log, rollforward,…) and if you are interested in that I write a new on this on the following weeks.

Links

Introduction to DB2 UDB Scripting on Windows
Exemple de script batch windows

A database is very usefull but it’s always important to backup very often your data. To do this IBM/DB2 gives you a graphic interface quite simple to use “Control-Center”, but if you want you include this backup in a batch script you must write a backup script without GUI.

In this new I explain how to write a windows script procedure (.bat or .cmd) to backup your DB2 database.

In this sample I considered that you must close your database before backup ( It’s possible to do this in “ONLINE” mode but it’s more complexe — include log file, rollforward…–) and I use a database SAMPLE (it is his name) for this test .

the goal of this scripts is to :

• Quiesce database (close)
• Backup your data
• UnQuiesce database (open)
• Zip backup file
• Clean/Delete old backup rows in DB2 catalogue
• Delete old backup files

DB2 command

To execute in a script a command you must initialize DB2 working context. In Windows it is made by a db2cmd but in linux/unix you can do this with the execution of db2profile.

Commands :

• QUIESCE
• UNQUIESCE
• BACKUP DATABASE
• PRUNE

File sample_backup.db2

CONNECT TO sample ;
QUIESCE DATABASE IMMEDIATE FORCE CONNECTIONS;
CONNECT RESET;
 
BACKUP DATABASE sample TO "C:\db2_backup" WITH 2 BUFFERS BUFFER 1024 PARALLELISM 1 WITHOUT PROMPTING;
 
CONNECT TO sample;
UNQUIESCE DATABASE;
CONNECT RESET;
 
TERMINATE ;

Warning : If your current user can not be connected to your database to make a backup you must change this user in CONNECT with these parameters.

CONNECT TO sample USER monuser USING monpassword;

DB2 saves in his catalogue somes informations about each backup. I advise you to clean it often with the command PRUNE HISTORY .

PRUNE HISTORY 20071021 AND DELETE;

This command will delete from the catalogue the informations on previous backup and will delete associated log files

Batch script file

In my opinion I’m not a Windows batch specialist and according to me the date calculation (delmax) of this script can be amelirated (more simple).

@echo off
REM +----------------------------------------------------------+
REM +   DB2 Windows backup script width delete        +
REM +----------------------------------------------------------+
REM + Ver. + Autor    + Remarques                              +
REM +------+----------+----------------------------------------+
REM + 1.00 + RBerthou +                                        +
REM +----------------------------------------------------------+
REM +-- Attention les numeriques de la forme 01 .. 0999 sont  -+
REM +--   considérés comme des nb octal donc prb de calcul    -+
REM +-- d ou l ajout du 1 devant certaines variables          -+
 
REM +- Warning the date est au considéré au format français  -+
REM +- Format de la date "dd/mm/yyyy"                         -+
REM +-  a modifier suivant vos paramètres                     -+
for /f "tokens=1-4 delims=/-\ " %%a in ('date /t') do (
  set mjour=%%a
  set mmois=%%b
  set mannee=%%c
)
set mydate=%mannee%%mmois%%mjour%
set nbhisto=07
 
if /I "%mjour%" GTR "%nbhisto%" (
   set /a mjour=1%mjour%-1%nbhisto%
) else (
   if /I "%mmois%" == "01" (
         set /a mannee=%mannee%-1
         set /a mmois=12
   ) else (
       set /a mmois=%mmois%-1
   )
   set /a mjour=1%mjour%+30-1%nbhisto%
)
if %mmois% LSS 10 ( set mmois=0%mmois%)
if %mjour% LSS 10 ( set mjour=0%mjour%)
set delmax=%mannee%%mmois%%mjour%
REM +- End init    -+
 
set destdir=c:/db2_backup
set db2backupdir=%destdir%/SAMPLE.0/DB2/NODE0000/CATN0000
 
echo "DB2 Backup date=%mydate%"
db2cmd /c /w /i db2 -v -t -f%destdir%/sample_backup.db2 -z%destdir%/sample_backup.log
 
if not %errorlevel% == 0 (
  echo "ERROR: Backup Error backupDB2, RC=%errorlevel% "
  goto fin
)
 
echo "Compress DB2 Backup file"
del /S %destdir%/db2_zip.jar
jar.exe -cvf %destdir%/db2_zip.jar %db2backupdir%/%mydate%
 
if not %errorlevel% == 0 (
  echo "ERROR: Backup Error zipDB2, RC=%errorlevel% "
  goto fin
)
 
echo "DB2 delete catalogue Backup before %delmax%"
db2cmd /c /w /i db2 -v CONNECT TO sample
db2cmd /c /w /i db2 -v prune history %delmax% and delete
db2cmd /c /w /i db2 -v CONNECT RESET
db2cmd /c /w /i db2 -v TERMINATE
if not %errorlevel% == 0 (
  echo "ERROR: Backup Error, deleteDB2 RC=%errorlevel% "
  goto fin
)
 
echo "DB2 delete previos backup files (before %delmax%)"
for /f "skip=%nbhisto%" %%i in ('dir %db2backupdir% /b /o:-n') do (
   rmdir /Q/S %%i
   if not %errorlevel% == 0 (
     echo "ERROR: Backup Error, deleteHisto  RC=%errorlevel% "
   )
)
 
:fin
if %errorlevel% == 0 (
   echo " DB2 backup ok date=%mydate% "
) else (
   echo " Error in DB2 backup date=%mydate% "
)

Remarques

• I advise you, of course, to test this script in developpement environnement and mainly to try to test a restore procedure.
• You can also make an Online database or tablespace backup but it’s more difficult (include log, rollforward,…) and if you are interested in that I write a new on this on the following weeks.

Links

Introduction to DB2 UDB Scripting on Windows
Exemple de script batch windows