DBI Introduces New Performance Monitoring Features for IBM Db2 LUW

DBI Software, a provider of Db2 LUW performance solutions, has introduced new capabilities in its pureFeat V7 Performance Management Suite for IBM Db2 LUW.

With this release, DBI is elevating performance monitoring to help DBAs and management teams to cope with the volatility of agile environments, said Scott Hayes, president and founder of DBI.

Agentless Color Option - IBM has done a lot of work in the latest release of Db2 (version 11) to make pureScale easier to use, implement, and administer and, as a result, DBI has seen greater adoption of pureScale over the last 12 months, said Hayes. To help customers get more from pureScale, DBI’s latest release adds robust Db2 pureScale performance reporting and trending, including new performance displays for Global Bufferpools, CF Wait Times, CF Processing Times, the Cluster Facility, and Member performance.

Agentless Collector Option - In addition to DBI's agent-based collector, the release adds a new agentless collector alternative for monitoring cloud databases where a server login prompt is not available. The agentless collector makes it easier to monitor multiple databases with minimal overhead and administration and is particularly important for monitoring cloud databases but also for convenience in lightweight monitoring of non-critical databases, said Hayes.

Database Score Calculations - According to DBI, many customers appreciate that the database score provided by pureFeat helps them quickly triage databases to focus on the worst problems first. The score, ranging from 0-10,000, is cost based, helping DBA teams to discover hidden or emerging future problems.

Previously, the "analyze database score" function highlighted problems and offered suggestions for resolution, but there was no indicator for the severity of the problems identified. The feedback from customers, said Hayes, was that they liked the tool but it was not clear what the worst problems were.

In the new release, the number of points subtracted for each problem is revealed so that DBAs can understand what the worst problems are.

"Index Design Workbench" - DBI’s Predictive Index Impact Analysis (PIIA) helps Db2 users understand the impact of adding new indexes given SQL workloads for any timeframe, helping DBA teams to tune Db2 databases with confidence and also helping them gain change control approvals more easily.

Building on the success of this capability, the new release adds the ability for DBAs to modify indexes recommended by the Design Advisor (add, remove, or reorder columns, and change sort sequences) or invent their own new index that can be passed into the Impact Analysis.

Now, customers have the ability to remove columns in a recommended index or reorder columns, and if they think they are smarter than the software, said Hayes, they can create their own index and put it through the predictive impact analysis tool to see if it will actually have the beneficial impact that they expect.

Improved Trend Charts - One of the favorite capabilities offered by DBI is the trend charts with change event indicators plotted on them. However, previously, it was only possible to graph certain similarly scaled metrics across time on an X and Y axis. In this release, a new Z axis option has been added, making it possible to graph multiple metrics across time, helping to identify cause and effect.

For example, DBAs can now graph the average transaction response time along with the number of current and active database connections. A DBA might see that when the database is running 30 concurrent active connections, response times start to slow down, said Hayes.

The Need for Speed

With the increased focus on DevOps, there is additional pressure to take changes quickly and that creates work and stress for DBA teams, observed Hayes, pointing out that “Change is an invitation for new problems.” By providing the new capabilities in this release, he noted, DBI is providing people with more insight into what is happening within their Db2 environments.