DB2 13 FOR z/OS - New Features

DB2 V12-V13 Migration : The first thing most shops will need to do is activate Db2 12 function level 510 (FL510) before you can migrate to Db2 13.

Db2 13 features can be broken down into the following categories:

Availability, Resiliency, and Scalability:

Db2 13 has the ability to convert tablespaces from partition-by-growth (PBG) to partition-by-range (PBR) without taking an outage.

Db2 13 introduced the ALTER PARTITIONING TO PARTITION BY clause that makes it simple to convert a table's partitioning scheme. Issuing the ALTER to change from PBR to PBG results in a pending change that requires a REORG to materialize. And the REORG can be performed online, meaning that no outage is required to make the change.

There are many other availability and scalability improvements in Db2 13 including: the doubling of DSMAX, the ability to delete an active log data set from the bootstrap data set (BSDS) while Db2 is running, improvements to Real Time Stats maximum values, increased size of Db2 Directory tablespaces, SPT01 to 256GB.

Performance:

Improved PBG insert processing – reduce incidence of invalid “no space for INSERT” situations

? Retry conditional partition locks

? Smarter space search across partitions

Fast Traversal Blocks (FTBs) are improved in Db2 13. FTBs are used by Db2 to keep portions of indexes in memory for more rapid retrieval, which can significantly improve query performance.

Db2 13 supports both unique and non-unique indexes; the key length can be up to 128 bytes for unique indexes and up to 120 bytes for non-unique.

Security:

Db2 13 delivers more flexibility for managing plans, packages, and SQL routines. New owner type support is added in Db2 13 enabling the DBA to control the ownership of plans, packages, and SQL routine packages using the DBA role without depending on the security administrator. For stored procedures and functions, the CREATE and ALTER statements have been modified so that the owner type can be ROLE or USER. The same owner type support has been added to BIND and REBIND for packages and plans.

Simplification and Serviceability:

Db2 13 delivers application management improvements as well, such as more granular control of locking with a new lock timeout special register and a global variable for weighting deadlocks. Additionally, the ability to dynamically control the package RELEASE option using application Profile tables should make it easier to introduce DDL changes while applications run.

Utilities:

Utility history: Db2 13 delivers the ability to collect metadata about the execution of all IBM Db2 utilities in the new Db2 Catalog table, SYSIBM.SYSUTILITIES. New DSNZPARM (UTILITY_HISTORY) to enable the collection of utility execution history.

? Easier space-level RECOVER from part-level image copies - Previously required use of LISTDEF PARTLEVEL keyword

? Page sampling support for inline stats - TABLESAMPLE for page sampling in inline stats, STATPGSAMP in ZPARM for inline stats

There are many significant new features that will cause some organizations to move quickly to adopt Db2 13. As with any new Db2 version, it will be exciting to dig in and discover all of the new stuff that can help us do our jobs better... and improve our organization's efforts to use its data to improve business.

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