IDUG NA 2025

This session provides an indepth overview of the best practices in running Db2 for z/OS Utiliites.  We will discuss various tips and recommendations on how to minimize application impacts and optimizing utility performance for each of the core utilities, using the latest functionalities delivered in Db2 13 up to level FL506.

There are many sessions about the EXPLAIN facility in Db2 LUW, but they all lack the concise statements to find the right SQL queries, set everything up, do the EXPLAIN and draw the right conclusions by examples and working statements to copy–and–paste.
This is a back–to–basics session, enhanced with experiences from real situations and best practices.
The material was used for internal training of colleagues.

Db2 professionals spend a significant amount of time preparing for the worst–case scenarios. How many image copies do you take daily? How much space do these image copies occupy?
The primary reason for taking backups is to facilitate recovery. However, there are times when we face recovery situations and find that we cannot perform the recovery as outlined in our training or manuals.
This presentation will explore alternatives to typical Db2 recovery methods, with the top priority being the recovery of broken, invalid, or compromised Db2 objects. We will discuss various redirected recovery techniques and their applications.
Over the years, Db2 releases have enhanced recovery capabilities to address data availability and retention. This presentation will explain how these changes can impact recovery strategies.
Attendees will leave with new insights and methods for accessing and recovering Db2 data.

Accurate catalog statistics are the lifeblood of the Db2 query optimizer. Db2 has had automatics statistics support since version 8.2 and real–time statistics were introduced in version 9.5. Automatic statistics collection is enabled by default for new databases and is the recommend best practice. So if you are still hesitant to use them, attend this session to gain a deeper understanding of how they work and why you can trust them to simplify your DB administration and improve overall query performance. In addition to providing details on the automatic statistics architecture, this presentation will provide details on ways to monitor and control automatic statistics collection so that it works well for any type of Db2 system.