Reduce critical situations with the self-tuning memory manager (STMM)

Database workloads seldom remain static. Workloads and the environments they are run under can change over time due to a number of factors, including more users, change in the pattern of queries, running of maintenance tasks, and changes in resources consumed by other applications.

Therefore, a system tuned by even the most skilled administrator at one point in time may not be optimal at another time. And the changes may occur in seconds (rather than days or weeks), giving the administrator little time to respond. Database memory settings are especially vulnerable to such changes and can severely impact response times. Critical situations like this can threaten your service level agreements.

DB2 9 introduces the self-tuning memory manager (STMM), a new feature that simplifies the task of memory configuration by automatically setting values for several memory configuration parameters. When enabled, the automatic tuner dynamically distributes available memory resources among several memory consumers for the database. The memory tuner responds to changes in workload characteristics, adjusting the values of memory configuration parameters and the sizes of buffer pools to optimize performance.