DB2 Utilities Suite

IBM DB2 Utilities Suite for z/OS is the cornerstone for managing the maintenance of DB2 environments efficiently and effectively. They offer features and functions that increase availability and performance of any DB2 application while integrating with other tools to address specific issues with DB2 performance, administration and recovery. There are two types of utilities, online and stand-alone. The stand-alone utilities execute as batch jobs independent of DB2 using MVS Job Control Language (JCL).

Included in the Utilities Suite are some of the following online utilities:

• CHECK DATA, CHECK INDEX and CHECK LOB: These utilities play an important function in the overall integrity of data and indexes, including LOB data. The CHECK DATA utility checks table spaces for violations of referential and table check constraints, and reports information about violations that it detects. CHECK DATA checks for consistency between a base table space and the corresponding LOB or XML table spaces. The CHECK INDEX online utility tests whether indexes are consistent with the data that they index, and issues warning messages when it finds an inconsistency.

• COPY, COPYTOCOPY, and MERGECOPY: The COPY utility creates up to four image copies of any table space, table space partition, data set of a linear table space, index space, and index space partition. COPYTOCOPY makes image copies from an image copy that was taken by the COPY utility, including inline copies that the REORG or LOAD utilities make. The MERGECOPY utility merges image copies produced by the COPY utility or Inline Copies produced by the LOAD or REORG utilities.

• LISTDEF and TEMPLATE: The LISTDEF utility enables you to group database objects into reusable lists. You can then specify these lists in other utility control statements to indicate that the utility is to process all of the items in the list. This increases user productivity and reduces manual error. The TEMPLATE utility lets you allocate data sets, without using JCL DD statements, during the processing of a LISTDEF list. Templates enable you to standardize data set names across the DB2 subsystem and to easily identify the data set type when you use variables in the data set name.

• LOAD and UNLOAD: The LOAD utility loads data into one or more tables of a table space. The LOAD utility loads records into the tables and builds or extends any indexes that are defined on them. If the table space already contains data, you can choose whether you want to add the new data to the existing data or replace the existing data. The UNLOAD utility unloads data from one or more source objects to one or more VSAM sequential data sets in external formats. The source can be DB2 table spaces or DB2 image copy data sets.

• REORG INDEX and REORG TABLESPACE: The REORG INDEX utility reorganizes an index space to improve access performance and reclaim fragmented space. The REORG TABLESPACE online utility reorganizes a table space to improve access performance and reclaim fragmented space. In addition, the utility can reorganize a single partition or range of partitions of a partitioned table space. With both REORG utilities, you can specify the degree of access to your data during reorganization, and collect inline statistics.

• RUNSTATS and MODIFY STATISTICS: The RUNSTATS utility gathers summary information about the characteristics of data in table spaces, indexes, and partitions. DB2 records this information in the DB2 catalog and uses it to select access paths to data during the bind process. It is invaluable information to aid in determining when table spaces or indexes must be reorganized. The MODIFY STATISTICS utility deletes unwanted statistic history records from the corresponding catalog tables.

• RECOVER and MODIFY RECOVERY: The RECOVER utility recovers data to the current state, or to its state at a previous point-in-time, by restoring a copy, then applying log records. The MODIFY utility with the RECOVERY option deletes records from the SYSIBM.SYSCOPY catalog table, related log records from the SYSIBM.SYSLGRNX directory table, and entries from the DBD.