DB2(R) High Performance Design and Tuning

This text has more insight than any other text I have read on tuning a mainframe DB2 system. The text sometimes seems disjointed, but in trying to cram all of the authors combined knowledge and experience into one text and trying to give it some order, is daunting. I would have to say this text rates a bit higher on the scale than DB2 Developer's Guide by Craig Mullins because it is not trying to cover all of the bases that Mr. Mullins is in his book. This is strictly for giving pointers on tuning DB2 in a mainframe OS/390 environment. I hope the authors combine their efforts and put out a true "DB2 for OS/390 Certification Guide" so we DB2 DBAs can train newcomers to the field. Their latest effort falls short of that.

Now that I have your attention -- I must confess I have not yet seen this book. But Richard Yevich has consulted my organization on a complex DB2 system, and I would say that his collaboration on this book should guarantee useful insights.Note that this book will likely be only for an mainframe environment. For Unix or NT, I would go with a book on the DB2 UDB version.

Enough can't be said about the usefulness of this book. Rather than explain how things work in DB2, it gives great advice on making DB2 applications perform. We changed a few things that we were a little wrong about, and significantly changed how memory was being allocated (BP, EDM, etc.), and reduced I/O and achieved measureably more transaction throughtput. And we have only started going though all the information, about 680 pages of it. The chapters on Data Sharing really answered some questions that we didn't understand -- great info. Just wish this book had been around earlier.