A database administrator (DBA) has a challenging job trying to maintain databases in today's nonstop 24x7 environments. This challenge is doubled by the time pressure of trying to be up again as soon as possible without making mistakes that would prolong the outage, as well as mistakes because the database structures have become more and more complex. For an example of complexity, changing a column has implications on the table itself, but can also cascade into changing views, other RI related tables, triggers, plans and packages. In addition, a lot of changes require objects to be dropped and recreated. In that case, you also have to make sure the data and the authorizations are preserved.
When business expands, several DB2 subsystems have to be maintained, such as multiple development systems, function test, acceptance test, volume test, and production systems. Often changes have to be implemented across multiple DB2 subsystems. To help DBAs cope with these needs, software vendors have developed tools to deal with repetitive tasks and analyze the implications of database changes and generate the correct JCL, utilities, and SQL statements to implement these changes. The two IBM DB2 for z/OS tools that help database administrators to implement database changes are the DB2 Administration Tool and DB2 Object Comparison Tool.
This IBM Redbook describes how DB2 Administration V4.2 and Object Comparison V2.1 can be used together to execute several DBA tasks, such as creating objects, changing objects, migrating objects with or without data, analyzing differences between systems or versions of a database and rolling out these differences on other systems. This redbook entirely replaces the first edition, SG24-6420-00. |