Use the contact page to send us a question!

Click headings to expand and collapse.

• DB2 for Z/OS

• Data Movement
• I have been assigned a project to research COTS products that are available to perform data masking on production data when downloading to a test environment. We are looking for a product that would support SQL-Server, Oracle and DB2 (OS 390 and LUW). And of course, I was wondering if you might be able to provide me some assistance. If you have any knowledge and/or recommendations I would surely appreciate it.  (12-28-2006)


• Database Design
• What is your opinion regarding the pros and cons of moving ALL SQL out of application programs and putting that into reusable data access modules that these programs would call? (12-26-2006)
• Could you give me a sentence or two elaborating on why using the natural keys is preferred? I understand why the use of natural keys will promote good join techniques (making sensible joins, avoiding weird Cartesian products) but I would appreciate anything else that you can add.  (4-26-2006)


• Dates and Timestamps
• How do I calculate the last day of the month in SQL? (5-7-2002)


• Monitoring and Tuning
• Is there a way for us to see how much logging a process or application does? Or better yet, identify our highest logging processes? (12-28-2006)


• SQL and Programming
• I was curious if you knew of any CICS FRIENDLY internal memory sorts that are out there .. either free or fee .. looked a mackinney's qsort but it uses temporary storage which is way too slow .. we have an assembler sort which is non reentrant and modifies its own code and no one understands .. so it has to be replaced (it's quite fast though!) (4-29-2006)


• Stored Procedures
• What is the best way to return error information from a SQLPSM stored procedure? (5-10-2005)
• Can I handle SQL results sets in an embedded SQL DB2 client program on a distributed client? (5-10-2002)
• Can I nest Java stored procedures in DB2 V7? I can't do this in V6. (5-10-2002)
• Can you have multiple signatures for a stored procedure? That is, can you define a procedure more than once with different parameters, like a UDF? (5-10-2002)
• Does the timeout value in the display procedure output reflect the result of failures do to exceeding ASUTIME? (5-10-2002)
• If ASUTIME is the timeout limit for a stored procedure execution, what parameter controls the time a stored procedure will remain queued? (5-10-2002)
• If I am accessing a flat file in a COBOL stored procedure, and issue a GOBACK, is the DCB released? (5-10-2002)
• If we read a VSAM file in a stored procedure, do we need to open and close the file each time? (5-10-2002)
• Is it more effecient to read a VSAM file directly from stored procedure, or to call a CICS transaction to do it? (5-10-2002)
• Is there a COBOL, Assembler, or other language equivalent to UDF_TRAIL_ARGS in C? (5-10-2002)
• What effect does a commit in a nested stored procedure call have in db2 v7? (5-10-2002)
• What options do I have for stored procedure security when I am using RACF security server in place of native DB2 security? (5-10-2002)
• Why can't you use connect type 2 or 2-phase commit in a stored procedure? (5-10-2002)
• With parameter style general, a SQL return code shoud be sent to the caller via a user defined parameter, but sometimes the error code is automatic. Why? (5-10-2002)


• System
• What happens during a DB2 checkpoint? (2-22-2004)


• Tables
• Am I able to initialize the value of an identity column once in use? (2-22-2004)


• User-Defined Functions
• Do SQL scalar functions perform as well as the equivalent coded expression? (8-27-2002)
• Does program storage persist between one external UDF function invocation to the next? (8-27-2002)
• Is the decimal scale and precision a factor in creating a unique signature for a user defined function? (5-10-2002)


• Utilities
• Why is it when I load a table with an identity column, I get a gap in identity values? (8-27-2002)
• Quiesce using a listdef, does it give the same RBA? (6-24-2002)
• Reorg appears to ignore SORTKEYS if no numeric value is coded after, whereas LOAD defaults to zero. Is this true? (6-24-2002)
• Upon a restart of a utility, what happens if the underlying objects behind my listdef change (becomes smaller or larger)? (6-24-2002)
• What SORTKEYS value should be specified, as it appears that there is no difference with 10 or 100,000? (6-24-2002)