db2 9.7 Types of data to collect for operational monitoring

Types of data to collect for operational monitoring

Several types of data are useful to collect for ongoing operational monitoring.

• A basic set of DB2 systemperformance monitoring metrics.
• DB2 configuration information
  Taking regular copies of database and database manager configuration, DB2 registry variables, and the schema definition helps provide a history of any changes that have been made, and can help to explain changes that arise in monitoring data.
• Overall system load
  If CPU or I/O utilization is allowed to approach saturation, this can create a system bottleneck that might be difficult to detect using just DB2 snapshots. As a result, the best practice is to regularly monitor system load with vmstat and iostat (and possibly netstat for network issues) on Linux and UNIX-based systems, and perfmon on Windows. You can also use the administrative views, such as ENV_SYS_RESOURCES, to retrieve operating system, CPU, memory, and other information related to the system. Typically you look for changes in what is normal for your system, rather than for specific one-size-fits-all values.
• Throughput and response time measured at the business logic level
  An application view of performance, measured above DB2, at the business logic level, has the advantage of being most relevant to the end user, plus it typically includes everything that could create a bottleneck, such as presentation logic, application servers, web servers, multiple network layers, and so on. This data can be vital to the process of setting or verifying a service level agreement (SLA).

 The DB2 system performance monitoring elements and system load data are compact enough that even if they are collected every five to fifteen minutes, the total data volume over time is irrelevant in most systems. Likewise, the overhead of collecting this data is typically in the one to three percent range of additional CPU consumption, which is a small price to pay for a continuous history of important system metrics. Configuration information typically changes relatively rarely, so collecting this once a day is usually frequent enough to be useful without creating an excessive amount of data.