DB2 and Linux IO testing tools

 Question: I’ve just been handed a new Linux Server build , on a new storage system. The RAID levels are different and the storage parameters have changed. I need to measure the IO performance of the new system and compare to the current system.  

DB2 will be deployed on these servers , which are very read and write intensive. What is a process to follow , which allows me to compare the two systems?

Answer:

1) Use IO tools to  focus on IO .

These are synthetic tests , but do allow quick comparisons 

2) Execute some real-world data. Try to use real-world data, not artificial test data sets.  You want a representative benchmark.  

It’s important to not represent a singular view of  DB2. . Data that is not representative and workloads executed on the data can create a false sense of results.

Always remember that there is no substitute for a real-world test that simulates the actual behaviour of your production systems. However , this is not always possible.

Linux and DB2 testing tools

 There are several tools and methods for generating test data for DB2:

• DBGEN - The TPC-H tools, dbgen and qgen allow for the development of up to a terabyte databases.

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