Level: Intermediate Paul Read (paul_read@uk.ibm.com), Product Introduction Manager, IBM
Michel Steinhauer (michel_steinhauer@be.ibm.com), Software Engineer, IBM
02 Nov 2006
IBM® DB2® 9 for Linux®, UNIX®, and Windows® includes a new
dictionary-based row compression feature you can use to compress data objects.
When you compress data, you achieve disk storage space savings by representing the
same data using fewer database pages. Large tables with rows that contain repetitive
patterns will benefit from this feature. Familiarize yourself with this new feature
with a series of exercises in this tutorial. Gain an understanding of
the benefits this feature, and implement row compression in your own environment.
Objectives - Enable/disable row compression.
- Use the new option in Tablespace creation to enable more rows in a page.
- Use various SQL queries and tools to analyze the benefits of compression.
Prerequisites
This tutorial is written for Linux or UNIX programmers whose skills
and experience are at a beginning to intermediate level. You should have
a general familiarity with using a UNIX command-line shell and a working
knowledge of the C language.
System requirements
To run the examples in this tutorial, you will need the following:
-
DB2 9 Data Server
- Microsoft Windows 2000 or later and an account with administrator privileges, or Linux (Validated edition) with root access
- Java Runtime Environment 1.4.2 or later
Refer to the DB2 9
system requirements page to ensure that your hardware meets the requirements. DB2 9 Express-C is available from the above link. See the tutorial
"DB2
XML Evaluation Guide" (developerWorks, June 2006) for steps on installing DB2.
Use the sample scripts and data provided in the compression.zip file (included in the tutorial) to demonstrate the concepts in this tutorial.
Formats html, pdf
Tutorial overview
This tutorial takes you through a series of exercises to familiarize you
with this new dictionary-based row compression feature. The tutorial is intended for DB2
technical specialists, database administrators, and programmers. You should have a
good understanding of DB2 on Linux, UNIX, and Windows (hereafter called DB2 LUW). You should also be familiar with the DB2 Command Window and running DB2 LUW scripts.
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