Question & Answer
Question
A leap second is a one-second adjustment that is occasionally applied to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Is there any impact to DB2? What is the impact if there is?
Answer
Leap seconds are fully supported by DB2 on systems which use the UTC timescale.
The TAI (International Atomic Time) timescale is not supported with DB2. At the time of this writing, this timescale is available on Linux only as an optional configuration on many distributions. The default timescale is typically UTC. This command will reveal whether a system is using TAI or UTC:
$ date --date='@1341100824'
Sat Jun 30 19:59:60 EDT 2012 --> TAI timescale
Sat Jun 30 20:00:24 EDT 2012 --> UTC timescale
(Actual output depends on local timezone)
Usage of NTP (Network Time Protocol) is recommended to keep the system clock synchronized with external time sources over the leap second. If using NTP, ensure that all relevant OS patches related to leap seconds are applied. Refer to the documentation or support channels of your OS for any new or relevant patches.
If you are unable to apply the OS patches, do not run NTP. Alternately, run NTP in slew mode per the OS vendor recommendations.
If you are unable to run NTP, we recommend leaving the system clock as-is during the leap second.
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Document Information
Modified date:
16 June 2018
UID
swg21697119