Version 1.0.19.2 release notes (November 2019)

What's new

Rack expansion

The following options are available:

• From M4002-003 to M4002-006
• From M4002-006 to M4002-010
• From M4002-010 to M4002-010S
• From M4002-010S to M4002-020S

Contact your IBM Representative for details.

Security

• The root user lock-down for IAS appliance can be disabled by raising a PMR request.
  Attention: On disabling root lock-down, the root user has all the privileges to update the operations on the appliance. Improper handling of the appliance by the root user might lead to system instability, downtime, or other incidents. IBM Corporation is not liable for any such incidents.

Migration tools

db_migrate

• Added support for migration to Db2 tables with hidden columns: hidden columns are automatically skipped and ignored.
• Restored support for MIXED format.

For more information, see db_migrate command.

db_migrate_iias

• Improved performance by:
  • Parallel unload of tables to multiple nodes in source machine with -strategy partitions parameter. The -strategy partitions parameter uses all MLNs to unload data, so the number of inserts is high. You can also use -strategy dataslices, which allows you to control the number of inserts with the --max-inserts parameter.
  • Parallel loading to multiple nodes on target IAS. You can now specify multiple hosts (within the same IAS) with the thosts parameter. If a node is not responding, it is skipped and the workload is shared on the remaining nodes. If all nodes are unavailable, migration fails. With this change, the -target option no longer accepts the host parameter. You must always specify the -thosts|-thost option.
  For more information, see db_migrate_iias command.
• Added support for migration from and to Db2 tables with hidden columns: hidden columns are automatically skipped and ignored
• Added support for binary data transfer with -binary.
• Added support for LZ4 compression of migrated data with -compress LZ4 parameter.

Note that both systems, source and target, must support the new formats: binary and LZ4.

dbsql

• Added support for case sensitive, camel case schema names.

Platform Management

A new tool apsnmpagent is available for enabling and disabling SNMP interface. You can use it to configure IAS to send hardware information via SNMP traps. For more information see Enabling the SNMP interface to retrieve hardware information.

Backup and restore

• For restoring from a multi-path database backup, added a check to make sure that all the required paths are specified.
• Any database admin user should now be able to run backups and restores using db_backup and db_restore scripts respectively.
• db_backup now gives out the following return codes (rc):
  • 0 upon success.
  • 1 upon failure.
  Run echo $? after you run the db_backup command to verify if the command was successful.
• Added checks for schema/table restore with db_restore to make sure that the backup directories have the right permissions/ownership to read the backup files.
• db_backup now allows multiple schema backups using -schema or -schemafile options:

  If using -schema option, the schema names must be separated by a space, for example: -schema S1 S2 S3

  If using -schemafile option, specify the absolute path to the file that contains schema names separated by new line. Example:

  -schemafile /scratch/schema_names.txt

  Example of the schema_names.txt:

  S1
  S2
  S3
  S4
  S5
  

  You can specify any number of schema names using either of these options, but maximum three schemas can run in parallel, while the remaining ones wait in the queue. Each of these schema backups is associated with its own timestamp.

• db_backup now allows schema backups to multiple paths using -path option. Make sure that the paths do not share the same underlying storage or the filesystem. For example, /scratch/backup1 and /scratch/backup2 cannot be used because they share the same underlying filesystem /scratch.
  You can also use db_restore to restore a schema or tables from multiple paths using -path option:

  • If using the same paths for restore and for backup, you must provide the paths in the same order as at the end of the backup. Run db_backup -history to find out path order.
  • If using different paths for restore, make sure that the backup directory structure, data/metadata files in the backup and their ownership/permissions are not altered or tampered.
• The backup and restore logs now record the following details:
  • the db_backup and db_restore commands with its arguments
  • the user ID (UID)
  • the effective user ID (EUID)
  • the backup/restore process ID (PID)
• For schema level backups, db_backup now supports a new option -format binary to back up the table data in the binary format. If -format option is not specified, by default the table data files are generated in text format.

Components

Db2 Warehouse v. 3.10

Maintenance release with no new features. See What's New in IBM Db2 Warehouse.

Db2 Engine v. 11.1 (latest update)

• Support for SQL Server 2017 data sources has been added to Db2 Warehouse's federation capability.
• The STATSPROFTYPE column has been added to the ADMIN_GET_TAB_INFO table.
• Passing UNI_SIMPLE as the locale name now results in simple case-folding, as described in https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSEPEK_11.0.0/sqlref/src/tpc/db2z_bif_upper.html.

IBM Data Replication for Availability v. 1.2

• External SAN or NFS storage can now be used for Db2 transient logging to support replication in IBM Integrated Analytics System for workload volumes that might exceed the capacity of the disk space from /scratch.
• Replication is now enabled for tables with no primary key, unique constraint, or unique index at the target. In these cases, replication creates its own key that includes all valid columns in the table; however, this type of key can impede performance and it is recommended that you provide some kind of uniqueness for replicated tables, which can include the use of a hidden identity column.
• Support for Active Directory.

DSX - Watson Studio Local

DSX is no longer pre-installed starting with IAS version 1.0.19.0. Any existing installations will continue to be supported until you transition to Watson Studio Local. IAS 1.0.19.0 entitles you to five user licenses for Watson Studio Local, to be installed on your own hardware. For more information on the product, see Watson Studio Local Knowledge Center.

If you have DSX pre-installed, and you are using it:

• IBM recommends that you leverage Watson Studio Local on a separate hardware for reasons of scalability.
• IBM Support can help transition you to Watson Studio Local.

If you have DSX pre-installed, and you are NOT using it:

• IBM recommends that you open a support tickets to uninstall it.
• You are still entitled to five user licenses for Watson Studio Local, to be installed on your own hardware.

Note: If you want to disable DSX, you have to uninstall it. To uninstall DSX, run ./InstallPackages/utils/uninstall.sh from the directory where install was run. Usually, the install directory is located in /opt/ibm/appliance/storage/platform. If you can't find the directory, contact IBM Support.

Resolved issues

• Fixed the issue with GPFS that was not upgraded during IAS upgrade.
• Defects addressed in Db2 Warehouse:
  • LDAP should have TLS 1.2 as minimum allowed version
  • After ap upgrade to 1.0.16.0, DB2 services are not coming up, causing HA management and Db2 to go down.
• Fixed the issue with hidden columns in IBM Data Replication for Availability: when creating a target table a hidden identity column on source was not created as hidden on target. 
• Web console component includes fixes for the following issues:
  • Backup and restore could not be launched from console
  • Console configuration files might be corrupted sometimes
  • User provided certificate is lost after console is upgraded
  • Large sort memory and tablespace consumption in console utility event monitor query
• Granular backup and restore object ownership fixes.
• Fixed the issue with incremental database backup: updated db_backup to estimate the increase in database size since the last full online backup and then compare if the given backup path has enough space to accommodate the backup, instead of comparing it with the entire database size.
• Fixed a bug in db_restore, to allow database restore from multiple paths specified with a space ( ), or a comma (,), or both, a comma and a space (, ) as separators. Examples:
  • -path p1,p2
  • -path p1 p2
  • -path p1, p2
• Fixed a bug in db_backup, to avoid creating multiple database backups under the same directory. Now, every database backup has its own unique directory backup_<type>_<number>.
• Updated db_backup script to create backup directories as db2inst1 or database admin user, to allow users to delete schema backups without root access.

  During schema backup, if the db2inst1 or the database admin user doesn't have the right permissions to create backup directories in the given path, then the directories are created with a root user and a warning is displayed. Note that root access is required to remove them.

• Fixed db_backup -history command not to throw a Traceback error when run during an offline backup or any restore operation. However, this command cannot return history results when the database is down during any offline operation.
• The list of Red Hat CVEs patched in 1.0.19.0 release:

  CVE-2018-10911 CVE-2019-11477 CVE-2019-11478 CVE-2019-11479 CVE-2019-10161 CVE-2019-10166 CVE-2019-10167 CVE-2019-10168 CVE-2019-10160 CVE-2019-12735

Known issues