Version 1.0.19.7 release notes (June 2020)

What's new

Upgrading

• Version 1.0.19.7 upgrade bundle includes a Db2 database engine version 11.5. The upgrade procedure is more complex than the standard IAS upgrade, as it includes a number of pre- and post-upgrade steps to ensure that the database engine upgrades successfully. The upgrade procedure is described in detail in Upgrading to 1.0.19.7.
• A db2ckupgrade utility is now available so that you can make sure that the database is ready for the upgrade. The command verifies that a list of conditions is true to succeed at the database upgrade. For more information, see Verifying the database before the upgrade.

Migration tools

Added 2 new optional parameters to db_migrate_iias:

-hiddencols

Tables with hidden columns are automatically skipped and ignored. Use the -hiddencols option to migrate all of the hidden columns created in the system.

-orderby <column>

You can use the parameter to sort the data selected for migration. The parameter specifies the ORDER BY clause.

See db_migrate_iias for more information.

Backup and restore

For schema level backup, db_backup now supports LZ4 compression. Customers can use -compress gzip/lz4 option to choose between GZIP or LZ4 for compression.

Db2 performance improvements

Queries on column organized tables will see improved memory utilization which will result in improved performance for these queries. This applies especially to complex queries on column organized tables, and in particular to queries involving wide value types that have a large percentage of the column values shorter than the defined schema width.

Components

Db2 Warehouse v. 11.5.1.0

See What's New in IBM Db2 Warehouse.

Db2 Engine v. 11.5

To learn more about the new features and changes introduced in Db2 11.5, read What's new in the Db2 Knowledge Center.

IBM Data Replication for Availability (November 2019 release)

The following improvements are introduced:

• Support for replication of binary format for supplemental logs: When DATA CAPTURE CHANGES is enabled on a column-organized table, the supplemental logs that Db2 creates are read by the replication capture process and transmitted to the target system. Replication now uses binary format for the supplemental logs, significantly reducing the size of the data that is sent from the source to the target when massive transactions of the type that are typical in large data warehouses are performed.
• When Replication is creating the table on Target side, it will be created in the same tablespace as it is on the Source side. If the same tablespace name as Source side does not exist on Target side, the target table creation is expected to fail.

For more information on new features, see IBM Data Replication for Availability What's new.

Resolved issues

• Added a pre-check option apdbrollback --restore_check to verify that there is enough space in the system to restore a snapshot when performing the rollback of database upgrade.
• Added the following new alert in Platform Manager 902: Stored snapshots reduce available storage. The alert is opened when after a database upgrade to 11.5 the snapshots are not deleted as described in appl_upgrade_engine.html#task_wdf_gks_pjb__delete_snapshot.

Known issues

IBM Spectrum Protect backups fail with Kernel issues

When using the IBM Spectrum Protect client for backup and restore, the Kernel issues might occur, which cause the backups to fail.

Workaround:

1. Edit all dsm.sys files in /opt/ibm/appliance/storage/head/tsm/api/node010X-fab, where X is a node number. Add the following lines to all these dsm.sys files:

   tcpbuffsize 512
   tcpwindowsize 1024
   tcpnodelay no

2. Start the backup again.

EMC NetWorker backup/restore fails

EMC NetWorker backup/restore fails with SQL2062N. An error occurred while accessing the /usr/lib/libnsrdb2.so media. Reason code is 0. This is occurring due to two parameters that are added in the nmda_db2.cfg file on each node.

WORKAROUND:

1. As the root user, edit the /nsr/apps/config/nmda_db2.cfg file and comment out the NSR_LIBNSRDB2_DEBUG_LEVEL=9 and NSR_DEBUG_LEVEL=9 parameters. This must be done on every node in the container.
2. Rerun backup/restore.

Restoring a backup from previous release might fail

When you try to restore from an online database backup that was taken before you upgraded the engine, it will fail with the following message:

SQL2547N  The database was not restored because the backup image is from a 
previous release and requires rollforward recovery.

Fibre channel switch replacements

If a Fibre Channel (FCSW) switch was replaced on an IAS system that now runs software version 1.0.19.0 or lower, the upgrade to 1.0.19.7 might fail. The failure is caused by an incompatibility with newer fibre channel switch firmware (8.2.1c) and switch configurationm and an older IAS software.

WORKAROUND:

When you're upgrading from version 1.0.19.2 to 1.0.19.7 on systems where the FCSW was replaced, use the --skip-firmware --skip-pfs-postinstall option with the upgrade command. Example:

apupgrade --upgrade --use-version 1.0.19.7_release --upgrade-directory /localrepo --skip-firmware --skip-pfs-postinstall

When the upgrade to version 1.0.19.7 is complete, you can upgrade to the latest release without using any extra options with the apupgrade command.