Tool to determine Hardware needs for a DB2 server

[cjshea]

Hi, no point in trying to be eloquent with a question like this. If a
client met with me and told me of an application he wants to have
changed over to DB2 as a database backend, or perhaps it could be a new
application with well predicted volumes of transactions and data, is
there a tool in the DB2 repertoire that I could feed parameters into,
ie no. of transactions per minute, data volumes, number of tables, ...
and this tool would identify how much machine I would require, or would
be best suited to handle such a database? Not much detail there but do
you get the idea?, he/she wants to know what type and size machine
would be needed. Or would this be based on prior experience with
other things I've worked with. Thanks, stop laughing now.

Claude

[Serge Rielau]

cj****@gov.pe.ca wrote:

Hi, no point in trying to be eloquent with a question like this. If a
client met with me and told me of an application he wants to have
changed over to DB2 as a database backend, or perhaps it could be a new
application with well predicted volumes of transactions and data, is
there a tool in the DB2 repertoire that I could feed parameters into,
ie no. of transactions per minute, data volumes, number of tables, ...
and this tool would identify how much machine I would require, or would
be best suited to handle such a database? Not much detail there but do
you get the idea?, he/she wants to know what type and size machine
would be needed. Or would this be based on prior experience with
other things I've worked with. Thanks, stop laughing now.

Claude

Something like this:
http://www.developer.ibm.com/servers...33116181106002

Cheers
Serge
--
Serge Rielau
DB2 Solutions Development
IBM Toronto Lab

[db2udbgirl]

I was checking whether the box which I have currently can handle the
load using Workload Estimator.

Following are the values that I supplied
1. What is the size of your database? = 5000
2. What percent growth in the database size do you expect? = 10
3. Select the desired server form factor for this sizing. = ALL
4. RAID Support for this workload: = RAID5

But when I clicked continue the following error message popped up
* Error: The value is invalid. The value must be less than or equal to
1000.0.

Please advice.

Thanks,
db2udbgirl

[Dave Hughes]

db2udbgirl wrote:

I was checking whether the box which I have currently can handle the
load using Workload Estimator.

Following are the values that I supplied
1. What is the size of your database? = 5000
2. What percent growth in the database size do you expect? = 10
3. Select the desired server form factor for this sizing. = ALL
4. RAID Support for this workload: = RAID5

But when I clicked continue the following error message popped up
* Error: The value is invalid. The value must be less than or equal to
1000.0.

You really got a database 5TB (Terabytes) big? Not inconceivable (I
think the current record is 24TB or thereabouts), but still pretty darn
huge. Maybe you misread the scale of the first field (which is GB) as
MB?

If not then I guess you're out of luck (looks like this tool limits
itself to dealing with databases <= 1TB in size). That said, after
playing around with the tool a bit it looks like (for DB2 workloads at
least), the estimator won't allow you to specify a different hardware
platform or OS either (i.e. something other than Win2k3 on xSeries
which it defaults to).
Cheers,

Dave.

--

[Bob [IBM]]

Dave Hughes wrote:

You really got a database 5TB (Terabytes) big? Not inconceivable (I
think the current record is 24TB or thereabouts), but still pretty darn
huge. Maybe you misread the scale of the first field (which is GB) as
MB?

A recent customer of mine has a DB pushing 100TB. So very possible Dave.

[Larry]

Bob [IBM] wrote:

Dave Hughes wrote:

You really got a database 5TB (Terabytes) big? Not inconceivable (I
think the current record is 24TB or thereabouts), but still pretty darn
huge. Maybe you misread the scale of the first field (which is GB) as
MB?

A recent customer of mine has a DB pushing 100TB. So very possible Dave.

Just to add a bit here, I'm not so sure that use of ANY automated tool
to size hw for a 5TB database is doing that task justice ... and will
result in an adequate configuration. There are many factors at play in
sizing something ... especially that big. Some are easier for which ROTs
can potentially be used. But others are reliant upon such things as
answerset/resultset sizes, application SQL structure/schema, # of joins
(i.e. how normalized the db is), table sizes within more common joins,
and whether or not you are using DPF. Something that you need to consult
with your local IBM sales team ... or possibly even need a consultant for.

Larry E.

[Dave Hughes]

Bob [IBM] wrote:

Dave Hughes wrote:

You really got a database 5TB (Terabytes) big? Not inconceivable (I
think the current record is 24TB or thereabouts), but still pretty
darn huge. Maybe you misread the scale of the first field (which is
GB) as MB?

A recent customer of mine has a DB pushing 100TB. So very possible
Dave.

Yup, looks like I was recalling a rather small figure there: it was a
figure for the UK land registry which won some award for "largest
database" at some point in the recent past. After a bit of googling it
seems it was the 2005 award for "largest OLTP database" (BTW, they run
DB2 on z/OS :-), but the data-warehouses category (unsurprisingly)
eclipses it utterly for sheer size (largest database in that category
is owned by Yahoo!, 100TB, running Oracle). Although I do seem to
recall a recent article about a 500TB database used by physicists for
recording particle accelerator results or something ...
Dave.
--

[db2udbgirl]

Yes Dave, My db size is 5 TB (which is for storing historical data
alone)

Thanks,
db2udbgirl.

[Dave Hughes]

db2udbgirl wrote:

Yes Dave, My db size is 5 TB (which is for storing historical data
alone)

Thanks,
db2udbgirl.

That's a hefty database! (100TB behemoths not withstanding, I suspect
it's big enough to send many DBAs slinking away with feelings of
inadequacy :-)

Larry made a good point about automated tools not really being adequate
for sizing hardware requirements once you get beyond a certain size ...
could be why the tool limits itself to 1TB?

That said, some tools produce hilarious results even at the small
scale: here's a result from the IBM System Advisor - after asking it to
recommend a small-scale (1-19 users) Linux server for file&print
sharing, database, and content management with storage space of
200-500Gb (fairly similar to a little Linux box I've got at home that
does most of these things for me). The tool recommended the following:

Top recommendation:
IBM Intellistation M Pro Express Model (a workstation)

Other recommendations:
IBM Intellistation Z Pro Express Model (a bigger workstation)
IBM eServer zSeries 890 (uh?! slightly outside my budget, sadly :-)
Dave.
--