Ian Bjorhovde

Lead Db2 DBA and Delivery Manager

Ian Bjorhovde is the Lead Db2 DBA and Delivery Manager for XTIVIA, and is based in Phoenix, Arizona. He has spent over 20 years as a consultant developing and supporting large and small Db2 databases for clients in many different industries.Ian is an IBM Gold Consultant and IBM Champion. He volunteers for the International DB2 Users Group and holds numerous DB2 certifications. He hosts the Create Database podcast, co-hosts The Whole Package Cache Podcast, and has presented at many RUG, IDUG and IBM conferences around the world.

Introducing db2pdtop.pl

When monitoring CPU utilization on a Db2 server, each Db2 instance generally has a single db2sysc process (per database partition) consuming CPU on the server. The db2sysc process is made up of many threads. While it’s possible to see CPU utilization of each... read more

Validating Db2 Software Download Integrity

With the release of Db2 11.5.7.0, IBM has finally started providing cryptographically signed installation image files. This is important because it provides a means to verify that the installation image has not been tampered with or corrupted during download.... read more

Is it Safe to Drop a Tablespace?

When IBM switched from old-school DMS and SMS tablespaces to Automatic Storage tablespaces, it became significantly easier for DBAs to create and manage tablespaces. This can lead to a proliferation of tablespaces; over time, some of these tablespaces may no longer be... read more

The Importance of /etc/hosts on Db2 Systems

Recently, I was working on a system and noticed some odd behavior – running a simple db2pd command was taking what felt like a “long” time. I used the time utility to validate my impression: db2inst1@db2server $ time db2pd – Database Member 0 —... read more

Migrating a Db2 DPF Instance from rsh to ssh

Db2’s Database Partitioning Feature (DPF) allows a single Db2 instance to span multiple physical servers — allowing a single Db2 database to scale out to sizes well beyond what is possible on a single physical server. To manage a DPF environment, Db2 needs to be... read more

Validating VIP Usage

Recently, I was working on a database using HADR with failover handled by TSAMP. The database was configured to use a virtual IP (VIP) address. However, when I tested the failover with the application team, some of the applications were getting SQL1776N errors from... read more