New UI experience of IBM Db2 for z/OS Data Gate 2.1
IBM Db2 for z/OS Data Gate blog series
Introduce the new UI experience of IBM Db2 for z/OS Data Gate 2.1.
By Huang Jing
IBM Db2 for z/OS Data Gate is a solution to make the Db2 for z/OS data available on IBM Cloud Pak for Data for your new high-intensity transactional or analytic workloads.
The service propagates your Db2 for z/OS data to a Db2 Warehouse or Db2 database on IBM Cloud Pak for Data. Through its high throughput and low latency synchronization technology, the service provides you near real-time access to the data without degrading the performance.
Db2 Data Gate reduces the cost and complexity of application development and ensures that your data is current, consistent, and secure.
Data gate v2.1 new version released with CP4D 4.5.0 supports new features,
- Make Db2 for z/OS metadata available on Watson Knowledge Catalog to support Data Fabric use cases
- Accelerate analytical queries from Db2 for z/OS
- Archive Db2 for z/OS data in the cloud
With more features enabled, the user experience also improved a lot to provide user a clean, straightforward layout, helping them accomplish their tasks with ease. User can still view all component statuses or details of tables added to the instance. Compared to previous one, the dashboard page is better organized by tabs instead of showing all information in single page, so user can focus on each tab to view the information they are interested in.
The data gate instance dashboard page now consist of 3 or 4 tabs depends on the user selection when provisioning Db2 Data Gate instance. Let take a look at each tab.
- Overview tab
The overview tab clearly shows the system status and table/query statistics, and it also includes the Watson Knowledge Catalog integration tile.
- The left tile contains the following blocks of information:
Instance name：the instance name functions as the header of the information box.
Target: The instance name of the selected target database (Db2 or Db2 Warehouse)
Source: The Db2 location name followed by the @-sign, the hostname or IP address of the connected data source (Db2 for z/OS® subsystem or data sharing group), and the network port that is used to connect to the source.
Db2 Data Gate server status: The readiness and availability of your instance. If it is in working order, you see a green check mark followed by Data Gate server active.
Synchronization status: The state of the synchronization function. If it is in working order, you see a green check mark followed by the message Synchronization started.
Query acceleration status: If you selected `Use this Db2 Data Gate instance for query acceleration` as you create the instance, you also see the query acceleration status. If query acceleration is in working order, you see a green check mark followed by the message Query acceleration started.
For the component status, click the right toggle button to control the status of different components. Please note that, when synchronization status is stopped, data of table added to the data gate instance cannot be synchronized from source to target any more. Similarly, if query acceleration stopped, queries cannot be routed to data gate, so it cannot be accelerated, either.
- The middle tile is for Watson Knowledge Catalog integration.
Viewing the status of Db2 Data Gate table metadata in Watson Knowledge Catalog on this tile. Available means the Watson Knowledge Catalog service was integrated successfully. The service can be reached from the Db2 Data Gate instance. Then Db2 Data Gate table metadata can be published to IBM Watson Knowledge Catalog by a one-click-action.
Click the `Publish to catalog` button to publish Db2 Data Gate table metadata to Watson Knowledge Catalog easily.
Connection assets for the Db2 for z/OS® source database and the Db2 or Db2 Warehouse target databas are created in the catalog.
Data assets are also created for all source database tables and target database tables that are managed by the Db2 Data Gate instance. The creation of these assets, however, depends on the state of the tables. Assets are created only if the tables are in the Loaded or Active state. Relationships between the source database tables and the corresponding target database tables are created.
After the publishing process finished, A timestamp indicates the last time metadata was published to Watson Knowledge Catalog will be updated to the Last published field in the tile.
- Viewing the statistics of tables/queries on the right tile.
The Table donut chart shows the distribution of table statuses among the tables that were added to the Db2 Data Gate instance. The bigger a colored segment, the greater is the number of tables in the state that is indicated by the color.
A text box on the right of the tile starts with the total number of tables managed by the Db2 Data Gate instance. What follows is the legend of the color scheme used in the donut chart. Next to each colored bullet, you find the number of tables in that particular state:
Green(Active): The number of tables that are loaded and take part in the synchronization process.
Purple(Loaded): The number of tables that are fully loaded, but do not take part in the synchronization process.
Blue(Loading): The number of tables that are currently being loaded.
Yellow(Load pending): The number of tables that still need to be loaded.
Magenta(Error): The number of tables in Error state.
If `use this Db2 Data Gate instance for query acceleration` has been selected during the creation of the instance, a donut chart will show information about the queries that were routed to the Db2 Data Gate instance.
Light green(Successful): The number of queries that were completed successfully.
Light blue(Executing): The number of queries that are currently being executed.
Orange(Queued): The number of queries waiting to be executed.
Light magenta(Failed): The number of queries that could not be completed successfully but had to be aborted.
- Monitor tab
The graphs on this tab show the synchronization latency, synchronization throughput, and a few statistics regarding the source data and the logs. The graphs are synchronized, meaning that they all cover the same time frame on the x-axis. If you click a point on the x-axis of a graph, the selected point in time is displayed under Time point on the right side of the tab window. Underneath, you can see the detailed values.
Using the slider buttons on the left and right sides of the bar at the bottom (under the last graph), you can narrow the focus (time frame) of the display. The left slider button changes the beginning of the time frame on the display. The right slider button changes the end of the time frame. Shorter time intervals allow you to scrutinize individual values more closely. Wider time intervals offer a broader perspective.
You can change the time frame that is covered by the graphs on the tab. The labels on the buttons indicate how far the data that is taken into account reaches back into the past.
- 1 hour
- 6 hours
- 12 hours
- 24 hours
- 3 days
- Custom. Allows you to specify a time frame of your choice.
The Synchronization latency graph illustrates the development of the synchronization latency over time. At any given moment in time, the replication latency tells you how long it takes to bring your Db2 Data Gate tables into a state that matches the state of the original Db2 for z/OS tables, that is, a state in which no more updates are necessary. In other words, it is the time that your Db2 Data Gate tables are lagging behind with regard to synchronization. Ideally, this should only be a few seconds.
The Synchronization throughput graph can be seen as a performance curve of the synchronization function. It shows how many updated table rows per second where propagated to your Db2 Data Gate tables.
The Source data and logs graph tells you how many operations of a certain type were carried out during the synchronization process, how many compensated rows exist, and how many log records were written by Db2 utilities. By default, compensated rows and log records are deselected, but you can click the corresponding entries on the legend to enable these. The statistics in detail:
- Inserted rows: A curve that shows the number of new table rows that were inserted into source database and that have been replicated to the target database over time.
- Updated rows: A curve that shows the number of table rows that were updated in the source database and that have been replicated to the target database over time.
- Deleted rows: A curve that shows the number of table rows that were deleted from the source database and have also been deleted from the target database over time.
- Compensated rows: A curve that shows the number of replicated table rows (INSERTs, UPDATEs, DELETEs) that were not saved to or not removed from the target database because the original change operations were not committed, but rolled back in the Db2 for z/OS source database.
- Utility logs: A curve that shows the number of log records that were written by Db2 utilities over time.
- Table tab
The Table tab gives you detailed information about the tables you selected for the instance.
Note that the column Acceleration and the Archived rows is shown only if `Use this Db2 Data Gate instance for query acceleration` has been selected during the creation of the instance.
To add more tables, click the Add tables button to open the table list page and then select tables to add them to the instance.
You can also take actions to tables you already added to the instance in the Table tab. Select one or more tables (check boxes in front of table names) and click one of button in the toolbar that on the header of the tables list.
· Archiving table partitions
· Restoring table partitions
· Enabling or disabling query acceleration.
Note that the above actions can only be done when you selected `Use this Db2 Data Gate instance for query acceleration` during the creation of the instance
· Enabling or disabling synchronization
· Loading tables
· Removing tables
- Query tab
The Query tab is available only if you selected Use this Db2 Data Gate instance for query routing during the creation of the instance.
The table on the Query tab gives you detailed information about the queries that were routed to the instance.
If the SQL statements in the `Query` column are too long to be displayed in full, they are truncated. To view the full SQL statement of a query none the less, select the query in the table (check box in front of the table row) and click Full query on the header of the table.
