New synchronization workload metrics available in Db2 Data Gate service along with Cloud Pak for Data 4.6

IBM Db2 for z/OS Data Gate blog series

New synchronization workload metrics are collected and displayed in a new chart and you can now export monitoring data from the Db2 Data Gate dashboard to a file with a comma-separated values (CSV) format.

By Huang Jing

We described the Db2 Data Gate dashboard page in previous blog. In this blog, we will introduce the new added chart which will show new synchronization workload metrics on dashboard monitor tab and how to download the chart data by easy click.

New added target data chart

Db2 Data Gate has a monitor tab which contains 3 charts stack in vertical on the dashboard to allow user view synchronization workload metrics, like synchronization latency, synchronization throughput, how many operations of a certain type were carried out on the source database during the synchronization process(including source inserted rows, source updated rows, source deleted rows), how many compensated rows exist, and how many log records were written by Db2 for z/OS utilities. Now, a new chart added, you can view the number of operations of a certain type that were carried out on the target database during the synchronization process, and also the number of net-effect operations.

Here is a screenshot of the new added target data chart. It can show three curves.

- Target inserted rows

A curve that shows the number of synchronized table rows that were inserted into the target database.

- Target deleted rows

A curve that shows the number of synchronized table rows that were deleted from the target database.

- Net-effect operations

A curve that shows the number of net-effect operations on the target database. This is the number of unnecessary operations that the database engine skips to optimize the performance.

By default, the net-effect operations curve is disabled, you can click the legend to change the selection status.

I want to explain a little bit about net-effect. It’s a value of how many operations Db2 Data Gate service optimized during the synchronization process. Optimization operations during the synchronization process that allow applying fewer changes to the target database but keeping the consistent with the source. Each optimization operation consists of one INSERT and one DELETE that are skipped on the target database. The following simple scenarios may help you understand it,

• INSERT followed by DELETE: in this case no change is required on the target database because after the DELETE the row does not exist anymore, so we saving one INSERT + DELETE
• UPDATE followed by UPDATE: only of the second UPDATE will be applied because it overwrites the changes of the first update. Normally, without net-effect, two updates would result in DELETE INSERT … DELETE INSERT each. With net-effect, we just need one DELETE INSERT, so we saving one DELETE + INSERT
• INSERT followed by UPDATE : only the second UPDATE will be applied, too. Normally INSERT and UPDATE on the source database would translate to INSERT … DELETE INSERT on the target side. With net-effect we just need the second INSERT, so we saving one INSERT + DELETE

With the new chart added, it’s clear for user to know how many operations happens on the target database. It’s also become easy for them to compare the operations carried out on the source database and the target database.

Export monitoring data for reports

You can now export monitoring data from the Db2 Data Gate dashboard monitor tab to a file with a comma-separated values (CSV) format. With this versatile format, it’s very convenient to open and analyze your monitoring data in a variety of tools, such as a spreadsheet, for reporting purposes or further analysis.

A new button named `Export` was added in the top right of all charts. It’s very simple to get the data you want to view and analyze. Just select the time range firstly, then click the export button to download the data. The name of the export file downloaded to your local machine is monitor_data_<start_time>_to_<end_time>.csv, where <start_time> and <end_time> denote the beginning and the end of the time frame covered by the export file. The start time and end time of the file match the time frame that you selected on the Monitor tab.

See the following animation for example,