DB2 profiles - register START PROFILE and STOP PROFILE commands

Summary: Log all -START PROFILE and -STOP PROFILE commands in a DB2 table, ready to be used for queries onto the history tables.

Details:

When DB2 profiles are being enabled (SYSIBM.DSN_PROFILE_TABLE.PROFILE_ENABLED='Y'), the next -START PROFILE command will activate those profiles and add, for every enabled profile, a row to the SYSIBM.DSN_PROFILE%HISTORY tables. A -DISPLAY PROFILE command returns message DSNT753I with a timestamp that indicates when the most recent -START PROFILE command has ended.

Therefore, to query the history tables, we have to subtract some seconds from the given timestamp and use the resulting timestamp as input to a query. The processing looks something like

1. Issue -DISPLAY PROFILE (per DB2 member)

2. Copy/note the timestamp value(s)

3. Subtract some seconds from the timestamp(s)

4. Specify the timestamp value(s) in the query

5. Run the query

When PROFILE_ENABLED='N' is specified for all profiles, a subsequent -START PROFILE command will not activate any profile, and no history rows are created. The -DISPLAY PROFILE command returns the timestamp of that most recent start command.

This enables queries for the "current time".

However, there are situations were we need to know whether profiles were activated, or not, respectively, on a specific day and at a specific time. The missing historic timestamps of all past -START and -STOP PROFILE commands make it impossible to query for a specific time.

• If all -START/-STOP PROFILE timestamps (per group member) would be available (preferably in a DB2 table), such queries would be enabled by joining the log table with the history table.

• Also, the current way to get those timestamps for the "current time" (-DISPLAY PROFILE, get the timestamp, subtract some seconds, use the result in the query) would be made much easier.