DB2 for Solaris 10 x64 now available

DB2 V8.2.4 for Solaris 10 01/06 x64 is finally available. While it is still hard to find on ibm.com/db2 website, if you have access to IBM Software Catalog (via Passport Advantage,PartnerWorld, etc) then you can request/search for it via the part number C909HML.

Following are the quick tips for improving your experience with DB2 on Solaris x64

• Need Solaris 10 1/06 or greater (no support for Solaris 9, Solaris 8 on the x64 Platform)


• Only 64-bit DB2 instance supported (no support for 32-bit DB2 instance on Solaris x64 which restricts you currently to use 64 bit enabled platforms using AMD64/EMT64 like the Sun Fire X4200 )



# isainfo
amd64 i386



• You will need 64-bit JVM installed on your system. If you are using Solaris 10 1/06 then it has 64-bit JVM for 1.5 and not 1.4.2 . Hence DB2 V8.2.4 on Solaris x64 uses JDK_PATH in the dbm cfg of DB2 pointing to /usr/java instead of /usr/j2se default (DB2 on Solaris SPARC). If the path is pointing to something else use the following command to reset it right for Solaris 10 x64



db2 update dbm cfg using JDK_PATH /usr/java

Also the valuable db2osconf is still not available on this version for Solaris x64, and hence the following will help you to get started with a decent database size . (Example shown assumes instance owner name as db2inst1, replace it with your instance owner name)

projadd -U db2inst1 user.db2inst1
projmod -a -K "project.max-shm-ids=(priv,4k,deny)" user.db2inst1
projmod -a -K "project.max-sem-ids=(priv,4k,deny)" user.db2inst1
projmod -a -K "project.max-shm-memory=(priv,4G,deny)" user.db2inst1
projmod -a -K "project.max-msg-ids=(priv,4k,deny)" user.db2inst1

The above helps to increase the limits of shared memory segments, semaphore ids and total memory that can be used for shared memory.

Of course I still used the traditional way to set the following values on a Sun Fire 4200 with Solaris 10 1/06 for DB2 V8.2.4 that I had used for a recent test (I still need to verify if this is the right way set these values)

set msgsys:msginfo_msgmni = 3584
set semsys:seminfo_semmni = 4096
set shmsys:shminfo_shmmax = 15392386252
set shmsys:shminfo_shmmni = 4096

Other quick tips:
If you install it on 32-bit Solaris 10 01/06, it will take you through the software binaries install successfully, but the instance creation step will fail. So please make sure that you are using 64-bit Solaris 10 01/06 otherwise it will result in wasted resources.
Please share your experiences with us.