Starvation: Electronic books, DRM, the local library, and database locks

Over the past days I ran into an interesting database problem. It boils down to resource management and database locks. One of my sons is an avid reader and thus we have an ongoing flow of hardcopy and electronic books, most of them provided by the local public library (THANK YOU!). Recently, my son used the electronic library to place a reservation on a hard-to-get ebook. Yesterday, he received the email that the book was available exclusively to him (intention lock) and to be checked out within 48 hours (placing the exclusive lock). And so my problems began...

Trouble lending an ebook

There is a hard limit on the maximum number of checked out ebooks per account. All electronic books are lent for 14 days without a way to return them earlier because of Digital Rights Management (DRM). If the account is maxed out, lending a reserved book does not work. Pure (teenage) frustration. However, there is an exclusive lock on the book copy and nobody else can lend it either, making the book harder to get and (seemingly) even more popular. As consequence more reservation requests are placed, making the book even harder to lend. In database theory this is called starvation effect or resource starvation. My advise of "read something else" is not considered a solution.

How could this software problem be solved? A change to DRM to allow earlier returns seems to be too complex. As there is also a low limit for open reservation requests per account, temporarily bumping up the number of books that can be lent per account would both solve the starvation effect and enhance the usability. It would even increase the throughput (average books out to readers), would reduce lock waits (trying to read a certain book), and customer feedback.

BTW: The locklist configuration in DB2 (similar to the number of books lent per account) is adapted automatically by the Self Tuning Memory Manager (STMM), for easy of use, for great user/customer feedback.

Security and DB2 LUW

Did you recently start paying more attention to credit card bills? Thinking twice before speaking on the phone or sending a text message? Cutting short on communication with your partner...? Awareness for topics such as privacy and data security has increased dramatically over the past few months. In some industries such as banking, the supervisory authorities - in Germany it is BaFin - have tightened regulations over several years, requiring changes to how databases are set up and administrated, how data can be stored and accessed. As I recently declared 2014 as the year of database security, I thought collecting some related DB2 resources would be a good way to promote it. Here we go...

When you work with DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows, and are researching a topic, then the DB2 Information Center is a good start. It has an entire section on security (look at the navigation section on the left). It explains the DB2 Security Model, various security-related concepts, and has links and background information on some IBM InfoSphere Guardium tools. Many security and auditing tools as well as the Data Encryption (formerly Encryption Expert) product are labeled Guardium.

Other places to visit are the DB2 Best Practices, IBM Redbooks, and IBM developerWorks (list of DB2 security articles). There is a IBM Data Server Security best practices paper and also a redbook "DB2 Security and Compliance Solutions for Linux, UNIX, and Windows". You can also learn about security functionality when attending one of the offered Information Management bootcamps or taking a DB2 class through Learning Services.

Last but least, before I start my weekend, I would like to point to the blog articles I have written on DB2 security topics.

Have a nice weekend and watch your transactions...

New Redbook: Leveraging DB2 10 for High Performance of Your Data Warehouse

A new (almost) and very interesting IBM Redbook has been published last week: Leveraging DB2 10 for High Performance of Your Data Warehouse. Though the title says "DB2 10", parts of the book deal with DB2 10.5 and the BLU Acceleration technology. And the reason I said "almost new" is that the book is partially based on the redbook from 2010 "InfoSphere Warehouse: A Robust Infrastructure for Business Intelligence". As you can see, DB2 has a proven track record of supporting Data Warehouses and Data Marts.

The new book shows you how to get started with column-oriented storage that is key to benefitting from BLU Acceleration. It covers how to create data marts, load them, understand query plans (including the CTQ operator) and also how to monitor the system.

Similar to many other IBM Redbooks, this one is available for download as PDF, as EPUB or to view in HTML.

BTW: You can find all my DB2 BLU-related articles using this link.

Redpaper: IBM Predictive Maintenance and Quality Technical Overview

When I first saw the title of a new IBM Redpaper, I got curious about the term "predictive maintenance". However, in the IBM Predictive Maintenance and Quality Technical Overview paper the different forms of maintenance are described:

• Reactive: Replace it after it has failed
• Preventive: Replace it according to a (manufacturer) suggested maintenance schedule
• Condition-based: Monitor by regular inspections and then service or replace

The approach of preventive maintenance uses sensor data provided by the devices and the experience from using that equipment in a specific environment (your environment) to predict possible failures and also to predict the quality of individual parts. Overall this leads to better use of the equipment and optimized maintenance.

This alone makes it an interesting topic. When you look at the technical details of the solution you will find DB2 and some IBM business inteligence
/business analytics products involved.

I recently wrote about adjusting for "back to school". Wouldn't be it nice to have a predictive maintenance solution for the kids' school stuff? Often it is replacing pens, pencils, exercise and copy books by request only or after getting a "hint" from the teacher...

You can find more on DB2 and analytics by reading my posts on DB2 with BLU Acceleration, the new way of accelerating analytic workloads with DB2.

Redbook updated for DB2 10.5: Oracle to DB2 Conversion Guide - Compatibility Made Easy

The IBM Redbook "Oracle to DB2 Conversion Guide - Compatibility Made Easy" has been updated to include coverage for DB2 10.5. The book now describes the new compatibility features added as part of DB2 10.5 and the improved functionality of the Database Conversion Workbench. Readers will also find the DB2 Advanced Workgroup Server Edition which was added in the latest release.

Happy conversions, may all of your applications convert... ;-)

Redbook Solution Guide: Faster DB2 Performance with IBM FlashSystem

A so-called IBM Redbook Solution Guide about using flash memory for DB2 has been published. It gives an overview about how and where performance could be improved by using an IBM FlashSystem and provides some test results. The short article also has many links to background material. It is not a deep article on that topic, but a good introduction into possible performance gains and when to consider investing into flash memory instead of an entire new system.

(DB2) Redbooks as eBooks (epub)

Do you like Redbooks, IBM's free technical publications, written by subject matter experts? Do you have an e-reader and like reading electronic books? The perfect combination of the two is to download the IBM Redbooks as electronic books in the EPUB format. It is supported on most e-readers and also can be converted to other formats.

As usual, the IBM Redbooks are free to download and free to use, but highly valuable. Here are some IBM Redbooks on DB2 which are available in the EPUB format:

• Unleashing DB2 10 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows 
• High Availability and Disaster Recovery Options for DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows 
• DB2 Virtualization
• DB2 Workload Manager for Linux, UNIX, and Windows
• Oracle to DB2 Conversion Guide: Compatibility Made Easy
• MySQL to DB2 Conversion Guide
• IBM Optim Performance Manager for DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows
• DB2 for z/OS Performance Topics 
• Security Functions of DB2 10 for z/OS 
• and several more by searching on the Redbooks page

Puzzling: Enterprise Amnesia vs. Enterprise Intelligence (IBM Redbook Video)

A very interesting video featuring IBM Fellow Jeff Jonas has been published on the IBM Redbooks site. The title is Enterprise Amnesia vs. Enterprise Intelligence. Jeff talks about how organizations have trouble making sense out of the growing amount of data, how Big Data changes some of the existing laws ("physics").

In the video a puzzle is used as metaphor and practical example on how context information can be used to make sense of data. What was also interesting to me was the use of Ravensburger jigsaw puzzles for his experiment (watch the video!). The company Ravensburger is located in Ravensburg in direct vicinity to Friedrichshafen. Interesting to see how old fashioned stuff from the Lake Constance region helps understand leading edge IBM technology for Information Management. Still puzzled? Watch the video...

Updated Redbook for DB2 10: High Availability and Disaster Recovery Options

Well, there is not much to say about this existing Redbook that has been updated to reflect DB2 10.1 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows and current technologies. The "High Availability and Disaster Recovery Options for DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows" Redbook describes and explains technologies like IBM Tivoli TSA, PowerHA SystemMirror, Microsoft Windows Failover Cluster, WebSphere Q Replication or InfoSphere CDC.

With close to 600 pages it also requires your high availability...

New Redbook on pureScale: Delivering Continuity and Extreme Capacity with the IBM DB2 pureScale Feature

A new redbook covering many aspects of using pureScale with DB2 10.1 has been published last Friday. All the details on the related website.