What does db2top Start Date and Start Time actually mean?

While supporting a high-volume transaction period in our shop, I noticed that db2top Start Date and Start Time (option d for database) showed a very recent date and time. I was 100% sure that the DB was not restarted or activated recently.

[-]19:57:36,refresh=2secs(0.002)                                 Database                                AIX,member=[1/1],DB2INST1:MYDB

                                  lqqqqqqqqqqqqqqwqqqqqqqqqqqqwqqqqqqqqqqqqwqqqqqqqqqqqqwqqqqqqqqqqqk

                                  x              x         25%x         50%x         75%x       100%x

                                  xMaxActSess    x                                                  x

                                  xSortMemory    x                                                  x

                                  xLogUsed       x-                                                 x

                                  xFCM BufLow    x                                                  x

                                  mqqqqqqqqqqqqqqvqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqj

                              Start Date Start Time     Status    Shthres    Buffers     FCMBuf   OtherMem

                              2017/11/25   09:23:44     Active          0      16.4G     768.0K       2.2G

                                Sessions    ActSess   LockUsed LockEscals  Deadlocks   LogReads  LogWrites

                                      48          0         0%          0          0          0          0

                                 L_Reads    P_Reads   HitRatio    A_Reads     Writes   A_Writes  Lock Wait

                                   7,197          0    100.00%      0.00%          0          0          0

                                Sortheap    SortOvf PctSortOvf AvgPRdTime AvgDRdTime AvgPWrTime AvgDWrTime

                                   20.0K          3      2.50%       0.00       0.00       0.00       0.00

My co-worker did some research and gave a beautiful explanation. Thanks Mr. Manoj. Here it is.

This command gives you info on when the DB was deactivated/activated. But there are some caveats, read carefully:

Go to the db2diaglog path and issue this.

cat db2diag.log|grep -ip "FUNCTION: DB2 UDB, base sys utilities, sqeLocalDatabase::FreeResourcesOnDBShutdown"

The output will look something like this. Give attention to the last line in each paragraph:

2017-10-17-15.52.19.081050-240 E1495007A440         LEVEL: Event

PID     : 15073374             TID : 26036          PROC : db2sysc 0

INSTANCE: db2inst1             NODE : 000           DB   : MYDB

APPHDL  : 0-3

HOSTNAME: myhost

EDUID   : 26036                EDUNAME: db2agent (idle) 0

FUNCTION: DB2 UDB, base sys utilities, sqeLocalDatabase::FreeResourcesOnDBShutdown, probe:15579

STOP    : DATABASE: MYDB : DEACTIVATED: YES

2017-10-24-07.35.32.144318-240 E110103488A527       LEVEL: Event

PID     : 33572592             TID : 29101          PROC : db2sysc 0

INSTANCE: db2inst1             NODE : 000           DB   : MYDB

APPHDL  : 0-29188              APPID: 100.00.000.00.12345.171024112052

AUTHID  : myid                 HOSTNAME: myhost

EDUID   : 29301                EDUNAME: db2agent (idle) 0

FUNCTION: DB2 UDB, base sys utilities, sqeLocalDatabase::FreeResourcesOnDBShutdown, probe:15579

STOP    : DATABASE: MYDB : DEACTIVATED: NO

2017-11-25-09.23.43.726522-300 E261286318A515       LEVEL: Event

PID     : 33572592             TID : 40505          PROC : db2sysc 0

INSTANCE: db2inst1             NODE : 000           DB   : MYDB

APPHDL  : 0-52137              APPID: 172.16.104.17.38242.171125142340

AUTHID  : MYID                 HOSTNAME: myhost

EDUID   : 40505                EDUNAME: db2agent (mydb) 0

FUNCTION: DB2 UDB, base sys utilities, sqeLocalDatabase::FirstConnect, probe:1000

START   : DATABASE: MYDB : ACTIVATED: NO

ACTIVATED or DEACTIVATED “YES” means, the database has been activated or deactivated by an user that has the access to do it, such a DBA or System Admin.

ACTIVATED “NO” means, the database has been activated by DB2 automatically when the database was not started manually, and a CONNECT TO (or an implicit connect) has been issued in an application.

DEACTIVATED “NO” means, the database has been deactivated by DB2 automatically when the last application has disconnected from the DB.

Best practice is to activate the DB manually as soon as the database is started.

Notepad++ Technical Tips & Tricks

• To add a text at the start or end of each line, use regular expressions.
• Click Ctrl+H, and in the "Find What" space, enter ^b if you want to add a text at the beginning of the line or $ if you want to add a text at the end of the line. In the "Replace With" space, enter the text that you want to add at the beginning or end of the line and click Replace or Replace All