CA Fast Load Vs BMC Load Plus

Well, I've been compiling this for a while now. Here is a list of CA/Platinum's Fast Load utility keywords and the equivalent BMC's Load Plus keywords.


If you have any questions, or something doesn't make sense, or if you are looking for something else, please let me know (comments/email/chat).


I'm sorry, I couldn't find a way to insert a Word Document (with a table) into this blog, so I pasted the table here as an image.


Thanks !!

BMC Unload PLUS - BMC50033E

We're moving away from CA/Platinum, yes, our shop is converting from CA/Platinum tools to BMC tools for DB2.

I ran my first UNLOAD PLUS job today and it went down with this message:

BMC50033E CPU NOT AUTHORIZED TO RUN UNLOAD PLUS FOR DB2 RETURN CODE = 0004 REASON CODE = P1

Found out that, in the JCL, I need to include the Password dataset - either in STEPLIB or JOBLIB:

// DD DISP=SHR,DSN=hlq.BMCPSWD

Fast Load abend - IEC146I 513-04

You are running Platinum Fast Load job and the job fails on you with an "IEC146I 513-04" error.

IEC146I 513-04 means
"An OPEN macro instruction was issued for a magnetic tape data set allocated to a device that already has an open data set on it. Make sure that the first data set is closed before the second is opened, or allocate the second data set to a different device. This error may be due to a
previous abnormal end associated with the same unit in the same step. If so, correct the error causing the previous abnormal end."

Problem:
As per the above message, you are trying open the dataset for two different purposes in the same job step.

In your LOAD card, see what you've specified for INDDN. In my case, I had specified INDDN SYSREC.

Fast Load user guide says "If you will be performing an OUTPUT-CONTROL ALL type load, and you want to specify INDDN SYSREC, you must also specify UNLDDN and change its default value. Otherwise, Unicenter Fast Load will try to use SYSREC as an input and a work file."

OUTPUT-CONTROL ALL is the default. I noticed that I didn't have a UNLDDN DD name in my JCL.

Fix:
Either specify a UNLDDN DD in your JCL step or change INDDN to something other than SYSREC. I changed it to SYSULD and it worked.

CA Intertest (Batch) Tips

If you use CA's Intertest for Batch to debug your batch COBOL programs or stored procedures, read on.

There are a few commands that you use frequently. Set them commands in PFKEYS for ease of use:

STEP 1 - Set steps to go in each run to 1 (I usually set it to PF4)
GO - Run as many steps as described in the STEP command (I usually set it to PF5)
RUN - Run until the next breakpoint (I usually set it to PF6)
KUP - Scroll Up in the Data Display Window (I usually set it to PF17)
KDOWN - Scroll Down in the Data Display Window (I usually set it to PF18)

Sample Job: CA/Platinum Fast Unload

Here is a sample job to run CA/Platinum Fast Unload utility:

Platinum Fast Load Error "PFL8013E"

If a Fast Load job fails with PFL8013E (Error Description: A table within Table Space that has multiple versioned rows is not supported for this release of Unicenter Fastload. Reason: This DB2 V8 feature is not yet supported by Unicenter Fast Load. Processing terminates), it could be because the tablespace is in AREO (Advisory Reorg pending) status. This happens in a DB2 V8 NFM subsystem, with Fast Load (version r11.5) Resume NO REPLACE option specified.

How will you fix this? There are a few options that you can try:

1. Run REORG utility on the tablespace and retry loading.

2. If that doesn't work, drop and recreate the table and then load the table using Fast Load

3. If that doesn't work, try IBM LOAD. That should definitely work.

BMC UNLOAD PLUS Tips

BMC Unload Plus is a high-performance DB2 UNLOAD utility (just like CA/Platinum FAST UNLOAD utility). The performance of this utility can be controlled by proper use of the keyword "DIRECT".

DIRECT YES: UNLOAD PLUS reads data directly from the table space data set or image copy data sets to unload the data, using a SELECT-like syntaxfor data selection. SELECT functionality is a limited subset of thefunctionality that is normally available in DB2 SQL. The benefit of the DIRECT YES mode is maximum performance when unloading large volumes of data.

DIRECT NO: UNLOAD PLUS processes the SELECT statement and reads the data usingDB2 dynamic SQL. This mode is not a high-performance solution for unloading large volumes of data. The benefit of the DIRECT NO mode is a full range of DB2 SQL SELECTfunctionality, including joined tables, subqueries, and so on. This functionality includes many of the features that are availablein UNLOAD PLUS including DB2 parallelism, data type conversions, output formatting.

CA/Platinum Fast Unload tips

Today I'm going to discuss about a vendor product - CA(previously Platinum)'s DB2 "Fast Unload". It is a high performance DB2 data unload utility. If you use Fast Unload at your shop, go ahead and read these tips:

Fast Unload is much faster than DB2's DSNTIAUL. One of the reasons is, it does not use DB2 SQL to fetch the data. Instead it fetches the data directly from the underlying VSAM dataset. But this does not happen always. Sometimes it may have to fetch the data from the table. This is controlled by the keyword "SQL-ACCESS".

SQL-ACCESS NONE:
When you specify "NONE" for SQL-ACCESS, it does not use SQL access. If the select statement
cannot be processed using VSAM or EXCP, an error message is issued & processing ends. This is the DEFAULT.

Note: You must specify NONE to unload data from Image Copies, Concurrent Copies & DSN1COPYs.

SQL-ACCESS ONLY:
When you specify this option, it uses only SQL access to unload the tablespaces. This option lets you use any valid SELECT statement. Only one SELECT statement is processed at a time. The statements using VSAM or EXCP are processed first, followed by the SQL ACCESS SELECT statements, which are processed in the order specified in the control statements. You cannot include an ORDER-CLUSTERED clause, or the PART or OBID parameters with this option. You must specify SQL-ACCESS ONLY to use TRIM with ASCII objects. With SQL-ACCESS ONLY, DB2 determines locking. To preserve data integrity, you must specify LOCKSIZE TABLE on the tablespace.

SQL-ACCESS EXTENSION:
When you specify "EXTENSION" for SQL-ACCESS, it uses EXCP or VSAM processing if possible; otherwise uses SQL access. If you specify SQL-ACCESS EXTENSION, only those SELECT statements that require SQL access use it; all other SELECT statements are multitasked & unloaded using VSAM or EXCP. If you specify SQL-ACCESS EXTENSION with the PART or OBID parameter & SQL-ACCESS is required, an error message is issued and processing terminates.