8.7. Summary

In this chapter you learned about the DB2 storage model, a topic that is closely related to the database objects discussed in Chapter 7, Working with Database Objects. This chapter described databases and the various components that are part of databases. Table spaces and containers define the logical and physical storage of your tables and indexes, while partition groups are used to give you control over where your table spaces will be stored in a multi-partition database.

As data is inserted into your tables, pages are also written to the table's data and index objects. When the table space has multiple containers, DB2 will fill these on a round-robin basis among the extents, filling an extent at a time. When you then access your data, it must first be read into the database's buffer pool(s) to be scanned and read. You can assign table spaces to specific buffer pools, and give these buffer pools different sizes to optimize your performance.