Tasks that UNLOAD PLUS performs

Performance

• Optionally produces multiple output data sets either by using multiple SELECT statements or by partition using a single SELECT statement
• Optionally allocates primary and secondary unload data sets dynamically, eliminating the need to include DD statements in the JCL
• Eliminates the processing of partitions that do not meet the conditions of the WHERE clause

• Optimizes the processing of tables in a multi-table segmented table space

  UNLOAD PLUS processes only those segments that pertain to the tables that it is unloading. UNLOAD PLUS does not read data in tables that the selection criteria do not specify.

• Optionally adjusts the number of tasks
• Optionally reduces overhead and considerably reduces processing time when moving data from one table to another table that has an identical layout (for example, when using FORMAT BMCLOAD with LOADPLUS)

Object availability

• Optionally unloads a consistent image of the data in a table space, SUF (also known as XBM) to produce a snapshot image) while enabling read/write access to the table space
• Runs concurrently with other BMC utilities on Db2 spaces

Resources

• Optionally offloads eligible processing to a zIIP
• Optionally offloads eligible queries to an IBM Db2 Data Analytics Accelerator for an IBM z/OS server

Unloading data

• Unloads rows from one or more Db2 tables with one utility invocation, including Db2 catalog tables or views

  These tables or views can be in multiple table spaces.

• Optionally unloads all data from a table space without requiring written SELECT statements
• Provides powerful selection criteria for unloading specific rows

• Optionally sorts the output records by specified columns, or by clustering or partitioning key

  For multi-table table spaces, UNLOAD PLUS groups sorted output records by table.

• Provides for unloading a sample of rows from a table or table space
• Provides the ability to limit the number of rows that it unloads
• Optionally provides a character string constant for output-record tagging that you specify or that the utility generates
• In addition to unloading from Db2 table space data sets, provides for unloading from the following types of copies and data sets:
  • Full or incremental image copies
  • Encrypted copies created by BMC AMI Copy
  • Cabinet copies created by the BMC Recovery Management for Db2 or BMC AMI Recovery for Db2 solution
  • DSN1COPY data sets
  • Inline copies
  • Instant Snapshot copies created by BMC AMI Copy
  • Online consistent copies created by the Online Consistent Copy component of the Recovery Management or BMC AMI Recovery solution
  • VSAM linear data sets
  • IBM FlashCopy image copies
• Optionally allows UNLOAD PLUS to use data definition language (DDL) for Db2 object definitions instead of object definitions in the Db2 catalog when you use the INFILE ddname option to unload data
• Optionally produces load control statements for loading the data back into a Db2 table, or file definition statements to use with the following products:
  • LOADPLUS
  • Information Builders’ FOCUS
  • SAS
  • CA Technologies’ CA Easytrieve
  • Teradata
  • IBM SQL/DS
  • Select Business Solution’s NOMAD
• Optionally allocates primary and secondary unload data sets dynamically, removing the need to include DD statements in the JCL

Operations on data

• Provides a comprehensive set of data type conversions and a user-exit facility for conversions
• Provides options to perform data translation
• Allows replacement of null values with a user-specified constant or automatically generates a null indicator value with each output field for each selected nullable column
• Provides options and syntax to change the default null indicator character, or its position or length
• Supports a comma-separated-value (CSV) format for data that can be used by other DBMS platforms or spreadsheet applications
• Supports formatting output in XML that can be used by XML processing tools
• Allows you to put a constant value or CURRENT DATE, CURRENT TIME, CURRENT TIMESTAMP, or CURRENT RID in an output record
• Uses high-performance direct access to produce a fixed-length output file in which UNLOAD PLUS formats the unloaded data (when you specify FORMAT DSNTIAUL) to match the output of the IBM DSNTIAUL program
• Provides an option that activates a format modifier that fills numeric external data types with zeros when UNLOAD PLUS converts numeric data types to their external representations
• Provides an option to assign positive or negative overpunch values to decimal-zoned numeric values