Are STROBE and EXPLAIN serve the same purpose?

[NoOne]

Hi,

Are STROBE and EXPLAIN serve the same purpose in DB2? If yes, why to have two products?

[Robert Sample]

The first thing you need to be aware of is that EXPLAIN is part of DB2 and hence an IBM product. STROBE is from Compuware, an independent software vendor. STROBE is used for run-time analysis of application programs (as well as DB2 statements) and hence can be used for COBOL, PL/I, and other languages to identify where the program needs tuning. STROBE can be purchased and used at sites that do not have DB2 installed. EXPLAIN, however, requires that DB2 be installed at the site since it analyzes access paths with DB2.

[dick scherrer]

Other than they both allow one to look at certain performance issues, they have little in common.

Knowing how to use one of them has little to do with usiong the other.

What have you learned about these?

[DB2 Guy]

As has been said - STROBE is performance monitoring tool and not used for only DB2. This page give you more information on it: http://www.compuware.com/en_us/mainfram ... oring.html

EXPALIN, actually is not a "Tool" - it's a "DB2 statement" - and the EXPLAIN statement obtains information about access path selection for an explainable statement. As the manuals says, a statement is explainable if it is a SELECT, MERGE, or INSERT statement, or the searched form of an UPDATE or DELETE statement. The information that is obtained is placed in a set of supplied user tables that are called EXPLAIN tables.