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Observation: Fixed Length Column follows VARCHAR

DB2 incurs the following overhead when you define variable length columns before fixed length columns in a table:

  • DB2 recalculates the position of a fixed length column for every row accessed.

  • If the size of an updated row increases and can no longer fit on a page, DB2 writes the row to another page with a pointer from the original page to the new page. This will, subsequently, require retrieval of two pages.

Try to relocate all VARCHAR columns to the end of the table definition.

Note: This is not applicable to Db2 version 9 or later.