update statistics - distributions

hello all - i am a bit confused on update stats & distribution only. we are going to a system that will be accessed 24/7/365 due to new international business on the other side of the world - currently, i run update stats on the tables (low on the table itself and high on columns that are indexed) on the weekends and some overnight times. If we have many or some users on the system (informix 9.40 on HP-UX 11i, web-based application - OLTP intensive, n-tier design using java, weblogic, etc), the update stats will throw errors for users, hence the running of them during slow periods. it was mentioned to me that running update stats for distribution only would enable users to keep working and not throw errors. is this true? what is the real difference between running update stats on a table VERSUS running update stats for ditribution only? Thanks in advance! Tom

tomcaml@yahoo.com wrote: > hello all - > > > i am a bit confused on update stats & distribution only. we are going > to a system that will be accessed 24/7/365 due to new international > business on the other side of the world - currently, i run update stats > on the tables (low on the table itself and high on columns that are > indexed) on the weekends and some overnight times. If we have many or > some users on the system (informix 9.40 on HP-UX 11i, web-based > application - OLTP intensive, n-tier design using java, weblogic, etc), > the update stats will throw errors for users, hence the running of them > during slow periods. it was mentioned to me that running update stats > for distribution only would enable users to keep working and not throw > errors. is this true? what is the real difference between running > update stats on a table VERSUS running update stats for ditribution > only? Read the Performance Guide in the IDS Documentation Set and get my dostats utility. Art S. Kagel

Talk to IBM. Certainly update statistics with distributions will briefly take locks on system tables so you will need to set lock mode to wait 30 for applications and at the startof the update statistics script.