IBM Tivoli Monitoring > Version 6.3 Fix Pack 2 > Installation Guides > Installation Guide > Performance tuning > Tivoli Data Warehouse > Relational database design and performance tuning for DB2 Database servers > Database design details
IBM Tivoli Monitoring, Version 6.3 Fix Pack 2
Buffer pools
A buffer pool is an area of memory into which database pages are read, modified, and held during processing.
On any system, accessing memory is faster than disk I/O. DB2 uses database buffer pools to attempt to minimize disk I/O. Although the amount of memory to dedicate to the buffer pool varies, in general it is true that more memory is preferable. Start with 50 - 75% of your system’s main memory devoted to buffer pools if the machine is a dedicated database server. Because it is a memory resource, buffer pool usage must be considered along with all other applications and processes that are running on a server. If your table spaces have multiple page sizes, create only one buffer pool for each page size.
Parent topic:
Database design details