There’s no avoiding the potential of lock contention but in the case of Oracle PeopleSoft on IBM DB2 and System z, it doesn’t have to be a major headache for database administrators.

That’s because IBM and Oracle continually collaborate to devise strategies and approaches for the challenge and now IBM is providing a terrific resource that can prove invaluable to developers and DBAs.

Lock contention occurs when one process or thread attempts to acquire a lock that’s already held by another process or thread, and the deadlock scenario is when each of two tasks is on hold for a lock that that the other task holds.

A new Web cast from IBM, entitled “De-Mystifying Lock Contention in Oracle's PeopleSoft on DB2 for z/OS,” is now available to help DBAs with such a situation. The 90-minute presentation, led by Brian Holroyd, an IBM Gold Consultant, and Howard Wong, a technical sales specialist in IBM’s hardware division, offers up invaluable expertise and insight on how to handle at least 90% of lock contention issues.

Brian, who is renowned for his expertise in running PeopleSoft on IBM System z, says many developers don't realize that lock contention is an issue that can be resolved quite easily in the majority of cases.

“The biggest misconception is that it can’t be solved but it can, and it’s not as tough as many are led to believe, especially if you take a logical step by step approach,” say Brian.

As Brian reveals in his presentation, the biggest challenge is in the diagnosis aspect and tracing and gathering the bits of information needed to determine the best solution.

The Web cast covers everything from understanding the size of locks, the impact and resulting time-out scenarios.

For more resources on solving challenges in the IBM-Oracle environment, follow IBM on Twitter: ibmandoracle.