This morning Steve Cooper noted:

> My understanding is that there is absolutely no overhead
> until an Image abort occurs.  Then, if the flag is on, a priv
> dump file is created, so that one can tell what happended.  I
> strongly recommend that everyone immediately enable this
> flag on all db's.

I confirmed Steve's above with the HP RC several years ago,
when I ENABLED DUMPING on all of our IMAGE databases:
No run-time overhead unless ABORT.

SIDEBAR detail:  With DUMPING ENABLED, in the rare case
of a TurboIMAGE ABORT you will (at least most of the time,
AFAIK) get not just one but *two* PRIV mode dump files:  One
starting with "I" and the other starting with "J"....

> SIGIMAGE has discussed the fact that several flags have
> questionable default values and has recommended some
> changes to HP.

...  and HP has responded to our suggestions:  There is now
an Item on the latest "Now / Soon Available in Image/SQL" list
(to be presented at SIGIMAGE - HP World in Philly (more info
on that "soon") ) that sez:

"ONE-time make DBUTIL DUMPING and DSEM flags
default = ENABLED".

"One-time" means that a bit will be set and left set;  to indicate
that DUMPING and DSEM flags were *automatically* turned on
ONCE for a particular database.  If during subsequent updates
the DUMPING and DSEM flags are found in the DISABLED
state (after having once been *automatically* ENABLED), they
will NOT be automatically ENABLED again (of course users may
continue to ENABLE them manually with DBUTIL at any time).

I don't know IMAGE release version number that will incorporate
the above enhancement yet;  just that it will be "soon"....     :-)


Rationale for not always doing auto-ENABLE of both these flags
during a system update was to preserve the ability of sites to
DISABLE these flags and have them stay that way;  without
having to DISABLE them after every update.

Now.....:  If ENABLE of both DUMPING and DSEM is AFAWK
always a good idea, why implement the above option ??...  Well,
for "once in a blue moon" possible corner case situations:

[a]   Rumor has it a handful of sites around the world may have
written their own, in-house proprietary dumping routines.  If that
is true, they might not want both that *and* DBUTIL DUMPING
(I have no hard evidence that any such site actually exists).

[b]   Thought is that in rare situations the odd site here and there
might not want to have DSEM (Dependency SEMaphore)
ENABLED.  I have not heard anyone come up with a specific
case where DISABLE for DSEM would be recommended;  but
I'm willing to grant the possibility that such a case *might* exist...

SUMMARY:  Like Steve said:  For 99.9+ (and maybe 100.0)
percent of IMAGE sites,
DBUTIL ENABLE <database_name> for DUMPING
is highly recommended..  While you're in there, could also do:
DBUTIL ENABLE <database_name> for DSEM

If you don't do the above manually, when you get the "coming
soon" release the defaults for these two flags will be changed
ONCE;  as part of the update process to a new IMAGE vers....

Ken Sletten
SIGIMAGE Chair