The CACHE option of the CREATE SEQUENCE statement is a performance and tuning option which directs DB2® to preallocate a specified number of sequential values in memory.

Sequence objects provide unique, sequential, and numeric values to DB2 applications. Applications can use sequence numbers for a variety of purposes, including the avoidance of concurrency and performance problems that can result when applications generate their own sequence numbers. Unlike application-generated sequences, DB2 sequence objects allow multiple transactions to concurrently increment the sequence number, and DB2 guarantees that each sequential value is unique. DB2 does not wait for a transaction that has incremented a sequence to commit before allowing the sequence to be incremented by another transaction. No retained locks are held to prevent access to the sequence.

Every time a cache is allocated, the SYSIBM.SYSSEQUENCES table is updated and a forced log record is written for the update. Using ORDER or NO CACHE will result in a SYSIBM.SYSSEQUENCES table update and the associated forced log write every time a new value is generated by DB2. Specifying CACHE provides faster access to the sequence since values are assigned from the cache. It also reduces the number of SYSIBM.SYSSEQUENCES updates and the associated forced log records. The SYSIBM.SYSSEQ table space is defined with the MAXROWS(1) attribute in order to minimize page P-lock contention in a data sharing environment as the SYSIBM.SYSSEQUENCES table gets updated.

DB2 always generates sequence numbers in order of request. However, when a sequence is shared across multiple members of a data sharing group, each DB2 member allocates its own cache of unique consecutive numbers for the sequence. Therefore, in situations where transactions from different members are requesting the next sequence number from the same sequence, values assigned for the sequence across multiple DB2 members may not be in strict numeric order.

Example: Assume that members DB2A and DB2B share a sequence named SEQ1 that starts with 1, increments by 1, and has cache = 20. If the transaction that is associated with DB2A makes the first request for a sequence number, DB2A allocates a cache of 20 values (from 1 to 20) and the value of 1 is provided to the application. If the transaction that is associated with DB2B makes the next request for a sequence number, DB2B allocates its own cache of 20 values (from 21 to 40) and the value of 21 is provided to the application. Assuming that sequence number requests continue to arrive from the transactions that are associated with members DB2A and DB2B in this manner (one from DB2A and then one from DB2B), the values assigned for that sequence are 1, 21, 2, 22, 3, 23, and so on. Although the numbers are in sequence within each DB2, the numbers assigned across multiple DB2 members are not in strict numeric sequence.

In a data sharing environment, using the ORDER or NO CACHE option ensures that the values assigned to a sequence which is shared by applications across multiple DB2 members are in strict numeric order. In a data sharing environment, if ORDER is specified, then NO CACHE is implicit even if CACHE n is specified.

In a non-data sharing environment, the numbers are always assigned in strict numerical order, even if NO ORDER is specified; so specifying ORDER or NO CACHE is not necessary.