A table is an object that stores user data. Tables are logical structures maintained by the database manager. Tables are made up of columns and rows. There is no inherent order of the rows within a table. At the intersection of every column and row is a specific data item called a value. A column is a set of values of the same type. A row is a sequence of values such that the nth value is a value of the nth column of the table.
A base table is created with the CREATE TABLE statement and is used to hold persistent user data. A result table is a set of rows that the database manager selects or generates from one or more base tables.
A base table has a name and may have a different system name. The system name is the name used by OS/400. Either name is acceptable wherever a table-name is specified in SQL statements. For more information see CREATE TABLE.
A column of a base table has a name and may have a different system column name. The system column name is the name used by OS/400. Either name is acceptable wherever column-name is specified in SQL statements. For more information see CREATE TABLE.
A nodegroup is an object that provides a logical grouping of a set of two or more AS/400 systems. A distributed table is a table whose data is partitioned across a nodegroup. A partitioning key is a set of one or more columns in a distributed table that are used to determine on which AS/400 system a row belongs. For more information on distributed tables, see the DB2 Multisystem book.