Db2 – altering a db2 table with huge amount of data

You can do steps 1 and 2: but use the DATEADD/DATEDIFF technique as per this: How to the get current date without the time part

You will most likely be unable to index the computed column because it won't be deterministic with the varchar method

This question is somewhat old, so you may have already figured out your problem, but if I may offer an alternative...

It may be better to use a MERGE statement in this situation (click the link for the publib entry):

MERGE INTO mySchema.myTable tab USING (
        VALUES ('abc', '123')
    ) AS merge (C1, C2)
    ON  tab.column1 = merge.C1
    AND tab.column2 = merge.C2
    WHEN MATCHED THEN
        IGNORE
    WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN 
        INSERT (column1, column2)
        VALUES (merge.C1, merge.C2)

This will take the columns in the "fake" table merge, and compare them using the keys in the ON clause, and if there is not a match, then it will use the INSERT statement. If there is a match, that row will just be ignored.

However, the availability of MERGE depends on your platform. I'm fairly certain MERGE has been in Linux/Unix/Windows DB2 since v8 (although, you can only use PREPARE'd merges since 9.7), and it was added in z/OS DB2 in v9.1. I don't know about the other platforms (AS/400, etc.).