A deadlock occurs when two or more applications connected to the same database wait indefinitely for a resource. The waiting is never resolved because each application is holding a resource that the other needs to continue.
The deadlock check interval defines the frequency at which the database manager checks for deadlocks among all the applications connected to a database.
Notes:
Recommendation: Increasing this parameter decreases the frequency of checking for deadlocks, thereby increasing the time that application programs must wait for the deadlock to be resolved.
Decreasing this parameter increases the frequency of checking for deadlocks, thereby decreasing the time that application programs must wait for the deadlock to be resolved but increasing the time that the database manager takes to check for deadlocks. If the deadlock interval is too small, it can decrease run-time performance, because the database manager is frequently performing deadlock detection. If this parameter is set lower to improve concurrency, you should ensure that maxlocks and locklist are set appropriately to avoid unnecessary lock escalation, which can result more lock contention and as a result, more deadlock situations.