Aye. Thanks for the tip. Three questions.

1. Is there something more fine-grained, closer to the last few seconds or
preferably at the exact moment it was called.
2. How do I wrap it in a UDF in a way that I don't need to echo the cat to
a temp file? Writing to a temp file every few seconds will in itself cause
overhead.
3. Would you know, if in a dual-processor system, the loadavg is a
combination of both processors?

Thank you much.
-nat

Exactly...

So here is the code to do that:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
#include <sqludf.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <errno.h>

/*
* Function to extract the CPU load for the past 1 minute (Linux-specific).

CREATE FUNCTION getCPULoad()
   RETURNS DOUBLE
   EXTERNAL NAME 'load_udf!getCPULoad'
   LANGUAGE C
   PARAMETER STYLE SQL
   SPECIFIC getCPULoad
   DETERMINISTIC
   NO EXTERNAL ACTION
   NOT FENCED
   NO FINAL CALL
   RETURNS NULL ON NULL INPUT
   ALLOW PARALLEL@
*/
void SQL_API_FN getCPULoad(
       SQLUDF_DOUBLE *load,
       SQLUDF_NULLIND *load_ind,
       SQLUDF_TRAIL_ARGS)
{
   char str[100] = { '\0' };
   char *endPtr = NULL;
   FILE *f = NULL;

   /* initialize output parameters */
   *load = 0.0;
   *load_ind = -1;

   /* open file and read its contents */
   f = fopen("/proc/loadavg", "r");
   if (!f) {
       memcpy(SQLUDF_STATE, "38L01", SQLUDF_SQLSTATE_LEN);
       snprintf(SQLUDF_MSGTX, SQLUDF_MSGTEXT_LEN,
               "Could not open file '/proc/loadavg");
       SQLUDF_MSGTX[SQLUDF_MSGTEXT_LEN-1] = '\0';
       goto exit;
   }
   fread(str, 1, sizeof str, f);
   if (ferror(f)) {
       memcpy(SQLUDF_STATE, "38L02", SQLUDF_SQLSTATE_LEN);
       snprintf(SQLUDF_MSGTX, SQLUDF_MSGTEXT_LEN,
               "Failure reading file '/proc/loadavg");
       SQLUDF_MSGTX[SQLUDF_MSGTEXT_LEN-1] = '\0';
       goto exit;
   }

   /* extract the CPU load information */
   *load = strtod(str, &endPtr);
   if (endPtr == str || errno == ERANGE) {
       memcpy(SQLUDF_STATE, "38L03", SQLUDF_SQLSTATE_LEN);
       snprintf(SQLUDF_MSGTX, SQLUDF_MSGTEXT_LEN,
               "Failure extracting CPU load from file '/proc/loadavg");
       SQLUDF_MSGTX[SQLUDF_MSGTEXT_LEN-1] = '\0';
       goto exit;
   }
   *load_ind = 0;

exit:
   if (f != NULL) {
       fclose(f);
   }
}
--------------------------------------------------------------------

This can be compiled with the "bldrtn" script shipped with the DB2 samples
and then the above CREATE FUNCTION statement registers the UDF in the
database.  Then you just have to call:

VALUES getCPULoad()

and process the output like any other result set.