login as db2inst1 user as created by the default IBM DB2 Express C installation located at the following blog location. I presume you have read and followed al the steps in the blog article below!

http://blog.webspheretools.com/2012/10/27/installing-db2-express-websphere-application-server-8-5/

cd /opt/IBM/DSAC3.1.1

./ datastudio

Create a new connection to the SAMPLE Database

We do this to test we still have connectivity and that DB2 is running and we have a valid user to log into the instance.

I needed to refer to the Information Centre to understand the location I should use. I do know that I have an instance at /home/db2inst1, but not sure where the actual DB2 Database location should be for a create?

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/dstudio/v3r1/index.jsp

After doing a bit of read we can see that the SAMPLE database is created in /home/db2inst1/db2inst1/NODE0000/SAMPLE, so using this information, we can do the same for my SESSION Database.

Note all we need to do is put the path /home/db2inst and the SESSION Database will be created in the same instance location.

We can see the new database has been created on disk

We can now create a JDBC provider/Datasource/J2C Alias in WebSphere Application Server 7/8.x to use in session persistence across a cluster of JVMs.

Note: When using DB2 Express C, all actions are performed under appropriate user accounts on the host operating system. This means in Windows 7 Professional it would create your SESSION instance under the current logged in user. In Linux it will use the instance userid as defined in during the installation process