From my colleague, Jim Herrmann:

The Central Ohio DB2 Users Group (CODUG) no longer exists, but we are taking action to bring it back as a tremendous resource for the community and an amazing opportunity for leadership. CODUG is going to be a great DB2 regional users group because the members of the central Ohio DB2 community are going to make it so.

We are going to start out with all of you being a valuable contribution to your community by completing the RSVP for the June 25th, where you will have the ability to choose the presentations that you want to see from our amazing speakers. Use the URL below:

http://goo.gl/mpWT0

The short URL above links to a Google Docs form, which some company firewalls block, in which case you will need to make the extra effort of forwarding and filling out the form from home. Your input is essential to the success of the group. Whether you are planning to come on 6/25 or not, please fill out the form with your information and your vote. It’s free and it puts you in direct communication with the new CODUG!

You would be a further contribution to your friends and coworkers who have built their careers around DB2, on any platform, if you forward this message to them to make certain that they know about this amazing kickoff meeting. Don’t worry about them getting multiple copies, worry about them getting none. Forward this message now, while you’re thinking about it. If you wait, you will forget to do it later, and you will have missed the chance to connect someone to their community.

The meeting will be formatted with a single track in the morning and two tracks in the afternoon, one for DB2 z/OS and one for DB2 LUW. We will actually physically split the room at the lunch break. We have three well known names in the world of DB2 who will be presenting at the meeting. The bios of these three awesome individuals you can find after the attached agenda.

We are building towards an amazing day. Fill out the form, share it, and we will be one step closer to creating something powerful in our lives.

Thank you for your time and your commitment to DB2,
Please don’t forget to join us at Facebook and Linkedin to get to know about future activities at CODUG.
Linkedin group:  http://www.linkedin.com/groups/CODUG-Central-Ohio-DB2-Users-5014603/about
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/CODUG
Agenda

09:00 – 09:30    CODUG Possibility (Jim Herrmann)
09:30 – 10:00    IBM Announcements (Monte Bauman)
10:00 – 10:15    Break
10:15 – 11:30    “DB2 101” or “I didn’t know IBM Information Management could do that!” (Frank Fillmore)
11:30 – 12:45    Lunch
12:45 – 14:15    First afternoon presentation block (Scott Hayes and Robert Catterall)
14:15 – 14:30    Break
14:30 – 16:00    Second afternoon presentation block (Scott Hayes and Robert Catterall)

Frank C. Fillmore, Jr., DB2 Gold Consultant and IBM Champion, is the Founder and President of The Fillmore Group, Inc., a Premier IBM Business Partner that specializes in Information Management (IM) software sales, consulting, and training.  Frank has appeared on the IDUG Experts Panel and frequently presents to customers and local DB2 users groups.  Franks 25 years of field experience spans IBMs Information Integration, Data Governance, Data Warehousing, and Big Data portfolios. Read More…

Frank is attending IDUG in Orlando this week to present on one of our favorite new IBM Information Management solutions, Query Capture Replay (QCR).  If you are heading to Florida this week, please say hi to Frank and join him on Thursday, May 2nd, from 3:30pm – 4:30pm in Bonaire 7&8 for his session.  

“Don’t Guesstimate! Migration Testing with Query Capture Replay”

This presentation focuses on several migration use cases for IBM’s new InfoSphere Optim Query Capture and Replay tool, announced in 2012. Query Capture and Replay (QCR) enables users to capture database activity on a production database and run it to analyze and evaluate the performance when changes – to SQL, hardware, operating system software and even the underlying database – are completed. It’s a great new migration tool.

Frank is putting the final touches on his DB2 101 presentation for Thursday, incorporating last week’s Big Data announcements from IBM (great stuff; visit the IBM Big Data Hub to learn more) along with his fast-paced presentation on the solutions in the IBM Information Management portfolio.  We are expecting a great turnout but as always, we are happy to make room for more.  If you are in the Baltimore area and interested in joining us, please read my post on the event here, register here and join us.

I had the pleasure of attending and participating as a Business Partner in the IBM Big Data and Governance Forum road show event in Reston, Virginia, last week.  Many of the attendees were from Federal government agencies – no surprise – and most of the attendees, at least in my opinion, seemed to be trying to satisfy their curiosity about  Big Data. 

The first session presenter was Tracey Mustacchio, the Director of Marketing for Big Data.  Tracey came to IBM from Vivisimo, one of the latest IBM Information Management acquisitions.  She started her session with a standard show of hands opening.  The amazing thing was, with about 100 people in the room, only THREE were actually using any Big Data solutions in their IT shops.  3%!!  That meant – with the simplistic way I do math –  the other 97% of the attendees were, like me, still trying to figure out how to apply this new technology.  And of course, overcome the skepticism that comes from hearing a solution referred to as a “game changer” a few too many times.

The information delivered was excellent, with the presenters using clear, understandable business use case examples to demonstrate the Big Data solutions at work.  I thought it was great. 

As a Business Partner The Fillmore Group raffled off the gorgeous, huge coffee table book, “The Human Side of Big Data”, by Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt.  After reading a glowing review I bought the book about a month ago for myself, and while I am bit overwhelmed by the book’s size (did I mention it’s huge?) which made it impossible to stuff in my laptop bag like my Kindle, it is simply beautiful and the perfect way to get excited about the potential of Big Data.  Each article is short – maximum length 2 pages – and tells about how Big Data has changed the way people are doing something.  And yes IBM fans, page 208 features Jeff Jonas.  Because what book about Big Data could leave out Jeff Jonas and his fascinating life and experience developing the IBM Entity Analytics solutions.

The forum delivered lots of great ideas and use cases.  It’s time to start moving beyond the ideas.  We all need to figure out how to apply this amazing technology and reap the benefits!  The next step, recommended by IBM’s Crysta Anderson, is to attend the IBM Big Data announcement on April 30th:   http://ibm.co/BigDataEvent to hear more about how you can move from theory to practice with Big Data.

As volumes of data explode and organizations look for unique ways to leverage the quantities of data – often in real-time – it’s easy to become confused.  We can help – join us for lunch at Cinghiale for an overview of the data management products in the IBM portfolio and gain an understanding of today’s top solutions.

Frank Fillmore will deliver an overview of hot topics in IBM data management:  Big Data, Information Governance, and appliances, and explain how new solutions are changing database and warehousing technologies.  Gain an understanding of how IBM’s acquisitions and integrated solutions have them positioned as today’s thought leader in data management.

DB2101 at Cinghiale (the “Boar”), 822 Lancaster Street, Baltimore, MD, 21202
April 11, 2013, 11am – 1pm

To register, click here.  

Satisfy your appetite and your curiosity with a tasty Italian lunch at local favorites Tony Foreman and Cindy Wolf’s Cinghiale. Whether you already use IBM data products or are interested in learning what IBM has to offer, the presentation will provide a dose of nutritious food for thought.

I will send you a confirmation with directions to the award winning Cinghiale.  Valet parking will be provided.

The Fillmore Group – and a special guest to-be-announced soon, will be be participating in the IBM Big Data, Integration and Governance Forum at the Sheraton Hotel in Reston, VA on March 5th.  The forum begins at 8am with a complimentary breakfast and sessions end at 1:15pm, followed by lunch provided by IBM.   There is no charge to attend the forum.

Great speakers are lined up to explain how best to leverage innovative techniques and gain a rock-solid understanding of how to:

• Enhance the quality, availability and integrity of your data
• Gain real-time insight into performance
• Optimize and improve critical decision making
• Reduce data management cost and complexity issues
• Enforce data quality standards and stewardship policies
• Effectively manage regulatory compliance demands
• Leverage support for master data management (MDM) programs

Read More…

Don’t wait – act now!  Invest in DB2 before year end.
 
With 2012 rapidly drawing to a close now is the time to review unused budget funds and invest in DB2 training and services.  The Fillmore Group has our DBA on Demand support option and IBM Authorized Training classes scheduled that can be paid for in advance and used to ensure your team is prepared for a successful 2013.
 
DBA on Demand offers expert consulting services, either onsite or remote, at a discounted hourly rate.  Our “150 for 150″ offer delivers 150 hours of support at a discounted hourly rate of $150 per hour.
 
There are still seats available for the December 10th CL412/CL442 DB2 for LUW Performance Tuning and Monitoring Workshop to be delivered by DB2 Gold Consultant Frank C. Fillmore, Jr., in our Towson, Maryland classroom.  Additional TFG classes scheduled are available on the IBM Learning Services website.
 
Please feel free to contact me with any questions on how The Fillmore Group can help preserve your unused funds and help your team have a successful 2013 with DB2!

Given that so many IBM customers make their initial software purchases in the fourth quarter of the calendar year (when the IBM pricing gets really aggressive), the number of DB2 customers whose annual software license subscription and support is due each December is higher than in any other month of the year.  For this reason we’ve decided to deliver another webinar on the DB2 Advanced Enterprise Server Edition (AESE) bundle in hopes of persuading renewing DB2 customers to consider the upgrade.  AESE has provided substantial value to every upgrading customer we’ve worked with, and enabled their IT organization to better monitor, utilize, and extend the use of their database. 

Frank Fillmore will deliver the webinar on Monday, November 19th from 11am – 12pm EST.  Register HERE.

The invitation, in case you didn’t receive one directly from me (!) -

If your organization’s DB2 license Subscription and Support is scheduled to renew in December, now is the time to learn about the DB2 Advanced Enterprise Server Edition (AESE) product bundle and how you can finesse the upgrade JUST BEFORE paying IBM the annual Subscription and Support fee to make it VERY affordable. Read More…

IBM’s recently announced InfoSphere Optim Query Capture Replay (QCR) captures production workloads and replays them in nonproduction environments to reproduce realistic activity complete with change impact reports.  Join DB2 Gold Consultant Frank C. Fillmore, Jr. for this introduction to QCR and learn how your organization can use QCR to assess the impact of application and infrastructure changes in advance by providing the ability to test with actual production workloads.  QCR produces change impact reports that find problems before production deployment.

QCR can be used to efficiently manage lifecycle events such as changes in hardware, workloads, databases or applications without production impact.  QCR can be used to test SQL performance, and compliments your existing regression, functional and performance testing methods with a deeper analysis of impacts to the data layer.  

Date:  Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Time:  11am-12pm ET

Register HERE

Presenter: Frank Fillmore, President, The Fillmore Group
Frank Fillmore is a DB2 Gold Consultant and IBM Information Champion.   Frank has worked with DB2 customers for over 25 years to optimize their DB2 data assets, through his consulting practice and as an IBM Authorized Training instructor.  A popular blogger (www.thefillmoregroup.com/blog) and award winning presenter, Frank manages a team of 25 expert consultants at The Fillmore Group.  Frank participated in the QCR beta program and is excited to work with another new IBM technology that allows DB2 customers to outshine the competition.

We have over 100 Q Replication users registered to attend the upcoming Virtual Users Group session, scheduled for August 9th (see the post below).  The Fillmore Group, as an IBM Authorized Training Partner, delivers the IBM public training class for Q Rep, when it runs, which is hardly EVER!  

Great products deserve great support.  I am happy we can help Q Rep users gain better skills.

If you would like to join us the registration link is in the post below.