IBM hosted the inaugural TechXchange Conference in Las Vegas last week (September 11 – 15, 2023). Here’s what I liked:

• The Developer community was the primary focus of TechXchange. This is a significant change from the pre-pandemic IBM technical conferences – Think and World of Watson (sited variously in Las Vegas and San Francisco). Two of the TechXchange keynote presenters pointed out that there were no “suits” at the conference (in reference to both people and apparel).
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) was (not surprisingly) given a shout-out in almost every keynote, but I thought the most prescient comment was that in three years Quantum Computing will be where AI is today.

Lakehouse

• Since I’m a career database administrator (DBA) I am really jazzed about IBM’s Lakehouse approach to data. For decades IBM was primarily focused on IMS (hierarchical) for large-scale online transaction processing (OLTP) and Db2 (relational) for analytical workloads (and, eventually, OLTP too).
• IBM made a brief foray into Data Lake (vast amounts of unstructured or semi-structured data with varying standards of curation) with its BigInsights Hadoop distribution.
• But Lakehouse is the combination of traditional shared-nothing MPP IBM Db2 Warehouse (relatively structured with higher levels of curation, consistency, and veracity) and watsonx.data an open source stack of data repositories: Lake + House.

Key characteristics of Lakehouse:

1. Let the data decide where it should reside. Based on data attributes such as volume, structure, quality, timeliness, etc. choose the data repository that best addresses those attributes. You no longer have to force data into a repository where it’s not best-suited.
2. Seamlessly access data regardless of how and where it’s stored.
   1. Data Scientists can easily combine customer account data, transaction history, and sentiment analysis.
   2. An Auto Repair Technician can pull up vehicle history by Make/Model/Trim/Year, geography, mileage, and so forth on a tablet in a garage bay while the car is on the lift.
3. Ever increasing data storage costs have your CFO in a frenzy? Performant Object Storage will likely meet your response-time targets for most applications – at about 3% of the cost of Block Storage. Automated multi-temperature storage enables you to transition data to the storage platform most suited to its age, likelihood of being retrieved, and other factors.
4. On-prem, in the cloud, or SaaS? You decide where – and by whom – the infrastructure underpinning your OLTP and analytics workloads are provisioned.
5. Containerization enables scaling that infrastructure as required by both cyclical and black-swan events.

A much more detailed dive into Db2 Warehouse Gen 3 and watsonx.data will be in an upcoming blog post.

Frank and I attended an IBM Business Partner event in Philadelphia earlier this week where we met with several IBM’ers supporting Business Partner initiatives in 2016.  Each of the specialists presented their “best of” solutions to the partners in attendance, and then patiently answered our many questions (mostly mine – sorry team!)

The final preparations for our Woodberry Kitchen lunch event are underway:   Frank and I are polishing the presentation, IBM’s Andrew Levine and Warren Heising are tracking down answers to my Cloud deployment “what if?” questions, Megan is gathering gold coins for attendees who ask Frank good technical questions, and Jolanta at Woodberry Kitchen has me salivating with her menu recommendations.

If you will be in Baltimore April 21st and haven’t registered yet, please do!  Register HERE.

Kim has just returned from IBM’s annual “z Bootcamp” where they prepare their System z sellers for the upcoming year with a series of product updates, announcements and education.  Her takeaway message for 2016 was loud and clear:  IBM intends to continue to enhance and extend the capabilities of System z so they can remain relevant and leading the effort to leverage the power of System z data.

Which leads, naturally, to the “how?” question.  At The Fillmore Group, as an IBM Business Partner we believe our ability to connect with Data Scientists and Data Architects and to help them understand the data stored in System z will help us all better align our interests and build a successful data and analytic ecosystem.  To kick start this effort we have planned a lunch event at the award-winning Woodberry Kitchen in Baltimore where Frank Fillmore will present an overview of System z.  Read more below – and please join us if you can!

“IBM z Systems (Mainframes!) for IT Architects and Data Scientists”

Abstract
Fifty percent or more of a large enterprise’s data – especially the lifeblood online transaction processing (OLTP) data – likely reside on IBM z Systems (aka mainframe) computers.  In many organizations, mainframes remain a black box inside the “glass house” data center.  Yet the rich transactional data they contain are crucial to predictive analytics, such as fraud detection, and real-time data warehousing applications such as point-of-sale market basket analysis.

This lunch session is intended for Architects and Data Scientists who don’t have a mainframe background, but have been tasked by lines-of-business to develop new competitive insights into customers, supply chains, insurance claims, financial transactions – and/or any of a variety of other opportunities to turn an enterprise’s OLTP data into Big Data.

DB2 Gold Consultant and IBM Champion Frank Fillmore will explain:

The types of data are found on the mainframe, including:
• DB2 for z/OS (relational database)
• IMS – Information Management System (hierarchical database)
• VSAM – Virtual Storage Access Method (indexed file)

Frank will also explain the four key approaches to unlocking the data:
1. HTAP – Hybrid Transaction and Analytics Platform
2. Replication to heterogeneous data stores
3. Virtualization of heterogeneous data stores
4. ETL – Extract Transform Load

Frank will also discuss the how these approaches apply to the types of data in the context of the application requirements such as service level agreements (SLAs).

The session will be held on Thursday, March 3rd, from 11am-2pm at the Woodberry Kitchen, 2010 Clipper Mill Road, Suite 126, Baltimore, Maryland, 21211.

Registration is required.  Register HERE.

If you are unable to join us in Baltimore, Frank will deliver similar content in a webinar on Friday, March 11, 2016.  Registration for the session, to be held between 11am and noon, EST, is HERE.

Please note:  registration is required for both sessions as space is limited.  If you are a mainframe systems programmer or database administrator this is *not* the session for you (you should already know this stuff!)

One result of the IBM Global Skills Initiative is the complexity around course scheduling and registration as there are now five Global Training Partners managing these processes.

The Fillmore Group is aligned with our software distributor, Arrow ECS, for IBM Analytics training delivery.  Through our relationship with Arrow we deliver public, open enrollment IBM Analytics classes in our Towson, Maryland, classroom, as well as distance learning, remote classes, and private classes.

Finding our classes on the Arrow website can be a challenge, but there are two ways to do this.

#1   Click here for classes scheduled for the next 60 days

This link will take you to the pre-sorted courses scheduled to run at The Fillmore Group in the next 60 days.

#2   Visit the Arrow ECS website and sort courses

If you would like to review the courses delivered by The Fillmore Group in Towson as well as courses delivered by other Arrow affiliated vendors in other locations, follow these instructions:

1. Click on https://ecsedu.arrow.com/ibm/us
2. At the top of the screen hover over or pull down “Scheduled and Distance Classes”
3. Click on “Training schedules”
4. Select “United States”
5.  In the list of locations, De-select “All”, then check “Towson”
6. Select “6 months” for the time period to display
7. Answer “No” to the “Show Only Guaranteed to Run” question
8. Select “All” for topics, hardware and software
9. Click the “See” button to display the classes

You should see a list of classes scheduled displayed like this.  The schedule contains dates and hyperlinks to register for individual sessions.

I hope this helps!  If can answer any questions on locating classes or navigating through to fjnd what you need, don’t hesitate to email (kim.may@thefillmoregroup.com) or call (443-956-0288) me.

Congratulations to Frank on the selection of his 2015 Insight Conference presentation!  Frank’s presentation (session #3584 for those of you already  working on your schedules) is titled, “DB2 ^ (Netezza | BLU) = Hybrid Transaction and Analytics Processing (HTAP)”.

As soon as the Insight schedule is released I will update this post with the session date and time.  Stay tuned!

In his session Frank will describe and compare the four distinct data retrieval technologies available from IBM, including two Hybrid Transaction and Analytics Processing (HTAP) platforms. Choices are good to have, but how do you choose which technology to apply to a particular business use case? Learn how these techniques differ, including their relative strengths and weaknesses.

– The traditional RDBMS, relying primarily on indexes to speed access

– The new BLU Acceleration columnar compression and memory-optimized database

– IBM PureData System for Analytics (Netezza), which deploys racks of Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) processors to parse data

– IBM InfoSphere BigInsights, the IBM distribution of Hadoop

Bio
DB2 Gold Consultant and IBM Champion Frank C. Fillmore, Jr. is the Founder and President of The Fillmore Group, Inc., a Premier IBM Business Partner that specializes in IBM Analytics software sales, consulting, and training. Frank has been providing IBM Information Management solutions to government, industry, and not-for-profit enterprises as varied as The World Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, Northrop Grumman, and the FBI for over 28 years. Frank’s current practice centers on Hybrid Transaction and Analytic Processing (HTAP) and Oracle to DB2 migrations as well as information governance and integration. Frank kayaks and cheers for the Baltimore Orioles.

Abstract: An update on the latest IBM DB2 Analytic Accelerator (IDAA) PTF released in May, 2015. This PTF delivers new functionality to extend IDAA utilization for DB2 for z/OS users including:

• Improved Incremental Update reliability and performance
• Accelerated dynamic query statement caching
• Additional scalar function support
• In-database transformation with Accelerator Only Tables (AOTs)

Click here for the recording of the webinar.  The presentation materials: IDAA v41 PTF5 TFG

I am excited to invite IBM data management users to join DB2 Gold Consultant Frank C. Fillmore for a series of three webinars covering the latest IBM database strategies.  Each session highlights a topic critical to IBM data management customers’ knowledge of the many, sometimes competing, often confusing, options available from IBM.

The content will help data architects better understand the latest solutions available to support analytic and OLTP workloads, as well as IBM’s data strategy direction and where today’s solutions – relational databases, Netezza and Hadoop – are best applied.

Attend one webinar or join us for all three.  Each one hour session will provide a wealth of clear, useful information.  Click on the links below to register.

#1  IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator v4 PTF 5 Enhancements
Tuesday, June 9, 2015, 1pm-2pm EDT  Register here:  https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5384878354738776577
Frank will present an update on the latest IBM DB2 Analytic Accelerator (IDAA) PTF released in April, 2015. This PTF delivers new functionality to extend IDAA utilization for DB2 for z/OS users including:
– Improved Incremental Update reliability and performance
– Accelerated dynamic query statement caching
– Additional scalar function support
– In-database transformation with Accelerator Only Tables

#2 IBM Hybrid Transaction/Analytic Processing (HTAP)
Tuesday, June 20, 2015, 1pm-2pm EDT  Register here: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5118968064636087810
Learn how customers are using HTAP to eliminate analytic latency and data synchronization issues to transform and simplify information management infrastructure. For years IT customers have been told that online transaction processing (OLTP) and analytics couldn’t co-exist on the same platform. This led to costly and complex regimes to move OLTP data to a different platform for analytics. With HTAP, the barriers to near real-time analytics are removed amid significant reductions in IT expenses and complexity risk.

The concept of Hybrid Transaction/Analytic Processing was coined by Gartner. IBM implements HTAP in two ways:
– IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator (IDAA) for DB2 for z/OS data (using Netezza hardware)
– DB2 BLU Acceleration – DB2 for Linux, Unix, Windows (a software-only implementation)

#3  IBM Data Retrieval Technologies:  RDBMS, BLU, Netezza and Hadoop
Tuesday, July 21, 2015, 1pm-2pm EDT, Registration here:  https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1762449336105853441
In this session Frank will describe and compare the four distinct data retrieval technologies available from IBM.  Choices are good to have, but how do you choose which technology to apply to a particular business use case? Learn how these techniques differ, including their relative strengths and weaknesses.
– The traditional RDBMS, relying primarily on indexes to speed access
– The new BLU Acceleration columnar compression and memory-optimized database
– IBM PureData System for Analytics (Netezza), which deploys racks of Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) processors to parse data
– IBM InfoSphere BigInsights,  the IBM distribution of Hadoop

Registration for each webinar is required.  To register, click on the session registration links above.  I hope you will join us!

The Fillmore Group 2H 2015 Class Schedule

With all the challenges IBM’s move to the Global Skills Initiative (aka outsourcing education) has created for DB2 users, please remember IBM classes do still exist and are available for the patient and persistent.  Fear not!  If you need training, we are prepared to help.

After seeing public training nosedive over the past two years we are now seeing a bit of a resurgence.  Are classes really running?  Well, in all honesty, not often.  However, we are seeing a few run here and there, and when they don’t, with our relationship with Arrow ECS (one of the five Global Training Partners) intact, we are learning to “collect” students interested in training, and either gather them together for classes, or provide private training at affordable rates.

I’ve just submitted our second half of 2015 public training class schedule to Arrow (see the attachment above) and expect to see the classes posted on the IBM training site (IBM.com/training) within the next couple weeks.  I welcome anyone looking for a class – whether it’s on my schedule or not – to contact me at kim.may@thefillmoregroup.com so that I can work some coordination magic for you.

We are looking forward to continuing our relationship with IBM Global Training Partner Arrow ECS is 2015.  Our schedule is up on the IBM training website, with the specific Arrow/The Fillmore Group classes listed and available for registration at:  https://ecsedu.arrow.com/ibm/us/index.html.

If you plan on taking a class early next year, I hope you will consider attending one of our classes, delivered in Towson, Maryland, just north of Baltimore.  We have great instructors, a comfortable classroom, and Baltimore offers some the best seafood in the world.

The complete list of classes is here.  I hope to see you in 2015!

The trip to Prague, CZ last week for the International DB2 Users Group meeting was fabulous.  The city certainly has changed since I’ve been there – all for the better.  It seems more cosmopolitan, the people seem younger, more vibrant than I remember from 2004.  And the dining and music – Kim and I attended jazz and classical music concerts and enjoyed Madame Butterfly at the Prague State Opera – were amazing CutterWelderMaestro.

Here’s my pitch on “IBM Data Retrieval Technologies” if you weren’t able to attend.  IDUG EMEA 2014 E7 – IBM Data Retrieval Technologies – RDBMS BLU IBM Netezza and Hadoop

Next year IDUG EMEA will be in Dublin.  Hope you can join us for a Guinness by the River Liffey.