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.

Having participated in many board meeting debates over the years about the best place to hold meetings of the Baltimore/Washington Db2 Users Group, it’s a bit sad to learn that the 2021 IDUG North America Conference is already being planned as a virtual event, with the possibility of an in-person component.  Let’s hope we can all get together sometime in 2021!

In the meantime, it’s certainly worth noting that with so many people working remotely, many conferences and users groups have actually been quite successful adopting a virtual format.  Some changes resulting from the transition from in-person to virtual events are welcome improvements.  One of these is the more flexible session scheduling IDUG is offering.  I think it’s great, as one-size-fits-all is difficult to accommodate with technical topics.

To the many people I’ve spoken to who have said they have a topic but aren’t sure they have enough (or maybe have too much) material, IDUG 2021 may be a great option as, new this year, IDUG is offering three different presentation timeslots—30, 60, and 120 minutes. You can choose what length works best for you. You can also opt out of the live session and instead pre-record your presentation. To help inspire you, here are some of the most popular session categories:

New Db2 releases: migrating and effective usage
Analytics & Business Intelligence
New technologies: mobile applications, cloud, XaaS, etc.
Application development and data modelling
Db2 and packaged applications (ERP, etc.)
Performance, availability, & security
User experiences and best practices: what did you achieve with Db2?
Db2 and non-standard data types (JSON, etc.)

This is your chance to share your technical expertise and connect with the global community of Db2 users. If you’ve never presented at an IDUG event, this is a great opportunity. First-time speakers are always welcome, as is material geared toward beginner, intermediate, or advanced users.

To submit an abstract, visit IDUG at:  https://www.idug.org/p/cm/ld/fid=2495

I hope to “see” you at IDUG 2021!

I want to thank everyone who helped make the inaugural Mid-Atlantic Db2 for z/OS Users Group virtual meeting such a great success:

• my colleague, Kim May, for pulling the meeting together and for filling a void of timely technical content for this topic and this region
• our presenters for crafting and delivering a comprehensive new way of considering IBM System z
  • Andrew Austin, Red Hat
  • Clark Hale, Red Hat
  • Elton (the Wizard) de Sousa, IBM

The recording of the meeting is here: https://youtu.be/Am279HW1DDY

Individual presentations are as follows:

Db2 VUG – OpenShift Introduction – Austin + Hale

Db2 VUG – OpenShift on IBM z – de Sousa

Db2 VUG – Mainframe Modernization Field Notes – Fillmore

Please share this content with your colleagues.

Announcing the new Mid-Atlantic Db2 for z/OS Users Group!

With COVID-19 forcing Regional Users Groups (RUGs) to transition from in-person to virtual meetings, and with the support of the International Db2 Users Group and hearing about their regional affiliates’ success with virtual meetings, Frank and I decided to give a new virtual group a try.  We look forward to supporting the Db2 community with technical content that enables our System Z colleagues to remain active and valued contributors to the use of technology within their organizations.

Please join us for our first meeting! Register here.

September 17, 2020, from 10:00am-2:00pm EDT, will be the first virtual meeting of the System Z-focused Mid-Atlantic Db2 Users Group. The new group hopes to bring interesting, educational, and current technical presenters and sessions to mainframe users located in the Mid-Atlantic region. With a virtual format the meeting location, venue, commute time and lunch selection challenges disappear, so everyone from everywhere is welcome!

For this first meeting we will have three technical presentations and one brief interactive, bring-your-own-ideas session. The three technical sessions all focus on IBM’s efforts to use tools and technologies to support mainframe modernization. No, this is not another session on a magic code converter; these are proven tools and technologies available today that speed deployments and leverage the mainframe’s powerful resources to drive better and faster data access and new application development.

Presentations will be delivered by IBM’s Elton de Souza, Clark Hale and Andrew Austin of Red Hat, and Frank Fillmore of The Fillmore Group. The agenda, abstracts and speaker bio’s are below.

Agenda: Thursday, September 17, 2020

10:00 – 10:10 Welcome and Introductions
10:10 – 11:15 Containers, Cloud Paks, OpenShift – What Mainframers Should Know
11:15 – 11:20 Break
11:20 – 11:35 The New Replication Monitoring Tool Interactive Session – BYOI (Bring Your Own Ideas)
11:35 – 12:40 Red Hat OpenShift on System Z
12:40 – 12:45 Break
12:45 – 01:50 Mainframe Modernization – Field Notes
01:50 – 02:00 Q&A and Wrap Up

Sessions
Containers, Cloud Paks, OpenShift – What Mainframers Should Know, Elton de Souza, IBM
In this presentation IBM Chief Architect and Wizard Elton de Souza will cover the value proposition of OpenShift on IBM Z from a technical and business standpoint. Elton will also cover integration points between OpenShift and zOS services and data sources.

Red Hat OpenShift, Clark Hale & Andrew Austin, Red Hat
Red Hat OpenShift is the industry’s most secure and comprehensive enterprise-grade container platform. This presentation will explain what OpenShift is, what value it can provide to your organization, and a brief demo of its operation. Special focus will be given to the System Z release of OpenShift.

Mainframe Modernization – Field Notes, Frank Fillmore, The Fillmore Group
Frank recently served as the System Z specialist for a mainframe modernization project led by a team from Red Hat. The goal was to develop a modernization template to be shared with other mainframe customers to accelerate the effort by incorporating the best tools and technologies available today. The customer struggles with a familiar list of challenges: legacy applications developed over decades, data in VSAM and Db2, and incomplete data, the result of a recent merger. Several approach and solution options were explored. Join Frank while he discusses how IBM’s acquisition of Red Hat is transforming how mainframe modernization is being approached – and realized.

Speaker Bio’s

Elton de Souza, IBM
Elton de Souza is the Chief Architect for Cloud Native Client Success focusing on IBM Z and LinuxONE. Since OpenShift GA’d on IBM Z in Feb 2020, Elton has helped several clients across various sectors and geographies implement RHOCP on IBM Z and LinuxONE. He’s spent almost his entire career on IBM Z starting from the Java compiler for Linux and zOS to working on Open Source Solutions (MongoDB, node.js, Spark, Docker, Kubernetes, etc.) to IBM Cloud Private and now Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Z.

Clark Hale, Red Hat
Clark Hale is a Senior Consulting Architect at Red Hat. With a focus on OpenShift and “cloud native” technologies, he specializes in assisting companies adopt modern technology and development practices. Before joining Red Hat, he was a multi-language developer (COBOL, C, Java) at Lowes Companies and an OpenSource Advocate at SUN Microsystems.

Andrew Austin, Red Hat
Andrew Austin is a Senior Architect with Red Hat Consulting’s Cloud Infrastructure Practice. His focus is on delivering solutions based on Red Hat OpenShift on the IBM Z platform as well as distributed systems.

Frank Fillmore, The Fillmore Group
Frank is founder and president of The Fillmore Group, an IBM Business Partner specializing in IBM database solution sales and services. Frank is an IBM System Z Gold Consultant and IBM Champion, as well as an IBM authorized instructor and frequent presenter at users group meetings and conferences. Frank leads a team of expert consultants delivering IBM solution implementation and enablement support services.

IBM Data Replication 2020: In a Nutshell

IBM replication is based on two unique technical solutions: InfoSphere Change Data Capture, the heritage DataMirror product, and Q-Replication, the IBM-developed replication solution that uses MQ messaging.

IBM replication supports numerous sources and targets. For heterogeneous environments, that is, where either the source or target are not Db2, IBM recommends InfoSphere Change Data Capture. For Db2 to Db2 replication, IBM recommends Q Replication.

The currently available sources are targets are below. New offerings are always being added; for a current list visit the IBM replication homepage.

New offering highlight: Mainframe replication for Db2 for z and VSAM featuring “Remote Capture”, with the replication engine installed off the mainframe. The new solution delivers easier installation and administration as well as lower MIPs consumption to support replication from System z.

Coming soon: Refreshed monitoring tools built on Watson Knowledge Catalog, enabling expanded governance and integration with replication monitoring.

Implementation support, healthchecks and education:  Contact The Fillmore Group. We have several Quickstart offerings and have been delivering the IBM replication education offerings for decades.

Replication Sources: Db2 (LUW, Z/OS, iSeries), Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, VSAM, IMS, Informix, Sybase, MySQL.

Replication Targets: All above RDBMSs plus Teradata, Kafka, Hadoop, Files, Information Server (DataStage/QualityStage), Cloudant, AWS RedShift, S3, Azure SQL DB, JDBC targets (MongoDb, etc.), IBM IAS/ Db2WH/Db2WHoC, Netezza/Cloud Pak 4 Data System, and more.

Remote Capture Quickstart

Postgres Capture Quickstart

Kafka Replication Quickstart

The IBM Request for Enhancement (RFE) system has been moved from developerWorks to the IBM Data & AI Ideas portal.

Each “idea” submitted can be voted on by users who log in. The number of votes for each particular request is taken into consideration by the IBM Product Development teams when they are planning product enhancements. More votes = higher probability of getting the request fulfilled.

I am reaching out to ask IBM Data & AI solutions users to vote for an existing RFE in the Ideas system, QREP-I-216. This is a replication enhancement to IBM’s Q Replication, for customers using the Oracle QApply.

The Oracle QApply was developed several years ago when IBM was planning to merge Q Replication and InfoSphere Change Data Capture. It enabled customers to replicate from Db2 for z/OS to Oracle without adding a layer of federation (the old method of applying changes to heterogeneous databases).

The user requesting the request has had Q Replication with QApply in production for several years and is asking to have replication monitoring improved.

If you haven’t logged on the Ideas portal, it’s easy, and the homepage gives you access to the enhancement requests as well as each solution roadmap.

For this particular RFE, log in here and click on the button on the left side of the screen to vote.

Thanks for voting!!

https://ibm-data-and-ai.ideas.aha.io/ideas/QREP-I-216

The proliferation of webinars and events transitioning to virtual meetings is getting hard to keep up with, and maybe some of the event fatigue is a result of an explosion of invitations.  Some events are, however, not to be missed, and one of these is the annual North America International Db2 Users Group (IDUG) conference, scheduled for next week.

Due to the change from an in person to virtual format, IDUG is offering a generous premium membership to everyone who registers for the virtual conference (which is only $199!!) and will allow attendees to view all session recordings and content.

Imagine attending a conference where you can attend ALL sessions, and not spend hours trying to figure out how minimize schedule conflicts and get from one end of the conference center to the other (and get something to drink and hit the restroom) in 10 minutes.  Pretty sweet!

If you haven’t registered yet, consider it.  The session information and keynotes are on the IDUG homepage (www.idug.org), along with the registration link.  Also, if you’ve read this far – I understand IBM still has some remaining vouchers available so customers can attend (as a guest of IBM)…call your IBM rep if you’re interested!

From the webpage:

The event will include 60+ dynamic sessions, live Q&A with industry experts and leaders, opportunities for engagement with your favorite vendors and each other, and most importantly, cutting-edge technical education streaming straight to your home or office. Your registration also includes a complimentary premium membership so you can access exclusive IDUG content all year long.

I can’t say I’m too disappointed to be taking a break from conference travel and post conference exhaustion, and it’s refreshing to see the creative changes facilitated by the mass transition to virtual events. Given that the primary goal of these events, whether in person or virtual, is to share technical announcements and updates, it seems either format can be successful.  And of course, each has its pros and cons.

When this is all over, however, I look forward to reconnecting – in person – with friends and colleagues to share technical updates.  Along with dinner and drinks!!

With a virtual “Cheers!” to everyone, here is a list of current and upcoming Db2 events:

1. Going on NOW – Enterprise Data & AI on IBM Z Virtual Symposium, May 19, 20, 21
This complimentary virtual event will explain how to use IBM Z data for modern engagement, analytics and AI applications to become truly insights-driven. Please note: you must register to access copies of all replays.

Register here: http://ibm.biz/BdqvcX

2. July – IDUG Virtual Db2 Tech Conference, July 20, 21, and 23
This three-day event will be followed by three additional weeks of IDUG conference content, making this the perfect way to access the cutting-edge sessions of an IDUG event directly from your home or office.

Conference registration also comes with complimentary, year-long premium membership to IDUG, enabling full access to IDUG exclusive articles, blogs, presentations, and forums.

Cost: $199
Register here: https://www.idug.org/e/in/eid=109

3. August – SHARE Boston, dates TBD
In an effort to continue to provide education, networking and influence, SHARE Boston will now be a virtual event. SHARE is looking to deliver opportunities to learn and network with peers in this new format. Stay tuned to the SHARE website for updates.

More information: https://event.share.org/

4. Db2 LUW Virtual Users Group – July, date TBD
IBM’s Db2 LUW coordinator extraordinaire Kay Groski is working to schedule speakers and topics so the groups she started in 2018 (including the Mid-Atlantic group I attend) can extend their reach by going virtual – at least for a while. As details are confirmed I will share more here.

Over 180 folks attended the “45 Minutes to Understand IBM Replication – Sources & Targets, Lower Latency, Costs” webinar on April 30, 2020 hosted by my colleague @KimMayTFG and me.  Thank you for joining us – along with the excellent questions and feedback.

These are the presentation materials IBM Data Replication Update 2020-04-30

You’ll find the recording of the webinar here.

This Thursday, April 30th, join Frank Fillmore for a fast, information-packed webinar, loaded with IBM replication solution information for both non-IBM and IBM replication customers.  Come join us and learn!  Details and the registration link are in the post below.