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.

I was on a call this morning with an IBM technical team to discuss our progress filling the seats in one of our upcoming free IDAA classes.  Not surprising, given the number of people on the call (and who they were!) we went a bit off topic and ended up chatting about services and what appears to be – to IBM customers and sellers at least – a shortage of skilled consultants available to help with the “tions” – replication, implementations, migrations and federation.

The Fillmore Group has skilled consultants available to support these efforts, at rates that are typically about half of those being charged by “the competition”.

If your team has a project pending, or one in process, where a skilled consultant, at a reasonable hourly rate, can get things back on track, please contact me.  We are ready to work!  A list of our IBM Information Management capabilities is attached here.

IBM has scheduled a second presentation of the 2014 zEnterprise Technology Summit due to the snowstorm that hit in January when the event ran originally.  If you are in the area and have time to attend, please do!  Information on the event is below; register on the IBM site here.  There are several other events scheduled across the US in 2014 – view them on the IBM site here.

IBM zEnterprise Technology Summit Tuesday, May 6, Washington, DC

New technology is stretching IT budgets in many directions, forcing IT to find better ways of meeting business demands in increasingly complex data centers. Read More…

With IBM’s 2014 focus on Big Data solutions I want to highlight The Fillmore Group’s IBM authorized training classes coming this Spring – and invite new BigInsights and Streams customers to join us.  We have students enrolled and expect these sessions to run as scheduled.

All classes may be attended either in our classroom in Towson, Maryland, or remotely via distance learning.

Feb 26 DW652  IBM BigInsights Analytics for Programmers      2 days; $1500

Mar 17 DW723  Program for InfoSphere Streams V3 with SPL   4 days; $3000

Mar 21 DW730  Administration of InfoSphere Streams                 1 day; $750

Apr 2   DW641   BigInsights Analytics for Business Analysts        1 day; $750

If you are interested in learning more click on the course code above for the complete outline of topics to be covered and registration information.  If you have any questions on these classes or other training classes available from The Fillmore Group please contact me here.

One note:  these classes are being delivered through The Fillmore Group’s affiliation with Global Training Provider Arrow ECS; you will need to register for classes on the Arrow website.

Thanks!

To everyone joining us at IOD, I invite you to stop by Arrow ECS’s booth in the Expo, #1309, to pop a balloon and possibly win a valuable training class prize – or an iPad!  Arrow ECS is one of the four new IBM-selected Global Training Partners, and in addition to being The Fillmore Group’s software distributor, Arrow is the partner TFG has aligned with to continue to deliver IBM Authorized Information Management classes.

To qualify to win you must stop by the booth and pop a balloon.  Special prizes are in *some* balloons.  Good luck!  Let’s get IBM IM training restarted with a BANG!

This past summer IBM rolled out the Global Skills Initiative, essentially outsourcing all education marketing and delivery to four selected Global Training Partners.  IBM will continue to develop course curriculum, but everything else is now in the hands of the four Global Training Partners, or GTP’s.

The Fillmore Group has aligned with Global Training Partner Arrow ECS, our software distributor, and I am pleased to finally be able to announce that we are back in the training business.

There are still challenges.  Two of the biggest are the process of finding our classes on the IBM training site and actually registering for a class.  While I work through this process so I can update our website with accurate information, I am going to post our schedule in as many places as possible (right here for starters), and invite anyone in search of an IBM class to contact me if you need help.  Public classes, private classes, in the classroom or remote – please don’t hesitate to email me.  I want to help!

For those of you planning to attend this year’s Information on Demand (IOD) conference in Las Vegas, starting November 3rd, please join us for Frank Fillmore’s session, IPT-2150-B, “IBM Data Retrieval Technologies: RDBMS, BLU, IBM Netezza, and Hadoop“.  The session is scheduled for Tuesday, November 5th, from 1:45-2:45pm.

The session abstract is below.  In the session Frank will share his experience with IBM’s solutions to help determine which is best to meet your organization’s unique needs.

Abstract:  IBM offers four distinct data retrieval technologies: the traditional RDBMS, which primarily relies on indexes to speed access; the new BLU Acceleration columnar compression database; IBM PureData System for Analytics (IBM Netezza), which deploys racks of Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) processors to parse the data; and IBM InfoSphere BigInsights, which is the IBM distribution of Hadoop. Choices are good to have, but how do you choose which technology to apply to a particular business use case? In this session, you learn how these techniques differ, including their relative strengths and weaknesses, to help you make an informed choice.

David Pittman, Tom Deutsch, and I had a lively – think ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption” – big data discussion on a Google+ hangout Friday, May 17, 2013.  Topics ranged from governance and “schema on read” to what would be your BigData tattoo.  Spoiler: mine would be “There’s no single version of the truth”.

Catch the replay here.

IBM Champion Kim May of The Fillmore Group and Warren Heising of IBM deliver the details on “IBM Big Data Announcements – What You Should Know”.  A replay of the May 9th, 2013 webinar can be found here.  The presentation materials can be accessed MA VUG Warren Heising Big Data Announcements 5 9 13

I had the opportunity to chat with Jeff Kelly, Big Data Analyst, at Wikibon.  You can about our discussion on the Silicon Angle blog or view the interview here.