As much as I dislike the relentless repetition that’s part of the nature of the world of blogs and twitter and listserves and email blasts, here I go with a shameless pitch for a TFG special services offering I emailed to several DB2 users earlier today.  I am doing this because, at the end of the day, the rate disparity in today’s DB2 services market baffles me.  Are the ridiculously high rates being charged eroding product adoption?  I am afraid so, which is why we are offering a summer services special. 

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I once got in trouble with a woman I was dating because I bought her an “appliance” for Christmas.  It was a combination VCR/DVD player (this was a while ago) and she liked movies.  Go figure.  I’ve also gotten in trouble with my wife for *not* buying an appliance - in this case a new, energy efficient clothes dryer; she pays the electric bills.  So you would think that I would steer clear of appliances.  You would be wrong.

Database “appliances” are integrated packages of software including operating system, database software (e.g. DB2), and other useful features.  Sometimes these appliances are pre-configured and optimized on hardware servers as well.  Some prominent examples are IBM’s Smart Analytics System (ISAS) and Oracle’s Exadata.  ISAS is the follow-on to IBM’s Balanced Configuration Unit (BCU) which clearly needed a new, better name.  ISAS combines InfoSphere Warehouse with IBM server hardware and a back-end storage system that provide a complete out-of-the-box solution.  The systems are “balanced” in terms of configured machine resources (i.e. CPU, memory, SAN) based on projected data volumes so you don’t have to spend weeks trying to figure all of that out.  That job has been done for you.  You can begin achieving ROI shortly after powering on the unit.

Appliances don’t always include hardware, however.  Some flavors of ISAS are VMWare images that can be deployed on existing hardware.  This benefits organizations which have established hardware standards in their enterprises and don’t want to deviate.

Want to get started with an appliance (and not get in trouble with your “significant other”)?  Check out this link on Channel DB2.  Anil Mahadev has put together Dubuntu, an all-in-one VMWare image DB2 appliance built on the open source Linux operating system Ubuntu.  It’s all *free*.  This is not a trial.  Using open source application development tools and DB2 Express-C, Anil has put together quite a cool package.

You can download Dubuntu at http://www.idug.org/anil-dubuntu/dubuntu-appliance.html from the IDUG website.  This is perfect for small - even one-person - development shops that can’t invest in expensive up-front software licensing.  If you are a DB2 for z/OS specialist and want to expand your skills to the distributed platforms, here’s a terrific tool.

With apologies to Cole Porter: “Do do that Dubuntu that you do so well.”

I was finally able to confirm all the speakers for the LUW track at the December meeting and - wow! - here’s the lineup summary:  Curt Cotner and Paul Westfall from IBM, and the BWDB2UG board’s own Steve Rosenberger from FEPOC doing a user case study on their archiving implementation.  If you are in the area on Wednesday, December 9th, PLEASE join us - it should be great…the z/OS track includes Rick Weaver from BMC and Roger Miller.  Great presenters and great networking.  Hope to see you!  The full agenda is included after the jump and all the registration and PayPal access is through our (new) website at: www.bwdb2ug.org.

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I am back from IOD in Las Vegas.  It was a great conference, but clearly priced beyond the budget of many Information Management software users.  For those of you in the Mid-Atlantic area, here’s another option that will give you a better understanding of IBM’s Information Agenda and where it can benefit your organization.  If nothing else, it will help you understand the products subgroups -Optim-InfoSphere-Filenet-Cognos-Data Servers.

The session is titled, “Unlocking the Business Value of Information“, and will be held Tuesday, November 17th at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel in DC.  It’s *free* but you must register on the IBM site here.    Hope I will see you.