Many thanks to IBM’s Dwaine Snow and to everyone who took time out of their busy schedule to join us yesterday for the IDAA Lunch and Learn.  Dwaine gave a terrific overview of the technology behing the IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator, aka the IDAA, and Frank followed with The Fillmore Group’s special offer:  a free 2-day, hands-on IDAA class for any customers interested in working through the IDAA Workload Assessment.  The Workload Assessment tool is designed to identify any/all queries that will run faster on the IDAA – and reports how much faster! 

If you weren’t able to join us but are interested in the Workload Assessment, please contact me. 

And again, thank you Dwaine!!!

IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator (IDAA) powered by Netezza Lunch and Learn

If you are in the Baltimore/Washington area and interested in learning more about the IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerations – the IDAA – please join Netezza evangelist Dwaine Snow and DB2 Gold Consultant Frank Fillmore for lunch to learn about the new solution from IBM that merges System z with Netezza. The IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator creates an environment for operational data store, data warehouse and analytic marts on the same platform as operational systems, such as IMS™, CICS®, Java™, the Web and more.

Learn how you can use the IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator to:
• Enable decision-makers to perform high-performance business analysis for better results
• Substantially reduce operational costs by removing the need for complex query tuning
• Drive immediate value to the bottom line by rapidly adding new applications and user requirements
• Extend the qualities of service in security and availability of System z, enabling business intelligence to deliver business changing analytics and reduce complexity by extending System z manageability

*** Session attendees may qualify to attend a free 2-day hands-on IDAA training session at The Fillmore Group’s Towson, MD office in July. ***

Date: Wednesday, June 27th 2012
Time: 10:30 am – 1:00 pm
Location: Sheraton Columbia Town Center Hotel – Merriweather Room
   10207 Wincopin Circle – Columbia, Maryland 21044
Agenda:
10:30 – 11:30 IDAA Overview – Dwaine Snow
11:30 – 12:00  IDAA Enablement – Best Practices – Frank Fillmore
12:00 – 1:00 Lunch, Q&A, Open Discussion, raffle for Baltimore Orioles tickets (8/14 vs. Boston)  

Register here: http://tinyurl.com/tfgidaa 

Presenters:
Dwaine Snow
Dwaine is a Data Warehouse and OLTP Competitive Analyst and has worked for IBM for the past 21 years.   Prior to supporting Netezza, Dwaine was one of the senior product managers responsible for new releases of DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows.  Dwaine has written books, articles and tutorials, and has presented at numerous IDUG and RUG conferences. In addition to promoting Netezza and IDAA Dwaine is hoping to start writing his first Netezza book soon.

Frank Fillmore
DB2 Gold Consultant and IBM Champion Frank C. Fillmore is the Founder and President of The Fillmore Group, a Premier Business Partner specializing in Information Management software sales, consulting, and training. He has been providing IBM Information Management services for 25 years.  This past summer Frank worked with Sears to enable near real-time OLTP data loads to Netezza, and Frank recently coordinated hands-on IDAA training.

Use TFG Services to Close Q2 Deals

*Update*  Thanks to the IBM sellers who attended yesterday’s webinar.  The slide deck is attached – I hope it helps with your Q2 sales!

I am delivering a webcast Thursday, June 14th, targeted to IBM Information Management software sellers who may benefit from using The Fillmore Group’s services to help close software sales deals by the end of June – a big day for IBM sellers (it’s the end of the first half of their business year).  I am excited to do this as The Fillmore Group has historically taken a holistic view of the software acquisition process.  We recognize that more needs to happen AFTER customers purchase Information Management software than BEFORE.

And while figuring out the budget and how much an organization has available to spend on the software itself is important, it’s the follow-on services that make or break an implementation – consulting to help install the software and integrate it with existing systems, and training to ensure an organization’s DBA team is prepared to support it long-term. 

We offer these services and are proud of the consistently fine work performed by our consultants and trainers. 

If you sell IBM software and would like to attend the webinar, I am keeping it short and sweet (30 minutes start to finish).  Register here.

Or, if you are an IBM customer, or thinking about becoming an IBM customer, and are interested in top qualify services from a Premier Business Partner, please contact me here.

If you are in the Baltimore/Washington area tomorrow afternoon, please stop by the BW DB2 Users Group Meeting at the Columbia Sheraton to hear Robert Catterall present on:

“DB2 for z/OS Stored Procedures – Trends and Technology” and 

“The MOST VALUABLE Information I Get From DB2 for z/OS Monitor Accounting and Statistics Reports”

Robert is a terrific speaker (and a great consultant, too!)  For the meeting address and logistics visit the BWDB2UG website at www.BWDB2UG.org

Author Derrick Harris plumbs Michael Stonebraker on the future of traditional relational databases (spoiler alert: Stonebraker says there isn’t one) and the scalability problems faced by web startups that listen to the siren song of open-source freeware like MySQL.

http://gigaom.com/cloud/facebook-trapped-in-mysql-fate-worse-than-death/

I saw IBM’s 100th birthday celebration made CNN’s homepage today.  It’s quite a compliment to the people, past and present, who  made IBM successful, and enabled the company to thrive consistently.  IBM has contributed so much great technology to our world over the years. 

As the daughter of a career IBM salesman, Russ May, my family moved around as I was growing up (in the 60’s and 70’s IBM stood for, “I’ve Been Moved”) and finally settled in Baltimore.  At the age of 23 I was working across the street from my dad’s office at 100 E Pratt when I was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer and given three months to live.  The doctors at Johns Hopkins recommended I try, as a last ditch effort, a chemotherapy regimen, and I agreed.  I was scheduled to recieve treatments each morning, Monday through Friday, one week a month.

Read More…

The Mid-Atlantic IBM Information Management technical support team has announced the date and location of the first Washington Area DB2 Users Group.  This group is being coordinated by IBM’s Warren Heising and Prem Rangwani to provide education and networking to local Information Management users.  Please contact Warren Heising at IBM if you would like to attend (heising@us.ibm.com).  Details below.

Read More…

Registration for Melanie Stopfer’s DB2 Connect Virtual Users Group meeting, scheduled for this coming Thursday, May 19th at 12:00pm EDT, is available now.  Please click here to join us.

IBM’s Melanie Stopfer has volunteered to present at the next DB2 Connect VUG session.  Melanie’s presentation is titled, “Help Me, Help You, Remote DRDA Connections to DB2 z/OS“.    The session abstract and objectives are below, along with Melanie’s bio.  I hope you will join us!

Abstract:
Do you want to better understand and tune your remote DRDA connections to DB2 z/OS? Are you looking for tips to make your life easier?  Melanie will present analogies and insider advice to help improve performance, availability, reliability, and usability. The goal is to provide you with an arsenal of tips you can use in various remote DRDA distributed to DB2 z/OS situations.  Come learn new DB2 Connect and JDBC Universal Driver tips and tricks that you need to know.

Read More…

Many thanks to Frank Fillmore for delivering the DB2 Advanced Enterprise Server Edition – aka AESE – presentation on Wednesday.  We had over 70 people join us for the presentation and appreciate the positive feedback.   The link to the presentation file is here; if you have any questions on AESE or the presentation content please feel free to contact me at kim.may@thefillmoregroup.com.

One final note:  Frank is tracking down answers to the questions posed in the Q&A at the end of the session.  Look for them here – soon!