Please join us for a webinar Thursday, April 30th, on IBM replication:

45 Minutes to Understand IBM Replication – Sources & Targets, Lower Latency, Costs  

The webinar is intended for technical teams currently not using IBM replication solutions, although the webinar content will provide an excellent overview of IBM’s current offerings – an excellent refresher and update for IBM replication customers.  Hey, it’s a webinar – anyone can attend!!

Abstract:  Technical organizations rely on replication to deliver accurate data when its needed. IBM replication supports an extensive list of sources and targets – including legacy mainframe data repositories – as well as best of breed deployment models and specialty replication solutions.

If your organization is considering a new replication deployment or looking to replace your existing replication to extend functionality – or reduce cost – please join IBM Gold Consultant Frank C. Fillmore, Jr., for a webinar overview of IBM’s replication offerings.

The webinar will cover:

1. The sources and targets supported by IBM replication.
2. Each solution available today, and their costs.
3. Latency, deployment and administrative considerations.

Date:          Thursday, 4/30/2020

Time:          11:00am – 12:00pm EDT

Register HERE 

Presenter:  Frank Fillmore

Frank C. Fillmore, Jr. is the Founder and President of The Fillmore Group, Inc., an IBM Business Partner specializing in replication solutions in the IBM Data and Analytics portfolio. Frank has been a Db2 Gold Consultant since 1998 and is currently an IBM Champion for both Analytics and System z. Frank frequently presents on cutting-edge topics at regional and international user group meetings and is an IBM authorized instructor for delivery of replication courses including Q Replication, ICDC and pureScale.  Frank leads a team of expert consultants delivering presales, implementation and enablement support to IBM replication customers.

Want to learn more about the Gold Consultants?  Visit the IBM Gold webpage HERE.

Thank you to the IBM Technical Team, Kay Groski and Warren Heising, for coordinating this terrific agenda and group of excellent speakers for the Mid-Atlantic Spring Db2 LUW Users Group Meeting!

The is no cost to attend (again thanks Kay and Warren).

Registration is required.  Register here.

Date:                            Tuesday, May 7, 2019
Time:                            9:00am – 2:30pm
Location:                      IBM Bethesda, Room 02-2A304, 6710 Rockledge Drive, Bethesda, MD  20817

Agenda:
09:00-10:30    SESSION 1:  Futures (vNext coming soon!) presented by Jon Lind
10:30-10:45     BREAK
10:45-12:00     SESSION 2: IBM Streams presented by Roger Rea
12:00-12:45     Networking Lunch
12:45-2:00       SESSION 3:  Demystifying the Db2 Logger presented by Dale McInnis
2:00-2:15         BREAK
2:15-2:30         IDUG Overview

Thanks to my colleagues, Kim May and Ed Lynch, for a terrific IBM InfoSphere Data Replication (IIDR) new features webinar delivered today.  The recording of the webinar is found here.    These are the presentation materials: Data Replication Update 2019-02-07 – Final

Join replication experts Frank Fillmore and Ed Lynch for this information-packed webinar with news and announcements about IBM’s replication solutions. Whether you are a current IBM replication user, investigating replication for a new deployment, or working with a competitor’s solution, this webinar will help you understand what IBM offers today, and the enhancements that will help you succeed with replication in 2019.

At a sprint!

In forty-five minutes Ed and Frank will deliver an overview of IBM’s current offerings, the four most important 2019 enhancement announcements, and 3 special pricing offers that can help your organization realize significant savings. We know you want your data to be available when you need it and where you need it, and fast. We can help.

Registration is required. Please register HERE.

Date: Thursday, 2/7/19

Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm EST

Presenters:

Frank Fillmore is the Founder and President of The Fillmore Group, Inc., an IBM Business Partner specializing in replication solutions in the IBM Analytics portfolio. Frank has been a Db2 Gold Consultant since 1998 and is currently an IBM Champion for both Analytics and System z. Frank frequently presents on cutting-edge topics at regional and international Db2 Users Group meetings and is an IBM authorized instructor for delivery of replication courses including Q Replication, ICDC and pureScale. Frank leads a team of expert consultants delivering presales, implementation and enablement support to IBM customers. Frank is currently supporting a pureScale implementation for a US Federal agency.

Ed Lynch was with IBM for over 25 years as a leader and innovator in Data Analytics and Information Integration.  Leveraging his balanced and diversified knowledge of data and Information Technology with business needs and capabilities, Ed consistently recommends and delivers best of breed technical solutions. A trusted advisor to his customers and colleagues, Ed’s cross-industry knowledge enables him to be an effective go-to resource, particularly for difficult and complex challenges, and his success in many diverse roles at IBM, including development, technical team management, marketing and sales, showcase his flexibility. Ed is currently supporting a complex replication implementation for a large, US-based financial institution.

With 2018 coming to a close I am focused on plans for 2019.  Our current plans are being driven by changes in IBM’s services delivery model and product enhancements to be available in 2019.  Change can be good!

In 2018 IBM’s Lab Services organization opted to extend their use of Business Partners to support customer engagements.  Lab Services has long maintained relationships with skilled partners to augment their staff consultants; in 2018 this utilization was increased.  The Fillmore Group staffed several Lab Services engagements and supplied half a dozen consultants to support a variety of engagements including implementations, migrations, healthchecks, and staff augmentation, supporting replication solutions InfoSphere Change Data Capture, pureScale, Kafka, and Q Replication, as well as Db2 and Hadoop.

In staffing these engagements we became aware of several interesting customer situations and opportunities we hope will deliver better results to our customers in 2019.  Through a chance conversation with a Federal agency looking to identify the best replication tools for their next generation applications, we learned about some enhancements to the replication portfolio solutions expected to be delivered in 2019.

To support our IBM colleagues in spreading the word about the upcoming enhancements, and to (no surprise!) encourage customers to contact us if they are in need of support, the 2019 schedule of events below was drafted.

Some of these “events” consist primarily of outreach to customers who may be interested.  If these apply to you, feel free to contact me for more information.

Here’s to a busy 2019!

1. CDC Healthcheck Services. Delivery through Lab Services. a. Audience: current CDC customers considering new replication environments and/or looking to better support current replication. b. Tasks/activities: a review of current replication environments, staff enablement, monitoring review, performance tuning and/or planning new replication environments. c. Deliverables: Healthcheck report, enablement recommendations, plan for new replication sources and targets.

2. IBM Replication Roadmap Webinar. a. Audience: current and prospective replication customers. b. Content: a review of current and new replication offerings. c. Deliverables: recommendations/actions needed to initiate CDC purchases.

3. Kafka Webinar. a. Audience: current and prospective customers looking to replication to Kafka. b. Content: a review of Kafka, use cases, and where Kafka is best deployed. c. Deliverables: recommendations/actions to initiate Kafka deployment.

4. Replication Whitepaper. a. Audience: current and prospective customers. b. Content: TBD – replication competitive options, pricing, and/or Db2 for z data focus. c. Deliverable: whitepaper explaining IBM replication options compared with competitor solutions.

5. Kafka Quickstart Services. Delivery through Lab Services. a. Audience: customers implementing replication to Kafka. b. Tasks/activities: Kafka installation, replication set-up, and staff enablement. c. Deliverables: data replicating to Kafka.

6. Kafka Training – Extending KM020G ICDC Class a. Audience: new Kafka customers. b. Tasks/activities: instructor-led modules to demonstrate and explain Kafka implementation and administration. c. Deliverables: 2-days of formal classroom instruction with hands-on exercises.

7. IAS to IAS Replication Quickstart Services. Delivery through Lab Services a. Audience: customers implementing IAS to IAS replication. b. Tasks/activities: Software installation, replication set-up, and staff enablement. c. Deliverables: IAS replication, monitoring in place.

8. Competitive Replication Webinar. a. Audience: Oracle GG and Attunity customers. b. Content: a review of the advantages of IBM replication solutions. c. Deliverables/action items: action plan to PoC IBM replication offerings.

On Monday, October 1, 2018 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. EDT IBM will stream Day 1 of the IBM Gold Consultants briefing “Live from the Lab” from the IBM Toronto software development lab.  This is free and open to everyone.

Topics include:

1. Db2 for LUW v11.1.4.4
2. Db2 Event Store
3. IBM Integrated Analytics System (IIAS) – Db2 Warehouse appliance
4. Db2 on Cloud
5. Db2 Virtualization
6. Db2 Tools
7. Open source DB (MongoDB and PostgreSQL)

Here is the link to register

The Call for Speakers for the 2019 IDUG North America Conference, scheduled for Charlotte, NC, from June 2 – 6, 2019, is open.  For Db2 users this is an excellent opportunity to share your experience with your peers.  IDUG has a well documented presentation submission format and process, detailed on the IDUG North America webpage.

You may submit an unlimited number of abstracts.  However, it is important that you provide all of the information requested when submitting your presentation(s) for review. Failure to provide all requested information may impact whether or not the abstract is accepted.

One last note:  given the timing, don’t forget to reach out to your local Db2 RUG and offer to deliver your presentation at one of their meetings prior to the conference.  It’s a great opportunity to do a practice run, and also allow your local peers – some of whom may not be attending the conference – to appreciate your work.

From the IDUG webpage:

“IDUG is soliciting presentation abstracts that explore into details of implementation, migrating to a new release, or maximizing performance from any member of the DB2 product family. In recognition of the complex requirements of today’s database implementations, presentation abstracts relating to migration from Oracle to DB2, upgrading within versions of DB2, and new hardware implementations are also being requested. Presentations may cover details of DB2 tools, Big Data and other ancillary DB2 products.

All presentations must be strongly technical in nature, cannot contain marketing themes, and must support and strengthen the information services community by providing the highest quality education and services designed to promote the effective utilization of the DB2 and its family of products.”

The Fillmore Group 1H 2018 Class Schedule

As an IBM Business Partner that truly believes that proper training is one of the most critical factors influencing the successful deployment and use of technology, we here at The Fillmore Group continue to evaluate the IBM Analytics courses available and to select those we feel will potentially help IBM Analytics customers succeed.  And, of course, as we believe affordable technical services are another of those critical factors influencing success, we are happy to customize classes and include them along with a fully scoped implementation or healthcheck effort.

One highlight and two classes NOT posted on the IBM website.  First, the highlight.  We’ve been told that pureScale is finally being adopted by Db2 LUW customers.  This is great news as it is great technology, featuring one of the best System z features (Parallel Sysplex) re-imagined for distributed environments.  Unfortunately, the course curriculum was written for the original version of pureScale, v10.5, and hasn’t been updated to reflect the enhancements in v11.  Nor does the course include hands-on exercises.  We have a solution:  Frank Fillmore recently delivered the class to a group of students implementing v11 and updated the materials and built hands-on exercises.

Second, two classes NOT posted on the IBM website but available in the first half of 2018:  hands-on IBM Integrated Analytics System (IIAS), the just-released upgrade to the IBM Db2 Analytics Accelerator (IDAA) and QMF for Multi-Platforms.  We are working on curriculum for both of these classes and hope to have them scheduled for sometime early in the year – we are targeting February for the IIAS class and March for QMF.  If you are interested in either class please let me know.

Sirius/XM already has the Holly channel playing Christmas music and Halloween was just a couple weeks ago. It’s way too early!  But…the clock IS ticking and there really are only 4 solid weeks left in 2017 to close some of those, “I’ll get to them later” deals.

This Thursday The Fillmore Group will deliver a webinar for IBM sellers willing to consider collaborating with a Business Partner.  We understand many sellers have heard about – or experienced – unsuccessful teaming with a partner.  Join us to overcome your fears!

In this session we will *try* to explain that not all partners are alike, and some (like The Fillmore Group) can help you close deals by extending your reach and helping with challenging technical situations (which product is the “right” one?), arcane licensing and packaging research, and using an implementation discussion to address a customer’s concerns about the cost of services and education (yes Oracle takeout opportunities, I’m talking about you!)

IBM program challenges that impact Business Partners will also be explained, so that IBM sellers understand why partners get so antsy about keeping the lines of communication wide open – and getting added to sales records.

All in 30 fast minutes.

If you are an IBM seller who would love to close an extra deal or two before year end, please join us.  If you aren’t an IBM seller, please join us for another webinar; this one is just for sellers.

The session will take place on Thursday, November 16th from 11:00am – 11:30am EST.  Register HERE.