IBM’s flagship enterprise relational database Db2 has just been added to AWS Relational Database Service (RDS). Db2 joins commercial vendor relational database implementations Oracle and MS SQL Server along with open source databases MySQL, MariaDB, and PostreSQL as a fully-managed AWS offering.

Why this matters:

• Deployment I’m currently working with a large commercial vehicle manufacturer. Over two weeks ago I requested that a small Db2 database be deployed for query optimization. The clock is still ticking and the database still isn’t available. With RDS Db2 can be deployed and configured in minutes.
• Horizontal scaling Many of The Fillmore Group’s clients across several different industries have significant variability of demand – days of the week, times of the month, and seasonal variations. For large retailers purchasing ramps up in the summer, staffing in the early fall, sales in late fall and early winter, and returns in January. Managing on-prem capacity in such an environment usually means expensive compute and memory is underutilized for several months in the spring and summer. RDS provides on-demand scale up and scale down.
• Vertical scaling A large industrial client provisioned Db2 to store sensor data that will be analyzed for anomalies. Within six months one such database was at 85 Tb and continues to grow. Capacity growth is both predictable and linear, but even metronomically adding compute, memory, and storage is both budget and labor intensive.

Two more things to consider:

1. IBM invented the relational database. A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks was published by Edgar F. Codd, IBM Research, in 1970 in the Communications of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). Trillions of dollars of value has been realized by organizations which have deployed IBM Db2 or other relational database variants since they became available in the 1980s.
2. Many enterprises have successfully migrated workloads from other-vendor relational database implementations. Here’s just one example: SmarterQuestions White Paper – Oracle to DB2 Migration Lessons Learned – Final

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.

Congratulations and many thanks to the IBM Data and AI Expert Labs team for their willingness to collaborate with the IBM Gold Consultants.

Frank Fillmore and I met in February with Ritika Gunnar, who had just been appointed the new VP leading the IBM Data and AI Expert Labs team.  Frank explained that he is an IBM Gold Consultant and we discussed our frustrations with the IBM’s low utilization of skilled contract talent like the Golds, and Ritika said she would do some research and try to help.

Frank was selected as a Gold Consultant in 1998 and considers it one of (if not THE) highest achievement of his career.  There are approximately 40 Gold Consultants worldwide, all of whom are independent consultants.   Each was selected by IBM and their Gold Consultant peers to participate in the program.  Information on the Golds and their skills is on the IBM website Gold Consultant page.

After our meeting with Ritika we soon met Business Partner Liaison Karla Rooney, who initiated a series of calls to discuss pipeline, pending needs and utilization.  Karla introduced services sellers, Resource Deployment Managers and other colleagues in the Data and AI Expert Labs organization.  Through these discussions we were able to introduce the unique experiences of the Gold Consultants and identify a few pending engagements where the Golds skills were needed – and the momentum began to build.

In August a group of Gold Consultants delivered a webinar to hundreds of Db2 for z/OS customers planning migrations to V12.  Or, to be more exact, Db2 customers NOT at V12.  The migration to V12 has been hyped as the last major migration planned for Db2 for z/OS, not because the database is going away, but due to the continuous delivery model.  However, customers need to get to V12 to take advantage of continuous delivery, and unfortunately many have not begun the work.  The IBM teams overseeing System z are concerned there will be a last minute rush to migrate to V12 and not enough consultants available to help.

Enter the Golds, who delivered an excellent webinar on the V12, and who have been asked to support migration efforts contracted with IBM’s Data and AI Expert Labs.  The webinar was recorded and is available here.

The net of all this is:  thanks to Karla and Ritika and their teams, customers are now able to access the best independent Db2 talent on the planet through Data and AI Expert Labs.  I hope your organization – and everyone in the Db2 community – has the opportunity to benefit from the value of this collaboration.

Thanks Karla and Ritika!!