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…

IBM just published a new Redbook titled Understanding and Using Q Replication for High Availability Solutions on the IBM z/OS Platform.  Two of my fave Silicon Valley Lab replication developer/experts – Cecile Madsen and Jayanti Mahapatra – are co-authors.

Customer expectations in 2014 are that they can conduct business with a variety of financial, retail, and other enterprises 24x7x365.  Even with the availability characteristics of the System z platform in general and DB2 for z/OS in particular, planned and unplanned outages will occur. 

The Redbook focuses on IBM InfoSphere Data Replication (IIDR) Q Replication as the undergirding HA technology.  It details two-node and three-node active-active replication topologies.  I suspect much of the basis for the document is the massive deployment of Q Replication at a large commercial bank in Brazil.

Here’s the “teaser” for IBM’s Big Data Announcement, “Big Data at the Speed of Business” scheduled for 11am today.  Watch the teaser and don’t miss the webcast!

Frank and I were invited to the IBM Almaden Research Center, where the magic really happens for IBM’s data solutions, for the Big Data announcements yesterday.  We had the opportunity to meet with a group of super-sharp analysts and members of the IBM technical leadership teams for the BLU Acceleration, Big Data and Hadoop appliance announcements. 

Most fun for me, though, was getting to spend some time with Crysta Anderson, the IBM Social Media Strategist for Information Management.  Crysta, along with Susan Visser, coordinated the efforts of (or perhaps more accurately, herded) literally hundreds of DB2 community members, including DB2 Gold Consultants, analysts, and Information Champions, to get us to tweet, blog and spread the word to the IT community about IBM’s incredible advancements.  The fingers were flying during yesterday’s announcements!

I am back in Baltimore today planning some upcoming events to make sure we share what we learned…and I’m sure Crysta is exhausted.  And thrilled, I hope – congratulations on a successful launch!

Given that so many IBM customers make their initial software purchases in the fourth quarter of the calendar year (when the IBM pricing gets really aggressive), the number of DB2 customers whose annual software license subscription and support is due each December is higher than in any other month of the year.  For this reason we’ve decided to deliver another webinar on the DB2 Advanced Enterprise Server Edition (AESE) bundle in hopes of persuading renewing DB2 customers to consider the upgrade.  AESE has provided substantial value to every upgrading customer we’ve worked with, and enabled their IT organization to better monitor, utilize, and extend the use of their database. 

Frank Fillmore will deliver the webinar on Monday, November 19th from 11am – 12pm EST.  Register HERE.

The invitation, in case you didn’t receive one directly from me (!) –

If your organization’s DB2 license Subscription and Support is scheduled to renew in December, now is the time to learn about the DB2 Advanced Enterprise Server Edition (AESE) product bundle and how you can finesse the upgrade JUST BEFORE paying IBM the annual Subscription and Support fee to make it VERY affordable. Read More…

We have over 100 Q Replication users registered to attend the upcoming Virtual Users Group session, scheduled for August 9th (see the post below).  The Fillmore Group, as an IBM Authorized Training Partner, delivers the IBM public training class for Q Rep, when it runs, which is hardly EVER!  

Great products deserve great support.  I am happy we can help Q Rep users gain better skills.

If you would like to join us the registration link is in the post below.

Join us for the FIRST meeting of the Q Replication Virtual Users Group. 

Date: Thursday, August 9, 2012
Time: 12 pm – 1 pm EDT

Register HERE.

Beyond High Availability – Using Q Replication for Migration Support

What can Q Replication do that goes beyond delivering high availability? How about replicating data to support database migrations, or even platform migrations? Join us for this session showcasing a successful Oracle to DB2 migration as an example. In this session you will learn how a world-wide Top 50 financial institution migrated data from Oracle to DB2 with a minimal application outage using InfoSphere Replication Server’s heterogeneous replication (Q Replication) from Oracle to DB2.

Presenter: Frank Fillmore

DB2 Gold Consultant and IBM Champion Frank C. Fillmore, Jr. is the Founder and President of The Fillmore Group, Inc., specializing in Information Management software sales, consulting, and training. He 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, USGA, National Institutes of Health, and the FBI for 25 years.

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In this popular, and therefore repeat presentation, DB2 Gold Consultant and IBM Champion Frank C. Fillmore, Jr., will explain the functionality and value delivered by each of the features in the AESE bundle.  Using customer examples gathered from the AESE upgrade presentation delivered earlier this year, Frank will analyze the benefits of moving to AESE for each customer and explain how they made their decision.  Finally Frank will explain how to determine the upgrade path for your organization and what you can do immediately to get an accurate estimate of the cost and best time to move to AESE.    

To register, click here.

IBM introduced the DB2 Advanced Enterprise Server Edtion (AESE) in late 2010, bundling Optim tools, compression and replication for high availability and disaster recovery in with the features in DB2 Enterprise Server Edition.  Current DB2 customers are offered several upgrade options, making AESE an affordable, comprehensive database solution and an alternative to going a la carte.  

In this presentation DB2 Gold Consultant and IBM Champion Frank C. Fillmore, Jr., will explain what each of the features included in the AESE bundle is and what functionality they deliver.  Using customer examples, Frank will analyze the benefits of moving to AESE for each organization and how they evaluated the options and reached a decision.  Finally Frank will explain how to determine the upgrade path for your organization and what you can do immediately to get an accurate estimate of the cost and best time to move to AESE.    For details on the presentation click, “Read More”. 

April 5th, 12:00pm – 1:00pm EDT.    Register here.

Read More…