Over 180 folks attended the “45 Minutes to Understand IBM Replication – Sources & Targets, Lower Latency, Costs” webinar on April 30, 2020 hosted by my colleague @KimMayTFG and me.  Thank you for joining us – along with the excellent questions and feedback.

These are the presentation materials IBM Data Replication Update 2020-04-30

You’ll find the recording of the webinar here.

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

One of our best-attended webinars ever!  The recording of the webinar is found here.  There presentation materials for download: IBM Q Replication – Franks Field Notes Summer 16

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.

Each year IBM assembles their Client Technical Professionals (CTPs) for System z Information Management software at Silicon Valley Lab.  For the past three years IBM has invited DB2 Gold Consultants to participate.  The 4 ½ day conference is rich with lectures and hands-on labs covering such diverse topics as DB2 for z/OS tools and utilities and IMS.  I am particularly interested in:

• DB2 for z/OS v11
• IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator (IDAA) v4
• IBM InfoSphere Data Replication (IIDR) – encompassing SQL Replication, Q Replication, and Change Data Capture

During the week I’ll blog and Tweet.  I look forward to your comments and questions.

If you work with IBM InfoSphere Data Replication (IIDR), you are probably familiar with the Q Replication Dashboard.  The Dashboard is a GUI which enables you to manage and monitor your Replication and Event Publishing topologies.  For example, IBM’s direction is to move away from using asnmon to set monitoring and alert thresholds and to build this functionality into the Dashboard.

Here’s an opportunity to make a good product even better.  One of my customers had a series of requests to enhance the Dashboard:

1. Provide the ability to export/import connection and configuration settings.
2. Enable LDAP authentication.
3. Provide something other than e-mail alerts (e.g. SNMP or Tivoli Systems Management integration).

Take a moment to review the formal Request for Enhancemant (RFE).

Kim and I conducted a webinar on Thursday, October 3, 2013 that focused on IBM Data Interoperability software products and their specific strengths, weaknesses, and use cases.  We highlighted the application of the InfoSphere family of products to other-vendor databases such as Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase, and Teradata.  Kudos to Kim for putting together a presentation of disparate, but complementary technologies.

The recording of the webinar can be found here.  The presentation materials can be downloaded: Data Interoperability Presentation – FINAL 10.3.13

IBM has bundled its replication technology into a single package: IBM InfoSphere Data Replication (IIDR).  IIDR combines three components:

• SQL Replication (heritage DataPropagator- Relational)
• Easy to set up
• Staging tables
• InfoSphere Replication Server (IRS – heritage Q Replication)
• High volume, low latency
• Native Oracle and DB2 sources and targets
• WebSphere MQ transport layer
• InfoSphere Change Data Capture (ICDC – heritage DataMirror)
• Broadest set of heterogeneous sources and targets
• TCP/IP transport layer

There are a few of important take-aways.

1. IBM substituted an implementation decision for a buying decision.  For quite a while SQL Replication was bundled free with DB2 for LUW.  ICDC and IRS were separately purchasable technologies with a lot of functional overlap.  In 2010 my colleague, Kim May, delivered an IBM Information on Demand (IOD) presentation distinguishing between the three.  Now you purchase the IIDR bundle and determine which technology is best suited for a particular use case.  As with most IBM software on distributed platforms, the cost is based on Processor Value Units (PVUs).
2. New feature/functionality will be built into IIDR rather than the former heritage ICDC and IRS packaging.
3. There will be a convergence of the technologies over time.  Many of the prospective changes are still IBM Confidential, but IBM is looking to consolidate components where it makes sense to do so.  There is a long-term roadmap that I hope IBM be sharing shortly.
4. Upgrading and migration paths are a work-in-progress.  If you currently own ICDC or IRS and want to move up to IIDR, contact The Fillmore Group for pricing and implementation assistance.