I’m pleased to announce The Fillmore Group’s IBM Data & AI Software Professional Services Product is live on AWS Marketplace (MP). This is a one-stop shop for: IBM Data & AI software license entitlement Fully-managed RDS for Db2 plus Db2 SaaS including Db2 pureScale (high availability OLTP) and Db2 Warehouse (MPP analytics) Platforms like Netezza ..read more

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 i ..read more

IBM hosted the inaugural TechXchange Conference in Las Vegas last week (September 11 – 15, 2023). Here’s what I liked: The Developer community was the primary focus of TechXchange. This is a significant change from the pre-pandemic IBM technical conferences – Think and World of Watson (sited variously in Las Vegas and San Francisco). Two of the TechXchange keynote presenters pointed out that there were no “suits” at the conference (in reference to both people and apparel). Artificial Intelligence (AI) was (not surprisingly) given a shout-out in almost every keynote, but I thought the most pre ..read more

Greetings after a little while. For those of you who have been working with IBM’s data virtualization technology – as I have – since the beginning (we miss you DataJoiner, Federation Server, et al), there’s yet another new name: Watson Query a service of Cloud Pak for Data (CP4D). DataJoiner began as a research project (code name: “Garlic”) led by then-IBMer Nelson Mattos. The goal was to provide heterogeneous data access via a Db2 for LUW “gateway”. Enterprises in the 1980s began deploying lots of discrete data repositories (primarily Oracle, Sybase, and MS SQL Server along with Db2) to serve ..read more

Having participated in many board meeting debates over the years about the best place to hold meetings of the Baltimore/Washington Db2 Users Group, it’s a bit sad to learn that the 2021 IDUG North America Conference is already being planned as a virtual event, with the possibility of an in-person component.  Let’s hope we can all get together sometime in 2021! In the meantime, it’s certainly worth noting that with so many people working remotely, many conferences and users groups have actually been quite successful adopting a virtual format.  Some changes resulting from the transitio ..read more

I want to thank everyone who helped make the inaugural Mid-Atlantic Db2 for z/OS Users Group virtual meeting such a great success: my colleague, Kim May, for pulling the meeting together and for filling a void of timely technical content for this topic and this region our presenters for crafting and delivering a comprehensive new way of considering IBM System z Andrew Austin, Red Hat Clark Hale, Red Hat Elton (the Wizard) de Sousa, IBM The recording of the meeting is here: https://youtu.be/Am279HW1DDY Individual presentations are as follows: Db2 VUG – OpenShift Introduction – Austin + Hal ..read more

Announcing the new Mid-Atlantic Db2 for z/OS Users Group! With COVID-19 forcing Regional Users Groups (RUGs) to transition from in-person to virtual meetings, and with the support of the International Db2 Users Group and hearing about their regional affiliates’ success with virtual meetings, Frank and I decided to give a new virtual group a try.  We look forward to supporting the Db2 community with technical content that enables our System Z colleagues to remain active and valued contributors to the use of technology within their organizations. Please join us for our first meeting! Regist ..read more

IBM Data Replication 2020: In a Nutshell IBM replication is based on two unique technical solutions: InfoSphere Change Data Capture, the heritage DataMirror product, and Q-Replication, the IBM-developed replication solution that uses MQ messaging. IBM replication supports numerous sources and targets. For heterogeneous environments, that is, where either the source or target are not Db2, IBM recommends InfoSphere Change Data Capture. For Db2 to Db2 replication, IBM recommends Q Replication. The currently available sources are targets are below. New offerings are always being added; for a curre ..read more

The IBM Request for Enhancement (RFE) system has been moved from developerWorks to the IBM Data & AI Ideas portal. Each “idea” submitted can be voted on by users who log in. The number of votes for each particular request is taken into consideration by the IBM Product Development teams when they are planning product enhancements. More votes = higher probability of getting the request fulfilled. I am reaching out to ask IBM Data & AI solutions users to vote for an existing RFE in the Ideas system, QREP-I-216. This is a replication enhancement to IBM’s Q Replication, for customers using ..read more

The proliferation of webinars and events transitioning to virtual meetings is getting hard to keep up with, and maybe some of the event fatigue is a result of an explosion of invitations.  Some events are, however, not to be missed, and one of these is the annual North America International Db2 Users Group (IDUG) conference, scheduled for next week. Due to the change from an in person to virtual format, IDUG is offering a generous premium membership to everyone who registers for the virtual conference (which is only $199!!) and will allow attendees to view all session recordings and conte ..read more