IDUG turns the Big D into the Big DB2

IDUG.org: 2008 North America conference wrap-up

Disclosure: Last week I attended the IDUG 2008 North America conference, not just as an IDUG member, but also as a volunteer on IDUG's conference planning committee, which started organizing the event over nine months ago. If you attended the conference, I and my fellow CPC volunteers probably played some part in your (hopefully positive) experience.

After last year's North American IDUG conference, which somehow managed to be both sprawling and cramped at the same time, it was a relief to find a bunch of Texas-sized rooms situated relatively close together this year. Most of the sessions had fifteen minute breaks scheduled between them, which allowed for a good deal of casual networking given the short distance between most rooms.

As expected, Arvind Krishna's Monday morning keynote provided a detailed state of the union of IBM's holy trinity (DB2, Informix, and IMS). Here are some of the happy numbers I remember:

• DB2 on System z powers 9 of the world's top 10 insurance companies, 23 of the top 25 retailers in the US, and every single one of the top 59 banks in the world.


• Just one IMS customer (presumably one of the bigger ones) handles as much as three trillion dollars in transactions in a single day.


• IMS databases handle transactions for 95% of Fortune 1000 companies


• The sum total of all live data managed right now in IMS is estimated to be over 15 exabytes, or 15 billion gigabytes, served up on over 3 million MIPS of mainframe hardware.

You get the idea. DB2 and IMS are big, they're definitely not going away, but IBM keeps working to improve them anyway. Some of those statistics were repeats from previous DB2 conference keynotes, but I believe they're still worth mentioning. One thing that was all new, though, was Arvind's introduction of IBM's newly-acquired SolidDB product as a memory-resident cache that front-ends DB2. As an old UNIFACE Seven developer from the 1990s, I had mostly good experiences working with older versions of Solid, and I can only imagine it must be even better these days.

Curt Cotner's half of the May 19th keynote focused squarely on IBM Data Studio, which appears to be IBM's sincere attempt to atone for Control Center and a rogue's gallery of other infamous DB2 tools. By building Data Studio on top of the Eclipse integrated development environment (which IBM gave to the open source community a few years ago), DB2 admins and developers have a much more solid foundation for building a decent DBA toolkit. I've been working with it for a little while, and it generally does what I want. If you haven't pulled Data Studio down for yourself yet, I recommend you give it a try.

After four days of solid presentations from DB2 users, I was ready to hear some of the folks from the Toronto Lab share what they could about IBM's DB2 product strategy and drop some hints about the next release (whenever that will be). Tim Vincent from IBM spoke for an hour and a half on best practices for DB2 LUW, and ended with a link to a collection of detailed documents that you will want to check out.

Held immediately after Tim's session on best practices, the LUW panel was as informative as ever, with Chris Eaton serving as emcee/quizmaster. Even when the inevitable long, rambling questions started rolling in from the audience, Chris handled them as well as anyone in that position could. The panelists confirmed the rumors that some future version of DB2 LUW will allow a migrated database to be enabled for automatic storage, which will be a big help to all those DBAs sitting on databases that were rolled in from DB2 V8.1 or older. There was also mention of finally disabling some of Express-C's forbidden features, but judging from the questions IBM was asking the audience, it was hardly a done deal. If such a lock ever materializes, it may just be a voluntary switch that a DBA can flip at will.

Attendance was down a bit from last year's IDUG conference in San Jose (which attracted lots of Bay Area IBMers with single-day passes), but there were plenty of favorable comments coming in from this year's crowd, who came all the way to Dallas just to get their DB2 on. Being a CPC volunteer kept me pretty busy at times, but I was still able to enjoy much of the conference. We ate barbecue, played poker, and some of us really got to know a decent local beer. We renewed our certifications, mocked the robotic livestock, and did whatever we could to get out of line dancing. We didn't know if we'd ever find ourselves in Dallas again, so we did what we could to have a good time while we were there.

Last chance to submit your DB2 presentation abstracts to IDUG

IDUG website: IDUG 2008 North America - Call for Presentations

Labor Day weekend brings many things, and for me, one of those things is the yearly reminder to submit my IDUG presentation abstracts before the rapidly approaching deadline. If you've been waiting until the last minute to write and submit an abstract to IDUG for their 2008 conference, well here it is: The deadline for submitting an abstract for a DB2 or IMS technical session is Tuesday, September 4, 2007, so this weekend is your last chance.

They're not looking for a lot of detail in your abstract, just a paragraph overview and five bullet points, but you still don't want to be scrambling to submit it at the last minute, because the IDUG committee members have built a trapdoor contraption that quickly and mercilessly swallows up scruffy, hastily-written abstracts. Take some time to polish it just right, and it may be one of the 120+ sessions that are accepted for next year's conference in Dallas, and that would mean you don't have to pay the registration fee to attend IDUG 2008 North America.

Good luck!

Compress your way to a free IDUG conference registration

IDUG website: DB2 9 Deep Compression Challenge

If the idea of submitting a presentation abstract intimidates you, you now have one more way to try out for a free registration to one of next year's IDUG conferences.

This is something I've been waiting to write about since it was briefly announced during the IDUG 2007 conference in San Jose. IBM and IDUG are teaming up to raffle off four registration passes to next year's IDUG conferences. All you need to do to enter the drawing is provide a brief description of the space savings you've achieved with DB2's deep compression feature. Here's where it gets good: not only do you not need to realize the best compression ratio to win, you don't even need to be running DB2. If you're not running a version of DB2 9 with deep compression enabled, you can run your data through IBM's free Database Storage Analyzer and it will provide a very accurate estimate of the savings you'd get with deep compression.

You have until October 1, 2007 to pull it together. Like I said, if you do end up pulling off an amazing feat of compression, your chances of winning the raffle are the same, but you will get an attaboy at this fall's IOD conference.

Superb, high-density photo courtesy of Gerald Oh

Three days left to respond to IDUG's call for volunteers

IDUG website: Become an IDUG Volunteer

If, for whatever reason, attending an IDUG conference has motivated you to find out more about helping them as a volunteer for 2007-2008, here's your chance. As mentioned in the Call For Volunteers breakfast at IDUG's recent conference in San Jose, IDUG has posted a Word/OpenOffice application form on the IDUG website.

The impending deadline of June 4, 2007 means it's now put up or shut up time. All those ideas you've had on how to improve the yearly conference have a much better chance of being realized if you become a part of the NACPC or one of the other IDUG committees.

Good luck!

...and thanks to Tim Parkinson for the nifty photo.

Last chance to submit your IDUG attendee survey and win prizes

Surveyz.com: IDUG 2007 North America attendee evaluation

If you attended IDUG 2007 in San Jose, you have until the end of Friday, May 25th, to complete an online survey which will not only help IDUG leadership improve the conference, but will also put you in the running for a free conference registration for IDUG 2008 (a US$2000 value). There's really no easier way to get a chance at a free conference reg, so I hope you'll take a moment out of your Friday lunch break to offer your opinion to IDUG.

IDUG... but you may want to as well

Takeaways from IDUG NA 2007

Yeah, I know...IDUG wrapped up its 2007 conference a while ago, but I took a bit of a vacation afterward, so I'm just starting to dig myself out of the pile of notes, business cards, and action items that I maneuvered my self into back in San Jose. I'm sharing my observations so those of you who didn't attend the conference can get a feel for what goes on there. Even if you did attend, IDUG is kind of a big conference, with a lot going on at the same time, so maybe I saw a few things that you missed.

The numbers
IDUG staffers with SmithBucklin estimate this year's conference turnout at around 1500 attendees, which beats last year's numbers and this year's initial projections. Surprisingly, quite a few attendees simply showed up the first day and paid full rip at the registration booth, rather than booking just a few weeks in advance and saving several hundred dollars. If those folks waited until the last minute to register, they probably paid top dollar for their airfare and lodging as well. I'm a bit puzzled by that tactic, but perhaps it's because I don't work for a big, indecisive company.

The surprisingly good keynote
After fidgeting my way through much of the pitch-heavy keynote at Monday's kickoff session, I didn't have very high expectations for Wednesday's keynote from Jeff Jonas, a guy I'd never met, whose company made some sort of fraud-detecting software that IBM acquired over two years ago. I couldn't have been more wrong. First and foremost, Jeff was genuinely funny, which made the 90 minutes fly by. His slides were illustrated primarily with monochromatic squiggles that one would assume were drawn by a hyperactive first-grader or perhaps a clever parrot, until he explains that he does his own illustrations mostly during long flights and without the aid of a mouse (as if using a mouse would even help). Despite having a title of Chief Scientist, Jeff was surprisingly humble when he talked about the events that shaped his career, such as the stint where he lived out of his car before forming SRD, and the executives he actively recruited to replace him as CEO and chairman of his own company. Even when Jeff got down to brass tacks about his company's software, it was still thoroughly interesting. He covered a lot of ground in his talk, rarely spending more than a minute per slide, in a bit of a rush to catch a mid-morning flight out of San Jose. Many of my colleagues either couldn't or didn't drag themselves to this early morning session, but I'm glad I did, because it was very well done and a refreshingly unique presentation for IDUG.

An afternoon at Nerdvana
The other highlight that day was a late afternoon reception at SVL, which will soon be comemmorating its 30th anniversary as the world's first large-scale software development lab. Conference attendees who caught the IDUG bus to SVL could mingle amongst themselves, talk to DB2 developers from the Toronto Lab, or follow SVL's big-brained Martians on a guided tour through much of the facility. Among other things, the tour revealed that IBM routinely videotapes users (with permission, of course) in order to improve software usability, and that the average software developer at SVL has a private office with a door (what a good idea). We also saw countless zSeries mainframes, and over a third of a petabyte of high-end storage. It may not be the Googleplex, but our sunny afternoon at SVL was the best off-site reception of the six IDUG conferences I've attended.

Emerging details of Viper II
Just when you thought IBM had unveiled all of their database tricks last year when DB2 9 came out, IBMers from the Toronto Lab are already making careful proclamations about the enhancements in the release they're calling Viper II (which is far less confusing than its original codename of Python). I attended some of those IDUG sessions, as well as the closed beta kickoff for Viper II back in March, and I can safely say that IBM is not content to sit and coast after releasing DB2 9. Viper II contains an impressive mix of enhanced features along with entirely new functionality that aims to profoundly change the way DBAs work with DB2. Unfortunately, I am a bit intimidated by the dense stream of legalese preceding those Viper II slides, so I won't be going into detail about what was discussed in those sessions. The good news is that if you attended the conference (or work with someone who did), you can read all about it on the conference DVD. That way, you get the information straight from the source, and I don't get banned from future DB2 beta briefings, which are typically held in Toronto in the dead of winter.

Little DB2 and Big DB2
For various reasons, many mainframe DB2 shops out there are dipping their toes (or being thrown screaming) into DB2 for LUW, and quite a few of them don't like what they see. That can be evidenced by IDUG sessions that are geared to help perplexed mainframe DBAs navigate the alien world of UNIX, and also by the types of questions and complaints that a few mainframe DBAs raised during open discussions with a panel of DB2 LUW developers from the Toronto Lab. One rather vocal mainframe DBA gave DB2 LUW the snarky nickname of "little DB2" and made a habit of saying it in front of the panelists. To dismiss this person as yet another cranky mainframe bigot would be easy, but unfair. He had legitimate issues with DB2 LUW and suffered significantly more from those problems than he ever did on the mainframe. He also touched on the culture clash between old-guard mainframe administrators (JCL-wielding beardos in suspenders) and UNIX admins (Slashdot-worshipping reboot monkeys). The stories from the mainframers in the room made it loud and clear that in many large corporations, mainframes and LUW systems are butting up against each other like tectonic plates, with similar consequences. It's also happening faster than either mainframers or IBM are ready to handle. Imagine being a mainframe DBA who must migrate a DB2 z/OS application over to an DB2 on AIX, only to find that after decades of co-existing, there are still fundamental discrepancies between their SQL instruction sets. I see similar frustration on the other side, with UNIX DBAs who are sincerely interested in learning more about the mainframe, but are unable to find decent transitional guides that offer a basic introduction to mainframe concepts or zSeries architecture. Rather than being annoyed by the mainframe bellyaching in a DB2 LUW session, I was encouraged when I recognized it as an instance of the two tribes coming together, and the improved software and documentation that will hopefully come from it.

This is actually just a minor portion of what I took away from IDUG, so if you're not sure if IDUG is worth attending, I hope you'll realize just how much valuable material is packed into just a few days each year.

Obligatory IDUG 2007 conference writeup

Dispatches from the IDUG conference

As my new blog buddies on PlanetDB2 can attest, it
is a real challenge to diligently write about a conference while it's still underway. My theory is that there's a problem with one of the beverages being served at the conference (or at the hotel bar) that suddenly makes the person who drank it very sleepy and, consequently, unable to post updates to his blog. Unfortunately, with so many types of beverages implicated at this event, it's difficult to pinpoint the exact one, so it may take a significant amount of collaborative testing to isolate the root cause. Despite this issue, a flaky hotel thermostat presented me with the opportunity to wake up in the middle of the night and post this update as I wait for the technician to arrive.

Monday, May 7th was the first full day of the conference, kicked off by a series of announcements preceding the keynote speech.

• IDUG has a new logo. Readers are encouraged to post comments to this blog to list all the other logos the new one resembles.


• This year's sessions will not only be audiotaped, but also synchronized with each presenter's slides. Surprisingly, that coordination will not require any special software on presenters' PCs, posing what must be an interesting challenge for the recording company.


• The next IDUG North America conference will be held in Dallas from May 18-22, 2008.

With the IDUG formalities out of the way, it was time for the much-awaited keynote from retired IBM Fellows Don Haderle and Pat Selinger. I was a bit disappointed to see these two remarkable computer scientists being so underutilized on stage, relegated to serving as emcees for various IBM executives who were pitching the types of PowerPoint decks we've all seen far too often. Pat and Don are both undisputed legends in the world of modern databases, so it would have been much more appropriate in my opinion for them to share some of the war stories that led to their breakthrough discoveries. There were some good bits in their talks, but those bits were scattered amongst too much marketing fodder to justify pulling Haderle and Selinger out of retirement.

As with every IDUG keynote, the happy numbers fly by, but I managed to catch a few worth remembering and repeating (as I do ever year):

• 4800 new DB2/IMS/Informix customers in 2006


• 180 new business partners in the data management arena


• 500 organizations exploiting pureXML in DB2 9


• 9 of the nation's top ten insurance firms use DB2


• 23 of the top 25 retail corporations use DB2


• 10 years without an unplanned outage on DB2 servers running at TD Bank


• 23 terabytes of data stored in DB2 for the Land Registry, the world's largest OLTP database

As we left the keynote, IDUG staffers were handing out the new IDUG logo, which was embossed onto brown circles that were either very nice leather drink coasters or the worst jerky ever.

There are plenty more IDUG nuggets worth mentioning, and I hope to post them soon.

IDUG NA 2007 sessions available in various calendar formats

The deadline has passed for various discounts for IDUG 2007 North America in San Jose, so you're either registered already, or working harder than ever to justify the trip to a PHB. In either case, I've put together a calendar of the conference's 182 technical sessions to help you decide how to spend each day. There are 14 separate discussion threads/tracks, so rather than lump them all together into an unreadable stew, they are grouped by thread, allowing you to focus on just the areas that are relevant to you.

Now for the caveats. There are no rooms listed for the sessions, since that information can change anywhere from six weeks to six minutes before the presentation is scheduled to start. I did not put in links to the details of the sessions, nor did I specify whether a session was for z/OS or LUW, which can be a bit of a problem for threads that cover multiple platforms. Although the information was supplied by one of my IDUG friends, it is subject to change without notice.

If you find this helpful and you have not registered yet, please list me, your humble blog buddy Fred Sobotka, as a referrer on your IDUG conference registration form.

Thread A DB2 Technology Fundamentals
Thread B DB2 for z/OS
Thread C DB2 for z/OS Cutting Edge
Thread D DB2 for LUW
Thread E DB2 for LUW Cutting Edge
Thread F Application Development I
Thread G Application Development II
Thread H Emerging Database Technologies I
Thread I Emerging Database Technologies II
Thread J Technical Product Presentations
Thread K Informix for DBAs
Thread L Informix for Application Developers
Thread M The Informix Edge
Thread N Going Further with Informix

A Valentine's sampler of IDUG updates

• The advance schedule for the upcoming IDUG North America conference in May is now online, but at least some of the details in that schedule are bound to change over the next three months.


• The early bird discount of $345 off the 2007 conference fee will be offered until March 23, 2007.


• RUG members are eligible for an additional discount.


• This raffle for a free conference registration may still be active. Couldn't hurt to try it out once.


• If this is the first IDUG conference you've attended since 2003, while you're registering, please tell them that I, Fred Sobotka, (your humble blog buddy) am the one who sent you.

In other IDUG news, the latest Solutions Journal is in the mail as well as online. Even though Martin Hubel and his talented team put together yet another fine issue, I would not recommend giving it in lieu of a Valentine's Day card.