Keep on Learning

 DB2 for z/OS Planning Your Upgrade: Reduce Costs. Improve Performance

by Cristian Molaro and John Campbell and Sureka Parekh

• Book information on blog
• Link to an online bookstore
• Electronic version (3.36 MB) 

About the book:

Under the current economic climate, businesses are under significant pressure to control costs and increase efficiency in order to improve their bottom line. DB2 for z/OS customers around the world are still trying to gain competitive advantage by doing more with less: more business insight, more performance, more operational efficiency, more functionality, more productivity with less cost, quicker time to market and a lower TCO.

With the support for DB2 Version 8 scheduled to end in April 2012 there has never been a better time to start planning your DB2 10 upgrade - there are many more reasons to upgrade to DB2 10 and users will see significant business benefits. Here are the top 10 reasons why we feel you should start planning your upgrade.

1) Improved performance, reduced software license costs

2) Increase the number of concurrent users by a factor of ten

3) Reduce contention in database administration

4) More administrative capabilities while database is online

5) Improved security and auditing

6) Maintain “snapshots” of changing data – Temporal Data

7) Improved portability via enhanced SQL

8) Enhanced pureXML performance and usability

9) Improved productivity for database/systems administrators and application programmers

10) Better online transaction processing performance – Hash Access

 

About the authors:

Both authors are very well known, so hardly need to be introduced, but nevertheless, here are details:

 

John Campbell, an IBM Distinguished Engineer working at the IBM Silicon Valley Lab. John is one of IBM’s foremost authorities for implementing high-end database, transaction-processing applications. Over the past 12 months he has been working closely with DB2 10 Beta customers.

 

Cristian Molaro is an independent consultant based in Belgium working in Europe for customers with some of the largest DB2 for z/OS installations. He has presented papers at several international conferences and local user groups in Europe and North America.   He holds a Chemical Engineer degree and a Master in Management Sciences and is coauthor of 5 IBM Redbooks related to DB2 including the recent "DB2 10 for z/OS Performance Topics".  He was recognized by IBM as an Information Champion in 2009, 2010 and 2011.  Cristian is part of the IDUG EMEA Conference Planning Committee, where he works as the Presentations Team Leader, and he is Chairman of the DB2 LUW User Group BeLux.

Susan

 

Can you tell that I love IDUG yet?  OK, one more post and then maybe you’ll be convinced.

 

Cristian Molaro, an IBM Best Friend from Belgium (my mom’s home country :) sent me a link to a blog that he did similar to the one I posted from Beth yesterday.  Like Beth, he’s listing the sessions that he’d like to go to given his affinity to DB2 for z/OS.  Cristian’s blog entry: “A Travel Guide to IDUG DB2 Tech Conference – Anaheim 2011”. 

 

Instead of repeating any of his post, or the other posts, let me tell you a few things that I’ve learned about the IDUG conference thanks to my guest bloggers:

 

Cristian:

A link to the Conference Event Grid.

A link to the Online Conference Schedule.

 

Beth:

Budgeting tip: Did you know that if you attended an IDUG Regional Event in 2010, you can use the monies paid as a credit towards the IDUG 2011 NA conference?

 

Bryan Paulsen and Paul Turpin:

The DineAround event is very popular and spots fill up very fast!  See post (All about IDUG DB2 Tech Conference - Anaheim )for a list of restaurants, leaders, and how you can sign up.

The name of the conference has changed to the IDUG DB2 Tech Conference to help people get funding to attend the conference. 

There won’t be a bookstore on site at this event.  Instead, order the books you need directly from the publisher at a discount.  Members of IDUG get 45% off IBM Press books.

 

Rebecca:

She loves IDUG as much as I do and considers it her Geeky Vacation.

The keywords for me for this IDUG are:  pureScale, Performance Tuning, XML, Cloud, and, of course, Security.

This time, she’s looking for sessions that will help round out her resume.

When I do the math, the cost of NOT going to IDUG North America is much greater than the conference cost!

 

I hope you’ve found this set of posts helpful to you.  If you are going to IDUG, I hope you have a wonderful and educational week.

 

Susan

I ended up getting several comments after my blog entry Do you know an IBM Data Champion published.  In that entry I had specifically mentioned the authors in the group, but beyond authors of retail books, I'd like to mention some of the other ways Data Champions have been very active.

IBM Redbooks in the DB2 area:

Cristian Molaro

	1.	50 TB Data Warehouse Benchmark on IBM System z, SG24-7674-00 Redbooks, published 27 May 2009
	2.	DB2 9 for z/OS: Distributed Architecture, SG24-6952-01 Draft Redbooks, last update 14 June 2009
	3.	Enterprise Data Warehousing with DB2 9 for z/OS, SG24-7637-00 Redbooks, published 12 September 2008, Rating: (based on 1 review)

Suresh Sane

	1.	Data Integrity with DB2 for z/OS, SG24-7111-00 Redbooks, published 10 July 2006, Rating: (based on 3 reviews)
	2.	DB2 for z/OS and OS/390 : Squeezing the Most Out of Dynamic SQL, SG24-6418-00 Redbooks, published 31 May 2002, Rating: (based on 6 reviews)
	3.	DB2 9 for z/OS: Packages Revisited, SG24-7688-00 Redbooks, published 2 March 2009, last updated 2 June 2009, Rating: (based on 5 reviews)
	4.	DB2 for z/OS Stored Procedures: Through the CALL and Beyond, SG24-7083-00 Redbooks, published 29 March 2004, last updated 22 February 2006, Rating: (based on 20 reviews)

Roger Sanders

	1.	DB2 UDB Enterprise Edition V8.1: Basic Performance Tuning Guidelines, REDP-4251-00 Redpapers, published 12 June 2007, Rating: (based on 2 reviews)
	2.	Using the IBM System Storage N Series with Databases, SG24-7292-00 Redbooks, published 21 August 2007, last updated 24 August 2007, Rating: (based on 3 reviews)
	3.	DB2 UDB Exploitation of NAS Technology, SG24-6538-00 Redbooks, published 31 July 2002, Rating: (based on 1 review)

Book reviewers for DB2 content:
Again I know I'm going to miss several people who were very active in reviewing either IBM Redbooks or Retail books to ensure that they were accurate before they published.  I thank you all!  I'd like to specifically mention Fred Sobotka who was the key influencer and reviewer on the following book:
Excerpt - Copyright: "... Lead Editor: Jonathan Gennick Technical Reviewer: Fred Sobotka Editorial Board: Clay Andres, Steve Anglin, Ewan Buckingham, Tony Campbell, ..."

Fred Sobotka

I've enjoyed writing about these people and have ideas for future entries... ie, those critical for conference successes, those who contributed in areas beyond DB2, and more!  Send me ideas if you have them.

Thanks again to all current Data Champions and be sure to nominate any people who you think are strong contributors who are not recognized yet.

Susan