Learn from Everyone’s Sessions at IDUG

Another IDUG conference is complete, and the extensive conference information from application developers, DBAs, managers, IBMers, consultants and especially user speakers was as great as usual.

The keynote, educational sessions, and presentations pointed out all the impressive DB2 z/OS, DB2 LUW, and new Spark processing technology, and how the cloud offers new processing options.  The value of IDUG is not only the conference sessions but also all the social activities, the lunch break conversations and vendor hall discussions, and conversations with longtime friends and colleagues.  Below are some of the conversations, discussions, and rumors that were are flying around the IDUG conference.

  • Since every company is trying to cut costs and pressuring their existing infrastructure.  IBM is thinking of having all the DB2 z/OS utilities run on zIIP processors to reduce the overall mainframe CPU charges for everyone.
  • There were attendees talking about their companies’ move to the cloud with varying degrees of success.  Some of these companies are starting new Cloud Cost Containment and Cloud CPU Capacity Analytic departments to reduce and manage the cloud migration costs.  It seems that the cloud is costing more than the estimates and savings that was projected aren’t materializing.  It seems the cloud costs aren’t as sunny as everyone thinks.
  • Spark is the new favored IBM Hadoop Analytics Open Source data store.  IDUG had extensive presentations and a special Spark seminar on Thursday.  If your company has started using Java, R, Python, or Scala then you might want to look at Spark, but if your interface is still mainly SQL then IBM Big Insights is still your best Hadoop database.
  • The IDAA appliance is turning into an analytics hub for all types of diverse data.  Everyone is moving more data and new types of data to their IDAA appliances.  Now that the IDAA appliance can take VSAM, IMS, and data table dumps from other databases as flat files IDAA can provide quick analytical answers regardless of the data source.
  • The new DB2 LUW Version 11 continues to get great reviews from all the DB2 Beta testers and will be released June 15 for general availability.
  • DB2 z/OS Version 12 Beta is continuing, and performance tests for the many SQL improvements look promising.  The UNION ALL and work table associated SQL performance improvements will especially help SQL using Views and other Big Data SQL queries being used for Analytics.

 

There are always hidden gems within all the presentations and catching up with others that attended the conference.  Get all the presentations from someone in your company who attended the event, or purchase them at www.idug.org.


Dave Beulke is a system strategist, application architect, and performance expert specializing in Big Data, data warehouses, and high performance internet business solutions.  He is an IBM Gold Consultant, Information Champion, President of DAMA-NCR, former President of International DB2 User Group, and frequent speaker at national and international conferences. His architectures, designs, and performance tuning techniques help organization better leverage their information assets, saving millions in processing costs.

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