The International DB2 User Group (IDUG) conference started yesterday with the full day educational seminars. This morning’s keynote session highlighted the new DB2 10 for LUW, DB2 10 for z/OS and all their great features.
There are always informative sessions, numerous networking opportunities and interesting information exchanges going on at the conference. Coming in from the airport, a group of DB2ers shared a cab and discussed all the latest DB2 10 for z/OS migration considerations. DB2 10 for z/OS is already having great success in many shop’s production environments, but there are always a couple of issues within any new release of software.
The best DB2 10 for z/OS migration advice is still to be as up to date as possible with your maintenance, test your applications with production workloads, test all your unique application production scenarios and test the new features in you development environment first. The time to test is in your DB2 10 for z/OS development environment. No new DB2 10 for z/OS feature should be tried for the first time in production. Seems simple, but it is often missed. Develop a checklist of all the new DB2 10 for z/OS migration features and functions that everyone wants to leverage and make sure the testing in the development environment exercises your application’s unique application and software configurations. Check out the IBM Informational APARS that are on my DB2 Information page that continue to be a great resource along with the DB2 10 for z/OS migration checklists.
Also, verify and exercise the DB2 system migration backup processes, including DB2 fallback to either DB2 version 8 or version 9 and then forward to DB2 10 for z/OS. Exercising your DB2 10 for z/OS migration fallback/roll forward scenarios is vital because you don’t want to be forced into doing this for the first time in your production environment.
Lastly, make sure to verify that the application developers’ testing was completed and done thoroughly and correctly. Even if they claim they’ve tested it, capture all the results of the DB2 10 for z/OS migration application development tests along with your DBA Installation Verification Program (IVP) tests. Your DBAs will still be the one that have to exercise that fallback scenario when the application developer testing proves inadequate and exposes a production problem.
I will continue providing my TWITTER comments during the IDUG conference and will try to provide info about conference activities, presentations, vendors and IBM announcements. Sign up and follow me on TWITTER at (@DBeulke).
Also email me and let me know what you would like to say to the IBM DB2 10 z/OS and DB2 10 for LUW management and IBM developers. I am always running into them and talking with them and would love to have your input for my discussion.
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See you at my session!
Make sure to stop by my session E09 – Java DB2 Developer Performance Best Practices Thursday, May 17, 2012 8:30 AM – 09:30. The conference will be held in Denver, Colorado on May 14-18, 2012. Sign up today at www.idug.org.
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Dave Beulke is an internationally recognized DB2 consultant, DB2 training and DB2 education instructor. Dave helps his clients improve their strategic direction, dramatically improve DB2 performance and reduce their CPU demand, saving millions in their systems, databases and application areas within their mainframe, UNIX and Windows environments.
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