41-54% DB2 CPU Reduction Achieved using zIIP

Posted on January 27, 2012 by laura

In a current customer engagement we are enabling zIIP to reduce CPU consumption.  Our first overnight install has been a great success.  On the 1st mainframe LPAR (out of 4) we are seeing initial signs of 41-54% DB2 CPU reduction – this will equate to big CPU savings for the customer.

For some time now, DB2 for z/OS has been the major user and benefactor of the zIIP engine: one of a number of System z technologies collectively known as “speciality processors”.  The System z Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) is the most recent addition to the speciality engine family, and has been available since 2006. It is designed to offload specific types of data and transaction processing workloads for business intelligence, ERP and CRM, and network encryption. No changes are required to the application in order to make use of a zIIP – once it has been enabled, eligible workloads can take advantage of it immediately.

For more information in zIIP read our DB2 Geek article and watch this space for further updates on our progress!

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What to do when you’re forced to stay on out of date software

Posted on January 19, 2012 by laura

In an ideal world all organisations would be running the latest software versions and upgrading when new versions came out, in order to benefit from the latest innovations and also to ensure that software was officially supported by the vendor.

Unfortunately, as we know, this is not an ideal world.  IT teams live in the real world and know that much as they would like to be constantly on the cutting edge, this just isn’t always an option.  There are a whole host of reasons as to why an organisation may need to stay on an unsupported database version:

Budgetary issues – perhaps the cost of an upgrade cannot be justified at the present time.  IT budgets have been slashed in recent years and this has put immense pressure on organisations in deciding where to best allocate precious funds.

Time constraints – the time (and therefore budget again) which is involved in an upgrade can vary greatly and is often a real issue for smaller teams meaning that they have to stay on old software, at least for an agreed period of time until sufficient resource can be allocated.

Application issues – perhaps the application which you’re running on your “out of support” database doesn’t work on the latest version, thus forcing you to stay where you are.

The consequences of this really depend on what software we’re talking about.  In database terms it could well mean that the skills to maintain that database version are no longer, or are dwindling, within the organisation.  It could also mean that your IT infrastructure is more susceptible to issues of reliability and availability.  There could even be regulatory implications.

Using a service such as Consultancy on Demand for out of support versions of DB2 is a great “insurance policy” for your DB2 database.  Available in packages of 20, 50 or 100 hours of consultancy which can be called off as and when needed it’s highly cost effective.

You can use Consultancy on Demand hours however you like over 12 months. Perhaps you need a DB2 health check or maybe you need a readily available source of expertise for those tricky technical questions which often come up on older versions.

Find out more here.

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Customer says best feature in DB2 9.7 is Storage Optimization…

Posted on January 18, 2012 by laura

…it gave compression of up to 5 times resulting in more space savings and enhanced performance.

In 2011 we worked with one of our longest standing customers, Holiday Extras, on a migration project and helped them migrate from their DB2 9.5 environment to a virtualised environment running DB2 9.7. 

It wasn’t a case of a simple back-up and restore onto the new system because of differences in the engines of the different systems. It was necessary to recreate the entire database again for each database. This included all the tables and stored procedures and then exporting and reloading all of the data. This covered 600 tables and over 1000 stored procedures, all of which had to be moved and tested individually.

Triton provided the expertise and knowledge that Holiday Extras did not have in-house. Although they are very competent in DB2 they did not have the relevant practical experience of this type of migration. Triton also helped Holiday Extras to leverage all the available new features in DB2 9.7 to their best advantage to improve query times, scalability and reliability.

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DB2 10 Security Enhancements

Posted on January 11, 2012 by laura

As part of the Migration Month focus on DB2 10 Migration we ran an additional webcast yesterday with Julian Stuhler of Triton Consulting and Mike Bracey of IBM.  This webcast focussed on the security enhancements introduced in DB2 10.  The presentation slides can be viewed below and you can view the replay here.  Visit Migration Month to view any of the previous DB2 10 migration webcasts.

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DB2′s Got Talent – Have You?

Posted on January 11, 2012 by laura

This month our partners, DBI Software launch their second “DB2′s Got Talent” competition to find real talent within the world of DB2.  Open to DB2 users from both the LUW and z/OS camps this contest is designed to enable DB2 professionals from around the world share their knowledge and best practice.

Throughout February there will be a series of Contestant Search Shows.  During the show each contestant will be given 4 minuites to offer a DB2 “tip” or “lesson learned”.  A panel of industry judges will then critique each presentation and select 2-3 contestants to go through to the finals in March.

Last year’s contest saw a truly international group of DB2 professionals presenting on a range of topics including:

  • DB2 Load Utility
  • DB2 Concurrent I/O – Best Practices
  • DATA and the db2cat command
  • Table partitioning
  • and many more…

Prizes!

•1st Prize: One FREE IDUG Conference Registration to any IDUG Conference in 2012 (North America, Europe, or Australia) provided by IDUG, plus up to $1,500 USD travel expense allowance provided by DBI. Approximate value of prize package: $3,500 USD

•2nd Prize: One FREE DB2 Symposium Registration (3 Days) to any Event in 2012 provided by KBCE, plus up to $1,000 USD travel expense allowance

•3rd Prize: Apple iPad (approximate value $500) provided by Responsive Systems.

•Finalist Prizes: Each of the top 10 Contestants that are invited by the judges to participate in Finals Shows will win $50 Amazon.com Gift Certificates provided by Triton Consulting.

Find out more about the competition and enter here

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Enhancements to DB2 pureScale

Posted on December 13, 2011 by laura

Over the last year there have been some exciting enhancements to DB2 pureScale.  At IDUG EMEA Matt Huras, Distinguished Engineer, IBM Toronto Laboratory, gave an excellent presentation which ran through some of the key enhancements including:

  • More platform choices – as of DB2 9.8 FP2/ FP3/ FP4:
    • IBM System X servers running SUSE 10 SP3 or RedHat 5.5, including 3650 M3, 3690 X5, 3850 X
    • High-speed Interconnect network now includes 10G Ethernet (SUSE)
    • SUSE 11 SP1 – as of DB2 9.8 FP4
  • Workload consolidation
    • Multiple Active Databases as of DB2 9.8 FP3
  • Increased Availability & Performance
    • Multiple Redundant Communications Adapters. Prior to FP4, a CF could utilize at most one communication port. With FP4, each CF can now utilize up to 4 ports. This allows for:
      • Increased availability
      • Increased performance
  • More backup and recovery options
    • Split/Mirror Backup Support – as of DB2 9.8 FP4

 Find out more about DB2 pureScale

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Posted in DB2, DB2 9.8, DB2 LUW, Iqbal Goralwalla, db2 pureScale | Tagged , | Leave a comment

“DB2 9.7 is a star, customers love it!”

Posted on December 6, 2011 by laura

Says Iqbal Goralwalla, our Head of DB2 Midrange Services in a recent interview on masteringdatamanagement.com in their “Meet the IBM Champions” series.

During the interview Iqbal talked about Triton’s quantative complexity analysis of IBM DB2 9.7 Vs Oracle 11gR2.  The full study can be accessed from IBM.com .  During the course of the study we found out that DB2 had an overwhelming advantage for productivity.

To listen to the full interview visit masteringdatamangement.com

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DB2 10 – The Secrets of Scalability – Last in the Migration Month Series

Posted on December 2, 2011 by laura

Yesterday we ran the last in our DB2 10 Migration Month series.  With over 130 attendees, scalability in DB2 10 proved to be a hot topic!

You can view the presentation slides below or watch the webcast on demand.

View episode 1 – DB2 10 Overview – Get Ready to Plan your Migration

View episode 2 – DB2 10 – Justifying the Upgrade

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November Events Round-Up

Posted on November 22, 2011 by laura

November has been a really busy month for DB2 industry events so here is a quick overview:

IBM IOD. Triton Director, Julian Stuhler attended IBM’s IOD event in Las Vegas this year.  As an IBM Gold Consultant he is invited to the special “Gold only” sessions where attendees are briefed on new technologies and strategies.  IOD saw another record attendance, with an impressive array of new technologies on display.  There was lots of buzz around DB2 10 for z/OS, but the most noticeable IM trends were Big Data and Analytics, with a slew of new product announcements, customer endorsements and technology demonstrations leaving no doubt that IBM is serious about providing credible solutions in these areas.

GSE UK As always, a relatively small (compared to IOD!) but friendly and well-organised conference with a rare chance to rub shoulders with technicians from non-DB2 disciplines. The DB2 for z/OS track was well attended and lively, and there were a couple of great keynotes to get people thinking at the start of each day.  Julian Stuhler presented on DB2 10 – Temporal Data and one of our Associate Consultants, Sathyaram Sanassi, presented for the DB2 LUW track on HADR experiences.

IDUG EMEA We had a great time at IDUG this year.  Triton normally sends one or two members of the consultancy team to IDUG to enable them to get the latest certifications and technology updates.  However, this year we decided to do something different!

This year there were 3 of us representing Triton – The DB2 Geeks!  Those of you who were able to attend would have seen us around the event in our DB2 Geek tshirts. 

We ran a great competition so that attendees could test their DB2 Geek knowledge. We managed to uncover a top DB2 Geek – well done Sebastian Zok of ITGAIN Consulting who was the first person to successfully complete the quiz and he won an iPad for his trouble.

We were delighted that our very own Julian Stuhler was recognised for his outstanding contribution to the EMEA DB2 community at the IBM hosted dinner.

Some thoughts on the week from our team:

“There has been an amazing amount of discussion about DB2 10 here, with plenty of IBM presentations, user experiences and those irreplaceable “corridor conversations” that are one of the most valuable parts of being at an IDUG conference” Julian Stuhler

“Steve Rees (IBM) delivered an excellent presentation on performance monitoring in DB2 pureScale. It always amazes me how Steve can deliver so much information in such a palatable manner and in just 60 minutes!”  Iqbal Goralwalla.

View the IDUG EMEA blogs

Migration Month We have been hosting a series of DB2 10 webcasts alongside IBM.  The first two in the series took place earlier this month but you can catch them on demand here:

DB2 10 Overview – Get Ready to Plan your Migration

DB2 10 – Justifying the Upgrade

The last one will be broadcast on 1st December.  Julian Stuhler will be joined by IBM Distinguished Engineer, Jeff Josten for a webcast looking at the secrets of scalability in DB2 10.  Register here.

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Last Day at IDUG EMEA

Posted on November 18, 2011 by laura

By Iqbal Goralwalla

Last official day at IDUG EMEA 2011 in Prague. Similar to last year’s EMEA conference in Vienna, this year’s conference was great. Attendance was up from last year – a move in the right direction. Everyone I talked to seemed to have enjoyed the conference – benefiting from excellent education and networking with fellow DB2 colleagues. Congratulations and a big “Thank You” to the CPC for pulling off an excellent conference.

The best user presentation was Long distance call using pureScale – Early experiences by Frank Petersen (Bankdata) while the best overall presentation was Stuffed with Great Enhancements – DB2 9.7 Fix Pak New Features by Melanie Stopfer (IBM). Both selections were very well deserved. 

Looking forward to next year’s conference in Berlin – November 4-9, 2012. Block these dates in your diary and see you there! :-)

Iqbal, Julian & James - aka the DB2 Geeks

Iqbal, Julian & James - aka the DB2 Geeks


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Posted in DB2, DB2 Geek, IDUG EMEA 2011, Iqbal Goralwalla, db2 pureScale | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment