Greetings from IDUG Europe on Day 1.
This has always been my favourite conference of the year. Firstly, Europe has a great technical community in terms of sharing knowledge, information and experience. Secondly, European customers are at the forefront of adopting new Db2 for z/OS releases and exploiting new features.
This is my first major conference since I came out of retirement. I am super excited to be seeing familiar faces and friends. I have received a tremendous welcome back.
It has been a very busy and information packed day. It started with a keynote on “What Next In Computing and What It Means for Your Data and AI Strategy” by Namik Hrle and Minaz Merali. Namik brought his usual energy and passion. He talked about advances in semiconductor technology, advances in AI, breakthrough in Quantum technology, and how hybrid cloud brings it all together. Predicting that novel data representations will be at the heart of major advances bringing new business opportunities.
He then moved on to discuss core principles to tailor generation AI for the enterprise, recommending use of tailored models for individual business cases. He closed by introducing the IBM Technology Roadmap to help clients build large self-supervised neural networks.
Minaz made the case for why data should be at the centre of our clients AI strategy. Needing a solid data platform in Db2 (transactional), WatsonX.data (data lakehouse), and intelligent data fabric. Minaz then provides highlights on the latest releases of Db2, both on z/OS and LUW to illustrate that IBM continues to invest heavily in Db2.
The next big session that I very much interested in was “Db2 for z/OS Spotlight” given by Haakon Roberts and Akiko. Haakon reiterated the compelling product strategy and areas for investment: consolidate and build upon hybrid cloud database server, optimise operational efficiency, promote and modernise application development, expand business insight through in-database AI and extend existing functional strengths.
Most interestingly Haakon was very open about the next release of Db2 for z/OS. He was not specific on timeframe, but it would not be in short term. A few things really got my attention. Firstly, integration with z CyberVault. Secondly, simplifying system controls through models and profiles. Thirdly, finally dropping support for deprecated objects including simple, segmented and portioned tablespaces.
I was then invited by Broadcom to participate in a Mainframe Insights webcast session with Toine Michielse and Hunter Johnson. The subject matter was the perceived mainframe technical skills gap and what we can all do to help the situation. A very worthy topic of discussion which I enjoyed greatly.
So stay tuned for this to become available to watch and further sessions in the Mainframe Insights series. That is all for now.