IDUG EMEA So Far…

Day 1

The conference opened with motivational speaker Pete Cohen challenging the delegates to adopt a different mind-set. This included a lively session where he invited the audience to voice their stereotypes of various different nationalities. As this is an International conference this got off to a nervous start, but soon warmed up, with ribald insults being offered by all sections of the audience.

The morning included a back-to-back 2 hour session by Matt Huras from IBM on DB2 10.5 features, particularly BLU acceleration. This was invaluable information for anyone considering an upgrade to this version and, with the storage savings and performance improvements that were outlined in this session, everyone should be considering an upgrade to 10.5. In the afternoon our good friend Scott Hayes from DBI Software did sessions on Performance Tuning and Index Jump Scans. The bottom line, I think, is that he likes performance tuning and doesn’t like Index Jump Scans. In between Phillip Carrington of Holiday Extras did a very detailed presentation on converting from standard Row Compression to Adaptive, including many pitfalls that he has found through personal experience. The day finished with a very lively Triton drinks party on the roof terrace of the hotel, with some very spirited competition to win the Ultimate DB2 Geek competition.

Day 2

Tuesday began with our very own Julian Stuhler, as the middle of three presenters in the Keynote address on the Past, Present and Future of DB2 managing to illustrate his talk with quotes from Heraclitus and Ghandi and to compare (in a favourable way) DB2 to a small family car pulling a large caravan. The ‘gold dust’ presentation today (in my view) was Matthias Nicola of IBM demonstrating BLU acceleration. The information that he presented was enormously useful and the fact that he did it ‘Live’; writing ad-hoc queries and running SQL to order, made it entertaining as well as enlightening. IBMs Steve Rees and Samir Kapoor presented detailed examinations of Optim Performance Manager and detailed Access Path Analysis, respectively. Both have immediate relevance for our customers and I’ll be following up the information I’ve been given as soon as I’m back in gloomy old England. So, for the moment, good-bye from Sunny Spain and looking forward to another very full day of IDUG tomorrow.

Day 3 included a session by Melanie Stopfer of IBM on Row and Column Access Controls. It was a good examination of the nuts and bolts of the tool and she was kind enough to include a plug for my session on RCAC tomorrow morning, pointing out that we’ve checked each other’s material and there’s no duplication. She also did a session in the afternoon called Great Tips I’ve Learned about DB2, which was a whistle-stop tour through her accumulated on-site experience. It was a treasure-trove of hints, tips, advice and pitfalls and I’d recommend getting hold of the presentation to anyone involved in V10.1 support. Other than that, I’m busily trying to brush-up my 10.5 knowledge in the hope of tackling an upgrade certification in between the last session tomorrow and dashing back out to the airport. Next update once I’m airborne….

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