This month I wish to give a quick review and roundup of the Central Canada Db2 Users Group (CCDUG) meeting 2025. It was held in a brand-new location this year, at the IBM Toronto development labs – We were all wondering if it could be anywhere near as good as the “old” BMO Institute for Learning. Spoiler alert: it was!
Who are those two reprobates sat there??? 🙂
Tracks Tracks Tracks plus a New Day!
This year, the CCDUG had a free bonus “first” day dedicated to IMS: “Intro to IMS Day”. This was a deep dive into everything HDAM’my, PSB’y and DBD’y in the world of the one true hierarchical database!
Back to Normal?
The keynote, from Greg Lotko, started, and I must admit I was impressed! I go to so many conferences, IDUGs and Seminars etc. that keynotes tend to let me down… Not this time: It was an interesting, engaging and, quite frankly, the best keynote I have seen!
Now Back to Normal!
The two-day conference was split into four separate tracks:
- Db2 for z/OS (I spent most of my time here, of course!)
- Db2 LUW
- IMS
- AppDev which was cross-platform and database!
Here’s a link to the presentation grid download page overview where you can check out abstracts etc.
The actual presentations are also available here, so you can grab copies for your good selves,
The Conference
There were a few last-minute grid changes due to cancelled flights etc. So, what you see on the grid is not actually 100% what was presented, but it was really just swapping presentations and or presenters! I apologize now if I have missed anyone out that thinks they should be included but even I make mistakes these days!!!
Personal Faves
ZOS-01 Db2 13 for z/OS Latest Features with Mark and Tori rattling through all the new and cool stuff in Db213. I really like Mark Rader, Tori Felt and Anna McKee – They have a great synergy together and know a ton of stuff. So, anything presented by them is simply a must have!
ZOS-02 Universal Tablespace update as of V13 with David Simpson was very good indeed including tips and tricks about finally getting to an all-UTS world which is important in ZOS-06!
ZOS-04 Audit your Db2 for z/OS – Isn‘t she aDORAble!! by yours truly, Roy Boxwell: A breathtaking run through the world of legal double-speak and corporate hell. Voted by one attendee as the scariest thing he has seen is his life and by another as simply “the horror, the horror”…
ZOS-05 Db2 for z/OS Health Check Topics with Mark and Tori, this time going through the results of the IBM 360-degree health checks that they do at customer sites and reporting on common problems that they repeatedly find.
ZOS-06 The Db2 for z/OS Catalog and Directory The Past, Present, and Future. John Lyle talking about the Db2 Catalog and Directory including the fact that migration to Db2 Vnext will *not* be possible if you have any non-UTS tablespaces (ignore LOB and XML of course!). I asked about DEFINE NO and he confirmed that a DEFINE NO non UTS will stop the migration. I then opened an Aha Idea as I think this could cause grief in a lot of sites… Please go to Aha Ideas and vote!
DB24ZOS-I-1752 Support REORG for DEFINE NO
I have heard, in various IBM presentations (Haakon at IDUG Valencia, John Lyle at CCDUG) talk about Db2 Vnext, the statement “no migration to Vnext if you have 6 byte RBA/LRSN or non-UTS tablespaces”. This if fine unless you happen to have old DEFINE NO objects. You cannot REORG these to action the ALTER command as reorg is disallowed on DEFINE NO. We cannot simply INSERT a row into every DEFINE NO as this creates possibly 100’s of objects which, by definition, are not really in use (Yes, they can be SELECTed from !!). Reverse engineer the DDL, DROP and reCREATE, reGRANT and BIND is just a crazy amount of effort.
My idea is simply to allow REORG on DEFINE NO objects which would just set the correct bits in the catalog so that when it would be created it would then create a UTS space with MAXPARTITIONS 1 DSSIZE 64GB which is 100% ok.
ZOS-07 Db2 for z/OS and Db2 Administration Foundation: An Installation Experience, as well as the longest title of the conference(!) was a real-world report of how to get this tool installed and up and working with Zowe. We all know we must Zowe right? Remember that Data Studio has officially been declared dead and is now buried as well!
AppDev-03 Db2 for z/OS 101: This or That? Tools to interact with Db2 for z/OS! This was Anna and Mark doing a double-header of lists and lists of different tooling for different business cases and whether they are free – pardon me “non charge items” – or not!
AppDev-06 Exploit Certificates and eliminate tiresome password pains in z/OS and USS. From Ulf Heinrich shows you how to go painlessly into the brave new world of certificates on the mainframe. Required reading, especially when going to Zowe!
Fill in Your Form, Please!
As at every conference you had to submit your Conference review form at the end where I happily plugged for a COBOL special day next year too and, perhaps, a bit less garlic in the chicken pasta!
That’s all, Folks!
We then had to leave early to catch our flight back – which then got a delayed take-off and, due to huge queues at passport control *in Germany*, we then missed our connecting flight to Düsseldorf… The nice ladies at our check-in desk then gave us both a €7 voucher and we got some train tickets for the high-speed ICE Sprinter instead. Flying along at 300kmh while at ground level is quite impressive!
Hope to see some of you at the IDUG NA 2025 in Atlanta, from Sunday 8th June until Thursday the 12th! If you cannot make it to Atlanta don’t worry – feel free to pop on over to Düsseldorf for the IDUG EMEA 2025 from Sunday 26th October until Thursday the 30th! Maybe you can also take the high-speed train too?
TTFN
Roy Boxwell