For me, it’s 1:00am. But for those who hustle and bustle around the airport in Amsterdam it’s 7:00am and time to start the day. It’s an exciting experience for me, traveling internationally for only the second time in my life, as the winner of the DB2 Night Show’s “DB2’s Got Talent” competition.
But I am not alone, I travel in good company with the host of the DB2 Night Show, Scott Hayes, and another member of the DBI cohort, Darin Zephier. There is also a small, pink, stuffed monkey travelling with us. But that is a story for another time.
Prague will be a unique experience for me. It will be similar to the IDUG we all know and love in the US, but there is a slight TWIST in content, flow, and speakers that I am excited to see.
Conference Phone App
One of the first things I noticed is that there is now an IDUG application for your phone. I was very skeptical about how useful this would really be. However, I see how well thought out and easy to use this tool is. Best part of this application? You can search by speakers! The best piece of advice I ever received at my first IDUG was from friend and IDUG member, Prashant Sogarwal. He said “Don’t follow the topics, follow the speakers”. Now, my whole week is planned around who is speaking where, not necessarily what topic they are speaking about. This tool makes it much easier.
Speakers and Sessions
As I peruse my brand spanking new app there are a few speakers I will focus on…
Chris Eaton – A well-known DB2 Rockstar and sought after speaker, he has faded away from blogging and speaking recently. Luckily he covers “C03 – Best Practices Upgrade to DB2 10.5 with BLU Acceleration”, Monday 3:15 pm.
Matt Huras – Ember clamors for his DB2 internals sessions at every IDUG. It is a two-session “drink from a fire hose” but you come out with one heck of an understanding of how DB2 thinks. C01/C02 DB2 Internals for Administrators, Monday 10:45am and 12:00 pm. He also will be hosing “D10 – DB2 LUW in 2014: The Latest From The Lab”, Wednesday 9:45am.
Alexander Kopac – One of my favorites, he usually delivers a ton of “nuggets” that I frantically write down so I remember them when I get back to the office. A good speaker, he is engaging and fun to watch. F11 – Parlez-Vous Klingon – DB2 Recursion SQL for Database Magicians, Wed 11:00 am.
Dale McInnis – A frequent speaker who specializes in recovery. His sessions on High Availability and HADR are highly sought after. D15 – DB2 HADR Automation, where is the magic? Thursday, 8:30am. C08 – High Availability Disaster Recovery and Performance, Tuesday 4:30pm
Ken Shaffer – Not a common name on the speaker circuit, but an up-and-comer. A DB2’s Got Talent contestant like me, his past presentations on DB2 upgrades with zero downtime were excellent. In this session, he speaks about repeatedly and reliably delivering DDL changes to your database. E05 – Configuration (Mis) Management – Deploying DDL Changes. Tuesday 10:15am
Adam Storm – Just go. Don’t worry about what he is speaking about. Last time I went, I laughed so hard that my cheeks hurt from laughing at his session. That, and I had three pages of notes to try at home. D03 – Top 5 Cool Tricks with DB2 LUW, Mon 3:15pm. C07 Getting the most out of BLU Acceleration …. Tuesday 3:15pm
Pavel Suster – Pavel has a ridiculous understanding of DB2 internals and problem determination. He offers an all day session on problem determination and troubleshooting. I’ve taken it previously and highly recommend it. For those who are good at design and tuning, but lack those “emergency room” triage skills when the database is in pain, this session is for you. ODS3/ODS5 DB2 Problem Determination and Troubleshooting Workshop, Friday 9:00am
Scott Hayes – I’m going to recommend two sessions from him. The first is a “Sage Advice” session from his 20 years of experience. This is going to provide a unique perspective on tuning that was a paradigm shift for me. I don’t want to spoil his topic by spilling the beans, but I highly recommend it. And… (gasp), I am actually going to recommend his vendor session on DBI’s product. I would not normally push a specific vendor, but I drank the Kool Aid on the DBI pureSuite products a while ago. I can honestly say Brother-Panther is the source of a bonus or two for me. D04 – Sage Advice …. , Monday 4:30pm. V01 – DBI Software: Amplify Your DB2 LUW Performance, Monday 2:00pm
Michael Krafick – Yep, me. I will be giving a presentation on assessing and tuning LOB’s within a database. You may have seen this presentation at the technical conference in the US, or an abbreviated version via DB2’s Got Talent, or even my developerWorks article. However it has been updated with some content that has not been presented before. F13 – Attack of the Blob! (Managing Blobs within a DB2 database), Wednesday 3:45pm.
Cancellations
Unfortunately, I am sorry to relay that both Melanie Stopfer and Ian Bjorhovde have had unexpected issues arise and they will not be presenting as planned.
While you are there, for the love of God – Tweet. This is where we find out who is an unknown speaker we need to follow, or a session to avoid. People in the know leak things early, party invites fly through the twitterverse, and pictures of places you need to go and see will be shared. This is the best way to get real time information. Watch the #IDUG and #IDUGEMEA hashtags, post what you learn, and look for me at @mkrafick!
Summary
I am really excited to be at this conference speaking as well as a guest of DBI. There will be so much to see and do. If you are at the conference, please seek me out. I’ll be the one wandering around with a small stuffed pink monkey.
Michael Krafick is an occasional contributor to db2commerce.com. He has been a production support DBA for over 12 years in data warehousing and highly transactional OLTP environments. He was acknowledged as a top ten session speaker for “10 Minute Triage” at the 2012 IDUG Technical Conference. Michael also has extensive experience in setting up monitoring configurations for DB2 Databases as well as preparing for high availability failover, backup, and recovery. He can be reached at “Michael.Krafick (at) icloud (dot) com”. Linked-in Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelkrafick. Twitter: @mkrafick
Mike’s blog posts include:
10 Minute Triage: Assessing Problems Quickly (Part I)
10 Minute Triage: Assessing Problems Quickly (Part II)
Now, now you two play nice … DB2 and HACMP failover
Technical Conference – It’s a skill builder, not a trip to Vegas.
Why won’t you just die?! (Cleaning DB2 Process in Memory)
Attack of the Blob: Blobs in a Transaction Processing Environment
Automatic Storage Tablespaces (AST): Compare and Contrast to DMS
DB2 v10.1 Column Masking
Automatic Storage (AST) and DMS
Reloacting the Instance Home Directory
Informational Constraints: Benefits and Drawbacks
