Automate DB2 database maintenance

On developerWorks is a new article "Automate DB2 9.7 database maintenance in an embedded database environment". In an environment where DB2 is an embedded database system it is important to hide the existence of the DBS by making sure it just works. The article discusses how to set up the various automatic and autonomic features that DB2 provides. It's not only interesting for those dealing with embedded environments, but for any "lazy DB2" in general. There is so much other work to do that you don't want to deal with maintenance that can be automated... (and it is Friday and the weekend is up next...).

New uses for the DATE function?

I just read about a new dating site that will cater only to fans of Apple products. The site's name? Cupidtino. If you know the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley (or you are an Apple fan) you know that Apple's headquarter is in Cupertino, CA. What a nice name and wordplay.

When I told my wife about the dating site I also mentioned that in the database world everything is much simpler. Let's just invoke DATE() and wait for your lucky match...

Disclaimer: I and my family don't own a single Apple product.

Passive houses, windmills, clouds, ice saints, DB2, and some nice prizes

Well, what a headline! Full of energy and still kind of energy-conscious, full of nature and still kind of technology-centric, serious stuff and still fun. Let me explain...

As most of you probably know, my familiy is living in a passive house (very low energy house). The Winter in Germany has been long and cold and everybody spent a good chunk of money on heating. Everybody? It turns out that even though our entire house was heated throughout the Winter, we only consumed a little bit more than the year before. Yesterday evening I checked the energy meters (still not smart meters) and we are on track on being only less than 5% higher consumption for heating than last year. We will see the result around mid of July.

After some really warm weeks it is cloudy, rainy, windy, and chilly outside. Seems like the so-called ice saints have an early arrival (this is a weather pattern caused by warm land masses and still cold ocean in Northern Europe). Speaking of wind and clouds: Google just invested in windmills and IBM is buying Cast Iron for cloud integration.

What is left? DB2 and the nice prizes. IDUG started a contest "Do you DB2?" where - if you are based in North America - you can win a Wifi-enabled HDTV or an iPad. To win you need to tell your personal DB2 story. Running a DB2 server in a passive house is probably not a good story ("with product X the house keeps warmer than running DB2 because more CPU cyles are burned and more disks are needed for X and hence more heating is produced") or is it? What is your story?