Puzzling: Enterprise Amnesia vs. Enterprise Intelligence (IBM Redbook Video)

A very interesting video featuring IBM Fellow Jeff Jonas has been published on the IBM Redbooks site. The title is Enterprise Amnesia vs. Enterprise Intelligence. Jeff talks about how organizations have trouble making sense out of the growing amount of data, how Big Data changes some of the existing laws ("physics").

In the video a puzzle is used as metaphor and practical example on how context information can be used to make sense of data. What was also interesting to me was the use of Ravensburger jigsaw puzzles for his experiment (watch the video!). The company Ravensburger is located in Ravensburg in direct vicinity to Friedrichshafen. Interesting to see how old fashioned stuff from the Lake Constance region helps understand leading edge IBM technology for Information Management. Still puzzled? Watch the video...

IDAA: IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator announced

As you might have guessed from the date of my last post, I have been busy - actually I still am - with bootcamps and customers. Thus, today it will only point you to the announcement of the IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator for z/OS. It is labeled Version 2.1 because V1 was named the IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer which I wrote about last year. For more information read the announcement.

Automatic compression in DB2? Good question and some answers

Image via Wikipedia

During the DB2 bootcamp I was teaching I was asked, why DB2 does not offer automatic compression. There are a lot of automatic and autonomous features inside DB2. Why could DB2 not automatically determine that compression makes sense and compress the data?

This is an excellent question. DB2 can indeed take control of several performance-related configuration settings once DB2 has been authorized (enabled) for that. Regarding compression it is interesting to see that DB2 compresses temporary tables automatically once a compression license has been applied and DB2 determines that it makes sense performance-wise. This same capability applied to regular data and indexes is what the question is about. Why not autonomous decisions for that?

The answer relates to several aspects: The scope of a decision and the business strategy. Let's start with the scope. For a temporary table DB2 has an idea of what to expect. It knows the query and has (rough) statistics about the data and expected intermediate result sets. Hence it estimate the impact, good or bad, more or less precisely and decide on whether it makes sense to apply compression. For regular data and indexes, the decision and the background knowledge are different. DB2 does not know which queries to expect, how the data might grow over time, what other concurrent activities might be planned, what resources would be available to compress and reorganize the data. The impact of the decision is by far of a much bigger scope and wide reaching.

The business side of the question whether to compress or not are also nothing DB2 knows about. Service level agreements, storage costs, costs for CPU cycles, response times, throughput goals, business priorities, and many more are something DB2 does not know about. Smart humans are needed to decide on what is best, not just for a single table or index, but for the overall design and how it fits into the business requirements and (cost) strategy.


And  that is where skilled DBAs come into the picture. Excellent question, some answers, and overall good news for DBAs...

New generation of mainframes and an integrated accelerator for warehouse workloads

IBM today announced a new generation of its mainframe computers, labeled zEnterprise. Based on a hybrid architecture, zEnterprise BladeCenter Extensions (zBX), it allows to integrate and manage POWER7 blades or System x blades from within the mainframe infrastructure. (One of) the first to exploit the zBX feature is the IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer. The latter allows to significantly speed up analytic queries running on DB2 for z/OS. Queries that qualify a transparently routed to the accelerator and return in a fraction of the time.

A small step for mankind, but a good day for mainframe customer, especially those using DB2.

Housing Transactional and Data Warehouse Workloads on System z

While screening new Redbook titles and noticed an interesting new book currently in draft status. It is labeled Housing Transaction and Data Warehouse Workloads on System z. Remember that the IBM Smart Analytics System (ISAS) is no longer an offering only available to DB2 LUW customers, but with ISAS 9600 also an offering on for the Information Management community on System z.

Have you booked your trip to IDUG?

In the 2nd week of May (May 10-14, 2010) the IDUG North America conference is taking place in Tampa, Florida. What I like about the IDUG conference is that it is organized from the user/customer angle with users presenting and sharing their experience. It's a great way to network, especially when you are new to the DB2 landscape (Oracle anyone? Check the schedule for sessions tailored to those having worked with Oracle or having both systems in-house).

What I usually do when I am at such an event is to make use of free certifications. Become a certified DB2 administrator at the conference.

Want to learn more about DB2 pureScale, DB2 10 (the next version of DB2 for z/OS), IBM Smart Analytics System or IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer? The IDUG conference is the place to be.

Want to have some nice "gifts" for your kids or your spouse? Visit the expo area and collect goodies.

Have you booked your trip already...?

Smart Vacation and Smarter Systems

Well, where do I start today? I was on vacation for 11 days and managed to (mostly) stay away from computers and phones. It was kind of relaxing to not keep track of the IT world. Let's call it "smart vacation". On the downside I now know what is meant with Lymphangitis. The scary part is that someone can contract it while working in the garden and being stung by an insect.

While I was relaxing, IBM announced new systems to help their customers relax a little bit. The tag line is "Smarter Systems for a Smarter Planet". It's a line of workload optimized systems, i.e., systems (HW / SW stack) that are designed for a specific workload. The IBM pureScale Application System is optimized for transactional workloads, the new IBM Smart Analytics System versions 5600 and 9600 for analytical workloads. The new IBM Smart Analytics System extend the concept from the already supported System p to System x AND System z.

I will write more about the new systems in the coming weeks after getting back into my regular routine.

How much data do I generate each day?

During vacation, I somehow got wondering how much data I generate each day. This is for all (in-) activities in a 24 hour slot. To make it simpler, I decided to only consider "private" activities.

Here is a list of activities, starting from night to day

• Over night a lot of mail and packages are moved, leaving tracking data in databases.
• There are also all kind of batch jobs running to produce statements, dig into details of transactions from the day before, and much more.
• Because several alarm clocks are running, devices being on standby, and of course fridge, freezer, heating system, etc. performing their duties, energy consumption could be (e-)metered, leaving entries at the utilities. During the day, all kinds of electrical devices (stove, computer, microwave, washer/dryer, lights, etc.) will add data.
• By making phone calls, connection records (and who knows what more?) is left. If I call a hotline, sometimes phone calls are recorded, often records added to CRM databases, etc.
  
• When doing (grocery) shopping, a list of my items is added to the transactions. Maybe automatically some items are re-ordered.
  
• Using electronic payment, a credit card/check card debit action is performed.
  
• For paying bills, an electronic fund transfer with associated records at several banks is done.
  
• When surfing, my traces are left in web logs, cookies are produced, "recommendations" are processed, Google and other ad networks/analytics/tracking companies are adding to my profile, my IP connections are stored, my DSL provider probably keeps additional information.
  
• When parking in a downtown garage, my license plate is recorded during entry/exit.
  
• The local library keeps a list (and maybe a history) of books on my and the kids' account.
• and much more
  

What bigger items do I miss? How muck kBytes or MBytes is it every day? Should I be concerned or even frightened? Your comments are welcome...

Did you get it? Setting up analytic systems is simpler now

Some other interesting announcements today were about IBM acquiring SPSS as well as the IBM Smart Analytics System. The latter is a combination of IBM software and hardware, consisting of a foundation and add-on modules for different target areas.

The IBM Smart Analytics System delivers a comprehensive and flexible set of capabilities, including business intelligence reporting, analysis, dashboards, and scorecards, data mining, cubing services, text analytics, data warehouse management, storage and server platform. It can also be used by clients or cloud service providers to deliver the power of analytics to private or public cloud services.

Some more information is on the IBM Smart Analytics System product page.