2025-11 IDUG EMEA 2025 Review

Spoiler Alert: I didn’t win anything!!!

This month, I wish to review all the Good, Bad and Very Pretty things that happened in “my back yard” at the 2025 IDUG EMEA in Düsseldorf, Germany. I always really enjoy the IDUGs, where I get to meet all my co-workers, customers and friends from all over the world. All gathered just to learn more about Db2 and chat for a few days! This year, it was held in Düsseldorf, Germany which is where I work, so it was a bit of a busman’s holiday for me… That also meant that the sight-seeing part of going to beautiful cities like Nice, Florence, Rome, Prague, Las Vegas etc. sort of disappeared! Oh well – At least the food and drinks were free!!!

We, SOFTWARE ENGINEERING GmbH, also took along four of our developers to Bathe in the Knowledge of all the Db2 Gurus there. I asked them all after it had finished what they thought:

Just us!

“Attending IDUG for the first time was an amazing experience! I met so many great people, learned a lot from the sessions, and really enjoyed the friendly and inspiring atmosphere.

It was a perfect mix of knowledge sharing and networking—I’m glad I joined and can’t wait for the next one!”

     “K3 Women in technology (WIT): Db2’s New Faces: Fresh Talent, Future Perspectives

• This was not, as some might have feared, a ladies’ tea party!
• Finding new co-workers may involve some of these strategies:
• Look for a mindset, not necessarily experience, (you can teach skill but you can’t teach talent)
• Mentor your candidates
• Keep teaching! Stay curious, keep them curious
• Can your company contact local universities about candidates? Or even just show universities that there is a NEED for mainframers?
• Make candidates/students work with green screen for a week before giving them a choice of tools
• Apparently, there is a European Mainframe Academy?

A203 Workshop – Next Generation Services for Db2 for z/OS Administration and Development – Workshop

• Learning how to use Admin Foundation
• That Visual Explain looks like it came straight from Netscape times. Considering that I remember those times, I now feel old …”

“Overall, a very worthwhile and interesting IDUG!

The sessions included the “usual” topics such as trends and directions, performance, and Db2 for z/OS utilities updates, etc. from IBM.

Noteworthy, was the continuing trend toward profile tables, including for monitoring Db2 connections, as well as the announcement of further enhancements in the Expert Panel.

The “Real Customer Experiences” from Commerzbank and the SWAT Tales and Personal Experience from Steen Rasmussen were also very interesting; real-life examples are very valuable.

The presentation on how to do Db2 development using Visual Code was exceptional in that it included a live demo that gave a good impression (once you’ve set up the environment) – very good.

Before the last keynote, there was a very entertaining and informative session on quantum computers.”

There you have it! Basically a great time was had by all – You read it here first!

Caveats

Now come my usual warnings and notices:

• I did not manage to attend *every* session, but I will do a small write up of each – If that session wasn’t held or the presenter was swapped out – I aplogize!
• To access all the presentation files, first open the IDUG website and click on “Events” and select IDUG EMEA 2025 then click on “Access the IDUG Presentation Library” where you must then give your logon credentials as you *must* be a member of IDUG and logged in, otherwise you will *not* be able to download the files! Once logged in, click on “Collections” to see the six different tracks and then simply download the presentations that grab your interest.

Starting at the Start with Track A Db2 for z/OS:

01 Haakon Roberts Trends and directions (No download available yet!) Haakon doing his usual great “pep” talk about where we are, and where we are going, without saying the number 14. Just remember the deprecated stuff that will stop you going there! Visit our web site and download our free software MigrationReadiness HealthCheck to find out all the blockers – way before they cause you any grief!

02 Db2 13 for z/OS Experience with New Features for Availability, Resilience and Performance with the great John Campbell. I missed this one, of course, because I was in the next room holding my presentation. I heard it was the usual great stuff though! John also mentioned my personal bug bear with page-level sampling on slide 14…

03 Db2 13 for z/OS: Five Key Features to Drive Performance and Innovation with Preetham Kannan. The highlight for me, was the Package Validity at Statement level and the lively discussion around this point! He reminded us all that Autobind Phase-In is also a game-changer!

04 The latest Db2 13 Online schema evolution and application performance enhancements with Frances Villafuerte. Frances started off with a brief history of tablespaces and how to easily migrate to UTS, as all other forms are nailed to their perches and will soon cease to be! Then she went through why to move from PBG to PBR. Further, the idea of ROWID as a hidden partitioning key completely hidden from the application was discussed before then going through the back-flip of PBR RPN to PBG! She finished off with a very nice explanation of why IAG2 can be good for you!

05 Db2 Analytics Accelerator: product updates, new version V8, and experiences from the customers with Cuneyt Goksu and Björn Broll. This was all about whether or not your workload may benefit from having an Accelerator or not, using the Workload Assessment via SMF data. Then they compared the two flavors on IBM Z or on LinuxONE before show casing the improvements with z17 and IDAA Version 8 review. Including very nice, flashy orange lines… pretending to be LOB data, I think! Then green lines appeared as data was cloned directly from IDAA to IDAA nice AOT (Accelerator Only Tables) data!

06 Optimizing SQL Pagination in Db2 for z/OS for Performance Gains from Emil Kotrc. A very entertaining walk down the history of paging forwards and backwards. Sounds simple, but actually it is a real minefield! Db2 has got much better, but there are still things you gotta watch out for and take care of, especially mixing multi-row and normal fetch, by accident normally, and OFFSET. A very good presentation indeed. (Yes, you guessed it, I was in this one and so was Joe!)

07 Db2 13 latest real customer experiences – new functions, best practices and some more… from Ute Kleyensteuber. Another goodie-filled presentation all about Db2 13, and a sneak peak of the FL508 stuff that was actually released on the 28^th October. Temporal support for the _AUTH tables came in with Db2 13 FL505. REORGs with DISCARD and a SECADM user id will be required!! Last Used for PLANs finally arrived as well in Db2 13 FL507 but watch out for invalid date formats… Then she detailed a year’s history of FTB usage and the new Image Copy ZiiP CPU savings at 55% – 60%! Ended up by giving us a nice sneak peek at the correct solution to split work file usage…

08 Db2 z/OS Dynamic SQL Monitoring: Best Practices from Michal Bialecki. He explained everything you ever wanted to know, but were afraid to ask, about Dynamic SQL! At the end is the link to the AHA idea 1796 – Please go and vote for it!

09 Modern System and Application monitoring: THE POWER OF DATA at Garanti BBVA with Hakan Kahraman and Toine Michielse. This was a deep dive into collected data from various sources. Lots of redacted graphics towards the end!

12 Db2 for z/OS Utilities: Unveiling Recent Updates and Current Developments with Haakon Roberts. Haakon ran through all the recent updates to the IBM utils, including APARs, for Db2 12 & 13 where required or even an FL required. RBDPM, for example. He then rounded off with a glimpse into the future…

14 Tools Maintenance Our Way with Martin Ålund. This is with notes! Here he describes the methodology to maintain your utils! Lots of SMP/E stuff – and scroll past the last page for some handy JCL for SMP/E Backup and Restore!

15 Billions of XMLs: How Do You Manage That? from Philip Nelson – a brief intro to why and what of XML and then off down the rabbit hole that are the differences between “normal” data and “xml” data in the z/OS context. UNLOAD/LOAD > 32 KB – nasty. Xpath index lengths – nasty.  Load from cursor fails with XML – nasty. Reorg Discard fails with XML – nasty. However, he shows you work-arounds for nearly all of these!

16 All about the Db2 Log: Updates, Commits, and Best Practices for Data Integrity from Emil Kotrc. A full explanation of what is actually LOGged, and why, plus who uses it anyway? Then off to DSN1LOGP usage and physical structure of log records. Then, repeating what we have very often heard: COMMIT, COMMIT, COMMIT! Lastly, a run through ZPARMs and messaging.

17 Claims, Drains and Automobiles: How Db2 Keeps Order in a Chaotic World with Marcus Davage. Here, Marcus took us on a voyage of discovery, all about the silent policemen who steer & control our data to do their thing! An excellent intro and overview of this, very often misunderstood, group of functions! Also included speakers notes as free extra bonus on the Blu Ray edition.

Track B Db2 for z/OS

No B01 as A01 is always parallel to it. We start therefore with:

02 RUNSTATS Master – reloaded, from my very good self! Learn all you ever wanted to know about RUNSTATS, and probably some you do not want to know! Contains a handy single slide look-up for all Optimizer used stats from the Db2 Catalog as a free bonus! Full of notes that all got sadly chopped by the upload to the IDUG server…

03 Key Performance Updates, z Synergy and Best Practices for Db2 for z/OS from Akiko Hoshikawa. Akiko doing her usual great stuff! z17 highlights, DS8K G10 highlights, Db2 13 Performance updates of course! This included the IRLM Lock Structure Rebuild boost, then the “hidden” CDDS feature that can now be used by everyone! Open Telemetry support also for RESTFul.

04 Taming Page Splits: Reduced Stress for DBAs in Db2 13 from Saurabh Pandey. B-Tree for beginners, and then a full discussion of the how and why of index page split leading to deeper, wider indexes. Even with asymmetric split still a lot of work especially if the split goes up the branch to the root causing a new level to be made! All of the logged pages are synchronous log writes (Enforces write-ahead logging!) Basically IFCID 396 and the new columns in RTS in Db2 13 FL501 are there to help!

05 Build a lightweight monitor to identify SQL workload tuning potential from Kai Stroh. This session showed how you can roll your own Db2 DSC monitor and how to use it to see if you have SQL problems – As we all do!

06 Db2 Under Siege from David Lea and Marcus Davage. All about cyber threats, how to protect yourself and how to recover in the worst case. Slides 16 – 18 are a classic list!

07 Mastering Access Path Management in Db2 for z/OS: Simplify, Optimize, Succeed from Denis Tronin. All about access path, EXPLAIN and its very many varied tables, use of Catalog stats, RUNSTATS, the two FEEDBACK tables and use of the BIND/REBIND control parameters APREUSE and APCOMPARE. For Dynamic SQL there are stabilized Dynamic SQLs. He then rounded off with a list of HINT methods. Very interesting indeed!

08 Db2 for z/OS all new “2025 SWAT Tales” from Anthony Ciabattoni. As always, a wonderful run through various things that might have saved ya from a serious problem! REBIND parameters, Statement level invalidation and then a nice list of things that are good for us, like recovery boost at IPL or Db2 Log sizing & management.

09 Protecting your Db2 for z/OS Environment from Cyber Attacks from Patric Becker. Ransomware and how Cyber Security and Cyber resilience can help you. Then all about Cyber Vault Immutable copies and either Surgical recovery or… Catastrophic recovery. You will require more storage though!

10 Partitioning Update from David Simpson. A quick run through the various deprecated TS types and then onto the different partitioning methods, including the differences between PI, DPSI and NPSI. Then a review of the PBR RPN and some example SQLs to review what you actually have, and finally, how to migrate to and from UTS spaces.

11 Personal Experience: 40 Years of Battle Scars from Managing Db2 for z/OS from Steen Rasmussen. Steen’s usual, very entertaining, round-up of 40 years of fun at the front! I loved slides 29 and 31 the best!

12 In memory table: What did you Expect? from Laurent Kuperberg. (I got a name check in this presentation!) This was all about configuring your BUFFERPOOL size to get a memory table. Why do it? How to do it? and Is it worth it? Spoiler alert: Yes, but not for all tables!

15 Who is in Your Db2? Auditing z/OS Like a Mainframe Maestro from Joern Thyssen and Christoph Theisen. Another Auditing session all about the stuff we must all do…Lists out all the IFCIDs and CLASSes you should look into – Like our very own WorkLoadExpert Audit Use Case for example! Also includes a nice section all about Audit Policies.

16 ISBANK’s Journey to implement CDC IIDR Remote Capture with a Resilient Architecture from Önder Çağatay and Gülfem Öğütgen. A very in-depth presentation about how their bank has implemented this solution and why they did it.

17 Automating Excellence: Real-world z/OSMF Workflows for Efficient Provisioning and Maintenance (a Db2 use-case) from Josiane Rodrigues and Kumari Anjali Maharaj. This was all about z/OSMF – Why they did it, who they did it with, and how it hangs together, especially for Db2 using VSCODE Workflows4z.

Track E “Themes I”

03 Db2 Universal Translator between z/OS and LUW from Dale McInnis and Jerome Gilbert. This was basically a side-by-side comparison of Db2 for z/OS and LUW. Contains everything about both systems. Very interesting indeed, especially the z / Common / LUW slide 35 and the Conclusion on 50.

04 Fear no Threads: Secure and Monitor Db2 Connections with Profile Tables from Toine Michielse. This was a very nice run through all the stuff that PROFILE tables now give us and how to use it to master DDF problems. New in Db2 13 was the ability to control/change local connections. A game changer for RELEASE(DEALLOCATE) and RELEASE(COMMIT) changes for example. The profile support for modelling ZPARMS, slide 14, is not 100% complete and you can go and vote/review my Aha Idea about this “DB24ZOS-I-1781 Complete PROFILE support for SQL tuning ZPARMS” Currently denied but I have no idea why!

06 Automating and operationalizing data-driven AI with Db2 SQL Data Insights – new APIs for full control from Steffen Exner and Christian Lenke. AI rears its head in Db2 for z/OS… It definitely has its uses and it will get better and better I am sure. This covers all you need for the tricky bits of authentication. Pro tip: Do not use Db2 UID/ PWD as clear text! Not even in test!!!

07 Transforming your Db2 image Copies to Data Pipelines for Generative AI from Mikhael  Liberman. With notes!! This follows on from E06 and delves into the Hows and Whys of data trustworthiness etc. Basically, structured data is much better for learning – No real surprise there! And what do we tend to have on Db2 for z/OS? Structured data! Sadly, the presentation got really ruined by the Monday Morning “quick transform” but it is still readable…  

08 Deep Dive Into SQL Data Insights from Thomas Baumann. Now we dive into real world of Db2 SQL Data Insights usage at Swiss Mobiliar with Thomas. Great stuff indeed! SQL examples of all the functions and real-world examples and walk-throughs of doing all the work. Essential reading if you wish to start with SDI! Ended with another use case of Bufferpool allocation types.

09 Unlocking the Power of AI with Db2 for z/OS from Akiko Hoshikawa. Yet more AI for you! Including the reveal that the next version will also be able to use IDAA for Vector Tables, and that the next version might well recommend Index and Runstats. System assessment and Performance insights explained in depth, and use of the Best Practices dashboards as well.

10 A Deep dive into Db2 Connect Best Practices from Shilu Mathai. Absolutely everything you will ever want to know about Db2 Connect – and with Notes! Included three slides just listing the different versions and how to bind the packages – very handy!

11 The Db2 for z/OS Agent Lets have a Chat with the Catalog! From Daniel Martin with notes! This is all about the IBM Db2 for z/OS Agent that is an AI powered “teammate” for troubleshooting and collaboration.

12 Mastering SQL Performance on IBM Z Analyzing and Optimizing Queries for Maximum Throughput from Saurabh Pandey. A great guide into how and why SQL does its thing and then goes on into EXPLAIN territory before branching off into all different types of access that Db2 uses.

14 The Ins and Outs of High Performance DBATs from Bart Steegmans and Gareth Copplestone-Jones. Another excellent presentation telling you absolutely everything you need to know to decide when and how to implement High Performance DBATs. It starts with a very nice description of what a DBAT is, with a full discussion of terms and meanings – useful stuff! Then introduces High Performance DBATs with slide 13 summing up implementation. A very important, and often completely forgotten/ignored, point about WLM Velocity goal changes for HPDBAT workloads is on slides 36 and 37.

15 Achieving Resilience with DORA and Db2 Tools: Enhancing Operational Continuity and Compliance from Julia Carter and Jose Arias. Ahhh! I love Audit!!! A run through everything you should be doing by now! One tiny point where I disagree, is on slide 26 where EXTSEC set to YES. I actually recommend NO, as YES gives away Db2’s existence in an attack. Better not to give the hacker any feedback at all and live with the fact that an end user cannot change the password using DRDA (Which I think is better anyway – Password changes should be centrally controlled!). Bottom line is: we all must do more, really…

Track F “Themes II”

02 Strategies for Making Db2 Data Accessible with APIs from Chris Crone. All about REST APIs and also with notes! A ton of info with examples galore about RESTful APIs – The Wall of Inefficiency will stay with me for a while!

04 Db2 z/OS in a Hybrid Cloud – A Survey of Architecture Options across AWS, Azure, Google and IBM Cloud from Daniel Martin. Another presentation with notes – I think Themes II is winning on this front! Shows you different way of storing your data off-premise and in a cloud – Plus and Minus points for all variants but leaning towards IBM of course 🙂

05 Db2 Joins In Depth from Tony Andrews. Full of notes, as I expect from Tony! Also full of JOIN info and predicate details. Essential reading for all SQL coders! Towards the end (Slides 43 and on) are some great Sparse Index explanations.

06 A day in the life of an MFA enabled DBA from Jørn Thyssen. This is all about understanding and using MFA for all your normal day-to-day work. MFA is ubiquitous and we must all use it nowadays – just due to Audit requirements. Jørn takes us through it all – History of passwords on z and the introduction and integration of Passtickets. Then into the brave new world of certificates… shudder… Then, for z/OS Developers, a couple of useful hints and tips on slides 48 to 51 are well worth reviewing!

07 Route to the roots…DSNZPARM from Manuel Gómez Burriel. A presentation which reviews and recaps some of the 300+ ZPARMs we have heard of and some forgotten! REALSTORAGE_MAX is an interesting candidate. Included are SET SQL commands that override IRLM (ZPARM) settings as well!… danger…

08 Tales of a DBA with Stored Procedures and UDFs from Soledad Martinez. She takes us through the whole Functions and Procedures methodology including trouble shooting and Migration. Handy tip for setting STAY RESIDENT NO in DEV but YES in PROD. Nice nod to the IVP DSNTEJ2U as well – Showing you how you can create your own nifty UDFs! Slide 51 is a handy xref for NUMTCB setting as well.

09 Modernize Db2 for z/OS Development with VS Code with Scott Davidson and Brian Jagos. The brave new world of GUI is charging headlong into the green screen crowd! We have to join the throng of VSCode people sooner or later – Better is sooner! Lots of side bar notes and then it ends in a great demo that obviously does not work in a PDF!

10 How to access Db2 for z/OS (and other Z oriented) data in the cloud from Cuneyt Goksu. All about where data can live and be secure and useful. Basically, stating that the application coders just using RESTful services no longer need to know, or even care about, where their data is, or even who is holding it! It is just “plumbing”…Adding IDAA into the mix also for “legacy” VSAM and IMS data is also a winner!

12 Enhance Performance with Db2 Multi-Row Processing from Chris Crone. Yet another great practical presentation all about multi-row coding. From first principles and examples, with test results as well. Spoiler alert – about 100 is the sweet spot! 🙂

14 Create Stored Procedure to ‘ReorgTable’ including table function for Select Reorg() and REST-Services from Veit Blaeser. The ability to let developers, just by single clicking a line in an excel table, fire off a REORG – Scary stuff, but great in test! Full of notes and example code but the last line of slide 25 is legend! (plus the note text!). Using this and the other REST/UDF presentations together gives you a very good cook book for doing a ton of things automagically! Slide 40 then gets pretty metaphysical…

15 Modernizing Db2 for z/OS System Management with Ansible from Marcus Davage. Once more dragged kicking and screaming into the harsh modern world! Includes notes though…and demos…

16 Pedal to The Metal – this is not your Daddy’s Accelerator! From Adrian Collett. A brief history of Accelerators and then all the new stuff and what you can do on them nowadays. Includes doing a self-assessment to see if it would help you (It will!) Then a whole bunch of real-world examples.

In Conclusion

Over 450 people, it was busy and I had a great time!

My name has obviously just slipped off of the bottom due to font problems… <cough> <cough>

and the winner was….

Congrats to all of the Speakers and many, many thanks to all the “behind the scenes” Guys and Gals that make an IDUG even possible, from the IDUG Staff to the Moderators and Speakers to the Sound and Lighting people. It really takes a lot of people to pull it off.

I hope you enjoyed my little review. Next month is our Happy Holiday Present Edition of my monthly Newsletter, with our traditional end-of-year-goodie, so stay tuned, folks!

TTFN,

Roy Boxwell