IDUG NA 2026

IBM Bob makes a huge difference to understanding, modernising and administering systems developed with Db2 (both LUW and z/OS) as the underlying database. I will talk about my real-world experiences bringing IBM Bob into my workflow and the benefits it made in terms of efficiency and quality of the outcomes. I will also explain why I turned from an AI sceptic to enthusiast once I got hold of the right tools.
After struggling to get value out of other AI assistants when modernising and administering Db2 applications (both LUW and z/OS), I turned to IBM Bob when it became available. Having become an "AI assistant cynic" I quickly became a real enthusiast. IBM Bob understands the technology I am working with and provides real value, but in a way that leaves me always in control. This presentation describes my journey from initial experimentation to real world business value. I'll describe how IBM Bob facilitated system understanding, assisted with structural change and application modernisation.

Amazon RDS for Db2 addresses growing demand for Db2 cloud migration by delivering a fully managed service with push-button deployment — provision a production-ready Db2 instance in minutes, not days. Automated patching, backups, scaling, and failover eliminate undifferentiated heavy lifting. This deep dive covers RDS for Db2 through the Well-Architected Framework: Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, and Cost Optimization. Attendees learn how a managed service reduces admin burden, improves uptime, and frees teams to focus on innovation. Leave with a blueprint for modernizing Db2.
Self-managed Db2 means manual patching, complex HA, and rising costs. Amazon RDS for Db2 fixes that — deploy production-ready Db2 in minutes with a fully managed service.This deep dive covers RDS for Db2 through the Well-Architected Framework: Operational Excellence (automated patching, backups, monitoring), Security (encryption, IAM, VPC), Reliability (Multi-AZ, cross-region DR), Performance Efficiency (right-sizing, storage tuning), and Cost Optimization (Reserved Instances, TCO savings vs. self-managed).Live demos and customer patterns show how to provision, secure, and optimize RDS for Db2 for production. Migrating from Linux or AIX? Optimizing an existing deployment? Leave with a well-architected blueprint for Db2 as a managed service on AWS.

Interested in exploring IBM SQL Data Insights without the effort of installing it on your system or building models from scratch? This session introduces Industry Starter Kits designed to help Db2 for z/OS users quickly evaluate and experience the power of AI-driven insights using pre-built models, sample industry data, and ready-to-run AI queries.
The session features real-world use cases across industries such as finance and insurance, demonstrating how SQL Data Insights can analyze Db2 table data to uncover hidden relationships, detect anomalies, identify unusual transactions, and generate meaningful business insights that may be difficult to find using traditional SQL techniques alone. Attendees will learn how to deploy and load pre-built AI models, execute AI-driven SQL queries, and understand and interpret the results returned by those queries using familiar Db2 workflows and interfaces.
By walking through the industry use cases included in the starter kits, attendees will gain a clearer understanding of what SQL Data Insights is capable of and how AI-driven SQL analysis can be applied to their own Db2 environments. The session is intended to spark ideas for new use cases and help users envision how their existing Db2 data can be analyzed in entirely new ways.
Whether you are new to SQL Data Insights or looking for an easier way to get started, this session provides a practical, hands-on approach to jump-starting your AI journey on Db2 for z/OS.

Db2 now has a complete AI application stack — Vector Storage, Vector Similarity Search, Vector Index, and LLM Integration. Once you know what this stack can do, the natural next question is: what can you build with it? That is exactly what this session addresses. Drawing on industry research and global enterprise adoption data, we examine AI use cases that organisations have already deployed at scale and validated in production. For each, we explain the business problem it solves, how Db2's AI stack maps to the solution, and what implementation looks like — using data most Db2 customers already have. Business leaders will leave with a clear, evidence-backed starting point for AI investment. Developers and architects will leave with a concrete path from proven use case to working implementation. The stack is ready. The use cases are proven. Come find out which ones to build next.

For decades, Db2 for z/OS DBAs have served as the platform’s human control plane, balancing availability, performance, recoverability, security, and change at enterprise scale. Today, automation, smarter tooling, and AI-driven recommendations are reshaping that role by reducing repetitive work and accelerating insight. But does that mean the DBA is disappearing?This session examines the past, present, and future of Db2 for z/OS administration to distinguish what can be automated from what still requires human expertise. It explores how autonomics, integrated monitoring, and operational AI are moving DBAs from manual execution toward policy, architecture, governance, and decision-making.Attendees will gain a practical view of where AI adds value, where it can mislead, and why deep Db2 expertise remains essential for interpreting signals in context, managing trade-offs, and responding when the unexpected happens.

Many Db2 environments rely on Tivoli System Automation (TSA) to manage High Availability Disaster Recovery (HADR) clusters. While TSA has long provided reliable automation for Db2 failover, modern Linux clustering standards and DevOps practices are increasingly shifting organizations toward Pacemaker-based cluster management and infrastructure automation.
This session presents a real-world migration approach for transitioning Db2 HADR environments from TSA to Pacemaker, while leveraging Ansible automation to standardize cluster deployment, configuration, and operational management.
Attendees will learn how to design a repeatable DevOps-driven framework that automates the provisioning of Pacemaker clusters, integrates Db2 HADR resources, and validates failover behavior across environments. The presentation will demonstrate how Ansible playbooks can be used to automate cluster setup, resource configuration, fencing policies, and operational testing, enabling consistent and scalable deployments.
The session will also highlight common challenges encountered during TSA-to-Pacemaker migrations, including cluster configuration pitfalls, resource dependencies, and operational considerations for maintaining availability during the transition.
By the end of the session, participants will gain practical guidance, automation patterns, and lessons learned for modernizing Db2 high-availability environments using Pacemaker and DevOps practices.

This presentation will demonstrate how ISPF panels and SQL are used to enhance IBM Db2 tools such as Omegamon PDB and CQM history tables. The Db2 V13 Utility history tables and In-house written Db2 health checks will also be presented. These solutions have been implemented at Navy Federal Credit Union with Db2 V12 and V13 mission critical applications.

In today’s busy environment, there is a lot of pressure to automate as much as possible. To that end, and lacking AI tools to do my job, I have come up with a few shortcuts that allow me to automate some normally onerous tasks. In this presentation, I will describe and document some tasks I have automated in my shop. Hopefully some of this will prove useful.

This session is a deep dive into 3 new Db2 12.1 security features, Reduce file permissions, RCAC mask at read enhancements, and defining a Trusted Context using the new trust procedure and client callbacks. This will be a face paced session offering practical details on how to make use of these new features in more depth than a what's new session can cover. Reduced file permissions address the common concern of everyone having access to the db2diag.log (and others). Mask at read offers an alternative masking behaviour with fundamental changes to SQL behaviour. And Trust Procedures allow custom definitions of trust for determining a trusted connection.

Generating digital certificates while installing a product like DB2 and related products on z/OS frequently involves intricate hurdles, where minor errors lead to postponed rollouts, service interruptions, and heavy manual workloads. This session breaks down the core principles of certificates while offering actionable techniques and proven methods to refine your workflow. Furthermore, we will debut an innovative utility engineered to simplify the baseline certificate configuration during mainframe software deployment, minimizing technical friction and fast-tracking your path to production.

Are you challenged with tasks having to provide audit reports detailing who has access to which objects and who has which privileges – even worse, who had access 3 months ago ?Many Db2 sites are using a log tool to accomplish these tasks – but are you aware of the relatively new capabilities in Db2 dealing with security information stored in the catalog ?We will dive into what Db2 has to offer natively and how you can handle regulatory requirements in an easier way augmenting your current processes.

This presentation will examine several key methods to configure Db2 HADR for optimal performance. We will look at the most important configuration / registry settings and discuss how they impact performance. We will also examine how to determine where the performance bottlenecks exists.

Event streaming is essential for modern applications and AI agents that need real-time access to mainframe data. This session explores change data capture patterns for Db2 z/OS using Debezium and Kafka, covering both initial snapshot and continuous replication. Learn how event streaming benefits agent architectures, implementation with Confluent Platform running on-premises on the mainframe, and achieving minimal operational impact with high-performance data synchronization. Real-world use case examples demonstrate practical applications.

This session provides an in-depth look at the latest enhancements to SQL syntax, semantics, and application management in Db2 13 for z/OS. Introduced through recent function levels, these enhancements are driven by customer requirements to deliver greater application flexibility and performance, while empowering DBAs with more efficient and effective capabilities for managing applications and database objects.
You’ll also hear feedback on several of these features and use cases from an experienced Db2 user.

In this hands-on lab, you'll explore advanced AI capabilities for relational data, including support for unstructured text, offloaded model training, and incremental model retraining. By combining unsupervised deep learning with traditional SQL queries, you'll learn how to perform similarity, dissimilarity, clustering, analogy, and commonality analysis directly on your Db2 for z/OS data.
Through practical exercises, you'll discover hidden relationships across tables and views, uncover actionable insights from enterprise data, and use AI-powered SQL queries to address real-world business challenges. You'll see how these techniques can be applied across industry-specific use cases to identify similar records, segment customers, detect outliers, and make more informed, data-driven decisions.
Make sure to bring your own device.

Are you ready to move beyond managing infrastructure and start innovating with your data? This hands-on workshop provides a deep dive into migrating and modernizing IBM Db2 workloads using Amazon RDS for Db2. Participants will gain practical experience in executing seamless migrations from platforms like Linux, AIX, or z/OS while ensuring high availability and optimized performance.Beyond the migration, you will explore how to unlock the value of your data by integrating AWS AI/ML services. You'll learn to build intelligent applications using Amazon Bedrock powered by your live RDS for Db2 data. By the end of this session, you will have a clear blueprint for transforming your legacy databases into a modern, AI-ready data foundation.