The Infotel team is in Prague this week attending the 2023 IDUG EMEA Tech Conference, and we’re already enjoying our time here in this beautiful city!
With two conferences a year, one in North America and one in Europe, the Middle East, or Africa, IDUG (International Db2 User Group) conferences are some of our can’t-miss events on the enterprise IT conference circuit. In May, we attended IDUG North America held in Philadelphia, and we were reminded then just how important the event is to Db2 users worldwide.
In Philly, we thoroughly enjoyed learning from the best North American minds in the industry and exploring the birthplace of the United States.
Now, as we focus on Prague, we’re excited to continue some of the conversations we started in the U.S. and see how our colleagues in Europe are adapting to the emerging challenges of the industry.
For Infotel, a European-based organization, this event is more than just a conference to us; it’s a platform to connect with our peers and discuss the differences between database administration in North America and Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
A Chance to Promote IBM® Db2®
As longtime consultants and software providers to Db2 organizations, we’re well aware of the benefits of the platform. The mainframe’s longevity and reliability are both blessing and curse. Fact is, the mainframe is never down, the most reliable enterprise technology in the history of IT. But it’s also a curse because as it never breaks it rarely makes a headline with CxOs in large organizations. We all know the saying “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” but sometimes it can lead to “If it ain’t broke, no one is thinking about it.”
Technologies tend to be “newsworthy” when they’re new and/or they’ve caused some kind of issue of great importance to the general public. Db2 does not fall within either of these categories and thus, runs quietly in the background facilitating many of our daily, incredibly important service requests. It has been used to manage the highly sensitive data of the world’s largest banks, financial institutions, governments, insurance companies, manufacturers, and automotive companies, since its inception in the 1980s.
This is why we believe it’s so important to sing the praises of the platform whenever we get the chance. Of course, many of our product sales depend on Db2 users, but more importantly, we believe a strong pool of professionals in the industry, equipped with tools to help them do their jobs well, is essential for the functioning of much of our society.
Some of the tools we’re excited to promote in Prague are solutions we’ve developed from decades of experience using the platform. At IDUG EMEA, the Infotel team is there to discuss with DBAs our work with clients surrounding:
DBIQ: Our DB/IQ product is a tool designed for DBAs and DevOps personnel to ensure the high quality and maintainability of Db2 applications. DB/IQ evaluates the health of your existing applications, ensures full compliance of code put into production, and suggests ways to optimize application performance.
iDBA-Online: iDBA-Online uses machine learning to provide automatic maintenance capabilities for performing database backups, keeping statistics current, and reorganizing tables and indexes as necessary. iDBA-Online’s sophisticated algorithms combine your SLAs, your business constraints, and a cost-benefit analysis to establish in real time the optimum maintenance schedule. The maintenance utilities are executed automatically to ensure your compliance with SLA and certify that every single operation has a positive ROI for the overall system.
PackMan: DB/IQ Package Management (PackMan) helps manage the DevOps chaos by identifying redundant packages, removing them, and reorganizing the Db2 Catalog. The result is a cleaner Db2 Catalog that is streamlined for more reliable application performance.
APT: Infotel’s Application Parallel Testing (APT) removes one of the biggest DevOps speed humps to mainframe software dev on z/OS – integration testing and user acceptance testing. APT allows mainframe testing to occur in parallel, smaller tests at a higher frequency than traditional, waterfall testing. With APT, users can create, execute, update, and reuse past test cases, creating a template for future needs and turning their resource-intensive testing efforts into valuable reusable assets with automation.
IDUG EMEA will mark the end of an eventful conference season for the Infotel team, and we’re looking forward to a successful 2024. As we share our products, services, and insights, we look forward to inspiring and being inspired by the diverse perspectives coming together in Prague. The tech landscape is constantly evolving, and Infotel remains dedicated to staying at the forefront of these changes.
Are you attending IDUG EMEA this year? We’d love to see you! The Infotel team warmly invites you to stop by our booth (#12 and 13) to say hello. We hope to see you here.