IDUG EMEA 2026

Db2 and IMS database administrators on IBM Z are increasingly expected to support modern, AI‑enabled business initiatives while continuing to manage complex, mission‑critical transactional environments. Traditional operational workflows—often manual and reliant on deep individual expertise—can limit consistency and scalability as systems evolve.
This session introduces IBM Z Database Assistant, which brings agent‑assisted intelligence into Db2 and IMS administration. By combining DBA‑centric AI agents with context‑driven dashboards, the Database Assistant helps DBAs better understand database behavior, evaluate operational impact, and take informed actions—reducing the need for manual interpretation across multiple tools.
Attendees will see how natural language interaction can simplify common DBA tasks, how intelligent SQL tuning can improve transactional workload efficiency, and how AI agents can assist with faster problem diagnosis across Db2 and IMS environments.

This presentation explores the nuances of query parallelism in Db2, focusing on how to effectively tune queries for optimal zIIP exploitation. Attendees will gain insights through real-world query examples that will illustrate these principles in action, showcasing tangible improvements. Additionally, we will discuss how ChatGPT can assist in the query tuning processs. Join me to rediscover the power of parallelism and leverage zIIP processors to their fullest potential.

Since Db2 12.1, the Db2 AI Query Optimizer has been improving the quality of your query access plans through improved cardinality estimates. This was super-charged in 12.1 mod3 when it was enhanced to support pair-wise join cardinality estimates. Participants will learn how this technology reduces tuning efforts so you can confidently use it in production. You may also get a glimpse into what's in store for the future.

This session will bring you up to speed on exciting enhancements and capabilities we are bringing to Db2 for the Generative AI era. We’ll talk about our overall AI strategy for Db2 and how we are both leveraging Generative AI as well as supporting the emerging frontier of Generative AI applications. We’ll then dive into specifics including our AI Vector Search capabilities, AI integrated LLM capabilities, and our Agentic AI powered tooling including the new Genius Hub.