IDUG EMEA 2026

AI agents are transforming enterprise applications, but they need access to trusted, business-critical mainframe data. This session shows how MCP servers enable agents to query up-to-date, replicated Db2 z/OS data from targets like Db2 LUW or watsonx.data. It covers the rationale for agent integration, architecture patterns, implementation steps, and a live demo of an agent working with z/OS data.

There have been so many enhancements in Db2 SQL for developers in the last 3 or 4 versions that many developers have never really taken advantage of. This presentation picks my personal favorites that I believe all developers should get knowledgeable on and possibly applied to current and future applications. Developers should be informed of all of newer features in Db2 and this presentation is a great summary for this topic. When it comes to performance, often times the answer to better performance is rewriting queries different ways, and redesigning programs differently. Attendees will leave with a better understanding of some great SQL enhancements, application table designs, along with getting stronger in the SQL language. This is a great session for developers on Db2 LUW or Db2 z/OS. Developers 'Get Empowered'.

In 2025, NatWest undertook a comprehensive reassessment of its Db2 recovery strategy to align with evolving banking regulations and to take advantage of modern platform capabilities. This review aimed to uncover limitations in existing processes, improve operational performance, and strengthen compliance.
As part of this effort, the bank evaluated Db2 utility features and automation tools that could streamline recovery activities, enforce consistent best‑practice standards, and reduce the need for continual manual tuning of utility options. Future resilience was also a priority, with the strategy designed to support NatWest’s planned adoption of Cyber Vault technology.
This session explores the challenges encountered throughout the transformation, the solutions implemented to overcome them, and the best practices that emerged—highlighting how NatWest is modernising its Db2 recovery landscape while preparing for the future.

Db2 pureScale environments are designed for high availability and scalability, but their behavior under load, failure, and recovery is often more nuanced than expected.
In this interactive session, we’ll challenge your understanding of pureScale through a series of real-world scenarios covering cluster services behavior and failure handling, locking, caching, and recovery. You’ll be asked to predict outcomes, diagnose issues, and uncover what really happens under the covers.
Whether you’re an experienced practitioner or relatively new to pureScale, this session will expose common misconceptions, highlight subtle behaviors, and deepen your intuition about how the system operates in production.
Come ready to participate, question what you think you know—and leave with insights you can apply immediately.

In modern DB2 for z/OS environments, delivering efficient, resilient, and reliable services depends on the alignment of multiple critical components. With the introduction of DORA regulations, the focus has evolved from simply ensuring service continuity to enhancing it by making recovery processes faster, more robust, and easier to manage.
While many technologies and strategies already support service continuity, real-world scenarios still reveal gaps, particularly when unexpected errors lead to temporary service disruptions impacting customers.
Starting from a legacy disaster recovery framework based on traditional batch jobs, we conducted a thorough assessment to identify limitations in flexibility, performance, and reliability. Building on this foundation, we redesigned and enhanced recovery processes by introducing new strategies, improving automation, and increasing customization to better align with business objectives.
In this presentation, we share our journey: from understand