IDUG EMEA 2026

IDUG EMEA 2026

2:00pm BST

D202 IBM z Cyber Vault from a Db2 for z/OS perspective Workshop

Sunday September 27, 2026 2:00pm - 6:00pm BST

As cyber threats against critical infrastructure grow in sophistication and frequency, organizations running mission-critical workloads on IBM Z require more than perimeter defences — they need proven, platform-native strategies to detect, contain, and recover from successful attacks with minimal business disruption.

The IBM Z Cyber Vault workshop brings together IBM technical specialists, product experts, and early adopter customers to explore the full spectrum of cyber resilience on the IBM Z platform. This focused session series covers architecture, tooling, and real-world experience across four core topics:

In this workshop, we’ll provide a comprehensive introduction to the IBM Z Cyber Vault architecture. Attendees will gain a clear understanding of how an isolated recovery environment (IRE) is constructed, how data is protected through air-gap principles and immutable copies, and how Cyber Vault serves as the cornerstone of a mainframe cyber resilience strategy. We will exami

Speakers

Patric Becker

Principal Solutions Advisor, Rocket Software

Patric Becker is a Senior Director at Rocket Software within the IBM Db2 for z/OS Tools development organization, partnering with enterprise clients to optimize their mainframe strategies and deliver business-critical outcomes. He provides expert guidance on tooling solutions that... Read More →

Sunday September 27, 2026 2:00pm - 6:00pm BST
Maria

Track D, Workshop

Audience All
Platform z/OS

11:30am BST

D2 Bridging Relational and Data Lake Architectures: Db2 Datalake Tables

Monday September 28, 2026 11:30am - 12:30pm BST

Warehouse and data lakehouses are converging and Db2 is ready for this shift. Db2 Datalake tables enable access to open-format data stored on remote object storage directly from within the relational database, eliminating the need for complex ETL pipelines or data duplication. This session explores the technical architecture supporting both Hive (ODF) and Iceberg table formats, demonstrating how organizations can query PARQUET, ORC, AVRO, and TEXTFILE data alongside traditional Db2 tables in complex SQL queries while maintaining ACID properties where needed. Attendees will learn implementation strategies for converged warehouse architectures, performance optimization techniques, and real-world use cases where Datalake tables provide bidirectional data flow between relational databases and data lake / lakehouses.

Speakers

Olivier Bernin

IBM Gold Consultant for Data & AI, IBM

Monday September 28, 2026 11:30am - 12:30pm BST
Maria

Track D, Technical Session

Topic Data Movement and Integration, Db2 Cloud and Warehouse
Audience Intermediate
Platform LUW

2:00pm BST

D3 Underrated ITC Tables in Db2

Monday September 28, 2026 2:00pm - 3:00pm BST

Insert Time Clustering (ITC) tables are not an obscure feature in Db2 - many practitioners know them, and they do appear in logging, event, and similar append-oriented workloads. However, their practical design space is often underestimated, especially when the discussion stays at a high level and does not go into physical organization and concurrency details.
This session looks at ITC as a technical design choice rather than a theoretical table attribute. I will briefly position ITC within the Db2 table organization family and then focus on the internals that matter in practice: its MDC-derived physical layout, insert behavior, extent reuse, ordered access to rows in their natural arrival sequence, and the locking patterns taken on pages and extents during insert, scan, and processing activity. These details are not just implementation trivia - they directly determine whether ITC is a good fit for a given workload.
The talk will compare ITC with APPEND mode for FIFO-style patterns suc

Speakers

Alexander Veremev

Senior System Engineer specializing in Db2 for z/OS, VereData

I started working with IBM Db2 on UNIX platforms in 1996 at the Institute for High Performance Computing and Databases in St. Petersburg, Russia. Since then, Db2 has remained at the core of my professional life. My education in Mathematics and Computer Science at Peter the Great St... Read More →

Monday September 28, 2026 2:00pm - 3:00pm BST
Maria

Track D, Technical Session

Topic AppDev, Best Practices, Latest and Features LUW, Performance and Monitoring
Audience All
Platform LUW

3:20pm BST

D4 What's New in V12.1 Security

Monday September 28, 2026 3:20pm - 4:20pm BST

This session will cover the new features in Db2 12.1 security, covering 12.1.3, 12.1.4 and 12.1.5. Attend to hear about new auditing capabilities, including audit to cloud object storage, and directly to CSV files. You will also learn about new JWT authentication enhancements features online key retrieval. 12.1.5 sees the completion of the reduce file permission feature started in 12.1.2 that really locks down a Db2 instance. You will also hear about new Quantum Safe Crypto support in TLS.

Speakers

Greg Stager

Senior Software Engineer, IBM

Greg Stager is the security architect for Db2 LUW at the IBM Toronto Lab. Greg has been a member of the Db2 security development team since 2000, where he has worked on all aspects of security within Db2, including authentication, authorization, auditing and encryption.

Monday September 28, 2026 3:20pm - 4:20pm BST
Maria

Track D, Technical Session

Topic Back to Basics, Best Practices, Latest and Features LUW, Modernization in Operations, Security and Compliance
Audience All
Platform LUW

4:30pm BST

D5 Db2 AI Query Rewrite

Monday September 28, 2026 4:30pm - 5:30pm BST

SQL is a very powerful language and can get complex. There are many ways of writing semantically equivalent queries.SQL SQL may be written by database users or ncluding external tools and these may not always be the most suitable for the Db2 engine for performance as written. The Query Rewrite component in Db2 helps towards simplifying this task for the user or external toolThe Query Rewrite (one of two optimizer components, the other being the Plan Optimizer) automatically rewrites queries within Db2 towards a better performing version for the Plan Optimizer and the Db2 execution engine.
This session delves into how AI is used to help the Query Rewrite component make better decisions. We present the challenges involved, how we tackle these challenges and touch on our next steps to transform the Query Rewrite component to exploit AI to make it even more powerful than it currently is.

Speakers

Liam Finnie

Senior Software Developer, IBM

Liam joined IBM in 1999 as a software developer, and since then has been designing and implementing various features in Db2 LUW. Most recently, Liam has been leading the Machine Learning Infrastructure area for the Db2 AI Query Optimizer.

Monday September 28, 2026 4:30pm - 5:30pm BST
Maria

Track D, Technical Session

Topic AI GenAI and Machine Learning, Latest and Features LUW, Performance and Monitoring
Audience All
Platform LUW

10:20am BST

D6 Permitting, masking and trusting, a deep dive into 3 new Db2 12.1 security features

Tuesday September 29, 2026 10:20am - 11:20am BST

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.

Speakers

Greg Stager

Senior Software Engineer, IBM

Greg Stager is the security architect for Db2 LUW at the IBM Toronto Lab. Greg has been a member of the Db2 security development team since 2000, where he has worked on all aspects of security within Db2, including authentication, authorization, auditing and encryption.

Tuesday September 29, 2026 10:20am - 11:20am BST
Maria

Track D, Technical Session

Topic Best Practices, Latest and Features LUW, Modernization in Operations, Security and Compliance
Audience Intermediate
Platform LUW

11:30am BST

D7 Near zero downtime migration to Db2 12.1

Tuesday September 29, 2026 11:30am - 12:30pm BST

When upgrading to Db2 12.1 additional activities like OS upgrade or cluster technique change might occur. In addition, test migrations should be possible with no or minimal impact on a productive system. The presentation shows, how Db2 can be migrated to 12.1 including OS upgrade scenarios and cluster technology changes, build on pure Db2 functionality. It describes a near zero downtime solution. With it's repeatability, the solution can easily be used for pre-migration testing.

Speakers

Christiane Beyer

Senior Solution Engineer, Arvato Systems GmbH

Experienced IT professional with over 25 years experience in database administration on LUW.
Specialized in IBM Db2 on Linux over 10 years. Supporting High Availability Systems in health care & financial sector, which are based on IBM Db2 HADR TSAMP & Pacemaker Cluster.

Tuesday September 29, 2026 11:30am - 12:30pm BST
Maria

Track D, Technical Session

Topic Best Practices
Audience All
Platform LUW

2:00pm BST

D8 SQL in Action: One Statement to Rule Them All - MERGE and integrated SQL operations

Tuesday September 29, 2026 2:00pm - 3:00pm BST

If multiple statements can be combined into a single one it will be more efficient.
In this session we will explore multiple options to combine different SQL statements. Have you ever used the FINAL TABLE clause or selected the data you just deleted? Besides this the main focus is on the MERGE stamement which is probably the most powerful SQL operation which offers a lot of processing options and can even be used in ETL architectures and with temporal tables. Practical use case will be shown and explained.

Speakers

Michael Tiefenbacher

IT Consultant / Systems Integration, mip GmbH

Michael Tiefenbacher holds a Master of Science degree from the Munich Institute of Technology. He began his career as a Db2 trainer and was instrumental in introducing IBM’s Business Intelligence course curriculum in Germany.

With more than 25 years of experience in projects an... Read More →

Tuesday September 29, 2026 2:00pm - 3:00pm BST
Maria

Track D, Technical Session

Topic AppDev, Data Movement and Integration, Working with SQL
Audience Intermediate
Platform LUW

4:30pm BST

D9 More SQL tricks with Db2

Tuesday September 29, 2026 4:30pm - 5:30pm BST

SQL is a very powerful language. But to make best use of it one has to come to a "set-oriented" thinking to solve problems instead of the procedural thinking most application programmers are used to. This presentation discusses some important problems for which a set-oriented solution is initially not obvious, and shows how solutions of these problems can be developed with SQL in Db2. This presentation is a continuation with new problems and solutions of the presentation "SQL tricks with Db2" shown at IDUG EMEA 2024.

Speakers

Andreas Weininger

Principal Information Architecture Technical Specialist, IBM

Andreas Weininger is part of the Information Architecture team of IBM in Munich. He has more than 20 year of experience with scalable solutions for data intensive solutions focussing especially on the performance aspects. He is a regular speaker at database and data warehousing events... Read More →

Tuesday September 29, 2026 4:30pm - 5:30pm BST
Maria

Track D, Technical Session

Topic AppDev, Best Practices, Working with SQL
Audience All
Platform LUW

10:20am BST

D10 Make you data comparable by VECTORizing

Wednesday September 30, 2026 10:20am - 11:20am BST

Based on the VECTOR data type, that came with Db2 12.1, your data can easily be put in definnable context by using similarities. This can help identifying correlations where exact values would make it too complicated. As a relational model typically is based on direct comparability of values only, vector usage can provide some extra level of data linking. With an example shown in a live demo, this session will show step by step, how to implement vector usage in your data to provide additional analytical features.

Speakers

Martin Heitkämper

Data Scientist, Arvato Systems GmbH

I'm with Db2 ever since it started in the market, doing administration, design and development around Db2 (and other databases). Frequently I present at IDUG or other events, often but not exclusively on Db2 for SAP.

Wednesday September 30, 2026 10:20am - 11:20am BST
Maria

Track D, Technical Session

Topic AI GenAI and Machine Learning, Data Movement and Analytics, Latest and Features LUW, Performance and Monitoring
Audience All
Platform LUW

11:30am BST

D11 Db2 LUW's Always On Architecture

Wednesday September 30, 2026 11:30am - 12:30pm BST

In this presentation, we will discuss the resiliency offerings for DB2 and how they can be combined to provide an Always On architecture. What process changes are required, how do I determine what needs to be done, and what can I do today? The IBM Always On architecture allows you to run your client facings systems 24 by 7 by 365 with zero downtime.

Speakers

Dale McInnis

STSM, Db2 Client Adoption Engineering, IBM

Dale McInnis is an STSM in Db2 development from the IBM Toronto Canada Lab. He has a B.Sc.(CS) from the University of New Brunswick and a Masters ofEngineering(M.Eng) from the University of Toronto and is currently pursuing his PhD in computer science. Dale joined IBM in 1988 and... Read More →

Marcin Marczewski

SAP Management Consultant, IBM

Wednesday September 30, 2026 11:30am - 12:30pm BST
Maria

Track D, Technical Session

Topic Best Practices, Data Movement and Analytics, Db2 Cloud and Warehouse, Latest and Features LUW, Modernization in Operations, Security and Compliance
Audience Intermediate
Platform LUW

2:00pm BST

D12 Meta-Programming the Migration: Automating Zero-Disk Loads from Oracle RDS to Db2 OpenShift via Federation and Python

Wednesday September 30, 2026 2:00pm - 3:00pm BST

Enterprise database migrations are often slowed to a crawl by their reliance on flat files. Large volumes of data must be written to disk, moved across networks, and reloaded using traditional utilities—a process that is time‑consuming, storage‑intensive, and error-prone. In migrating a legacy Oracle environment on AWS RDS to a modern, containerized Db2 platform running on OpenShift, it became clear that a fundamentally different approach was needed—one that removes the disk from the equation altogether.
This session presents a high‑performance, zero‑disk migration approach that streams data directly from the Oracle source into Db2. It walks through how to set up Db2 Federation and automate nickname creation to establish a direct data pipeline. Rather than relying on conventional SQL processing, the approach feeds a federated cursor straight into the Db2 LOAD mechanism, allowing data to be written directly into target tables with maximum efficiency.
To make this solution practical at

Speakers

Robert Proffitt

DBA, DBA Topgun

Robert Proffitt is a senior technology leader with 35+ years of enterprise database expertise, having architected mission-critical DB2 solutions for Fortune 100 companies, including JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, FedEx, and 3M. An IBM Gold Consultant, he created DataSentinel—a neuro-symbolic... Read More →

Wednesday September 30, 2026 2:00pm - 3:00pm BST
Maria

Track D, Technical Session

Topic AppDev, Automation, Data Movement and Analytics, Data Movement and Integration, Working with SQL
Audience Intermediate
Platform LUW

3:20pm BST

D102 Your AI Is Only as Good as the Intelligence Behind It

Wednesday September 30, 2026 3:20pm - 4:20pm BST

Organizations are eager to apply AI to improve mainframe operations, but many still struggle with fragmented information, inconsistent processes, and difficulty making expertise available when and where it is needed most.

This session explores how Db2 and IMS teams can turn operational data, performance history, and domain expertise into actionable guidance that supports faster problem resolution and more consistent decision-making. We'll examine why context matters, how organizations can reduce reliance on tribal knowledge, and what is required to make AI recommendations relevant, explainable, and useful in enterprise environments.

Through real-world examples, attendees will learn how operational intelligence helps teams improve resilience, accelerate onboarding, and make better decisions without sacrificing governance or human oversight.

Attendee Takeaways

- Reduce dependence on tribal knowledge by making expertise more accessible.
- Understand what makes AI recommendations trustworthy and actionable.
- Learn how operational intelligence supports resilience and faster problem resolution.
- Identify the governance and human-review practices needed for enterprise AI adoption.

Speakers

Marcus Davage

Lead Product Developer, BMC Software Ltd

I’m a senior engineering leader with more than 35 years working across IBM Z, Db2 for z/OS, and large‑scale enterprise systems — helping organisations cut cost, reduce risk, and modernise. My career has focused on solving the kinds of performance, scalability, and architectural... Read More →

Wednesday September 30, 2026 3:20pm - 4:20pm BST
Maria

Topic PSP
Platform z/OS
Company BMC

4:30pm BST

D13 Db2 LUW Table Partition Management

Wednesday September 30, 2026 4:30pm - 5:30pm BST

Db2 LUW provides the capability to create partitioned tables which have a number of useful benefits. However, a current downside to the implementation on LUW is that there is no automatic built-in functionality to add partitions when needed or manage the process of adding, detaching and deleting partitions. In particular, for Production environments that require stability and availability without interruption, robust and auditable management of partitions is a critical and invaluable requirement.
In this session I will provide an overview of the design and implementation of a bespoke Unix based solution used in a high volume 24/7 transactional and warehouse database application. The presentation will include an explanation of the requirements to manage table partitions in a Production environment and will include high level diagrams of the process flow to manage the partitions; the logic to identify required partitions/timestamps to manipulate, the required commands to make changes,

Speakers

David Lynch

Lead Product Owner, Mastercard

I have worked with Db2 LUW for nearly thirty years in both development and production environments. I worked for IBM for nearly ten years on customer and internal projects either specifically with Db2 or Siebel running on Db2. I spent some years as an independent contractor and then... Read More →

Wednesday September 30, 2026 4:30pm - 5:30pm BST
Maria

Track D, Technical Session

Topic Automation, Utilities
Audience All
Platform LUW

5:40pm BST

D14 Db2 for z/OS Tuning Techniques: Practical Strategies for Maximum Performance

Wednesday September 30, 2026 5:40pm - 6:40pm BST

With growing data volumes, mixed workloads, and strict SLAs, effective tuning demands a structured, end-to-end approach.
This session focuses on practical, real-world Db2 tuning techniques that deliver measurable performance improvements in production systems. Attendees will learn how to identify high-cost SQL using Db2 accounting and statistics data, analyse access paths with EXPLAIN, and apply targeted tuning at the SQL, object, and subsystem levels.
Topics include SQL and predicate optimization, index design best practices, EDM pool and sort tuning considerations, and understanding performance differences between static and dynamic SQL.
Participants will leave with actionable techniques they can immediately apply to improve response times and control Db2 CPU usage.

Speakers

Devanand Karunakaran

Senior Technical Advisor, BMC Software

Senior Solution Engineer at BMC, help our customers get the most out of our BMC AMI Data for Db2 and IMS products. Also, help our customers modernize their mainframe environment to meet their business and market demands. Have expertise on IBM MVS zOS DB2 and IMS mainframe platforms... Read More →

Wednesday September 30, 2026 5:40pm - 6:40pm BST
Maria

Track D, Technical Session

Topic Best Practices, Performance and Monitoring, User Stories
Audience Intermediate
Platform z/OS

9:00am BST

D15 Db2 Upgrade Lessons the Manuals Don’t Teach You

Thursday October 1, 2026 9:00am - 10:00am BST

Db2 upgrades can look straightforward in your favourite manual, but real-world environments often tell a different story. In this session, we share practical user experiences and lessons learned from two recent Db2 upgrade projects that we undertook – moving from Db2 v11.1 to v11.5 on Windows, and from Db2 v11.5 to v12.1.3 on Linux. These upgrades involved very different setups, including single versus multiple instances, standalone databases versus HADR clusters, and the contrasting challenges between Windows and Linux platforms. We will walk through the expected and unexpected issues we encountered, highlight pitfalls not clearly documented in the manuals, and explain the workarounds and strategies that allowed us to complete the upgrades successfully.

Speakers

Iqbal Goralwalla

Principal Sales Engineer, Triton Consulting Ltd

An IBM Gold Consultant and an IBM Champion for Data Management, Iqbal Goralwalla has over 20 years of experience in all aspects of relational databases on the LUW platform. Iqbal is also a member of IBM’s Technical Advisory Board. Iqbal is a highly experienced Data Management specialist... Read More →

Damir Wilder

Db2 SME and Data Architect, Triton Consulting Ltd

I am a Senior Consultant at Triton Consulting, a UK based company that specializes in Hybrid Data Management, Digital Transformation and DB2 database and Information Management services for the z/OS and Midrange.
My area of expertise is the Midrange platform (predominantly Linux and AIX, both on-prem and Cloud).I have started working as a DB2 DBA in year 2000 on the DB2 version 5.0 and have working experience from that version up to the latest v12.1.I am a certified DB2 v10/v11.1/v11.5 LUW... Read More →

Thursday October 1, 2026 9:00am - 10:00am BST
Maria

Track D, Technical Session

Topic Back to Basics, Best Practices, User Stories
Audience Beginner
Platform LUW

10:20am BST

D16 Db2 as Containerized Deployment

Thursday October 1, 2026 10:20am - 11:20am BST

Db2 containerization makes Db2 more flexible, scalable, and cloud-native by running it in containers managed by Kubernetes. As Kubernetes is constantly evolving, so does Db2U, our Db2 Universal Container. Come and learn the great deal of innovative work coming your way, in terms of the next-gen capabilities of Db2U.

Speakers

Venkatesh Gopal

STSM, Warehouse SaaS Offerings, IBM

Venkatesh is an STSM at IBM focused on the Cloud offerings and HDM strategy for their offerings in these Hypersclaer platforms. He designs and architects how Db2 will be delivered on Cloud platforms as a first class SaaS offering and how they integrate with the Hyperscaler ecosys... Read More →

Thursday October 1, 2026 10:20am - 11:20am BST
Maria

Track D, Technical Session

Topic Db2 Cloud and Warehouse, Latest and Features LUW
Audience All
Platform LUW

11:30am BST

D17 Using Db2 for more than just relational data

Thursday October 1, 2026 11:30am - 12:30pm BST

Many users and applications make only use of Db2 as a relational database. But Db2 is much more than just a relational database. Db2 support the efficient processing of JSON and XML data, allows queries on spatial data, and supports text search and even semantic searches. This presentation gives an overview of these "non-relational" features of Db2, and demonstrates how these features can be used and combined to implement various use cases.

Speakers

Andreas Weininger

Principal Information Architecture Technical Specialist, IBM

Andreas Weininger is part of the Information Architecture team of IBM in Munich. He has more than 20 year of experience with scalable solutions for data intensive solutions focussing especially on the performance aspects. He is a regular speaker at database and data warehousing events... Read More →

Thursday October 1, 2026 11:30am - 12:30pm BST
Maria

Track D, Technical Session

Topic AI GenAI and Machine Learning, AppDev, Best Practices, Working with SQL
Audience All
Platform LUW

2:30pm BST

C203 Amazon RDS for Db2 Workshop

Thursday October 1, 2026 2:30pm - 6:30pm BST

This updated workshop will give you the education and information you need to use existing and new features of Amazon RDS for Db2. Some of the topics covered during this workshop will include provisioning, scaling, backup, monitoring, migration and beyond.
Each module will be introduced and presented and then participants will be provided an environment they can use and go through a series of instructor led exercises to practice what they have learned and explore. This will be a joint workship between the IBM and AWS RDS teams.

Speakers

Hafsa Ali

Executive IT Specialist for IBM® Z solutions, IBM

Javeed Mohammed

Sr. Database Solutions Architect, Amazon Web Services

Javeed is a Sr. Database Specialist Solutions Architect with Amazon Web Services. He works with the Amazon RDS team, focusing on commercial database engines like Db2 and Oracle. He enjoys working with customers to help design, deploy, and optimize relational database workloads in... Read More →

Thursday October 1, 2026 2:30pm - 6:30pm BST
Maria

Track C, Workshop

Topic Db2 Cloud and Warehouse, Modernization in Operations
Audience Intermediate
Platform LUW