Workshops & Hands-On Labs
IDUG EMEA 2025 Db2 Tech Conference | Dusseldorf, Germany
Sunday, 26 October
9:00 - 13:00
Are you struggling with Db2 subsystem and application performance? Join this comprehensive workshop to enhance your skills in Db2 performance management, covering everything from foundational concepts to advanced techniques. We will examine the critical Db2 components that influence subsystem and application throughput, and learn how to identify, monitor, and optimize key health indicators. Additionally, we will share best practices for effective performance analysis and demonstrate how modern open tools can simplify these processes. You'll leave with practical knowledge to improve Db2 performance and streamline your tuning efforts.
See how IBM SQL Data Insights combines unsupervised deep learning with traditional SQL queries, enabling you to run similarity, dissimilarity, clustering, and analogy queries on your Db2 data. Easily uncover hidden relationships across tables and views, quickly gain actionable insights to address business challenges as they arise and confidently make better business decisions.
In this workshop, we examine a food nutrition table containing detailed numerical and categorical information on a wide range of common grocery items from around the world. Using AI-powered SQL queries, you will identify which food products are most similar or dissimilar across brands and countries, helping to generate recommendations. Analogy queries will answer questions such as: “If my customer likes this product from this brand, what product would they like from another brand?” Additional industry use cases will also be explored.
The lab also includes the latest enhancements that allow users to run SQL Data Insights tasks through shell commands and REST APIs. Learn how to use these new interfaces to operate SQL DI tasks such as creating AI objects, enabling AI queries, and retraining object models. Note: Please bring your own laptop.
IBM Db2 offers a wide range of AI features, both built-in and external tools, for creating AI systems and solutions. These include over 200 built-in AI stored procedures and tools that work seamlessly with open-source AI ecosystems. In this workshop, participants will explore Db2’s AI support and use a selection of these features to implement practical AI models. The workshop consists of two parts. In the first module, participants will learn how to develop a supervised AI model using Db2’s built-in AI stored procedures. The entire model development and usage will be done using SQL within the database. In the second module, participants will learn how to create a Python model using popular Python packages outside of the database, and then deploy that model back into a Db2 database. By the end of the workshop, participants will have gained fundamental skills and hands-on experience in utilizing these AI capabilities. They will be able to apply these skills to their future AI projects. This workshop is designed to be beginner-friendly and does not require participants to have extensive knowledge in AI. Basic SQL skills and some Python programming skills are sufficient for attending and benefiting from this workshop.
This full-day session is divided into two parts. Part One will focus on migration and serviceability, and Part Two will cover DBA and application development topics. Attend both sessions and show your accomplishment by receiving a digital badge!
Generally available since 2022, Db2 13 for z/OS continues to deliver new capabilities, with 72% (and growing) of the capabilities being delivered via the continuous delivery stream. Meanwhile, Db2 12 for z/OS end-of-support is announced for the end of 2025.
Join us for this insightful workshop, constructed by the original Db2 for z/OS Migration Planning Workshop author (V8 – V11). This workshop is designed to help you no matter where you are in the migration lifecycle. If you haven’t started your migration to Db2 13, now is the time to begin, and this workshop can help you to prepare and get started. If you already use Db2 13, chances are there is even more value to gain from this version, and this workshop can show you how.
DBAs, Designers, and Architects will find topics of interest throughout the entire session, while System Programmers may be more interested in the morning sessions and Application Developers the afternoon sessions. The topics are arranged by role to make best use of your time.
Topics will include:
• Migration (with best practices, scripts to assist, and a project plan)
• Serviceability & Resiliency (the highest-ranking category for features within Db2 13)
9:00 - 18:00
Generally available since 2022, Db2 13 for z/OS continues to deliver new capabilities, with 74% (and growing) of the capabilities being delivered via the continuous delivery stream. Meanwhile, Db2 12 for z/OS end-of-support is announced for the end of 2025.
This full-day session is divided into two parts. Part One will focus on migration and serviceability, and Part Two will cover DBA and application development topics. Attend both sessions and show your accomplishment by receiving a digital badge!
Part One - Migration and Serviceability
Join us for this insightful workshop, constructed by the original Db2 for z/OS Migration Planning Workshop author (V8 – V11). This workshop is designed to help you no matter where you are in the migration lifecycle. If you haven’t started your migration to Db2 13, now is the time to begin, and this workshop can help you to prepare and get started. If you already use Db2 13, chances are there is even more value to gain from this version, and this workshop can show you how.
DBAs, Designers, and Architects will find topics of interest throughout the entire session, while System Programmers may be more interested in the morning sessions and Application Developers the afternoon sessions. The topics are arranged by role to make best use of your time.
Topics will include:
• Migration (with best practices, scripts to assist, and a project plan)
• Serviceability & Resiliency (the highest-ranking category for features within Db2 13)
Part Two – DBA and Application Development Topics
Join us for this insightful workshop, constructed by the original Db2 for z/OS Migration Planning Workshop author (V8 – V11). This workshop is designed to help you no matter where you are in the migration lifecycle. If you haven’t started your migration to Db2 13, now is the time to begin, and this workshop can help you to prepare and get started. If you already use Db2 13, chances are there is even more value to gain from this version, and this workshop can show you how.
DBAs, Designers, and Architects will find topics of interest throughout the entire session, while System Programmers may be more interested in the morning sessions and Application Developers the afternoon sessions. The topics are arranged by role to make best use of your time.
Topics will include:
• New design & implementation features DBAs & Designers will appreciate
• Utilities update
• Security
• Storage changes
• Data Sharing
• Hardware synergy
• System Profiles
• Connectivity Considerations
• SQL Enhancements
• Optimization Evolution
14:00 - 18:00
New to getting Open Mainframe Project Zowe up and running? Bring your laptop and join us for an informative workshop designed to guide you through the essential steps of installing and configuring Zowe's API ML, the open-source framework that facilitates mainframe services accessibility for both application developers and database administrators. This workshop will be divided into two main segments.
In the first part, we’ll dive into the critical Zowe configuration aspects, covering three key focus areas:
- YAML Edits - Learn how to customize configurations efficiently to suit your environment.
- Certificates Configuration - Understand the importance of security and how to set up certificates for seamless connectivity.
- Networking - Explore networking configurations that ensure Zowe communicates effectively across applications and your mainframe.
In the second part, we will shift our focus to how Zowe enhances the Db2 development and administration experience for users of Broadcom’s Db2 Suites. Discover how Zowe integration streamlines workflows and improves productivity. Whether you're a seasoned mainframe developer or new to the ecosystem, this workshop will equip you with the knowledge to leverage Zowe and transform how you interact with Db2 for z/OS.
This Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) lab session is to provide the attendees a firsthand experience in exploring how AI enabled monitoring solution can help manage DB2, z/OS and subsystems such as CICS-DB2 performance through the lens of an auto-trained Machine-Learning model. The objective is to empower you with automated anomaly detection in addition to relying on human manual analysis of system exceptions, thus you will become more proactive ahead of the incidents before they are damaging the system. The instructor provides a lab guide to walk through the anomaly detection feature in IBM Z Operations Unite with real customer use cases. Come and join this hands-on lab session to see AI for IT in action!
The Db2 community constantly welcomes new database administrators or application developers that access Db2. One of the reasons - Db2 is known as a robust and reliable database management system and a perfect match for private and public cloud environments.
However, sometimes you might face database related issues. The session will cover the first steps in the process of problem determination and problem source identification (PD/PSI). The session gives hands-on examples and practical examples for the strategy and process to encircle and find the problem by asking the right questions and will share best practices for the first occurrence data capture (FODC) tools available for the DBA.
sessions and show your accomplishment by receiving a digital badge!
• New design & implementation features DBAs & Designers will appreciate
• Utilities update
• Security
• Storage changes
• Data Sharing
• System Profiles
• Connectivity Considerations
• SQL Enhancements
• Optimization Evolution
Thursday, 30 October
12:30 - 18:30
Gain hands-on experience with IBM Db2 AI for z/OS, a powerful new offering built on IBM Watson Machine Learning for z/OS. Learn how Db2 AI can:
- Optimize SQL statements
- Provide Db2 system assessments with expert guidance for tuning your subsystem
- Utilize the Distributed Connection Controller to analyze remote workload traffic and generate Db2 profiles for monitoring and controlling remote connection access based on location, user ID, and application name
- Monitor system performance with a new performance insight visualization dashboard
Experience the latest enhancements, including improved regression detection, optimized dynamic query processing in SQL optimization, greater flexibility in executing system assessments, and the new profile alert features with an improved scorecard in the Distributed Connection Controller. Additionally, enjoy overall improvements to the user interface for a more seamless experience. Note: Please bring your own laptop.
This 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 workshop between the IBM and AWS RDS teams.
In this hands-on lab, you’ll experience the generative AI capabilities made possible by Db2 12.1’s new vector data store. You’ll see how to generate multi-dimensional vector embeddings, how to create tables to store and work with these embeddings, and how to use semantic search in a retrieval-augmented generation use case to find and retrieve the most similar or relevant information requested by a user.
A cloud native resource without monitoring (or with a very complex monitoring setup) is like driving a car without a dashboard - you wouldn't know if you are speeding or low on fuel! Db2 needs a concise and simplified monitoring solution that gives a bird eye's view on the performance metrics and Db2 diagnostics. We present here a solution that is available in AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and IBM Cloud while running Db2 with a Infrastructure as a Service model.
The speaker will cover her experience of collaboration with all cloud vendors, Db2 development and customers like SAP. The session will share the findings from that research and development project and it is based on the cloud native monitoring solutions currently available. The solution consists of a smart combination of Db2 monitoring capabilities, Operating System scheduling and Cloud logging functionality resulting in an out-of-the-box Db2 monitoring solution.
The solution has the following features:
- Displays the most important metrics (based on customer data) of a database instance namely, Bufferpool quality, Activities per second, Activity wait time and Logging performance.
- Information regarding Db2 Diagnostics by providing the count of increasing errors that can be easily extended for a comprehensive diagnostic analysis.
- Whether or not the database is alive.
- This solution introduces the Monitoring as a Service infrastructure and enables you to build your own cloud native monitoring solution with a few fingertips.
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