The artist previously known as Data Studio

I can't help myself, but when products go through confusing names changes it always makes me think of "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince".

The product tools suite that used to be called IBM Data Studio 2.1 has been renamed to IBM Optim 2.2.
Here is a quick map of Data Studio 2.1 to Optim 2.2 product renames

• IBM Data Studio Developer 2.1 ->
• IBM Optim Development Studio 2.2
• Product, Download, Forum
  
• IBM Data Studio pureQuery 2.1 ->
• IBM Optim pureQuery 2.2
• Product, Download, Forum
• IBM Data Studio Administrator 2.1 ->
• IBM Optim Database Administrator 2.2
• Product, Download, Forum

IBM also announced two new products:

• IBM Optim Query Tuner 2.2
• Product, Download tbd , Forum

• IBM Data Studio 2.2
• Product, Download, Forum

which is basically a summary of Curt's Optim annoucement 2.2 blog which includes links to the annoucement letters.

Not everything in the suite changed names, ie InfoSphere Data Architect (IDA) 7.5.2, DB2 PE and HPU all kept their names. However, IDA and HPU did have another release . Anson provided a short summary of some of the new features in IDA 7.5.2

If you are wondering what is in the new IBM Data Studio 2.2, that basically were you can find all the no-charge features that were spread amonest Data Studio Developer and Administrator 2.1. It is explaned in a little more detail in the Optim Forum from Kathy.

You can get access to all the Optim 2.2 Trial Code. The Optim 2.2 became generally avaiable on June 19, 2009.

Here is a link to the new and updated Optim 2.2 information center and Optim & Data Studio Space.

Holly's article on Integrated Data Management uses the new names and gives a good high level overview.

One of the big things that is new with the IBM Optim 2.2 is that Oracle support was added. Some products have had Oracle support for a long time like InfoSphere Data Architect, so in particular Optim Development Studio 2.2 added Oracle support.
Here is a great article from Sonali highlighting what's new with Optim Development Studio 2.2:

If you are still confused or want to learn more there is an upcoming Webinar on June 30, 2009 at 10 am PDT that could help:

• Data Studio is now Optim: What does it mean for you?

and if you miss the the playback will be available afterwards.

Presenting at the Rational Software Conference

I will be presenting the following sessions at the Rational Software Conference in Orlando:
Tues June 2

NEM01 - Developing High-performing Data Access Layers for z/OS
6:45 - 7:45 pm
Location: Dolphin Hotel, Americas Seminar Rafael Coss, Lead Enabling Architect, IBM Information Management Learn how pureQuery can help you plan for and administer pureQuery applications deployed with DB2 for z/Os as the target database. Understand the various ways pureQuery applications can be configured to access DB2 and hear about best practices for maintaining control, flexibility and best performance. Learn about how you can use the pureQuery tools in Data Studio Developer within RAD, RSA and RDz.

Wed June 3

MAC26 - Agile Data Tools to Make Your Database More Flexible
10:00 - 11:00 a.m.
Location: Dolphin Hotel, Asia 2 Rafael Coss, Lead Enabling Architect, IBM Information Management An Agile Data approach is great, but what tools can help me make it easier to achieve. Join us to learn more about Agile Data and how Data Studio and Rational can be use together to share metadata, make your database more flexible, collaborate and bridge the gap between DBA and developers. This session will be half presentation and half live demo showing the tools in Agile action.

and co-presenting Dr. Vladimir Bacvanski on
Thurs June 4

MAC32 - Developing Data-Driven Web 2.0 Applications with IBM(R)
Rational(R) Application Developer, sMash, and pureQuery
9:45 am - 10:45 am


Common demands for Web 2.0 application are rich interactivity and the
ability to handle large volumes of data. This session shows how the
integration of IBM(R) Rational(R) Application Developer, IBM(R)
WebSphere(R) sMash, and pureQuery provide a way to rapidly develop
data-centric, scalable dynamic Web applications. Presenters demonstrate
how the solution combined the Dojo Ajax framework for the user
interface, Groovy for business objects, and pureQuery, IBM's
high-performance technology for relational data access.

If you are going please check out my session and stop by the pedestal and say hello.  

The IBM pedestal is pedestal #29.

New Integrated Data Manageement DeveloperWorks Space

Well the Data Studio Space and Optim are coming together under one Integrated Data Management space:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/spaces/optim

Don't worry about the old URLs, they still work.   They will just redirect you to the above URL.

You can find a list of Data Studio/Optim articles, videos, forums, and links to trial code.

Check it out!

pureQuery Made Simple Video

pureQuery is a data access platform.   pureQuery can work with and improve Java Frameworks like Hibernate or JPA, however it also offers an API.   pureQuery and the API takes a different approach than some previous approaches.   What so different?  Check out this video!



Find more videos like this on ChannelDB2

XML is Everywhere in SOA, so why store it differently?

Have you ever seen a SOA architecture chart like this:

XML is everywhere. It used to interchange information. It is used to submit functions via SOAP and web services. It is used in the presentation tier and business logic tier. So, why change it. If your SOA application uses XML everywhere why change it into some relational format. Just store it in the DBMS as XML. That's what DB2 pureXML does.

Well that keeps it simple, but then the next question how do I get it into and out of the DBMS? We could do it the traditional approach of writing some application code in Java/C# to put the data into and out of the database via JDBC, but why not use XSL, SQL or stored procedures for this. Wait, but what does SQL and stored procedures have to do with this? Just like we suggested not to shread the XML into relational to store it, you don't have to transform it into some OO objects to process it.

Sounds hard! Actually with Data Studio data web services (DWS) it's easy. DWS allow you to take any DML SQL or stored procedure and drag and drop it into a web services. And that service could run as XML using Data Power. There is some very nice integration between DWS and data power and which you learn more about from Michael Schienker's blog entry.

Data Studio 2.1 fp1 (DSD, DSA, IDA, PE)

Data Studio released a series of fixpacks April 1, 2009. No this is not an April fool's joke. :-)

This was mostly a bug fix fixpack which included some usability fixes.

You can find them at the following links:
IBM Data Studio Developer, Version 2.1.0.1 Fix Pack 1
IBM Data Studio pureQuery Runtime Version 2.1.1 Fix pack 1
IBM Data Studio Administrator Version 2.1.0.1 Fix pack 1
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/studio/download.html


DB2 Performance Expert Version 3.2.1 Fix Pack 1
DB2 Performance Extended Insight Feature, Version 3.2.1
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/db2imstools/download.html

InfoSphere Data Architect Version 7.5.1.1 Fix Pack 1
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/studio/support/data-architect/download.html

Let the downloading begin.

If you need more details on how to install the fixpack, check this out:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/datastudioteam?entry=everything_you_wanted_to_know

How it all began: Preventative Maintenance for DBA's

Wow, I started my first engineering assignment almost 20 years ago at Del Monte, the last San Jose, CA cannery. At that point I was a Civil Engineering undergraduate with strong CAD skills. A buddy of mine, Miguel, who was an Industrial Engineer major was raving about this innovative internship he had working for the plant manager, Howard, of a local San Jose cannery doing AM/FM. No, my first job was not in radio but about Facility Management (FM). The AM (Automated Mapping) piece was about giving you a map to visualize were your facility needed help.

Preventative Maintenance (PM) is a term commonly used in FM. The basic objective of objective is to avoid the constant fire drills in facility maintenance.

The Wikipedia provides the following definition for Preventive Maintenance:

The care and servicing by personnel for the purpose of maintaining equipment and facilities in satisfactory operating condition by providing for systematic inspection, detection, and correction of incipient failures either before they occur or before they develop into major defects.

Why was PM so important to Howard, the plant engineer? Because the price for an outage was very expensive in terms of labor and capital. How does a cannery work? It's a labor intensive 24/7 operation where if a major component\area goes down due to a maintenance issue you could have 100's of workers just standing around, your mechanics running around trying to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it ASAP and your capital, in our case fruit, is rotting as you wait to get back online.

Howard, was a smart guy and he new many of these outages could be prevented by doing PM. He and the mechanics knew that a motor or pump or elevator, etc ... typically worked well only for X months. And if he could keep track of all of key components and when they were last worked on. Then he might be able to come up with a plan to fix the equipment before it broke again and thus potentially preventing a problem or at least from an even larger problem.

The AM piece was about not having the mechanics run around everywhere. Don't fix one motor on one side of the cannery and then have your mechanics move all their equipment to the other side of the cannery to overhaul the next motor. Once they setup camp in a particular area what else should be done there. So, Howard wanted a map to visualize all the equipment that needed to be worked on for the next two months, so he could could plan and schedule the work. He also used the map to communicate to the mechanics what needed to be done. And later on he started using the map to look for patterns in outages. It became Howard's dashboard.

BTW, we did not call it AM/FM back then it was just known as Howard's pet project. A couple of years later as I learned about GIS ; I realized that we had built a crude AM/FM GIS out of RBase and AutoCAD.

Wouldn't it be great if DBA's could do PM to help them prevent their daily fire drills? Wouldn't it be great if DBA mangers had a dashboard to help them visulaize potential problematic areas and then be able to plan and schedule work to address these concerns, just like Howard?