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Live Webcast 21st September 11:00 AM EST live Q&A panel
Title: Get ready for Vnext - become AI enterprise!

Get a sneak preview into what around the corner in the World of Db2, and get a head-start for planning your migration to Db2 VNext. This is an event you do not want to miss. 
IBM Db2 for z/OS is investing for leadership in the AI, cloud, and analytics era, extending our Z platform heritage of 24x7 availability, security, scalability & performance, while simplifying & modernizing to maintain Db2 as a top choice for next-gen IT professionals without requiring deep Z skills. This webcast will provide guidance on how to ensure that you get a head-start and are ready to upgrade to Db2 Vnext 

Cris Molaro - IBM Gold Consultant will be giving an independent user view regarding challenges clients are facing during the current technological industry trends. 

#db2z #ai #scalability #cloud #security #analytics #IDUG #Db212#machinelearning #agile #automation #ibm #IBMZ #innovation #event

With all the hype around new technology, cloud platforms and development approaches, you might be wondering how IBM Z and the transactional data that resides on it fit into this changing landscape. Read the new IBM Z e-Book

The optimal position for today’s IT organization is to be a full-fledged partner with lines of business to drive revenue and deliver on an organization’s strategy. IT organizations need to modernize. This means there is an opportunity for your organization to bring IBM Z into your broader hybrid cloud approach.

Many organizations say they want to modernize and transform. To transform requires agility and agility is a continuous process. You need technology that can continuously adapt to new business requirements and IT methodology. 

IBM Z has proven to be adaptable throughout its history and continues to introduce new capabilities to support your most critical engagement, analytics and AI applications. That includes support for your hybrid cloud infrastructure.  New capabilities demonstrate that, just like you, IBM is continuing to invest in IBM Z  -- a vibrant, adaptable platform that you can depend on to differentiate your organization.

IBM Z is the most resilient platform available for your core transactional systems and now offers integration with IBM Cloud Pak for Data™, IBM’s strategic platform for Data and AI. This integration means you can readily take advantage of your IBM Z data and resources as part of an integrated data and AI platform to modernize the way you collect, organize and analyze data and infuse AI throughout your organization.

Your IBM Z infrastructure investment holds significant value and can help your organization deliver continued business differentiation. Some may say that IBM Z and hybrid cloud is an unconventional combination. However, to paraphrase John Maynard Keynes, to succeed, sometimes it is necessary to do so unconventionally rather than be like everyone else and perform conventionally. IBM understands this and offers the differentiated organization a differentiated set of platforms.

I welcome you to read a new e-Book:  Leveraging IBM Z for a hybrid cloud world to learn how IBM Z IBM Z and IBM Cloud Pak for Data can complement and extend your existing and future hybrid cloud environment.

I keep getting asked "Why is Spark so popular?"  My view is it comes down to addressing Four  major requirements :

(1) Easy access to the right data - spark abstracts a lot of complexities when accessing data and handles it in a uniform way using Resilient Distributed Data Sets and DataFrames - more on this in other blogs.  It can access local and remote data - depends on how critical performance is.

(2) Cognitive capabilities - the machine learning capabilities enables Spark to become more intelligent and learn about the data.  Goodbye static algorithms - hello dynamic learning algorithms.

(3) Ubiquity - Spark runs on many platforms and environments so your Spark analytics can run where the data is. It brings the analytics to the data.

(4) Superduper fast - It can all be analyzed in memory,

I'm going to be discussing this in more detail March 1.  But what's your view on why it is so popular?

http://www.worldofdb2.com/events/the-ultimate-platform-for-spark-hadoop-projects

There is so much focus around big data but the truth be known that the vast majority of data used in big data projects reside in databases such as DB2.  Transactional systems form the back bone of data warehouses from which business analytics solutions analyze information.  But who has the best solutions, what requirements should a customer look for in a solution and vendor?

Watch the highlights from "Transforming big data into insights" : An independent consultant’s perspective" June 24, 2014, 11:00am EDT by clicking here  http://bit.ly/QlXOlG

Guest speaker, analyst and founder of Intelligent Business Strategies -  Mike Ferguson - Writes in his paper :
"The characteristics of Big Data, create a unique set of requirements that need to be met to analyse it. These include:
*Support for the following big data analytical workloads over and above that supported in a traditional data warehouse
*Complex analysis of structured data
*Analysis of data in motion
*Exploratory analysis of un-modeled multi-structured data
*Graph analytics
*Accelerating ETL and analytical processing of un-modeled data
to enrich data in a data warehouse or analytical appliance
*The long term storage and selective re-processing of archived
data (including data warehouse data)"

Join us for this webcast as Mike reveals the requirement to turn big data into real, tangible insight. and receive his full white paper for free.

There they sit - in the restaurant a family together - but apart. Heads down in their virtual and social worlds engrossed on their mobile devices.  Food arrives and they're back to the physical world.  And all the time - organizations are watching, collecting data on them.

Why is mobile such a phenomenon?  These devices are always on. We visit 120 screens a day on our mobile devices - checking things, socializing, purchasing on line.  To businesses - mobile adds 2 new important dimensions to analytcis - time and place - in addition to all the rich information we generate. Organizations and retailers can offer geographical, time critical and content-specific offers to encourage customers to make that purchase decision in the “mobile moment".

Executives need to stay in touch with what is happening in their businesses 24x7 - in the office, at home, in a cab. on an airplane. Is now the right time to make that decision? Should we invest / divest ? These always-on, smart connected devices have become the mobile office, enabling users to make smarter decisions at the right time. So mobile devices are driving real-time and personalized business analytics. It's unacceptable to wait for a response on a mobile device. Mobile users seem to be calling the shots. In the UK the #1 reason why the "Millenials" (20-30 age group) switch banks is they don't like the mobile app.

So what does this mean for organizations with DB2?  Well if you have DB2 for z/OS - or IMS - you in good hands.  System z just scales and DB2 for z/OS is enabled for mobile device development with full support for MongoDB.  It delivers immediate access to the very latest transactional data - not a cached out of date copy. Add DB2 Analytics Accelerator and complex queries are slashed from days to seconds which means complex predictive and anti-fraud models can be refreshed hourly instead of weekly to help reduce the ever increasing business risks.

If you want to learn more join me and my co-speaker Adrian Lurie for "Mobilizing the enterprise: Business anytime, anywhere" on Nov 11 2014 at 11:00am EST.
Register here http://bit.ly/MobileAdvantage and receive a free thought leadership paper "When 'pull' turns to 'push': Mobile computing is now mission critical"

Mark Simmonds @zbigdata

Any body watch the the launch of the IBM z13?  Wow - what and incredible piece of technology.  I blogged earlier back in December on mobile and analytics colliding.  It really has created a new tipping point in the industry.  Mobile iss driving business analytics to real time and analytics are gaining more insight from the tidal wave of mobile data and transactions that are being generated.  Think about it.  How many time do you access you cell phone in a day, in a week in a month, in a year !  All that lovely data.  There is only one database that can managed this workload. And now the z13 does it faster, smarter and more integrated than ever.  To find out more join me and Rebecca for a new webcast on Jan 27 11:00 ET on "When Mobile and Analytics Collide : Are you prepared?"  Hey - you get a free white paper !

Just register for the Jun 24 2014 webcast "Turning big data into trusted insights"  http://bit.ly/QlXOlG
#bigdata #analytics #insight #intelligence #DB2 #DB2zOS #hadoop #CICS

Join us for a complimentary webcast led by guest speaker Mike Ferguson, an independent consultant, analyst and founder of Intelligent Business Strategies. Wondering what to look for in a vendor when it comes to implementing big data and business analytics solutions? Mike reviews the business and technical requirements for clients embarking on these initiatives as well as some of the key IBM solutions for System z and their potential to help clients meet those requirements.

Register and receive Mike's new white paper on this topic

A couple on months ago I decided it was time to update my router so I started searching on the web.  I saw the latest wireless specs were 802.11 ac. So I found a few routers started comparing their capabilities against my list of needs (coverage and range, reliability, management, speed, cloud enabled, media server enabled, auto failover to second ISP... and so on.  After I narrowed it down to 5 or 6 models, I started looking at reviews on Amazon, CNET, Trustedreviews, etc and weeded out the weaker ones.   I contacted friends on social media sites who were tech-geeks like me to hear their experiences, physically looked at one in a store  - yes... I actually stepped outside the somewhat safe virtual world for a while!. Once I had decided the "chosen one" met all my requirements / needs and was satisfied with the reviews I started looking for the best price on-line and fastest delivery. By now you're asking "Where is he going with all this?"

It occurred to me that I was using many sources of information :
structured information comparing specs in tabular form
free form text reviews containing emotion and sentiment
1-on-1 conversations with friends
cheapest prices, fastest deliveries....

Bingo ... big data - and analytcis !

So do big data and analytics processes mimic how our brains work ?  We take multiple different threads, many perspectives, analyze all these thought processes (somewhat in parallel).  You can see where I am going with this....  We start with a set of objectives, gather a few data points with some uncertainty about the best outcome at this early stage and then add more perspectives and data points, join the dots, keep adding more data points, connect more dots until we feel we are as close to making the best decision that meets our needs.

So to me - we have always been doing big data and analytics mentally. But now we're trying to emulate it in computer models.

Deep.... very deep.

So when you are trying to decide what is the best big data and business analytics and solution and trying to identify the best vendor,  here's a link that might be helpful. http://bit.ly/QlXOlG
Register here "Transforming big data into insights" : An independent consultant’s perspective" June 24, 2014, 11:00am EDT