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Congratulations to John Campbell, Db2 for z/OS DE, on his Retirement! Living Db2 Legend!

John Campbell IBM DE for Db2 for z/OS will be retiring from IBM on the 5th of August 2022 after four decades working on IBM Db2 for z/OS. He has been the face of “World of Db2” for decades and I know he will be greatly missed by all of us. 

John started working on Db2 for z/OS Version 1 in the 80's, here is a brief summary of John's career with Db2 for z/OS.  John has worked with many, many Db2 customers, business partners and IBMers over the decades, this is an opportunity for everyone to say goodbye to John before he leaves IBM.

John is a living legend of the Db2 community, especially a familiar face at conferences, World of Db2, IBM and IDUG Events, supported Db2 for z/OS books, Redbooks, whitepapers etc. He will greatly be missed at events, conferences, panels etc 

John has attended and presented at nearly 60 IDUG conferences in North America, EMEA, Australia, South America and India.  He has been voted regularly as the “Top 10 Speaker" on majority of these conferences and been voted “Best "Presenter” at least 3 times and entered the IDUG Speaker Hall of Fame. He has presented many, many Db2 for z/OS webcasts over his career, I have personally worked with John for the past ten years and his webcasts have always achieved up to 1000+ registrations and which is a record for webcasts. 

He has also supported many, many Db2 regional User Groups all over the world.

I know John really wanted an opportunity to meet many of his customers, partners and Db2 family before his retirement and say "goodbye". However, with "Covid Pandemic” it does not look like it is possible, so we have arranged a virtual party.

Check out some of the highlights and memories of the last four decades Click Here

If you have any photos that you would like please upload to this community. Please send your wishes and memories, I will try and print and share in his retirement card. 

John started working on Db2 in the 80's as started his career as IBM Systems Engineer. - here is a brief backgrpound of JC's career. JC's words 

• Technical branch system engineer helping the early customers migrate and exploit Db2 V1R1 thru Db2 V2R3. Helped design and implement major operational and decision support systems.
• Top system engineer in his IBM System Engineering School.
• Lead subject matter expert for Db2 in IBM UK Country Technical Support. Major contributor to IBM Redbook projects, and UK and Intentional Conference.
• Assignment to Db2 Lab in San Jose working as a performance analyst for Db2 V3 and V4. Technical leader in Performance Team for the design and development of Data Sharing and Type 2 Index Manager.
• Appointed IBM Distinguished Engineer and entry to the IBM Academy of Technology in 2003.
• Several major IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Awards including for data sharing.
• Technical leader of the Db2 Worldwide SWAT Team since 1999.
• Voted best speaker at multiple major IDUG Conferences around the world, and member of the IDUG Speaker Hall of fame.
• I hope I will be remembered for my deep technical knowledge, my enthusiasm, customer handling skills, inspiring others, and being generous with my knowledge and time in helping colleagues and customers. Most importantly as the voice of the customer and the voice of reason within Db2 Development.

Earlier this year, I hosted a client panel with several of our Db2 12 clients about the sucesses and migration of Db2 12, this event is now available on replay. 

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In DB2 12 for z/OS, DRDA Applications and Application Compatibility Part Two Gareth Copplestone-Jones provides guidance on the implementation of server-side configuration.

Server-side configuration

When considering how to manage managing Application Compatibility – APPLCOMPAT – for your distributed applications which use the NULLID packages, the main alternative to client-side configuration (discussed in the previous article) is server-side or DB2-side configuration. Although not without its challenges, the advantage of server-side configuration is that much of the necessary configuration is done in one place, using system profiles. Continue reading part two. 

Introduction

This, the first of two articles on how to manage the Application Compatibility level for DRDA applications, provides an introduction to the subject and considers two of the ways of doing this. In the second article Gareth Copplestone-Jones will concentrate on perhaps the most promising method and discusses its drawbacks.

A very brief history of Application Compatibility

With the release of DB2 11 for z/OS, IBM introduced Application Compatibility, which is intended to make migration from one DB2 release to another less burdensome by separating system migration from application migration, and by allowing you to migrate applications individually once system migration has completed. Application migration is managed using two controls: the APPLCOMPAT BIND option, with a default option provided by the APPLCOMPAT system parameter; and the CURRENT APPLICATION COMPATIBILITY special register.

The original announcement was that DB2 11 would support the SQL DML syntax and behaviour of both DB2 10 and DB2 11, and that DB2 12 would support that of all three. Then along came DB2 12 with Continuous Delivery and Function Levels.

Application Compatibility was extended in DB2 12 in two ways: to support function levels as well as release levels; and to support SQL DDL and DCL as well as DML. It still supports an Application Compatibility setting of V10R1.

One of the big practical issues with Application Compatibility has always been how to manage dynamic SQL packages, and in particular how to manage the NULLID packages used by DRDA clients connecting via DB2 Connect or the IBM data server clients and drivers. That’s what this article is about. Continue reading