by Akiko Hoshikawa, Paramjot Singh, and Tim Hogan

Db2 AI for z/OS (Db2ZAI) version 1.6.2 introduces a streamlined migration process that eliminates the complexity of managing multiple JCL jobs for metadata and target connections. This enhancement addresses a key pain point for users: the need to track and execute numerous static jobs during migration.

Starting with Db2ZAI maintenance level 6, you are no longer required to be at a particular product level prior to migrating. Prior to 1.6.2, you had to keep track not only of which APAR level you were on, but also which jobs that had to be submitted to get to the next level.

Instead of providing a set of static jobs to run for the migration, the new process provides two jobs (one for metadata migration and the other for target instances) that both follow the same general procedure. These jobs generate customized jobs which will make whatever changes are needed to your Db2ZAI objects (tables and procedures) to bring them to the latest level.

The biggest advantage of this new method is increased simplicity: the process of migration is the same for each new release. You will always be able to refer to one topic in the documentation to complete the migration.

Another major advantage going forward is the removal of the requirement to migrate to each new maintenance level to advance to the most recent level. This reduces the overall amount of time to complete migrations.

An additional advantage is that in the case where an attempted migration did not complete successfully, it is no longer necessary to rollback and start over with the migration because intermediate migration progress is saved. Instead, you now simply resubmit the job that generates the migration JCL and resume with the migration after resolving the issue that interrupted the process.

Keep in mind that although migration of Db2ZAI database objects has been simplified, you will still need to complete the steps related to HOME directory migration as detailed in the Db2ZAI docs.