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Db2 13 for z/OS migration and early customer experiences

  

It’s been more than a year now that Db2 13 was made generally available. As we get many questions on the migration process and early customer experiences, we thought it would be worth a blog post.

Migrating to Db2 13 is simpler than ever before and can be done without any outage. Db2 13 continues to use the continuous delivery concepts that were introduced in Db2 12. However, one difference is that the first catalog level in Db2 13 is V13R1M100 and it does not require any catalog changes. Catalog changes (CATMAINT) can be postponed until before the activation of function level V13R1M501 which enables all new functions. In between, new functions that do not require a catalog change can be activated with function level V13R1M500. Postponing CATMAINT makes migration much easier for many customers. The migration process is summarized in the following graphic and bulleted list:

  • Migration only from V12R1M510 with validation of migration readiness
  • V13R1M100 introduces no new external functions
  • No catalog changes in Db2 13 until V13R1M500 to minimize risk and complexity
  • V13R1M500 supports new features that do not require catalog changes
  • V13R1M501 supports all new features of Db2 13 requiring catalog changes

Looking at the DACH market, there are customers who have already migrated to Db2 13 or are in the process of migrating. Their common feedback was that the simplified migration (CATMAINT not until function level M501) worked smoothly without any problems. They really like the new features like PBG to PBR conversion and utilities history and validated them successfully. They also observed slight CPU improvements over the previous version.

We are very happy that one of the German customers, BMW, was the first one worldwide, who completed the migration of all their production systems to Db 13. They presented their experiences in a public webcast. You can watch the replay at https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/4174690/94BF5B25597E15B8FFA404D0D6B44AA5.

Other customers presented their early experiences at the German GSE Db2 for for z/OS user group meeting. We highly recommend to join these meetings to get first-hand information from peers and learn from their experiences.

If you are planning to migrate to Db2 13 soon, we recommend you to take a look at the following two IBM Redbooks:

Finally, we would like to advertise that we are planning to run a one-day, free multi-customer Db2 13 workshop in Düsseldorf in September 2023. More information will be announced here soon.

If you have any questions on Db2 13, please do not hesitate to contact us. Benedict Holste benedict.holste@de.ibm.com and Irina Kazakova Irina.Kazakova@ibm.com