Get educated: The IDUG Virtual 2021 EMEA Db2 Tech Conference is coming up

The virtual Db2 conference is coming up

Do you remember meeting in person, at a conference? Well, hang on to that memory because the International Db2 User Group (IDUG) conference for EMEA is going to be virtual again this year. The "IDUG Virtual 2021 EMEA Db2 Tech Conference" is scheduled for December 6-10. If you have not registered, I recommend doing it. Here are some highlights and links to explore further.

Context Path Routing of Apps and Services in Bluemix

Context Paths for Bluemix Apps

As I mentioned in my post yesterday about simplified deployment of complex apps, I have been working on a sample for Context Path Routing to be used with IBM Bluemix. But what are context path routes and what does the sample do? Here are the details.

Cloud Foundry introduced Context Path Routing last year. Until then there was the requirement that each app (or service) was served from its own hostname. Now, apps can share a host with each app being served from a specific path on that host. Here are two examples:

1. When building a larger website, there could be several so-called microsites embedded. With Context Path Routing it is possible to serve, e.g., example.com from one web app and example.com/user-management or example.com/news from other apps. All these apps could be written in different programming languages such as Node.js, Python, Java and others. 
2. For a more complex microservice-based app, following the principles of the Twelve Factor App, there could be several (backing) services involved. The app and each would require their own hostname. With Context Path Routing the app could use app.mybluemix.net and services could be served from app.mybluemix.net/service1, app.mybluemix.net/service2, etc.

So how could you use the new routing feature? There are several Cloud Foundry CLI commands related to routing. They allow to specify an additional path for application routes. Manifest files also have optional route properties that could be set. To get started, take a look at my Context Path Routing sample on GitHub for details. It has two small apps written in Python and Node.js that share a host using specific paths. The apps can be deployed with a single command and allow to experiment with context paths. The "What this samples does" section gives you some ideas.

DB2 in virtualized environments

I had written about DB2 and virtualization in the past. You can use DB2 in many virtual environments and there are already kind of "dated" redbooks explaining details about DB2 with VMWare, PowerVM, and others. Today I want to point you to two interesting resources:

• You can even virtualize a DB2 pureScale cluster on Linux: The "yes, it is supported" can be found in the Information Center when looking for KVM. All the technical details of setting such a cluster up are discussed in this developerWorks article: Virtualize the IBM DB2 pureScale Feature on Linux using Kernel-based Virtual Machine
• An overview of all supported DB2 virtualization environments, e.g., which hypervisor, which guest operating systems, etc., is provided on this developerWorks page.

New Redpaper on System x Virtualization Strategies

IBM this week published a 60 page strong Redpaper titled "System x Virtualization Strategies". After giving an overview of IBM's System x platform, it discusses various options for virtualization on System x, including solutions from VMware, Red Hat, Citrix, and Microsoft.

If you are new to virtualization or want to get an up-to-date overview, this is worth a read.

Social Computing from Mobile Devices in a Cloud Computing Environment for Advanced Analytics,,,

to make IT greener in reshaped data centers based on flash memory with activity monitoring for higher security. Yes, that is the stuff I will do next in my spare time because I am dealing with "Technologies You Can't Afford to Ignore".

Virtual machines, but real books, real products and - yes - really useful

Last month a new IBM Redbook titled DB2 Virtualization has been published. In the book the authors first explain what can be virtualized (servers, storage, network), then talk about about technologies related to virtualization. What I found very interesting was a longer section about sub-capacity licensing, i.e., how DB2 is licensed for some of the virtual environment (how you can save money or not), as well as an overview about the different virtualization products and solutions (incl. Power HyperVisor, VMWare, Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine). That chapter also includes information about many great DB2 features, such as everything "autonomic", "self-", and "auto-".
The remaining chapters of the DB2 Virtualization book provide in-depth coverage of DB2 in several virtualization environments. Even if you are not planning on running DB2 in a virtual machine, I still recommend reading that book because it gives a good introduction into that topic combined with an overview of current technologies and products.

[More links on virtual appliances are in an older post.]