Db2 11 for z/OS End of Service Date Extended!

In an earlier blog post, I wrote about Db2 11 for z/OS End of Support Coming This Year (2020)... but that was before the global COVID-19 pandemic swooped in and changed everything!

If you check out that earlier post, you'll even see that I made the comment that the "date appears to be a firm one... don't bet on IBM extending it." Well, that would have been a bad bet! And that is another reason why it is not a good idea to predict the future (even when you hear the prediction from a credible source).

Yes, IBM has extended the end of service (EOS) for Db2 11 for z/OS by 6 months... from September 30, 2020, to next year, March 31, 2021. They furthermore state that they expect it to be a one-time adjustment (but I'm not going to predict the future this time).

You can find the revised EOS terms here.

Regardless of the extension, it still makes sense to start planning your migration to Db2 12 for z/OS now. Actually, with the slowdown in many corporations due to the pandemic, your DBAs and systems programmers might have some time to do this now.

Keep in mind that Db2 11 was made generally available way back on October 25, 2013, 7 years ago. This is an eternity in the world of enterprise software. So it is nice to have more wiggle room, but don't use it to delay further... start your planning now (if you haven't already).

Db2 for z/OS and Managing Database Changes - The Recap

During the month of April 2020 I wrote a series of blog posts on the different types of Db2 for z/OS database change management and the things to remember and consider...  Today, the first day of May, I just wanted to publish a quick recap and links to all of these posts. So without further ado...

The first post in this series introduced the types of changes and briefly explained the differences at a very high level. It serves as the introduction to the next three parts.

Part 2 examined simple changes, the easiest of the three types of change to implement. These usually just require issuing a simple ALTER to effect database changes.

In the next installment, Part 3 details medium changes, known in the Db2 world as pending changes. Introduced in Db2 10 for z/OS, these require a little bit more work and can only be performed on database objects in Universal table spaces.

And then in the final post, Part 4 takes a look at complex changes. These are the types of changes to database structures that are only supported by dropping and then re-creating the database structure with your required changes. 

If this quick recap whetted your appetite for more details, please take a moment or two to click through each of the links and read the more detailed posts.

And good luck managing your Db2 for z/OS changes!