Earlier this month, the UK Db2 User Group Summer Meeting brought together Db2 professionals from across the UK at IBM’s Manchester offices for a day of presentations, technical discussions and knowledge sharing. The event featured a range of speakers and topics, with a strong focus on collaboration, resilience and emerging technologies.
Representing Triton Consulting were two of our IBM Champions, Gareth Copplestone-Jones, Head of Infrastructure Services, who presented on Sysplex Workload Balancing, and Rob Gould, Business Development Lead, who delivered a session on Hybrid HADR Clusters. Alongside presenting, both spent the day engaging with fellow attendees and gathering insights into the challenges and priorities facing the Db2 community.
A recurring theme throughout the day was the value of bringing together professionals from different organisations to openly discuss their experiences.
For Rob Gould, one of the highlights was the opportunity to connect with peers outside of the formal presentations.
“Just chatting with the attendees in the breaks and while having a drink after proved we all have very similar challenges.”
Gareth Copplestone-Jones was equally positive about the atmosphere and diversity of attendees.
“Meeting a good mixture of experienced technicians and young, up-and-coming ones, and sharing experiences.”
Their reflections echoed the wider feeling across the event: that user groups provide an opportunity for practitioners to learn from each other and share lessons learned.
Key Themes: Recovery and AI
When discussing the topics that dominated conversations throughout the day, Rob identified two clear areas of focus:
- Recovery and resilience
- The growing role of artificial intelligence
As organisations continue to balance operational reliability with technological innovation, these themes sparked discussion across both the presentations and the networking sessions.
One of the main highlights for both Rob and Gareth was Barclay’s Oliver Isherwood and Ben Spooner‘s open mic session, opening the floor up for everyone to share their thoughts and helping the group explore the issues the industry faces on a deeper level.
Beyond the Presentations
While recovery strategies and AI may have dominated the technical discussions, there was still time for some friendly competition. Attendees had the opportunity to enjoy. One unexpected highlight for Rob was testing his skills on IBM’s Wimbledon-themed tennis game, set up on a large screen. As an official Wimbledon sponsor, IBM brought a touch of the Championships to Manchester, providing attendees with this fun game break between sessions.
A Community Committed to Success
Summarising the event, Rob reflected on the high level of engagement from everyone involved:
“Excellent event where the attendees and the presenters all contributed in a meaningful way.”
Gareth’s takeaway centred on the spirit of collaboration that characterised the day:
“A sense of a community coming together and being prepared to share experiences and solutions, helping everyone to be more successful.”
The UK Db2 User Group meet-ups continue to demonstrate the value of community-led knowledge sharing. Thanks to everyone involved in organising this event and to IBM Manchester for hosting. We hope to see you all at the next meet-up.