There was enthusiastic discussion amongst the attendees and below is a just an extract from some of the technical questions & answers on the day:

Does GEZ take image copies as sources for copies?
Not currently. As GEZ writes the backups on tape the copy time would take too long. BCV5 is able to use image copies as source data, and as Gerd Hettling from UBS-Hainer explained, it then automatically determines the last written full copies. There is also a function to synchronize full or incremental copies with the aid of the DB2 log. This function is particularly of interest for all those who work in pure 24×7 environments and can not stop the source to gain a clean copy.

What about the renaming of objects?
Yes, this is important and is possible with BCV5. There are panels to specify renaming rules of the target objects.

After a fast copy the RUNSTATS utility may need extensive time to execute. Is there a way to copy the RUNSTATS information as well?
Yes, this function can also be used ‘stand-alone’, i.e. without a preceding copy of objects one can copy ‘runstats’ from a source to a different target system and target renames will be applied.

How does BCV5 treat views and indexes?
Views, triggers, and with some limitations procedures can be copied. Indexes can be copied or automatically recreated at the target system – the latter is particularly helpful for indexes which occur only on the target side.

We heard about significant lowering of the copy time but what about resource consumption?
Very similar to the runtime stats – we see a reduction of around 90% compared with other methods measured in SSU/SRU or CPU seconds. [/slider]