Room 1 (Session 1)

  Time 8:00 to 8:45

Kaare Plesner

15 Ways of  Accessing Data by Key

Commercial applications use on average more run time on I/Os than on any other activity. Reading accounts for over half of the I/Os. Very often a program needs to locate and read data based on a key value, but the most commonly used method runs many times slower than the most efficient. 
 

This presentation documents the CPU and elapsed time used by 15 different methods for keyed access to a data base and tells when to use which, and how to identify “low hanging optimization fruits”, very rewarding and easy to implement since the main program logic remains unchanged.

​

​

Room 1 (Session 2)

  Time 10:50 to 11:35

​

Steve Bradshaw

Things i-Love about 7.4

In this session, Steve will give us a rundown of some of the new features he loves in IBM's latest version of IBM i.  7.4 is new to us all so he will try and tell you what these new features are, what they do and why they might be useful to you.  Some of these new functions are big, some small but all are beneficial.

Even if you are not in a position to upgrade O/S just now, many have been PTF'd back to 7.3 and some 7.2 so it's still worth knowing about.

The aim of the session is to look beyond the headline enhancements and give you a flavour of these smaller but still useful functions that IBM has now delivered and to let you know how easily you could get them.

Room 1 (Session 3)

  Time 14:15 to 15:00

Guy Marmorat

Mult-Factor Authentication for IBM i

Stories of data breaches caused by stolen or guessed passwords have increased scrutiny around login password practices. Multi-factor authentication has become a popular method for strengthening login security and is now required by certain regulations such as the latest PCI Data Security Standard, the New York Department of Financial Services’ Cybersecurity Regulation (23 NYCRR 500) and more. Attend this session to learn how multi-factor authentication can be implemented and managed for IBM i users.

Learning Objectives:

•             What true multi-factor authentication really is

•             Authentication options and tradeoffs

•             Auditing multi-factor authentication

Room 1 (Session 4)

  Time 15:05 to 15:50

Steve Bradshaw & Rudi van Helvoirt

Tech-Talk (System Admin)

Information to follow......

Room 2 (Session 1)

  Time 8:00 to 8:45

​

Rudi van Helvoirt

IBM i ACS Run SQL scripts

- What's new?

Run SQL script has been a part of IBM i Access Clients Solutions from the beginning in 2012. IBM is enhancing ACS with every new release and often functions which used to be part of IBM i Access for Windows Run SQL script are brought in.

Keeping track of all the new functions is not an easy task and in some cases you learn that functionality was already part of IBM i Access for Windows Run SQL scripts.

In this session you will learn about these functions.  Rudi calls one of them DFU 2.0!!!

If this raises your interest, come along and find out more.

Room 2 (Session 2)

  Time 10:50 to 11:35

​

Carol Woodbury

The Best of IBM i Security (including What’s New)

During this session, Carol Woodbury will describe the latest features of IBM i security.  

She will also discuss her favorite features - those features that are most useful when administering and managing IBM i security.    

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Room 2 (Session 3)

  Time 14:15 to 15:00

Alison Butterill

Hidden Gems

The IBM i team has been delivering new function two times per year since 2010. New releases and technology refreshes deliver a broad range of function and sometimes the smallest line items that can make your life easier, are overlooked. The IBM i Team have reviewed the past releases/refreshes and have assembled some of their favourite hidden gems; things that you might have missed but should know.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Room 2 (Session 4)

  Time 15:05 to 15:50

​

Chris Bremer

Back-Up Solutions for IBM i

Today’s IBM i system has many options for being backed up including tape, VTL, CDP, cloud, and more. 

Which one is right for you?  We will discuss the various IBM i backup options as well as some backup strategies.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Room 3 (Session 1)

  Time 8:00 to 8:45

John Taylor

The Power of Customer Care with IBM Watson

Adding IBM Watson to your environment can transform your Customer Care.

Whether you are looking for a better customer experience, to reduce waiting time, to provide out-of-hours cover, to increase capacity or to save staff there is a role for Watson.

Come and see a live demo.

​

​

Room 3 (Session 2)

  Time 10:50 to 11:35

Jens Melgard Churchill &

Niels Liisberg

Microservice Software Development

An introduction to using opensource and/or free software, to develop a micro-service based application running on IBM i.

​

We'll start by looking at a demo that uses multiple intercommunicating services (that access google, generate a reusable shared state and much more).

​

Then, as fast as we can, we will pick it apart and see how it works and talk about how dev-ops helps maintain it.

​

Fair warning, this will be a speed run!

​

​

​

Room 3 (Session 3)

  Time 14:15 to 15:00

Pete Samways & Shahid Latif

Using Apache Cordova for mobile app development on the  IBM i.

Apache Cordova is an open source mobile application  development framework which enables programmers to build  apps using CSS3, HTML5 and JavaScript across multiple  platforms, including the IBM i. 

In this conference session, learn more about Cordova and the  approach we took for developing a mobile app for Google  Play and Apple Store."

​

Room 3 (Session 4)

  Time 15:05 to 15:50

​

Pascal Polverini

What you need to know about AI and Cognitive Systems

We already entered the 4th industrial revolution and as say IBM CEO Ginni Rometty "If its Digital it will become Cognitive". In this session, you will see what makes AI possible, what is the difference with classical programming approach and what are the key ingredients to add value in your Cognitive approach. From Machine or Deep learning, Neural Network, BigData or IoT, CPU or GPU, Watson or other, you will have a global picture.

This session is revealing and educational, it explains how things are happening behind the scenes, with playful examples (sudoku, film, etc.) and what are the parallels with the IBMi world.

Room 4 (Session 1)

  Time 8:00 to 8:45

​

Paul Tuohy

Development Strategies on POWER

In this session, Paul Tuohy discusses the key factors in determining development strategies on Power systems.

The challenges facing companies, as they progress through different levels of modernisation, are many.

How does a company change from a traditional development and maintenance environment to a more robust, modern development environment? What is new, what is different, what are the major and minor obstacles.

​

Paul also discusses the challenges faced by developer and what makes a modern developer on Power systems.

Room 4 (Session 2)

  Time 10:50 to 11:35

​

Jon Paris

What's new in RPG?

The V7 releases of RPG have radically changed the language. Among other new features, you can now code file and data declarations completely free format. And along with that comes the ability to code completely free format RPG with NO 80 column restrictions!
Other updates to be covered include:
•    Extensions to RPG's error handling model, which make it much simpler to ensure that things are "tidied up" in the event of an exception. 
•    New direct inline coding eases the coding (and subsequent understanding of) nested Data Structures in free format. 
•    Performance improvements for large return values that can make your subprocedures easier to deploy as web services.
•    Support For Alias Names
•    New and Updated BIFs - Including Scan/Replace, Minimum and Maximum
•    Plus DATA-INTO and more ...

Room 4 (Session 3)

  Time 14:15 to 15:00

​

Tracy Eastwood

Set Your RPG Free

​

In this session, Tracy will discuss some of the advantages of using free form RPG. He will take a look at a fully defined free form RPG program, and explore the merits of formatted and free form being used together.

He will also look at some of the time savings that can be made and readability improvements when using free form RPG.

Finally he will run through some examples.

​

​

​

​

Room 4 (Session 4)

  Time 15:05 to 15:50

​

Susan Gantner

5 Reasons RPG Developers are switching to RDi

​

Are you or your RPG developers still using green-screen text-based programming tools?

Today's RPG developer toolset is RDi (IBM Rational Developer for i.) The move is on. More and more developers are making the switch. In this session Susan will demonstrate 5 important reasons for the trend. Spoiler alert: they all relate to better productivity!

​

Come to this session to learn why so many RPGers are moving to RDi - perhaps why you should too.

​

Room 5 (Session 1)

  Time 10:50 to 11:10

ARCAD -  Nick Blamey

​

DevOps on the IBMi, Practical examples of Best Practices around modernisation of the Development and Testing Process. 

In this session you will learn how the largest and most successful IBMi development teams implement DevOps as part of their strategy.

The session will detail examples of “business value” of DevOps based on ARCAD’s work with the most advanced development teams across the globe covering the areas of: Preparing for a DevOps process, prioritizing the fixing of potential DevOps bottlenecks through “value stream mapping”, typical successful DevOps roll-out plans and the Return on Investment / Business Value of “selling” DevOps to your management.

Room 5 (Session 2)

  Time 11:15 to 11:35

Help Systems - Donnie MacColl

​

The IBM i Skills Gap

IBM i skills depletion is a top concern for IBM i shops around the world. How can you prepare to handle your IBM i experts departure when they move on or retire?

​

It’s likely your IBM i experts have been  managing all areas of your business-critical systems for decades. Everything from IT operations to data and application security. However, they often use homegrown tools that don’t have the documentation or the features you need to move forward when these experts leave the building.  

The strategies you’ll discover during this short session will help you ensure that your IBM i continues to deliver a powerful business advantage, including:

Educate and mentor the next generation of experts

Automate manual application and system processes

Consolidate monitoring into a single, graphical display

Secure the system against data loss and viruses

Fill security knowledge gaps with help from the experts

Room 5 (Session 3)

  Time 14:15 to 14:35

Softlanding - Sam Dix

​

Everything you wanted to know about LAD* (*but were afraid to ask!)

Drawing upon years of experience and lessons learnt, this educational session outlines how to build a solid business case for decommissioning applications to your strategic platform of choice - the IBM i.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Room 5 (Session 4)

  Time 14:40 to 15:00

SyncSort - Stephan Leisse

Bridging the gap between IBM servers and Leading IT Management

Learn how critical security and operational mainframe and IBM i data can be delivered for advanced analytics into Splunk, Elastic, QRadar etc. and integrated with ServiceNow® Discovery, Microsoft System Center and Micro Focus Operations Manager for improved insights, IT ops and SIEM across the business.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Room 5 (Session 5)

  Time 15:05 to 15:25

Blue Chip - Mike Tricker, Technical Pre Sales Specialist

The growing challenges of IBM i Security & Compliance

Did you know that your IBM i is highly likely to be distributing viruses? Are you keeping up with compliance regimes? Join this session to find out how we can help you with both challenges through one industry leading solution!

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Room 5 (Session 6)

  Time 15:30 to 15:50

Meridian IT - Lionel Butler

IBM PowerAI Vision – Data Science Made Easy…

Undercooking the value of Data Science is a risky game to play. Without a balanced and fair model the true value in data could be lost, of worse, badly misrepresented. Industry has however been looking for ways to unlock potential insights without the need for lengthy projects with high setup costs. With much of the available data being visual, tooling to help subject experts get the most out of their images and videos, without the need for a data science team would be a huge leap forward.

IBM PowerAI Vision is a toolkit built upon the ability of IBM POWER Systems with GPU accelerated performance (AC922). The combined solution stack means image classifiers and object detection models can be created without the need for any coding, just your expertise in the data being analysed. In this session we will explore the IBM platform, capabilities of the tools and how this is being delivered to the market by Meridian IT.