COMMON POWERUp 2025

COMMON POWERUp 2025

Unlock the Power of IBM i at POWERUp 2025!

Join us in Disneyland, California, for POWERUp 2025, the premier conference for IBM i professionals. Whether you’re an experienced expert or just starting your IBM i journey, this event offers unparalleled education, hands-on workshops, and valuable networking opportunities. Stay ahead of the curve with insights from industry leaders, explore the latest innovations, and connect with a thriving community that shares your passion for IBM i. Don’t miss this opportunity to expand your knowledge, grow your skills, and power up your career!

10:00am PDT

Elevate Your IBMi Game: Transforming Bad Habits in Best

Monday May 19, 2025 10:00am - 11:00am PDT

Best Practices is all about meeting IBM system compliance to achieve optimal results. Don’t let old myths or newly formed bad habits be the difference between success or a failure in service delivery. This session will examine V7R4/R5 System configurations, BRMS Backups, Disaster Recovery, and Security Management. Examine assumptions, technical gaps, blunders, and recommendations. Hear actual lessons learned so you do not make the same IBM i assumptions others have made. IT is not a game of chance.

Speakers

Richard Dolewski

VP, Enterprise Solutions, Connectria

Richard is a recognized SME and award-winning industry speaker specializing in, Cloud Computing Architecture, Business Resiliency, Disaster Recovery Planning and Backup & Recovery Program Design. He leads organizations through the new era of technology, achieving the desired, successful... Read More →

Josh Patterson

Monday May 19, 2025 10:00am - 11:00am PDT
Room 13 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

10:00am PDT

Introduction to the Navigator for i Performance Tasks

Monday May 19, 2025 10:00am - 11:00am PDT

Navigator for i has a rich set of tools to help you understand the performance of your IBM i. This session will demonstrate how to use Navigator for performance management tasks such as Custom Charts for specific metrics, System Monitors for real-time monitoring, the Performance Data Investigator to understand your performance signature, and Graph History for long-term trending.

Attend this session to learn about all about the performance management features in Navigator.

Speakers

Dawn May

Monday May 19, 2025 10:00am - 11:00am PDT
Room 12 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

11:15am PDT

IBM Power Virtual Server: What is new and how is that helping my business

Monday May 19, 2025 11:15am - 12:15pm PDT

In this session we will discuss what new features and improvements have been implemented on IBM Power Virtual server and how these improvements will help your business.
We will also discuss by real examples how other business use IBM Power Virtual Server

Speakers

Tonny Bastiaans

Monday May 19, 2025 11:15am - 12:15pm PDT
Room 13 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

3:15pm PDT

Clean up your i

Monday May 19, 2025 3:15pm - 4:15pm PDT

How much disk storage do you have on your system? The most common answer is 'not enough!' Attend this session and find out where all that space went, what you can clean up, and what should be left alone.

Learn about ways to report and find disk usage as well as understanding how you use it.

Develop a deeper understanding of the tools IBM has built into IBM i, ESPECIALLY SQL Tools, and how to leverage them to help keep your system clean.

Walk away with a solid understanding of how to clean up your disk space, manage your IFS, and reorganize your files.

Speakers

Larry Bolhuis

Cloud and Datacenter Engineer, IBM Champion, Service Express Inc.

Larry has grown up with computers since his father became a CE in 1967. He obtained a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Calvin College in 1982 and soon after began working on IBM midrange equipment with the S/34 and S/36. Larry began working on the As/400 at its introduction In 1988.After spending many years as a developer Larry began working on communications, networking, and systems management tasks. Years of... Read More →

Monday May 19, 2025 3:15pm - 4:15pm PDT
Room 7 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

3:15pm PDT

Understand Your Performance Signature

Monday May 19, 2025 3:15pm - 4:15pm PDT

IBM i often runs well with little or no focus on the performance of the system. But what if something unexpected does occur? If you understand the performance signature of your system when it is running well, it becomes much easier to identify and resolve problems if something goes wrong. This session will show you how to use the Performance Data Investigator to understand your day-to-day performance signature. This session will being with an overview of the wait accounting technology built into IBM i, as this is the foundation to understanding many of the charts in the Performance Data Investigator. This session will review many graphs available within the Performance Data Investigator and describe how to understand what the charts show.

Speakers

Dawn May

Monday May 19, 2025 3:15pm - 4:15pm PDT
Room 10 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

4:30pm PDT

How to use Performance Data Investigator (PDI) - CPU and Disk Times

Monday May 19, 2025 4:30pm - 4:50pm PDT

In this session we'll see the options that has the PDI (one tool from Navigator for i) to review and investigate performance data for CPU and Disk related metrics.

Speakers

Juan Araya

Monday May 19, 2025 4:30pm - 4:50pm PDT
Room 1 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

4:30pm PDT

System Limits on IBM i

Monday May 19, 2025 4:30pm - 4:50pm PDT

IBM i is an operating system that was built from the ground up to satisfy the needs of business computing. Even with its robust capabilities, IBM i customers requested additional insight into the top consumption of the most important system resources. Their request came from a business requirement to achieve optimal operations and limit any risk or potential outage related to over consumption of system resources. The IBM i response to this requirement was to architect On-Demand tracking of IBM i System limits. Attend this session to understand the architecture of System Limits and the different components within the operating system that have been instrumented for tracking. Lastly, the session will include details for how customers can leverage and consume this new source of system health insight.

Relevant resources:
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/tracking-important-system-limits

Speakers

Scott Forstie

STSM, Db2 for i Architect, IBM

Scott Forstie is a Senior Technical Staff Member within IBM i development and spends most of his time working as the Db2 for i Architect. He has worked on IBM operating system development since joining IBM in 1989.Scott is a frequently published author, speaker at industry events... Read More →

Monday May 19, 2025 4:30pm - 4:50pm PDT
Room 3 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

5:05pm PDT

20 Tips in 20 Minutes

Monday May 19, 2025 5:05pm - 5:25pm PDT

In my work with real-world environments, I have found a number of very common configuration settings that are not optimal for today's environment. Whether it be system values, job descriptions, memory pools, many shops have configuration settings at the system default value, or settings that were done years ago.

This session is a fast-paced session covering 20 configuration tips in 20 minutes.

Speakers

Dawn May

Monday May 19, 2025 5:05pm - 5:25pm PDT
Room 12 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

5:05pm PDT

Understanding Various Parts of the Save process

Monday May 19, 2025 5:05pm - 5:25pm PDT

Understand the different ways to save your system, such as using BRMS or traditional native commands. Along the way, tips will be given on best practices and ensuring you have what it takes to recover.

Speakers

Pete Massiello

IBM i Advisor, Massiello Holding Corp.

Pete Massiello has been working with the AS/400, iSeries, IBM i since 1989, focusing on systems management and technical support. He has held numerous technical positions through out his career. He is the President of iTech Solutions Group, an IBM Premier Business Partner delivering... Read More →

Monday May 19, 2025 5:05pm - 5:25pm PDT
Room 6 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

5:05pm PDT

What is SYSTOOLS and how can you leverage it?

Monday May 19, 2025 5:05pm - 5:25pm PDT

Db2 for i provides useful tools and examples in the SYSTOOLS schema. Come to this session to learn what shiny gems lie within this unopened treasure chest. You need not be an SQL programmer to gain tremendous value from SQL tools!
https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/i/7.5?topic=optimization-systools

Speakers

Scott Forstie

STSM, Db2 for i Architect, IBM

Scott Forstie is a Senior Technical Staff Member within IBM i development and spends most of his time working as the Db2 for i Architect. He has worked on IBM operating system development since joining IBM in 1989.Scott is a frequently published author, speaker at industry events... Read More →

Monday May 19, 2025 5:05pm - 5:25pm PDT
Room 3 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

8:00am PDT

What you need to Know to Successfully Upgrade to IBM i 7.5 or 7.4

Tuesday May 20, 2025 8:00am - 9:00am PDT

When upgrading to IBM I, the planning stage requires more effort than the actual upgrade. Once the planning is complete, the upgrade itself is simple. We will discuss planning tips, prerequisites, and post-installation requirements. Everything you need to know to do a successful upgrade. Your upgrade is not fully complete until this final step is done.

Speakers

Pete Massiello

IBM i Advisor, Massiello Holding Corp.

Pete Massiello has been working with the AS/400, iSeries, IBM i since 1989, focusing on systems management and technical support. He has held numerous technical positions through out his career. He is the President of iTech Solutions Group, an IBM Premier Business Partner delivering... Read More →

Tuesday May 20, 2025 8:00am - 9:00am PDT
Room 13 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

8:00am PDT

Why and How to read a Job log

Tuesday May 20, 2025 8:00am - 9:00am PDT

When a job runs on IBM i it generates various status messages. When things go 'bump' the job issues additional messages. Where do those messages appear? Most of them appear in the job log, making the job log the 'go to' for identifying issues or determining status of the job.

In this session we will review how to control the job log detail and disposition. We'll show you ways to read the job log. We'll also discuss the differences between active and completed jobs and give some thinking about dealing with a large number of job logs.

Speakers

Larry Bolhuis

Cloud and Datacenter Engineer, IBM Champion, Service Express Inc.

Larry has grown up with computers since his father became a CE in 1967. He obtained a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Calvin College in 1982 and soon after began working on IBM midrange equipment with the S/34 and S/36. Larry began working on the As/400 at its introduction In 1988.After spending many years as a developer Larry began working on communications, networking, and systems management tasks. Years of... Read More →

Tuesday May 20, 2025 8:00am - 9:00am PDT
Room 5 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

9:15am PDT

Control all your IBM i applications and systems from your current monitoring solution, extremely easily!

Tuesday May 20, 2025 9:15am - 10:15am PDT

Not happy with the IBM i monitoring level of your existing tool such as Nagios, PRTG, SolarWinds, Zabbix, etc ?
Discover how “Control for i” adds instantly 180 ‘Plug & Play’ IBM i checks and how your tool is enhanced without any development required.
You will also acquire knowledge on how it is easy to automate answers to well-known messages.
Learn how you will become more proactive: with high accuracy probes you are alerted of problems before they become critical; this improves the service continuity and reduces emergency response costs).
Note: “Control for i” is compatible with 90% of most commonly used monitoring tools.

Learning Objectives:
How to enhance easily your enterprise monitoring solution integrating IBM i controls without any development.

Speakers

Pascal Ruckebusch

CTO and CEO, M81

Pascal Ruckebusch adopted IBM i at the exact beginning of AS/400, three decades ago, and never left it … Pascal's experience on IBM i covers system and application development, training and operations. Twice CTO of 2 major IBM business partners in France, his technical skills and... Read More →

Tuesday May 20, 2025 9:15am - 10:15am PDT
Room 3 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

9:15am PDT

Db2 Mirror - Migrate While Active

Tuesday May 20, 2025 9:15am - 10:15am PDT

Come see the latest addition to the Db2 Mirror for i product family. Migrate While Active helps automate migrating your IBM i system to another server whether that is in a cloud or just another data center.

Speakers

Kris Whitney

IBM

Kris Whitney is a Senior Technical Staff Member at IBM Rochester. He has worked at IBM for the last 22+ years and currently is leading the development for Db2 Mirror for i and IBM i Public Cloud enablement.

Tuesday May 20, 2025 9:15am - 10:15am PDT
Room 13 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

9:15am PDT

Using SQL in Everyday Life

Tuesday May 20, 2025 9:15am - 10:15am PDT

There has been a significant strategic shift in how IBM i exposes data and how you can access and leverage that data. No longer are CL command and APIs the best way. Today, its all about SQL. You may go, great… I know nothing about SQL… no worries, neither do I! This sessions is about equipping you with some useful activities, and resources so that even if you are a novice, you can be successful with SQL Services to manage your IBM i today.

Speakers

Tim Rowe

STSM - IBM i Business Architect, IBM

Tim Rowe is the Business Architect responsible for Application Development and Systems Management for the IBM i operating system. His responsibilities include helping to make sure that the IBM i has what is needed to be successful both today and into the future. He sends much of his... Read More →

Tuesday May 20, 2025 9:15am - 10:15am PDT
Room 5 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

10:45am PDT

i-Chi - Thinking differently about IBM i System Administration

Tuesday May 20, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am PDT

What is i-Chi? It is about thinking differently about IBM i System Management, Embracing new ideas , Automating processes and monitoring, Using IBM i functions in ACS, Nav4i, ARE, IBM i Services, Integrating IBM i SysAdmin with other platforms and Reducing your reliance on the 5250 command line. In this session we give practical examples of how to do this that you can start to use today on your systems using tools that are free to use, already installed on your systems and all without the use of the 5250 green screen.

Speakers

Steve Bradshaw

Friendly Techie, Rowton IT Solutions Ltd

I've worked in the IBM Business Partner world for over thirty years now and despite IBM's best attempts I still love them ;-)In 2008 I set up my practice (Rowton) and now spend my time supporting clients or designing new IT solutions using a combination of Power servers, Intel and... Read More →

Tuesday May 20, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am PDT
Room 12 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

10:45am PDT

IBM i Services for Admins - Intro

Tuesday May 20, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am PDT

This session is designed for IBM i system administrators. It covers real-world problems faced by system admins, and how to solve them using SQL (with some help from IBM i Services). Don't be intimidated by SQL. It isn't just for developers! You can copy and paste the examples provided in this session to get started easily. Attend this session and add a suite of new tools to your system admin toolbox!

Speakers

Steve Riedmueller

Certified IBM i Admin - IBM Champion, Speaker, Mentor, and Advocate, Kisco

Tuesday May 20, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am PDT
Room 10 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

3:15pm PDT

Business Posture: Leveraging the benefits of IBM i in the Cloud

Tuesday May 20, 2025 3:15pm - 4:15pm PDT

Join us on a transformative journey as we explore secure and resilient Cloud solutions purpose-built for the IBM i.  How can you unlock the modern capabilities of IBM Power Systems without introducing the complexity and risk while driving positive business outcomes?

DRaaS, Db2 Mirror, and HA Solutions Delivering Uptime Results

Hybrid Cloud Architecture: Enhancing resiliency, security, and compliance

Three reasons Why Cloud Computing is Important for Businesses

Bonus - 1 BIG reason you may have never considered.

Speakers

Richard Dolewski

VP, Enterprise Solutions, Connectria

Richard is a recognized SME and award-winning industry speaker specializing in, Cloud Computing Architecture, Business Resiliency, Disaster Recovery Planning and Backup & Recovery Program Design. He leads organizations through the new era of technology, achieving the desired, successful... Read More →

Tuesday May 20, 2025 3:15pm - 4:15pm PDT
Room 2 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

3:15pm PDT

IBM i Services for Admins - Advanced

Tuesday May 20, 2025 3:15pm - 4:15pm PDT

In this followup session to "Intro to IBM i Services (SQL) for Admins" we dig deeper into the capabilities of IBM i Services. This session will cover more complex and powerful use cases for monitoring, automation, and system administration.

Speakers

Steve Riedmueller

Certified IBM i Admin - IBM Champion, Speaker, Mentor, and Advocate, Kisco

Tuesday May 20, 2025 3:15pm - 4:15pm PDT
Room 10 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

3:15pm PDT

Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Virtual IBM i Partitions Hosted by IBM i

Tuesday May 20, 2025 3:15pm - 4:15pm PDT

IBM i can host an IBM I Logical Partitions (LPAR) to provide virtual disk storage for other IBM i partitions. IBM i has provided "hosted disk” for Windows servers and AIX or Linux partitions for a long time, but now has the ability to host other IBM i LPARs. See the step-by-step process for creating hosted virtual partitions. Learn the requirements, the prerequisites, and all the steps needed to make this once you are back in the office. This will be great for creating a virtual partition to test your 7.5 upgrades or for any other partition needs.

Speakers

Pete Massiello

IBM i Advisor, Massiello Holding Corp.

Pete Massiello has been working with the AS/400, iSeries, IBM i since 1989, focusing on systems management and technical support. He has held numerous technical positions through out his career. He is the President of iTech Solutions Group, an IBM Premier Business Partner delivering... Read More →

Tuesday May 20, 2025 3:15pm - 4:15pm PDT
Room 12 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

4:30pm PDT

iSee with Scott and Tim

Tuesday May 20, 2025 4:30pm - 4:50pm PDT

iSee is all about helping our IBM i user community learn and use SQL to solve everyday life problems. This session is no exception, Scott and Tim will show via live demo some fun new way to solve problems with SQL.

Speakers

Tim Rowe

STSM - IBM i Business Architect, IBM

Tim Rowe is the Business Architect responsible for Application Development and Systems Management for the IBM i operating system. His responsibilities include helping to make sure that the IBM i has what is needed to be successful both today and into the future. He sends much of his... Read More →

Scott Forstie

STSM, Db2 for i Architect, IBM

Scott Forstie is a Senior Technical Staff Member within IBM i development and spends most of his time working as the Db2 for i Architect. He has worked on IBM operating system development since joining IBM in 1989.Scott is a frequently published author, speaker at industry events... Read More →

Tuesday May 20, 2025 4:30pm - 4:50pm PDT
Room 2 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

4:30pm PDT

SQL data marts

Tuesday May 20, 2025 4:30pm - 4:50pm PDT

This year IBM created data marts that allow us more control over the way we can monitor data from the system audit journal and special authorities. Learn how to create and use these data marts, and how it becomes an easy way to gather and store this information for your LPAR.

Speakers

Simon Hutchinson

Founder & author, RPGPGM.COM

Simon Hutchinson has been writing his highly acclaimed IBM i blog, RPGPGM.COM, for eleven years sharing his knowledge, experience, and giving many detailed examples of the latest RPG, SQL, and CL. His work has led him to be recognized by IBM as an IBM Champion for Power and IBM i Community Advocate. He is a subject matter expert for COMMON Americas, awarded... Read More →

Tuesday May 20, 2025 4:30pm - 4:50pm PDT
Room 12 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

5:05pm PDT

License Management with Navigator for i

Tuesday May 20, 2025 5:05pm - 5:25pm PDT

The switch from perpetual licenses to subscription licenses mean that system administrators need to be aware of when their licenses are expiring. Navigator for i has made many improvements to the interface that make it clear that OS and other licenses are expiring. In this session, we will explore these enhancements through live demo.

Speakers

Ann Wilkerson

Software Developer, IBM

Ann Wilkerson is the technical team lead for Navigator for i and a developer for IBM i Services.

Tuesday May 20, 2025 5:05pm - 5:25pm PDT
Room 9 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

5:05pm PDT

When Job Tables Attack!

Tuesday May 20, 2025 5:05pm - 5:25pm PDT

There are very few issues that can threaten the stability of an IBM i LPAR, but one of them is filling of the system job tables. Circumstances can make this happen quickly even though you may not see it very often if at all! Even if you have seen the dreaded job table message, it may have been so long ago you don't recall what to do. Time may be of the essence when taking corrective action, so knowing what is happening and how to fix it can be critical.
Protect your system and be able to thwart this threat before it becomes truly dangerous.

Speakers

Jeff Carey

Tuesday May 20, 2025 5:05pm - 5:25pm PDT
Room 5 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

8:00am PDT

Hidden Gems

Wednesday May 21, 2025 8:00am - 9:00am PDT

Every few months the IBM i development team delivers new updates and features across the operating system. Keeping track and actually using these changes can be a difficult task at best. This session is the favorite new enhancements from a team of IBM i developers. You get to hear each of our favorite updates to the OS that have been delivered over the past bit. This session is new every time, often lots of fun and for sure there is something for everyone.

Speakers

Tim Rowe

STSM - IBM i Business Architect, IBM

Tim Rowe is the Business Architect responsible for Application Development and Systems Management for the IBM i operating system. His responsibilities include helping to make sure that the IBM i has what is needed to be successful both today and into the future. He sends much of his... Read More →

Wednesday May 21, 2025 8:00am - 9:00am PDT
Room 5 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

8:00am PDT

IBM i Console Best Practices

Wednesday May 21, 2025 8:00am - 9:00am PDT

The IBM i restricted state (DSP01) Console environment is an oft neglected part of System Administration/Management. Many things allow systems to run months or even years with out needing to connect this system Console. Then, when it is absolutely necessary to have this level of access for a system upgrade, hardware replacement, etc and the environment isn't correctly configured or is completely unknown significant delays are likely increasing a system outage.

In this session we will go over the configuration and usage best practices for both the HMC and LAN Console environments.

Speakers

Wayne Bowers

Software Engineer, IBM

Wayne Bowers has been with IBM since 1997, where he works with the IBM i Global Support Center in Rochester MN. He is an Advisory Software Engineer specializing in the support of the IBM i Access (aka Client Access) products, Console, the TCP Telnet communications server, and the... Read More →

Wednesday May 21, 2025 8:00am - 9:00am PDT
Room 13 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

10:45am PDT

DR Planning & Testing - Ensure your Recovery Works in a Disaster 

Wednesday May 21, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am PDT

Do you have a disaster recovery plan? Are you really prepared? The difference in surviving depends on how well you prepare for the unexpected. This session breaks down the components of disaster recovery planning as it relates to the availability and recovery of your systems in Cloud and On-premise . Testing your plan is essential examining critical points of failure, assumptions, and technical gaps.

Speakers

Richard Dolewski

VP, Enterprise Solutions, Connectria

Richard is a recognized SME and award-winning industry speaker specializing in, Cloud Computing Architecture, Business Resiliency, Disaster Recovery Planning and Backup & Recovery Program Design. He leads organizations through the new era of technology, achieving the desired, successful... Read More →

Wednesday May 21, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am PDT
Room 6 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

10:45am PDT

Everything You Need to Know about the Administration Runtime Expert

Wednesday May 21, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am PDT

Business-critical applications must be up and running reliably without failure. When something unexpected occurs, you must identify the cause and correct it quickly. The relentless push to do more with less is only going to intensify while the tolerance for failure keeps dropping. Yet identifying points of failure can be tricky as complexities scale.

The IBM Administration Runtime Expert for i (ARE) can be used to define attributes of a healthy environment and use those defined attributes to validate that the environment is as expected.

This session will everything you need to know to get started with ARE:
- Overview of what ARE is and example use cases
- Creating and editing templates
- Setting up system groups, verification options, and verifying systems
- Understanding the reports

Speakers

Dawn May

Wednesday May 21, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am PDT
Room 10 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

10:45am PDT

How healthy is your IBM i?

Wednesday May 21, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am PDT

Abstract: In this presentation Steve shares some quick and simple tricks and tips to check your server is healthy and working at its optimum level. This presentation gives you a practical list of tasks that you will be able to use with all your IBM i Servers to keep them running at their best. We will cover a wide range of topics, some technical, some practical, all of which are free of charge.

Speakers

Steve Bradshaw

Friendly Techie, Rowton IT Solutions Ltd

I've worked in the IBM Business Partner world for over thirty years now and despite IBM's best attempts I still love them ;-)In 2008 I set up my practice (Rowton) and now spend my time supporting clients or designing new IT solutions using a combination of Power servers, Intel and... Read More →

Wednesday May 21, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am PDT
Room 13 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

3:45pm PDT

Managing the startup and shutdown of IBM i

Wednesday May 21, 2025 3:45pm - 6:00pm PDT

In days gone by the IBM supplied program QSTRUP combined with a couple options on CHGIPLA was good enough for most IBM i shops. It started what seemed to be needed and anything else we stumbled through after each IPL. When it was time to shut down a PWRDWNSYS or ENDSBS command took down whatever was running. We were happy.

Today though we often see dozens of subsytems running many web servers, other needed batch jobs and services. We see monitors and queue processing jobs and many writers. For security purposes we should be starting only the TCP servers that we need, not all of them. Likely we should not start IPV6 and start things in sequence as well.

Further considerations may be needed in an HA environment. These include not starting jobs until iASPS are available and starting different IP interfaces and services depending on production or backup mode of the server. We may want to handle special startup modes while doing PTFs, backups or other system maintenance.

In this session we will work with customizing that startup. We'll discuss staring PASE jobs with QSH, web server jobs and more. Finally we will also work with sequencing the shutdown of the system. As part of this we'll discuss some simple ways to know what needs to be shut down and smoothly handling that.

Speakers

Larry Bolhuis

Cloud and Datacenter Engineer, IBM Champion, Service Express Inc.

Larry has grown up with computers since his father became a CE in 1967. He obtained a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Calvin College in 1982 and soon after began working on IBM midrange equipment with the S/34 and S/36. Larry began working on the As/400 at its introduction In 1988.After spending many years as a developer Larry began working on communications, networking, and systems management tasks. Years of... Read More →

Wednesday May 21, 2025 3:45pm - 6:00pm PDT
Room 4 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

5:00pm PDT

Ai-Ops - Monitor, Detect and Correct. Leveraging Ai with automated system management

Wednesday May 21, 2025 5:00pm - 6:00pm PDT

Ai, its all the buzz, but what if you really could start to leverage AI in the automated management of your IBM i systems ? With the latest support from IBM and the Instana product, combined with tools like Prometheus and Ansible, you now have options for monitoring virtual any metric you can dream up, combined with powerful alerting capabilities and AI to help determine the best corrective action via Ansible. In this session we will review these technologies, as well as show demos of this in action.

Speakers

Tim Rowe

STSM - IBM i Business Architect, IBM

Tim Rowe is the Business Architect responsible for Application Development and Systems Management for the IBM i operating system. His responsibilities include helping to make sure that the IBM i has what is needed to be successful both today and into the future. He sends much of his... Read More →

Wednesday May 21, 2025 5:00pm - 6:00pm PDT
Room 5 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

8:00am PDT

Fix Managment

Thursday May 22, 2025 8:00am - 9:00am PDT

Keeping your system up to date and secure requires knowledge of the Fixes (formerly PTFs). Here will will discuss what the fixes are, how to get them, and how to apply them. We will also discuss the different types of fixes and how to develop a Fix Strategy for your organization.

Speakers

Sarah Jacob

Agile Tech

Thursday May 22, 2025 8:00am - 9:00am PDT
Room 6 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

9:15am PDT

Automating PowerVS in Hybrid Cloud scenarios

Thursday May 22, 2025 9:15am - 10:15am PDT

In this session, participants will explore the IBM Power Virtual Servers (PowerVS) within a hybrid cloud environment. The session will provide practical guidance on automating cloud infrastructure configurations to enhance connectivity, security, and performance. You will learn how to effectively manage network resources, optimize data flow between on-premises and cloud infrastructures, and ensure seamless integration with existing systems. By the end of this talk, participants will have gained the skills necessary to deploy and maintain a streamlined PowerVS setup in a hybrid cloud deployment scenario.

Speakers

Jose Pereira

IT Specialist, IBM

Thursday May 22, 2025 9:15am - 10:15am PDT
Room 12 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

9:15am PDT

HMC, IBM i, FSP, BMC, and Firmware: Putting all the pieces together.

Thursday May 22, 2025 9:15am - 10:15am PDT

Join us for a session where we will explore the new components and concepts related to partitioning IBM Power Systems. You will learn how these components are interconnected, how to set them up, and how to manage and upgrade them. We will cover components such as the Hardware Management Console (HMC), the Flexible Service Processor (FSP), and the Advanced Systems Management Interface (ASMI). Additionally, we'll discuss firmware in your machine and how to perform necessary updates in both LPAR environment and standalone machines. You'll also receive tips on upgrading and establishing communication between the HMC and FSP, as well as insights into the role of ASMI. By the end of the session, you will have current knowledge about these crucial hardware features of IBM PowerSystems & IBM i.

Speakers

Pete Massiello

IBM i Advisor, Massiello Holding Corp.

Pete Massiello has been working with the AS/400, iSeries, IBM i since 1989, focusing on systems management and technical support. He has held numerous technical positions through out his career. He is the President of iTech Solutions Group, an IBM Premier Business Partner delivering... Read More →

Thursday May 22, 2025 9:15am - 10:15am PDT
Room 2 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

9:15am PDT

IBM Navigator for i – As seen by Scott

Thursday May 22, 2025 9:15am - 10:15am PDT

In this new session, Scott will explore IBM Navigator for i features and demonstrate how this feature rich GUI is built upon the shoulders of SQL. We’ll spend time exploring new Navigator features, as well as the well-established. Finally, Scott will show how users can start with Navigator, but finish with VSCode4i or ACS, for those situations not handled by Navigator.
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/ibm-navigator-i

Speakers

Scott Forstie

STSM, Db2 for i Architect, IBM

Scott Forstie is a Senior Technical Staff Member within IBM i development and spends most of his time working as the Db2 for i Architect. He has worked on IBM operating system development since joining IBM in 1989.Scott is a frequently published author, speaker at industry events... Read More →

Thursday May 22, 2025 9:15am - 10:15am PDT
Room 5 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

11:15am PDT

Navigator for i - An Administrator's View

Thursday May 22, 2025 11:15am - 12:15pm PDT

IBM Navigator for i is the web based interface for accessing, managing, and monitoring your IBM i. This session will explore how to get started with Navigator and how to leverage it to manage one user or an entire company. The session will focus on administrative features added to help with rolling out Navigator to many users, how to set up TLS for your connections, and how to limit user access to areas of the interface.

Speakers

Ann Wilkerson

Software Developer, IBM

Ann Wilkerson is the technical team lead for Navigator for i and a developer for IBM i Services.

Thursday May 22, 2025 11:15am - 12:15pm PDT
Room 12 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

1:30pm PDT

36 IBM I Tricks & Treats

Thursday May 22, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm PDT

Celebrating 36 years of IBM I, this presentation will cover some of the tricks and treats discovered over the years, including Operating System, Built in commands, licensed packages, 3rd party packages, IBM and 3rd party hardware and appliances. Many of these tricks and treats were learned at COMMON over the years and many have helped justify the cost of a COMMON conference with the value of the knowledge gained. Please be prepared for audience participation and bring some of your own tips and tricks from over the years or from this conference.

Speakers

Rob Mineo

IBM i Senior Administrator/SME, (Independent)

I started my IT career in 1984. I started working on an IBM SYSTEM/38 in 1986, and upgraded to the AS/400 in 1989. I worked for STERIS Corporation from 1991 until I semi-retired in 2022. Since then, I have worked as an Independent IBM i Administrator. My career started as a programmer... Read More →

Thursday May 22, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm PDT
Room 10 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

1:30pm PDT

A Live Demo of Navigator for i

Thursday May 22, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm PDT

IBM Navigator for i is constantly being improved with new features and updates to functions that have been there since the beginning. Come explore what Navigator for i has to offer via live demo.

Speakers

Ann Wilkerson

Software Developer, IBM

Ann Wilkerson is the technical team lead for Navigator for i and a developer for IBM i Services.

Thursday May 22, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm PDT
Room 12 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

1:30pm PDT

Keep Your System up to Date: Image Catalogs - How They Changed my Life!

Thursday May 22, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm PDT

Perform OS upgrades and PTF installs the modern way with Image Catalogs! This has become the standard way to install on IBM i, but what are you really doing? What can image catalogs be used for and how best to handle them?

If you are not used to image catalogs come and see how they can change your life!

Speakers

Jeff Carey

Thursday May 22, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm PDT
Room 13 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

3:00pm PDT

Work Management Optimization

Thursday May 22, 2025 3:00pm - 4:00pm PDT

This session will introduce IBM i Work Management to the developer and other new system administrators. We will explore how the system is configured and managed using IBM i Navigator for i, with examples from ACS, SQL Services, and the traditional character based interface as well. As delivered your IBM i installation work, but it is not optimized for your environment. All too often the performance of your system is impacted by poor work management practices. Learn how to take the first steps to optimizing your IBM i Work Management.

Speakers

Sarah Jacob

Agile Tech

Thursday May 22, 2025 3:00pm - 4:00pm PDT
Room 12 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

5:00pm PDT

Things i-Love about IBM i

Thursday May 22, 2025 5:00pm - 6:00pm PDT

Abstract:In this session, I will give you a rundown of some of features that I personally love in IBM i, I will explain how they might be useful to you and give real life examples of their value.
Some of these functions are big, some small but all are beneficial and you can use every single one free of charge!

Speakers

Steve Bradshaw

Friendly Techie, Rowton IT Solutions Ltd

I've worked in the IBM Business Partner world for over thirty years now and despite IBM's best attempts I still love them ;-)In 2008 I set up my practice (Rowton) and now spend my time supporting clients or designing new IT solutions using a combination of Power servers, Intel and... Read More →

Thursday May 22, 2025 5:00pm - 6:00pm PDT
Room 1 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management

5:00pm PDT

Use Service Commander to manage ALL your stuff

Thursday May 22, 2025 5:00pm - 6:00pm PDT

So many different kinds of jobs run on IBM i. Node.js, RPG, Java, COBOL, Python.... All of them are managed in different ways, and that can get really frustrating, really quickly! Thankfully, there's an open source tool, Service Commander, that can simplify the management of all these IBM i jobs!

Speakers

Jesse Gorzinski

STSM and Senior Business Architect - AI and Open Source, IBM

Thursday May 22, 2025 5:00pm - 6:00pm PDT
Room 12 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Systems Management