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

What's New and Exciting in RPG

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

Every year in Spring and again in Fall, IBM adds new features to the RPG language. In this session, you'll hear about all of the features that have been added recently, including a quick example of each feature. Once you know the features exist, you can use them in your own applications. Knowing what's new and exciting in RPG will allow you to take advantage of all of the new features in the language.

Speakers

Scott Klement

Managing Partner, ORC LLC

Monday May 19, 2025 10:00am - 11:00am PDT
Room 5 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Programming: RPG

11:15am PDT

PHP Best practices and New and Exciting Updates on IBM i

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

PHP is moving fast these days. In this session, Alan will share his favorite techniques for creatig APIs and web apps with PHP, plus introduce new PHP 8.4 features and how to prepare for them. Alan will also cover tips on upgrading from older releases, the risks of not upgrading, recent security enhancements, and best practices for PHP on IBM i. As a bonus, Alan offers an inside peek at how PHP is made and built.

Speakers

Alan Seiden

Principal, IBM Champion, Seiden Group

How to modernize and create something new while leveraging your valuable business logic. Supporting developers, mentoring, staff augmentation, architecture, development and programming.APIs, IBM i, open source, web, PHP, Node.js, Python, RPG, ERPs

Monday May 19, 2025 11:15am - 12:15pm PDT
Room 5 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Programming: PHP

3:15pm PDT

Technical Debt: On the Clock

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

We've all heard of the National Debt and what a threat it is to our country. What you may not have heard of is the Technical Debt that may lurk in your information systems and is just as big a threat to your business. Join us as address the often sensitive subject and explore five of the worst (best?) examples of Technical Debt - how they manifest, the damage they can cause and how to begin to turn the tide in the right direction. We'll also put it into terms that both management and technical staff can understand.

Speakers

Chris Burns

Monday May 19, 2025 3:15pm - 4:15pm PDT
Room 5 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

IT Strategy

4:30pm PDT

VS Code Tech Talk

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

By now, everyone knows the benefits of using VS Code (and if you don’t you should!). In this “tech session” see how to use VS Code in real-world scenarios. Leveraging client cases, see how our team used VS code, why we chose to use VS code in these situations and how you can do the same. We will discuss VS Code and the IFS, VS and SEU, using VS code for converting files from DDS to DDL, the DB2 for i extension, etc.

Speakers

Leah Avner

Monday May 19, 2025 4:30pm - 4:50pm PDT
Room 5 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Programmer Tools

5:05pm PDT

Keep your source code close and your artifacts closer

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

So you moved your IBM i source code to git but what about your artifacts? It seems like they should be hosted somewhere...into an artifact repository perhaps? If you agree with this statement, then this short session may be of interest to you. Through the use of Jenkins and an artifact repository like Sonatype Nexus or JFrog Artifactory, discover why it may be a good idea to build once, store the result and deploy it many times, to ensure deployment consistency and traceability.

Speakers

Sebastien Julliand

R&D technical advisor, ARCAD Software

Hi, I'm Seb! Let's talk about anything related to software development, on IBM i or not, it doesn't mater to me, I love it all 😁I'm actively contributing to Code for IBM i, and I'm very happy to be able to give back to the wonderful IBM i community.I've been working for ARCAD Software... Read More →

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

DevOps

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

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

Technical Debt: The Clock is Your Friend

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

Acknowledging that you have amassed Technical Debt is easy. The hard part is paying it off. Join us as we explore one of the most prevalent types of debt, Hard Coding. Admit it, we've all done it. We'll discuss two methods of attacking this problem - The Standard Cross Reference and the Truth Matrix, both of which can be easily implemented and gradually introduced into your legacy and new development to replace most instances of hard coding in your ILE/RPG and CL programs.

Speakers

Chris Burns

Tuesday May 20, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am PDT
Room 5 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Programmer Tools

3:15pm PDT

QUALITY ASSURANCE AND SOFTWARE TESTING FUNDAMENTALS

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

This session reviews all the guiding principles of software testing along with practical experience from the IBM I specific applications and infrastructure. Topics covered include the fundamentals of testing, testing through the development lifecycle, static techniques, test design, management, and tool support.
Understand how quality assurance integrates into an environment.
Determine what types of testing there are and when to apply which.
Learn about layering the complexity of test concepts.

Speakers

Yvonne Enselman

Owner, Yvonne Enselman Professional Services

Tuesday May 20, 2025 3:15pm - 4:15pm PDT
Room 5 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Program Testing

4:30pm PDT

VS Code Features You Didn’t Know Existed

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

Visual Studio Code has quickly become one of the most popular development environments, praised for its lightweight design and flexibility. In this session, I will be sharing several powerful and lesser-known features that you might not have known existed, helping you unlock even more potential in your development workflow.

Speakers

Sanjula Ganepola

Tuesday May 20, 2025 4:30pm - 4:50pm PDT
Room 5 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Programmer Tools

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

9:15am PDT

Run Away Queries Got You Down

Wednesday May 21, 2025 9:15am - 10:15am PDT

Having negative performance impacts from query tools like Query/400, QMF, Showcase, Tableau and others because of the "query from heck" eating up system resources? Is your system open to security exposures from wide-open ODBC type connections? This session will cover options including using the new-ish Db2 Query Supervisor to control and/or audit long-running queries.

Speakers

John Westcott

Db2 for i Consultant and Team Lead, IBM

John Westcott is the Db2 for i Team Lead in IBM Technology Expert Labs. John is highyly skilled in SQL, RPG, Data Analytics, Rest API, and both database and application modernization. John has over 35 years of experience on IBM i and it's past family of names. John has a storied career... Read More →

Wednesday May 21, 2025 9:15am - 10:15am PDT
Room 5 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Database

10:45am PDT

API Enable Your Database

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

How important is delivering business data to your users and customers? I’d bet it’s among the top concerns of any development effort. How do you deliver data in the modern world? Rest API are one of the most common methods. We’ll explore, though live demos, how to expose data in a safe and secure manner using Integrated Web Services (IWS). Our focus will be on directly leveraging the DATBASE with SQL, not using RPG or Service program.

Speakers

John Westcott

Db2 for i Consultant and Team Lead, IBM

John Westcott is the Db2 for i Team Lead in IBM Technology Expert Labs. John is highyly skilled in SQL, RPG, Data Analytics, Rest API, and both database and application modernization. John has over 35 years of experience on IBM i and it's past family of names. John has a storied career... Read More →

Wednesday May 21, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am PDT
Room 5 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Database

3:45pm PDT

Stepping through SQL Performance

Wednesday May 21, 2025 3:45pm - 4:45pm PDT

Every SQL statement has a predefined steps that it must go through before it can complete you data base requests. Each step taken can positively or negatively impact SQL performance - especially on transactional applications that are running the same set of SQL statements over and over again. This session will explain each step needed to run an SQL statement and the structures that Db2 creates that can impact performance. In addition, this session will review application design and settings that can impact the performance of the required steps.

Speakers

Kent Milligan

Senior Db2 for i Consultant, IBM

Kent Milligan is a Senior Db2 for i Consultant in IBM Technology Expert Labs. Kent has over 25 years of experience as a Db2 for IBM i consultant and developer working out of the IBM Rochester lab. Prior to re-joining the Db2 for i Expert Labs practice in 2020, Kent spent 5 years... Read More →

Wednesday May 21, 2025 3:45pm - 4:45pm PDT
Room 5 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Database

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

Improving Software Quality via Development and Testing

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

Do you know all of the things you should be considering when writing and testing your software? In this session, testing expert Yvonne Enselman teams up with programming expert Scott Klement to discuss all of the things you should be considering when testing your software if you want to achieve the highest quality result.

Although examples are provided in RPG, the concepts discussed in this session apply to software development in all environments.

Speakers

Scott Klement

Managing Partner, ORC LLC

Thursday May 22, 2025 8:00am - 9:00am PDT
Room 5 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Program Testing

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

1:30pm PDT

How Refactoring Helps Bulletproof Your Application

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

Old program code creates technical debt and makes it difficult to maintain robust applications. In this session, we will discuss what refactoring is and how it is important to creating applications that are robust and "bulletproof." We will show an example of rewriting an old monolithic program in a new modular style, and explain the different aspects of it and how it allows for better testing and quality assurance.

This is a joint session between programming expert Scott Klement and software testing expert Yvonne Enselman, allowing you to see refactoring from both a tester and programmer perspective.

Although some RPG examples are provided, the concepts apply to any software coded in any environment.

Speakers

Scott Klement

Managing Partner, ORC LLC

Thursday May 22, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm PDT
Room 5 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Program Testing

3:00pm PDT

ListAgg and Split – Grouping, Aggregating and Dividing again

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

Almost everybody working with SQL knows the GROUP BY specification for accumulating identical information. Those queries are quite often combined with aggregate functions such as SUM() or AVG().
With the multi-dimensional grouping it is possible to also add all kinds of sub-totals as well as a grand total to the queries.
In composition with CASE clauses it is possible to accumulate information and return the data in different columns, for example monthly or quarterly sales per customer. Pivot tables can be easily created … as long as the number of output columns is fixed.
Sometimes, however, we have to accumulate information that is located in multiple rows in a single row, for example all items in an order. Unfortunately, the number of output columns (i.e. Items) may differ. However, with the LISTAGG aggregate function a string containing the different information separated by a comma (or any individual separation string) can be built.
As far as good … but how to split a string with multiple information separated by a comma or any other individual separation string? No problem with the SPLIT service! … in composition with other services even *.csv files located in the IFS can be decomposed

Speakers

Birgitta Hauser

Database and Software Architect, IBM Champion, Birgitta Hauser - Modernization - Education - Consulting

Birgitta Hauser worked on the IBM i and its predecessors since 1992. She graduated with a business economics diploma, and started programming on the AS/400 in 1992. She worked and works as traditional RPG Programmer but also as Database and Software Engineer, focusing on IBM i application... Read More →

Thursday May 22, 2025 3:00pm - 4:00pm PDT
Room 5 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Database

5:00pm PDT

Tame the IFS with SQL Services

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

In this session, you will discover how SQL and IBM i (SQL) Services can be used to bring order to the IFS. Whether you aim to further secure, manage, or utilize the IFS, SQL can help get the job done. The Db2 for i team has made consistent and noteworthy investments to bring SQL capabilities that can be used with the IFS. Come to this session to see, understand, and be ready to use SQL with the IFS.

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 5:00pm - 6:00pm PDT
Room 5 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Integrated File System (IFS)