COMMON POWERUp 2025: Full Schedule

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

Introduction to Python on IBM i

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

Come get your first look at Python and learn some of the basics! Also, learn about the product offerings that enable you to do software development with the language on the platform. Upon completing this class, you will be able to acquire, install, and use the language on IBM i, as well as extend its power using contributions from the larger open source community. We will also explore Db2 Data Access and IFS file system access as primary use cases for Python on IBM i.

Speakers

Mike Pavlak

Solution Architect, Perforce Software

Mike Pavlak has been working with IBM midrange solutions since 1992 and IBM Mainframes before that. After years of developing applications using RPG, CL and PHP he managed IT development and IT for power protection manufacturer Tripp Lite. Later Mike was instrumental in developing... Read More →

Monday May 19, 2025 10:00am - 11:00am PDT
Room 9 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Programming: Python

11:15am PDT

Modern CL Programming

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

IBM Made a huge number of enhancements to the CL language starting with V5R3 through i 7.1. WHile the changes slowed after that most CL programmers ignore all these changes and continue to write unreadable code with gotos and tags.

Come to get a detailed look at examples of the new functions including DOFOR, DOWHILE, DOUNTIL and SELECT, and how they allow programming CL in a much more structured format, and allow you to banish goto to the bit-bucket.

Learn about the many new process flow options and variable types in the CL language such as integer, signed integer, and pointer variables and how to use them.

Get tips on how to simplify the compiling of CL programs and command objects.

Find out how to provide direct feedback to IBM on your needs for the CL language -- they want to know if these changes are helping you and what to enhance next.

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 11:15am - 12:15pm PDT
Room 9 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Programming: General

3:15pm PDT

Begin Your DevOps Journey - Evolution vs Revolution

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

In this session, Denise Walstead dives into the fundamentals of DevOps. Explore what these methodologies look like and what they can do for your business as you learn first steps for implementation, the best mindsets for success, and tips on where to start and how to make regular progress.

Speakers

Denise Walstead

Monday May 19, 2025 3:15pm - 4:15pm PDT
Room 9 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

DevOps

4:30pm PDT

IBM Placeholder

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

Monday May 19, 2025 4:30pm - 4:50pm PDT
Room 9 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

5:05pm PDT

IBM Placeholder

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

Monday May 19, 2025 5:05pm - 5:25pm PDT
Room 9 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

8:00am PDT

HA/DR Solutions for IBM i

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

The IBM i HA/DR solution portfolio features highly automated IBM storage-based HA/DR solutions. We will address on premise, in cloud and hybrid cloud capabilities as well as the roadmaps going forward. The HA/DR solutions for IBM i incorporate IBM storage replication
and FlasCcopy/BRMS automation. With Cyber Vault, the environment can be extended to automate safe guarded copies for Ransomware protection.

Learning Objectives:
1) How to position, which solution approach should you be using
2) What are the capabilities and limitations if each option
3) What are the value propositions, licensing options and other considerations

Speakers

Steve Finnes

Product Manager, IBM

Steve has spent several years in IBM with positions spanning basic research to product development, product offering and marketing. He is the product offering manager for IBM Power Systems with responsibility for PowerHA for AIX, PowerHA for IBM i and the CBU.

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

High Availability Resilience

9:15am PDT

Options for Consuming REST APIs from RPG

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

REST APIs have become a crucial technology for people writing business applications in all environments, and RPG on IBM i is no exception. In this session, Scott will explain what a REST API is, and how you can call them using free tools from your RPG program. Three different free options for calling them will be discussed, compared and contrasted.

Speakers

Scott Klement

Managing Partner, ORC LLC

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

Programming: RPG

10:45am PDT

SELF: Simon’s Experiences Learning this Feature

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

SQL Error Logging Feature, SELF, is one of those Db2 tools that few know about, and even less have turned on. Learn about Simon Hutchinson’s experiences in setting up SELF, “turning” it on, and what he discovered using it. And what he used it for.

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 10:45am - 11:45am PDT
Room 9 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Programming: RPG

3:15pm PDT

PASE Twilight Zone

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

You have just been introduced to PASE ... you log in via SSH, visit familiar directories and use familiar programs .. maybe adventure as far as nano ... but just around the corner from the familiar lies another dimension between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination ... it is an area which we call the PASE Twilight Zone ...

Speakers

Jack Woehr

Tuesday May 20, 2025 3:15pm - 4:15pm PDT
Room 9 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Programmer Tools

4:30pm PDT

IBM Placeholder

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

Tuesday May 20, 2025 4:30pm - 4:50pm PDT
Room 9 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

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

8:00am PDT

The basics of moving from fixed format RPG to complete free form RPG.

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

Fixed format is still a heavily used code base and many developers need to be able to at least read it. But, what if you were able to read it and translate that into complete free form RPG? we will look at how to read fixed form RPG and give you the skills to actually translate into a more modern RPG.

Speakers

Marina Schwenk

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

Programming: RPG

9:15am PDT

Are you a Sail or an Anchor?

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

Throughout your career you will be placed into many situations. You will work with peers, subordinates and superiors. You will work with vendors and customers. You will work with those inside and outside of Information Technology. All of those people will form an opinion of you. What will it be?

Each time you meet a challenge, each time you are asked for your opinion, each time you will provide input. In what manner will you respond?

At the end of the day, will people think of you as a Sail or an Anchor?

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 9:15am - 10:15am PDT
Room 9 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Developing Business Skills

10:45am PDT

SQL for the RPG Programmer “How To”: Working with SQL Services

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

SQL is THE recommended interface from applications into your data. This session focuses on how using SQL services extends what you can do in these application.

Speakers

Vern Hamberg

Senior iSeries Developer, OneMain Financial

Vern has worked on IBM midrange systems for over 30 years, beginning with the System/38 and AS/400. At present he is a Senior iSeries Developer at OneMain Financial. He serves on the COMMON Strategic Education Team (SET), is one of the SMEs for Db2, and has served on the COMMON Americas... Read More →

Wednesday May 21, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am PDT
Room 9 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Programming: RPG

3:45pm PDT

Embedding SQL into Your Legacy RPG Programs

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

Embedding SQL into legacy code can be scary. In this session we will explore embedding SQL into legacy code. I will demonstrate very simple methods to get started. We will explore some examples of simple SQL, work our way through reading from cursors and demonstrate how to convert physical files to SQL tables

Speakers

Gregory Simmons

Software Engineer, PC Richard & Son

Gregory Simmons is a Software Engineer at P.C. Richard & Son. He is a COMMON certified Application Developer – ILE RPG on IBM I on Power. He is also a registered instructor with IBM’s Academic Initiative and an RPG and IBM i instructor at Scott Regional Technology Center, where... Read More →

Wednesday May 21, 2025 3:45pm - 4:45pm PDT
Room 9 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Programming: RPG

5:00pm PDT

Mastering IBM i: Efficient Development with Optimized SQLRPG

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

Understand how an IBMi developer can leverage their skills to efficiently scan source code using RPG. This opens doors to a multiple powerful and versatile applications like:

1) Impact Analyser: Perform impact analysis for field or file changes to identify all files and programs accessing a specific field.

2) Field Transformation: Display and modify all files and programs that utilize a specific field.

3) Object Dependencies: Identify all programs that are invoking the specific program.

4) Coding Standard Inspector: Analyse code to identify deviations from coding standards.

Equip developers with advanced embedded SQL techniques to build more robust, efficient, and maintainable RPG applications by enhancing data manipulation, retrieval, and performance.

1) SQL Cursors vs. RPG Op Codes: Cursors offer more flexibility, simplifying data handling and maintainability.

2) Single vs. Multiple Fetch: Choose single fetch for precision or multiple fetches for batch processing to optimize retrieval.

3) Performance Tools: Use query hints and execution plans to enhance SQL performance in RPG applications.

Speakers

Jeroen Van Dun

IBM Champion & Product Manager, Rocket Software

Wednesday May 21, 2025 5:00pm - 6:00pm PDT
Room 9 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Programming: RPG

8:00am PDT

Selecting your Power Hosting Environment

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

When virtualizing IBM Power Systems you have two primary choices for the hosting environment, VIOS and IBM i. Each of these offers strengths and each has weaknesses. In this session we'll go over more than 35 comparison points putting the two hosting choices side by side. We'll cover technical capabilities as well as usability and visual items. We'll look at costs and requirements for each host option.

Come and select your choice for a hosting partition or confirm that you've gone down the right track.

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 →

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 →

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

Virtualization

9:15am PDT

Breaking Up a Monolith

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

Every RPG shop has them. Most developers avoid them like the plague. Large monolithic programs are a significant source of technical debt in all RPG shops. They limit your agility which in turn is detrimental to your business. So, once you are ready to deal with the issue, where do you start? There is no one answer, but there are steps you can take to begin dismantling and repurposing the code within these behemoths.

Speakers

Brian May

Vice President of Product Management, Profound Logic

Professional IT Leader, Speaker and WriterSpecialties:Team Building, Development and RetentionTechnical SalesSolutions ArchitectureSoftware DevelopmentEnterprise Systems Manufacturing ProcessesApparel IndustryAccounting Principles

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

Programming: RPG

11:15am PDT

Case Study: Improving performance in RPG programs with SQL

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

In this session, taken directly from my real-world experience, I will show you how I leveraged SQL in my RPG. I will walk you through the thought process, the incremental changes and the amazing results. Included in this session is also some simple code that you can take home and use in your development to compare and fine tune your embedded SQL.

Speakers

Gregory Simmons

Software Engineer, PC Richard & Son

Gregory Simmons is a Software Engineer at P.C. Richard & Son. He is a COMMON certified Application Developer – ILE RPG on IBM I on Power. He is also a registered instructor with IBM’s Academic Initiative and an RPG and IBM i instructor at Scott Regional Technology Center, where... Read More →

Thursday May 22, 2025 11:15am - 12:15pm PDT
Room 9 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Programming: RPG

1:30pm PDT

VS Code and Code for IBM i Hidden Gems

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

Thanks to the Code for IBM i open source extension, VS Code became an IDE of choice for whoever wants to do some development on IBM i. Less expansive (as in "free") and more modern than RDi, it's already a daily driver for IBM i professionals and enthusiasts alike. But what does it have to offer we barely know? What are the less-known features that can make a developer's life easier? The legend tells that it's even possible to work locally on IBM i source code synchronized with Git or to use Visual Explain right from VS Code. But the best is yet to come and see for yourself! Whether you are a seasoned developer or just curious, join me to discover or rediscover the hidden gems that VS Code has to offer. Don't be a stranger and bring your questions along!

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 →

Thursday May 22, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm PDT
Room 9 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Programmer Tools

3:00pm PDT

Aye, I love Procedure Driven RPG

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

In this session, after demonstrating the fundamentals of a procedure, I will demonstrate the benefits of procedure driven RPG. Together, we’ll explore real world examples of how this mindset has improved code written by myself and my team with regards to three facets: Readability, maintainability and reusability. All three of these benefits translate into a more efficient development team.
We'll finish with some real world examples showing how AI code assistants can really shine when working in a world of procedures.

Speakers

Gregory Simmons

Software Engineer, PC Richard & Son

Gregory Simmons is a Software Engineer at P.C. Richard & Son. He is a COMMON certified Application Developer – ILE RPG on IBM I on Power. He is also a registered instructor with IBM’s Academic Initiative and an RPG and IBM i instructor at Scott Regional Technology Center, where... Read More →

Thursday May 22, 2025 3:00pm - 4:00pm PDT
Room 9 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

Programming: RPG

5:00pm PDT

Planning a Smooth Move of your IBM i to the Cloud

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

Utilizing the cloud is can be a great option for IBM i customers. It sounds simple, and at it core it is! However, there are many items to consider for your organization to help determine if it's the right thing for you.

There are, however, options on how to plan, execute, and validate the migration and these should be analyzed to find the best fit.

In this session you'll gain a great overview of the reasons and the process for moving to a cloud.

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 →

Thursday May 22, 2025 5:00pm - 6:00pm PDT
Room 9 1150 Magic Way, Anaheim, CA 92802

IT Strategy