2012 at iTech-Ed Ltd

As it’s the start of the New Year, I thought I’d review events of 2012 through the lens of events at iTech-Ed Ltd.

In January, The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2012 was published. It had around 20,000 downloads during the course of the year, and I’m Editorial Director for this highly-respected annual source of mainframe information. My blog, “Gazing into the IT Crystal Ball...”, was published on the Destination z Web site. And the Virtual CICS user group meeting on 17 January had a presentation from IBM Hursley’s Andrew Smithson entitled, “CICS Transaction Gateway V8.1”.

In February, my blog “Staying in Touch With the Mainframe Community” was published on the Destination z Web site, and an earlier blog was quoted from on the Dancing Dinosaur site. The Virtual IMS user group had a presentations from Neil Price, a senior DBA and systems programmer with TNT Express ICS on 7 February. His talk was entitled, “Memoirs of a HALDBA”.

My article entitled: “The z114: Delivering Game-Changing Opportunities” was published in the March/April issue of z/Journal. My blog “Saving Money With Mainframes” can be found on the Destination z Web site. And of the 6 March, the Virtual CICS user group meeting had a presentation from Fundi Software’s Jim Martin entitled, “Analyzing CICS function shipping applications using Transaction Analysis Workbench”.

3 April saw a presentation to the Virtual IMS user group by Fundi Software’s James Martin, entitled, “Using IMS Performance Solution Pack for z/OS to analyze IMS performance problems”. And my blog “The Sincerest Form of Flattery” was published on the Destination z Web site.

In May, my blog “The Mainframe’s Potential to Get Social” was published on the Destination z Web site. And on 8 May, at the Virtual CICS user group meeting, Stephen Mitchell, Managing Director of Matter of Fact Software Limited, gave a presentation entitled, “Utilizing the Dojo Toolkit for Web browser-driven applications from CICS”.

The 12 June saw a presentation by GT Software’s Dusty Rivers to the Virtual IMS user group entitled, “Modernizing IMS”. And the Destination z Web site published my blog “Atomic Weapons and the Dawn of the Computer Age”.

On 10 July, Ezriel Gross, CEO of Circle Software Inc, gave a presentation to the Virtual CICS user group entitled, “CICS introduction to Web services for the system programmer”. Also in July, my blog “IBM and Augmented Reality” was published on the Destination z Web site.

The Virtual IMS user group enjoyed a presentation by SQData’s CEO, Scott Quillicy, on 7 August entitled, “Best practices: IMS to relational data movement”. My blog “BYOD and Network Security” was published on the Destination z Web site in August.

In September, my blog “IMS: There’s Still Life in the Old Dog!” appeared on the Destination z Web site. Also in September, the Virtual CICS user group enjoyed a presentation entitled, “Success paths for integrating CICS with new technologies” from Don Spoerke, Principle Solutions Engineer with GT Software.

October saw my blog “What’s New With CICS?” published here on the Destination z Web site. In the same month, IBM’s “Think BIG” Information On Demand conference site published “IOD from Afar” and “IOD News” on their official IOD blog site.

In November, Colin Pearce gave a very enjoyable and detailed presentation to the Virtual CICS user group about “CICS security”. The IBM ‘Proud to be part of z’ poster came out that month. Look out for the person in the bottom row, third from the left! And the Destination z Web site published my blog “New Poster Captures the Mainframer Mosiac”.

On 4 December, the Virtual IMS user group had a presentation by BMC’s Bill Chapin about “Nearing 24x7 availability with structure changes too!” Also in December, Trevor’s blog “Whatever Happened to the Network Guy?” was published on the Destination z Web site.

Also last year, I was made a 2012 IBM Champion – that’s four years in a row I’ve been an IBM Champion. I continued to blog at mainframeupdate.blogspot.com and it.toolbox.com/blogs/mainframe-world/. And I continued to tweet at twitter.com/t_eddolls, twitter.com/virtualims, and twitter.com/virtualcics. And on Facebook you can find me at fb.com/itech-ed, fb.com/VirtualIMS, and fb.com/VirtualCICS. And I have groups on LinkedIn for Virtual IMS (www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=379256) and Virtual CICS (www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3847862) – come on LinkedIn, do short names! And I’m on Google plus (if you like, you can find me at gplus.to/teddolls).

And don’t forget, the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2013, will be published very shortly. And look out for this year’s meetings of the Virtual IMS and Virtual CICS user groups.

Trevor Eddolls