Guide Share Europe Annual Conference 2020

 

It might seem a little late in the day to be talking about a conference that took place last November, but it was such a stunning success that it warrants this review.

For many years now, the GSE UK conference has been the one for mainframers from the UK and Northern Europe to go to. For many years, up until 2019, it has been held at Whittlebury Hall, Whittlebury, near Towcester, in Northamptonshire. In 2020, the plan was to move it to Celtic Manor Resort near Newport, in Wales. However, and these events are not linked, because of Covid-19, the conference went online. And what a fantastic online conference it was.

It ran from 2 November until 12 November. And, apart from keynotes etc, there were multiple streams running at the same time – just like the usual conference. In fact, the conference had 180 sessions, each lasting an hour – and that includes the six keynote sessions. There were 1254 attendees, with the majority coming from the UK, but also people from the USA, Australia, and even the Russian Federation.

It was an amazingly good two weeks. The quality of the presentations was every bit as good as having a speaker in the same room as the audience. The quality of the Zoom connection to the speakers very much depended on how good their broadband and WiFi were. In truth, I watched a couple of presentations where we lost the speaker because of their connection. However, most people had rock solid connections and it all worked very well.

It was disappointing not to spend time in the same room as other mainframers and start ad hoc conversations with whoever was standing near you at the time. And it was a shame not to meet up with old friends that I sometimes only ever see at the conference. And it would have been nice to meet up with colleagues that I probably email every couple of months.

On the plus side, having the presentations spread out over more than three days made it possible to carry out work around the sessions. It was easy to block out individual hours of the day in my calendar for the conference and work normally the rest of the time. Although, having said that, there were plenty of occasions when I wanted to watch two or more live presentations. Good job they were recorded.

And, because the whole conference was free, it was possible for everyone to watch presentations that interested them, rather than just the few lucky members of staff who got to attend the conference. Plus, there were no travel or accommodation expenses – and no worries about who was doing your work while you were away.

Even though (or, perhaps because) the conference was online, there was still a large number of sponsors this year. This included BMC Software, Broadcom, Luminex, Velocity Software, Macro4, SMT Data, Fitz Software, New Era Software, Red Hat, Micro Focus, Zetaly, MainTegrity, z Exchange, Rocket Software ASG Technologies, Model 9, and IBM.

Every year, the conference raises money for charity. This year, the charity was NHS Charities Together (aka the Association of NHS Charities), which is the umbrella organization for the NHS' official charities in the UK. There are 230 NHS charities in the country, which provide extra vital funds and services to NHS hospitals, ambulances, mental and community health trusts, and health boards. This funding is above and beyond what the government provides and is spent on enhancing care and experience of patients.

It's hopefully back to meeting in person for the 2021 GSE UK Conference. The dates for your diary are beginning of November. And the location is Celtic Manor Resort.

I can’t recommend this conference highly enough – whether it’s online or not, it’s brilliant.

The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2021 – available now

 Every year, about this time, mainframe users are excited to get their hands on the latest edition of the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook. What makes the Yearbook stand out is that it’s an excellent reference work for all IBM mainframe professionals – no matter how many years of experience they have.

The Yearbook provides a one-stop shop for everything a mainframer needs to know. For example, the mainframe evolution section includes a hardware timeline, and a graphic illustrating mainframe operating system evolution.

In addition, there’s the glossary of terminology section explaining what all those acronyms stand for, in a way that means you can understand them. Amongst the terms we’ve added this year are: BaaS, DataOps, FHE, RPA, and ZTNA. That’s Blockchain as a Service, Fully Homomorphic Encryption, Robotic Process Automation, and Zero Trust Network Access.

One section provides a guide to sources of information for IBM mainframers. This includes information on newsletters, magazines, user groups, blogs, mainframe-related apps, and social networking information resources for the z/OS environment. Amongst the things it highlights are Enterprise Tech Journal, the new TechChannel website, IBM Listservs, SHARE’s Five Minute Briefing from Data Center, Facebook pages, and LinkedIn discussions; as well as user groups such as SHARE and IDUG. There’s also a short discussion about mainframe social media and where to find the latest CICS and IMS blogs and articles.

The vendor directory section contains an up-to-date list of vendors, consultants, and service providers working in the z/OS environment. There’s a summary of the products they supply and contact information. As usual, there are a number of new organizations in the list this year – indicating that this is still an exciting marketplace to be in.

The mainframe strategy section contains articles by industry gurus and vendors on topics such as:

• Test Automation: The Key to Increasing Velocity, Quality and Efficiency
• Relationship Advice For You and Your Mainframe
• Mainframe, Cloud, and the Post-Pandemic IT Landscape

For many people, the highlight each year is the mainframe user survey. This illustrates just what’s been happening at users’ sites. It’s a good way for mainframers to compare what they are planning to do with what other sites have done. I will be looking at some of the survey highlights in a future blog.

The other great thing about the Yearbook – as far as many of the 21,000 people who download it are concerned – is that it is completely FREE.

It can only be free because some organizations have been prepared to sponsor it or advertise in it. This year’s sponsor are: BMC Software, Broadcom, and Model 9. Our advertisers are: Action Software International, DataKinetics, Direct Computer Resources, Inc, Enterprise Systems Associates, Inc (ESAi), Fischer International, Fujitsu, Key Resources Inc, Software AG, Software Diversified Services, Tone Software, and Zetaly.
To see this year’s Arcati Mainframe Yearbook, click here. If you don’t want to download everything at once, again this year, each section is available as a print-quality PDF file.

You won’t want to miss out on this excellent publication.

Trevor Eddolls – IBM Champion 2021

 

iTech-Ed Ltd is pleased to announce that Trevor Eddolls, its CEO, has again been recognized by IBM as an IBM Champion for 2021. Trevor was first awarded IBM Champion status in 2009.

IBM said: “On behalf of IBM, it is my great pleasure to recognize you as a returning IBM Champion in 2021. Congratulations!”

“We would like to thank you for your continued leadership and contributions to the IBM technology community. This recognition is awarded based on your contributions for the 2020 calendar year. The IBM Champion designation is for a 1-year term, and may be renewed by IBM annually, provided you demonstrate continued community engagement and contributions.”

Trevor Eddolls, CEO of iTech-Ed Ltd said: “I am really proud to get this award again this year. There may not be a financial benefit to being an IBM Champion, but it’s a positive way for IBM to recognize people around the world who are helping to promote IBM’s products and help share information about those products amongst their users”.

According to IBM: “The IBM Champion program recognizes these innovative thought leaders in the technical community and rewards these contributions by amplifying their voice and increasing their sphere of influence. IBM Champions are enthusiasts and advocates: IT professionals, business leaders, developers, executives, educators, and influencers who support and mentor others to help them get the most out of IBM software, solutions, and services.”

So why is iTech-Ed Ltd’s Trevor Eddolls an IBM Champion? Well, he doesn’t work for IBM, but he does write about mainframe hardware and software. You can read his blog here. He also writes on the new TechChannel website, and often blogs on the Planet Mainframe website. He’s Editorial Director for the well-respected Arcati Mainframe Yearbook. He’s also written technical articles that have been published on the Toolbox for IT website and in a variety of journals. And Trevor Eddolls is the chair of the Virtual IMS user group and the Virtual CICS user group. He also looks after their social networking. And this work has earned Trevor Eddolls the IBM Champion accolade for the past thirteen years.

The IBM Champion designation is for a 1-year term, and may be renewed by IBM each year provided Champions can demonstrate continued community engagement and contributions.

Are IBM Champions compensated for their role? No. Do IBM Champions have any obligations to IBM? Again, the answer is no. The title recognizes their past contributions to the community only over the previous 12 months. Do IBM Champions have any formal relationship with IBM? No. IBM Champions don’t formally represent IBM nor do they speak on behalf of IBM.

But it’s not all one-sided! There are regular IBM Champions calls, where IBM and Champions share relevant information on a range of topics. IBM Champions also receive merchandise customized with the IBM Champion logo. And IBM Champions receive visibility, recognition, and networking opportunities at IBM events and conferences; and special access to product development teams, and invitations and discounts to events and conference.

You can find more information about the Trevor and his work on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

You can find out more about iTech-Ed here.

2020 at iTech-Ed Ltd

2020 came as a bit of a surprise to most people. I can remember sitting in the pub with some old friends in January explaining, in more detail than they probably needed, what my ambitious plans for the year ahead were. Needless to say, most of them are now my 2021 plans (or 2022, perhaps). Working from home moved from being something that some people did sometimes to what we all did a lot of the time. And yet, much work was carried out and things in the mainframe world moved forward. As usual, at this time of year, I thought I’d take a look at the previous year, with the spotlight on what happened at iTech-Ed Ltd.

The exciting news in January was that Trevor Eddolls, CEO at iTech-Ed Ltd, was recognized by IBM as a 2020 IBM Champion. IBM said: “On behalf of IBM, it is my great pleasure to recognize you as a returning IBM Champion in 2020. Congratulations! We would like to thank you for your continued leadership and contributions to the IBM technology community. This recognition is awarded based on your contributions for the 2019 calendar year.”

Also in January, Trevor’s blog, “2019 in review with a look forward to 2020”, was published on the IBM Destination Z user group part of the IBM Z and LinuxONE Community website. And his blog “The Who, What, Where, When, Why for Mainframe Security”, and “Joining the API economy” were republished on the Experfy Web site. Lastly, his Planet Mainframe blog was republished on the Maintec blog site as “Why non-mainframers are starting to fear the mainframe?”.

As usual, January saw the publication of the always popular Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2020 – it’s FREE. It gets downloaded around 21,000 times during the course of the year, and Trevor Eddolls is Editorial Director for this highly-respected annual source of mainframe information.

On 25 February, the Virtual CICS user group had an absorbing presentation from Al Saurette, Principal with MainTegrity, entitled “Providing system integrity for multiple LPARs with improved GDPR and PCI/DSS compliance”. It looked at File Integrity Monitoring to identify breaches in minutes not days. Also in February, Trevor’s blog, “The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2020”, was published on the IBM Destination Z user group part of the IBM Z and LinuxONE Community website.

In March, Trevor’s blog, “What does the future of the mainframe look like?”, was published on the IBM Destination Z user group part of the IBM Z and LinuxONE Community website.

On 7 April, the Virtual IMS user group learned how distributed techniques could be used with IMS databases. Broadcom’s Radek Mrvec’s talk was called “Java and SQL in IMS for z/OS Applications”. With well over 70 people attending, clearly this is a topic of great interest. Also in April, Trevor’s blog, “Mainframe online user groups make sense”, was published on the IBM Destination Z user group part of the IBM Z and LinuxONE Community website.

On 12 May, the Virtual CICS user group enjoyed an excellent presentation from IBM’s Stew Francis called, “Extending CICS applications with Java using Maven and Gradle”. Also in May, Trevor’s blog, “Superordinate goals and life after Covid19”, was published on the IBM Destination Z user group part of the IBM Z and LinuxONE Community website. At the end of May, Trevor’s “Interrrogation on Spiceworks” was published. Spiceworks is an online community for the IT industry.

On 9 June, the Virtual IMS user group enjoyed a brilliant presentation from Haley Fung, IBM Offering Manager for IMS. There was so much information. Her subject was “4 Paths to Digital Transformation in IMS”. Also in June, Trevor’s blog “Mainframers working from home” was published on the IBM Destination Z user group part of the IBM Z and LinuxONE Community website.

On 7 July, the Virtual CICS user group had a great presentation from HostBridge’s CEO and co-founder Russ Tuebner called, “Getting and Using CICS Integration Analytics”. Also in July, Trevor’s blog “Who remembers Rexx?” was published on the IBM Destination Z user group part of the IBM Z and LinuxONE Community website. And Trevor's blog entitled “Tell me about COBOL” was published on Planet Mainframe.

On 11 August, the Virtual IMS user group enjoyed an interesting presentation from Nick R Griffin, WorldWide IMS Specialist at BMC. His subject was “Implement IMS Analytics for Better Business Outcomes”. Also in August, Trevor’s blog “Mainframes, DevOps, and Containers” was published on the IBM Destination Z user group part of the IBM Z and LinuxONE Community website. And, in August, Trevor’s article, “3 Device Management Challenges For Modern IT Operations (And How to Overcome Them)”, was published on the IT Toolbox website.

The Virtual CICS user group enjoyed a fantastic demonstration from Colin Pearce on 8 September. His presentation was entitled, “Installing and Connecting to CICS EXPLORER for a single CICS region”. Also in September, Trevor’s blog “The last part of the mainframe to modernize” was published on the IBM Destination Z user group part of the IBM Z and LinuxONE Community website. Trevor also had a number of blogs published on the Experfy website. They were, “The last part of the mainframe to modernize”, “Mainframes, DevOps, and Containers”, and “Who remembers Rexx?”. Lastly, Trevor’s blog “Moving mission-critical mainframe workloads to the cloud” was published on Planet Mainframe. And in September, Trevor’s article, “5 Mistakes to Avoid When Planning PC Fleet Stability”, was published on the IT Toolbox website.

On 6 October, there was another great presentation to the Virtual IMS user group from Dusty Rivers, Director, z Systems Software: IMS & CICS at GT Software. He was discussing “IMS Can't do That... or Can It?”. Also in October, Trevor’s blog “The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2021” was published on the IBM Destination Z user group part of the IBM Z and LinuxONE Community website. His blog “Moving Mission-Critical Mainframe Workloads To The Cloud” was republished on the Experfy website. Trevor also had articles published on the IT Toolbox website in October. There was “Why Businesses Need to Take Hardware-Based PC Security Seriously”, and also “Biggest Technology Mistakes During the Rush to Remote Work (Plus How to Avoid Them)”.

The 3 November saw another great presentation from Ezriel Gross, Principal Solutions Advisor at Rocket Software, to the Virtual CICS user group. His presentation was entitled, “Visualizing CICS performance data in Splunk using CICS Performance Analyzer”. Also in November, Trevor’s blog “Modern data security” was published on the IBM Destination Z user group part of the IBM Z and LinuxONE Community website.

The Virtual IMS user group meeting, on 8 December, enjoyed a fascinating presentation from James Martin, Senior Solution Advisor at Rocket Software. He was discussing, “Performance and IMS”. Trevor’s article, “Modernizing PC Fleets Should Be Your Top Priority Right Now: Here’s Why”, was published on the IT Toolbox website in December. Also in December, Trevor’s blog “Blockchain as a Service on mainframes” was published on the IBM Destination Z user group part of the IBM Z and LinuxONE Community website. And, Trevor’s blog “Don’t Tell the CFO!” was published on the Planet Mainframe website.

Trevor continued to blog regularly and publish articles. And he continued to tweet at @t_eddolls, @virtualims, and @virtualcics. He’s on Instagram at @t_eddolls/. And on Facebook you can find him at fb.com/itech-ed, fb.com/VirtualIMS, and fb.com/VirtualCICS. And there are groups on LinkedIn for Virtual IMS (www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=379256) and Virtual CICS (www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3847862).

Looking forward to 2021, the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2021 will be published in January. The Virtual IMS and Virtual CICS user groups will continue to meet on alternative months throughout the year. Trevor will continue blogging and writing articles.

Find out more about iTech-Ed here.