If you work on mainframes and you live in the UK or western Europe, you won’t want to miss out on the UK’s premier mainframe conference and exhibition. It is, of course, The Guide Share Europe (GSE) UK Annual Conference. And it is taking place on 1-3 November at its regular home in Whittlebury Hall, Whittlebury, Near Towcester, Northamptonshire NN12 8QH, UK. This conference is going back to face-to-face meetings (plus the opportunity to catch up – and argue – with other mainframers in the bar in the evening). And this year’s strapline is “Mainframes are MAD – Modern, Adaptable, Diverse”.
This year, the Platinum Sponsors are BMC, Broadcom, and Vanguard Integrity Professionals. The Gold Sponsors are Enterprise Performance Strategies, Rocket Software, and Vertali. The Silver Sponsors are Beta Systems, CCA Software, DataKinetics, Ensono, IBA Group, MainTegrity, Micro Focus, SMT Data, Trident Services, and Velocity Software. This year’s exhibitors are Action Software, ColeSoft, Fitz Software, Interskill, Macro4, Planet Mainframe, TSG, and </mooody cow>.
Following a “Conference Opening” speech from GSE’s Mark Wilson in the Bentleys room at 9am on the Tuesday, there’s a keynote session entitled “40 years on – Looking back and looking forwards” from John Siddall, Director of Shared Technology Platforms and Service Delivery at Nationwide Building Society.
For the rest of Tuesday, there are then 16 streams, most with five sessions. The day ends with two keynotes. Steve Wallin, Director of the CICS Portfolio at IBM UK’s presentation is entitled, “The future is bright – the future is mainframe”. He’ll share where IBM is going with mainframe software and hardware, how security and AI are an inclusive part of your hybrid journey, and introduce new to Z employees to share their experiences. Following that, IBM’s Lewis James’ presentation is entitled “Why at 18 I chose a career on a supposedly legacy platform, and it was the best decision I ever made”.
Wednesday starts with a keynote presentation from Greg Lotko, SVP and General Manager for Broadcom’s Mainframe Software Division. His presentation is entitled, “Plug into the Future of Infrastructure”, and looks at how an open mainframe plugs into REST interfaces to speed development, AI, and machine learning for automated remediation and a Zero Trust environment for protection from threats.
That’s followed by 16 streams with five sessions in each. The day ends with a keynote presentation from Glenn Anderson of GlennAndersonSpeaks. His presentation is entitled, “Energize Your Team’s Performance – Think Like an Improv Actor”. And that’s followed by the conference dinner.
Thursday starts with two keynote sessions. The first is from Mark Nelson, Senior Software Engineer with IBM’s z/OS Security Server Design and Development Team. His presentation is called, “Birds of a Feather – Resiliency is not an Accident”, and examines a very well-known non-IT incident that demonstrates several key factors in ‘being resilient’ and discusses how these can be a part of our systems and our careers.
That’s followed by a keynote from John McKenny, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Intelligent Z Optimization and Transformation (IZOT) for BMC Software. His keynote talk is entitled, “When Change is the Only Constant, Make It Your Advantage”, and, he says that being nimble in the face of change is a business imperative, and so is having a transformation plan that’s modern, adaptable, and diverse.
This is followed by the usual 16 streams with four sessions in each. The day ends with prize draws and the best speaker awards.
If you want to know what the session streams are available across the three days, they are: 101, 102, Application Development, CICS, DB2, IMS, Large Systems Working Group (LSWG), Mainframe Skills & Learning, MQ, Network Management Working Group (NNWG), New Technologies, Security Working Group, Storage, System Management, Women in IT, zP&C, and zVM & Linux on Z. There are currently over 180 sessions.
There are also a variety of lunch and learn sessions across the three days.
You can find out more details about the conference at https://conferences.gse.org.uk/2022/. And, if you’re on social media, the hashtags are #gseconf22 and #gseuk.
And if you’re still debating whether to go, let me recommend it to you. The quality of presentations is always excellent. And the networking opportunities are brilliant. There’s usually 500 or more people there. It would be a shame for you to miss it.
As a final incentive, you may be interested in a session at 2pm on the Tuesday. It’s called “Ransomware, gaps in SMF records, and detection options”, and it will be presented by me in the Melbourne room.
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