Phoenix Convention Center
Hi from sunny Phoenix! Cheryl, Brenda, Mario, and myself arrived here yesterday evening and are looking forward to an exciting week. After my first pass over the list of sessions, I have 117 presentations that I would like to see. And that doesn’t include the closed door sessions, one-on-one meetings, and lunches and dinners that we’ve arranged with some of our customers – I can tell already that I’m going to have to go on another diet when I get home.
For a change, we are only presenting one session at this SHARE. Mario and I will be presenting the Watson & Walker zRoadshow session on Friday morning at 10:00 in room 104B. But don’t worry, Cheryl will be there to keep an eye on us and contribute her experiences and thoughts if we miss something.
Of course, the hot topic at this SHARE will be the recently previewed z/OS 2.4. You can get more information about 2.4 at the following sessions:
- Session 24295 – z/OS Communications Server: Technical Update, Part 1 of 2 by Gus Kassimis and Sam Reynolds on Monday at 10:00 in room 211B
- Session 24296 – z/OS Communications Server: Technical Update, Part 2 of 2 by Gus Kassimis, Sam Reynolds, and Aparna Vankamamidi on Monday at 11:15 in room 211B
- Session 24345 – What’s New in DFSMS and MVSS Project Opening by Barbara McDonald and Russell Witt on Monday at 11:15 in room 103A
- Session 24622 – What’s New in z/OS V2.4: Valley of the Sun Edition by Gary Puchkoff on Monday at 13:45 in room 104B
- Session 23896 – Migrating to z/OS V2.3, Part 1 of 2 by Marna Walle on Monday at 15:15 in room 104B
- Session 24628 – z/OS V2.3 JES2 Product Update and Latest Status by Tom Wasik on Wednesday at 10:00 in room 104B
- Session 24624 – DFSMS File Level Backup by Glenn Wilcock on Wednesday at 13:45 in room 103A
- Session 24650 – z/OS V2R4 Preview: z/OS Container Extensions – Running Linux on Z docker containers inside z/OS by Gus Kassimis and Gary Puchkoff on Wednesday at 15:15 in room 211B
That is all that we have so far, but please check back later as we will be adding more sessions as we find out about them.
If you were at the last SHARE conference in St. Louis, you should be aware that Bill Keller and the z/OS Content Design and Development team presented IBM’s work on new ‘content solutions’ – a content solution is a collection of web pages that attempt to provide all the information that you need to plan for and implement some new z/OS technologies – two popular examples are Container Pricing and Pervasive Encryption. Bill also asked attendees for their input. After all, these pages are intended to help customers, so kudos to IBM for asking customers to help them decide what information should be on the pages. Well that work has continued, and there are now six content solutions available. More importantly, IBM is bringing a team of eight specialists to Phoenix to present on their work, discuss future plans and directions and, most importantly, talk to customers about what you need to make your job easier – they will all be wearing badges saying “Let’s Talk”, so make the best of this opportunity. They will be presenting the following sessions:
- Session 24689 – Discussion: Mind the “Skills” Information Gap by Caroline Turner, Bill Keller, Geoff Smith, and Sue Shumway on Tuesday at 12:30 in room 104B
- Session 24690 – Discussion: Automate and Simplify Those Routine Tasks. How Can We Help? by Geoff Smith, Sue Shumway, Hiren Shah, and Bill Keller on Wednesday at 12:30 in room 104B
- Session 24647 – Systems Programmer’s Information Navigator by Sue Shumway, Geoff Smith, and Bill Keller on Wednesday at 3:15 in room 104A
- Session 24648 – Transforming the Content Experience – Our Journey Together by Bill Keller, Geoff Smith, and Sue Shumway on Wednesday at 4:30 in room 104A
This is your opportunity to influence the type of information that IBM will provide in the future to help you implement the latest and hottest IBM technologies. If you are at SHARE and don’t make the most of this opportunity, you really can’t complain if you think that you are not being provided with the information you need, in the format that you need it.
We will be updating this post as we get more information, so please drop back regularly. If you will be attending SHARE, please say hello to Cheryl, Brenda, Mario, and/or myself. We would really love to hear about your experiences and your ideas on how we can make the Tuning Letter even more valuable. If you currently don’t subscribe to the Tuning Letter and would like a subscription, anyone that signs up during SHARE week will get a 20% discount on your first year’s subscription if you get the secret code from one of us :).