LUG 2017 IBM Rochester

Finally I found some time to write few words about LUG meeting which I was fortunate to attend at the begging of June 2017. Beside numbers of presentations, it was great opportunity to finally meet many IBM i people, architects, developers. And I was also given an opportunity to present some content to the community.

At the begging what LUG is. Basically it is association of the biggest IBMi customers in the world. A company must have a significant number of IBMi cores and some minimum number of servers in order to attend the community. Also, the community must approve every new member which is willing to join. This is very serious organization. If you want to know more, check the official website.

The LUG meeting is not just another technical conference. There are some presentations which you can see at IBM TechU events, or some marketing slides, but some materials are about new coming products, features which you can’t see anywhere else. The idea behind is that the biggest customers should know where IBM strategy goes to, what technology will be available, what should be changed in order to deliver the biggest value to the market. How I should plan the future in my IBMi shop to deliver the best value. And this is not only about IBMi OS, it applies to entire POWER ecosystem (servers, consoles, storage, tools). Most of these things are super-secret and certainly you will not get this information from your local IBM representative or a business partner. Within the meeting it is also possible to discuss or meet IBM technical stuff. For instance, if you have some unsolved issue or you don’t know how to implement a feature – this is the best time to schedule a short meeting and discuss it. One of the greatest event is session “Ask the expert” where most of the development teams are squeeze in one big location, and it is possible to chat about anything related to IBMi or POWER.

I’ve received a badge “First time attendees” because I’ve never been at the meeting before. However, my company is a LUG member for 10+ yrs, but I’ve never been offered to go. I have been told that I do so many Redbooks and visiting IBM U.S so often that I don’t need to go there. Well, actually none of my Redbook residencies has taken place in Rochester, so I really missed the location and the technical stuff based in Rochester plant. I was very active in the discussions and asked multiple questions, I hope the ‘old crew’ is not angry to me.

I also got opportunity to run a presentation. From different given topics, one tool was selected by the LUG board. People very liked the idea, functionality and simplicity. I was very delighted by number of positive feedback and comments. Few people asked me for more details about the tool or the source code. If you still are interested, contact me. I will certainly take some further steps with this tool and other ideas, but not sure about dates yet.

I will try to come up with few new posts about the topics where people are struggling. But again, not sure when, yes it is vacation time.

Thank you for all positive feedback which I heard about my blog. Some people told me that I helped them one way or another, some says my blog delivers high quality content for their daily job. Thank you again, there is nothing better as such positive and constructive feedback.

I’m sorry but I couldn’t remember all names, but if we talked together or you want to stay in contact, you can add me via LinkedIn or use a form to contact me. I don’t publish my email due to spam engine protection.

Below few pics from the trip.

Briefing center