COMMON POWERUp 2024

About Avatier
Avatier is the leading workforce driven identity management company. Our Identity Anywhere cutting-edge identity management platform with a patent pending user experience framework secures and simplifies any IT operation through orchestration with push notification automated workflows and user-friendly self-service options.
Effortlessly Connect, Provision, & Audit Any Identity or App Using Today's Latest Platforms
Avatier Identity Anywhere™ offers a seamless, secure, and scalable experience, using the latest software innovations to provide an identity foundation for user lifecycle management, requesting access, orchestration, single sign-on, self-service password management (SSPM), vendor neutral passwordless windows workstation login, MFA migration management, and access governance. Whether you're in the cloud or on-premises, our platform seamlessly integrates with your favorite apps and devices. Plus, with our rapid deployment in just 14 days or less, along with personalized support from our expert team... Read more

Founded and forged during Y2K planning, AveriSource accelerates legacy modernization through application analysis, business rules extraction and AI-powered code transformation. Our mission is to eliminate the time, risk, and cost of application modernization—all within a single platform. Trusted by global Fortune 500 companies, the AveriSource Platform™ has analyzed over two billion of lines of code and has enabled more than 250 successful modernization projects. AveriSource is recognized as an AWS Migration and Modernization ISV Partner and is listed on the AWS Marketplace. The AveriSource...

Trusted, tailored accounts receivable automation, bank reconciliation, deductions, collections and accounts payable software. Powered by a seamless integration between banks and ERPs. Proven to increase cash flow management, eliminate manual processes, reduce DSO, and improve cash visibility. Discover how our global clients achieve significant levels of automation and completely transform their finance department. There is now a better way. 

CNX is the company behind the Valence Framework. Designed for both IBM i programmers and power users alike, Valence tools help you build intuitive, world-class desktop and mobile business applications in minimal time. Valence includes a portal for logging into your IBM i system through a browser or smartphone, a low-code "app builder" tool for creating custom apps and dashboards with little or no programming, a treasure trove of state-of-the- art UI components for use in your custom applications and more.
Get off to the races FAST with Valence — you can have some elaborate apps ready for your... Read more

Curbstone’s credit card transaction processing engine maximizes security while deeply and seamlessly integrating with core RPG-based business applications running on IBM i. Our technologies allow merchants to avoid storing, processing, touching, or transmitting credit card data and can remove their entire existing IT infrastructure from PCI scope, while retaining real-time card, integrated processing.

Since 1978, Cybernetics has specialized in helping corporations address disaster recovery and archiving requirements. In the early 1990s, Cybernetics introduced the world’s first disk-based virtual tape library (AS/400 compatible) capable of incredible backup and restore performance unparalleled in the industry. Cybernetics has continued to improve disk based backup and recovery for IBM midrange customers providing redundancy, encryption, deduplication, replication, thin tape provisioning and many more modern features for today’s data protection and rapid recovery requirements.

Fortra is a leader in IBM i security and automation. We're creating a simpler, stronger future for our customers. Our trusted experts and portfolio of integrated, scalable solutions bring balance and control to organizations around the world. We’re the positive changemakers and your relentless ally to provide peace of mind through every step of your IT journey

I am a developer and open-source advocate. Ask me about Node.js, VS Code, app deployment and CICD :) 

Accelerating Change and Integration on IBM i
IBM i shops large and small trust software and services from Midrange Dynamics North America to evolve their IT strategies without hampering productivity. With Midrange Dynamics integrated solutions, you can meet your DevOps, application modernization, and CI/CD goals on schedule and on budget. Whether you are just getting started ‒ or lack software updates, responsive support, and reasonable fees from your current vendor ‒ we can help. Our team’s decades of experience will make it easier for you to build great applications...

Robert Andrews is a Principal Security Consultant, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM), and the Team Lead for the IBM i Security and Authentication Technology Expert Labs team in Rochester, MN. He is an IBM certified Thought Leader and The Open Group certified Distinguished Technical Specialist having specialized in IT Security since 1994. As a Principal Security Consultant, Robert helps organizations across various industries worldwide strengthen their IBM i security posture. He is widely recognized for his deep understanding of IBM i systems, his ability to translate complex technical concepts... Read more

IBM Champion for Power since 2016, love the IBM i platform since my very first contact with it in 1997. Today I am the CEO for Load System in Sweden. An IBM business partner with focus on IBM Power, IBM Storage, IBM Z and LinuxONE.
Also Vice President for Common Europe.

Niel is FalconStor’s Regional Pre Sales Consultant and is a systems engineer with 30 years of data center infrastructure experience. Niel began his professional career at UPS, where he first worked on the IBM i platform as an AS/400 Systems Programmer. While at IBM, Niel was a development engineer in the storage, blade, and enterprise Power hardware brands. At Sirius, Niel was a Sr. Power Systems Engineer, where he was a 3-time IBM Power Champion. Niel uses systems engineering, problem determination, and customer service skills to solve client business challenges. With experience in most vertical... Read more

Josh Bander is an IBM i Account Executive based in Cleveland, Ohio. He works at Rocket Software, one of the leading IBM i software providers with familiar products such as Rocket DevOps (Aldon), iCluster, and Rocket API. Recently, Josh has become well-known within the IBM i community on LinkedIn for his #IBMiEverywhere series, in which he features various companies that run on the IBM i platform.

He was named a 2023 IBM Rising Star and a 2024 IBM Champion.

An avid cyclist with two young children at home, one of Josh's primary passions is in increasing productivity and efficiency in his professional life... Read more

Boris is a Principle Technology Architect for the Assure Security product at Precisely where he's helping to architect security solutions for IBM i. Boris started his career in IT security in the year 2000 as a Windows and IBM i developer in a start-up named Bsafe (later known as Enforcive). Since then he has helped to develop and then design and architect multiple security solutions on IBM i, Windows, Linux and AIX. Solutions like System Access Control, Reporting and Alerting, Event Log Management, Privileged Account Management, Encryption and Masking, Corporate and Regulatory Compliance, Password... Read more

Over thirty years of experience in the information technology profession, focusing in software application development and web-based architecture. Comprehensive knowledge of application development focusing on Intel and IBM based server platforms.

Responsible for the analysis, planning, development and project management of company's emerging technology strategies, Internet/Intranet activities.

Disciplines include PHP, AJAX, JSON, XML, HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery.

Developer with 30+ years experience. Talk to me about IBM i, RPG, and SQL.

I'm a 40 year veteran of the IBM i (System/38,AS/400, iSeries, IBM i). My background is in Manufacturing and Performance. I specialize is tuning older systems to extend their life.

I am also a JDE CNC (18 years), and my second specialty is JDE/IBM i/Weblogic.

I work for IBM Technology Expert Labs, where our consultants’ proven expertise derives from a combination of business and extensive practical technical experience, leveraging proven tools and methodologies. Our Expert Labs consultants perform IT Infrastructure services for clients on site, helping them solve business challenges, gain new skills, and discover best practices. We have a global presence and can deploy its consultants in any region as required. We have IBM i experts!

I'm part of a two men team and are responsible for the day to day management of our Power and IBM i platform. We know a few things about BRMS, HA, Performance Tools and the Power hardware as well as external storage (DS8K).

Scott Forstie is a Senior Technical Staff Member within IBM i development and spends most of his time working as the Db2 for i Architect. He has worked on IBM operating system development since joining IBM in 1989.
Scott is a frequently published author, speaker at industry events around the globe and can be found @Forstie_IBMi and forstie@us.ibm.com. Scott is an avid runner, enjoys cooking and shooting pool.

Websites: http://ibm.biz/Db2foriServices, http://ibm.biz/IBMi_ACS, https://ibm.biz/Db2foriSQLTutor

... Read more

A young IBM i enthusiast who is ecstatic to have found such an amazing community! Specialized in systems administration, network administration, cybersecurity, with a programming background from university. Eager to learn and help more and more people realize the potential the system i has for businesses and organizations. Let's change the world!  

I embarked on a dynamic career journey leading me to IBM, where I've dedicated over two decades to diverse roles. Beginning as an intern in 2004, I've navigated through Sales Operations, IT Strategy Consulting, and leadership in Systems Technical Sales, making significant contributions to various business units, including IBM Services and IBM Software Group. After leading the Lenovo Systems portfolio in Brazil after IBM's x86 spin-off, I returned to IBM in 2018 with leadership roles in IBM Systems for Latin America. Since 2020, I've been at the forefront of the worldwide business for IBM Power... Read more

Websmart
Agile
Dev Ops
Working in IT for 30+ years. In the Mortgage Industry for 28 of those.

Vern has worked on IBM midrange systems for over 30 years, beginning with the System/38 and AS/400. At present he is a senior software engineer for the Pest Elimination division at Ecolab. He also serves on the COMMON Americas Advisory Council (CAAC) and SET and is one of the SMEs for Db2.  He is degreed in both music and mathematics, which gives him a distinct approach to the art and science of programming. In his spare time he participates in various musical pursuits, such as playing trumpet in a community band, singing in a pretty-good a capella choral group, working with local musical theater... Read more

Let's talk about Mult-Carrier Shipping Software that runs natively on Your IBMi Power server.

When GPT3.5 is asked "What could AGI mean for computer security?"

-- response
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) could have significant implications for computer security:
Enhanced Threat Detection: AGI systems could be trained to identify even the smallest behaviors of ransomware and malware attacks before they enter the system1. They could use complex algorithms for pattern recognition in software, enhancing the ability to detect viruses and malware1.
Automated Hacking: The emergence of AGI could lead to automated hacking by algorithms, allowing computer systems around the world to be rapidly... Read more

Thank you Wynne for your partnership. I consult with clients regarding Cloud and Managed Services. 

Tom Huntington is Executive Vice President of Technical Solutions at Fortra, and has been with the company for nearly 35 years. He helps manage the worldwide Fortra software engineer team that works to integrate and promote our automation and security solutions to partners and customers around the globe.
Tom often speaks on enterprise scheduling, security, automation topics, IBM i technology, and the Fortra products, and hosts technical presentations on a variety of automation topics. He is the author of the Fortra IBM i Marketplace Survey and has written articles on automated operations, sec... Read more

Simon Hutchinson has been writing his highly acclaimed IBM i blog, RPGPGM.COM, for eleven years sharing his knowledge, experience, and giving many detailed examples of the latest RPG, SQL, and CL. His work has led him to be recognized by IBM as an IBM Champion for Power and IBM i Community Advocate. He is a subject matter expert for COMMON North America and, last year, winner of their John Earle Speaker Scholarship in recognition for his contribution to the community. Since its founding Simon has been the president of the Central Texas IBM i User Group (CTXiUG... Read more

Formerly Krengeltech, Kato Integrations is an IBM i solution provider offering API toolkits used to connect many of today’s most popular services with the IBM i platform. Combined with hosting services and a highly experienced professional services team, Kato Integrations has become a leading solution provider for today’s most competitive businesses.

IBM i and JD Edwards Developer. Free RPG, SQL, JDE, Java interfaces, MS SQL

I have been involved in High Availability and Disaster Recovery Power Systems and previous models for over 20 years.

Puneet Kohli is the President of Application Modernization BU at Rocket Software. Puneet has two decades of experience managing all facets of engineering for enterprise software. Puneet has deep knowledge of Identity and access management, governance risk & compliance, Devops, hybrid converged infrastructure and modernization. Puneet has held leadership positions at RSA, Dell& CA technologies in past.

Programming software development provider offering services for a wide range of businesses including Fortune 100 companies and NYSE-listed companies. We have over 1,000 developers on staff we can help with almost any development need. We believe we should modify our process and goals for the client, not the other way around. Our flexibility gives our clients peace of mind. As our client, you can hire individual developers or a whole team. You can hire us just for a project, or you can turn your software over to us for timely upgrades and support. We offer the option to hire full-time, part-time... Read more

James is Executive Director of the OpenPower Foundation, with over 10 years of open source experience across hardware, software, and network engineering disciplines. James brings a passion for open source and is committed to growing OpenPower Foundation’s membership, community, and ecosystem.
He is a seasoned entrepreneur with a background in enterprise technology and has worked in roles spanning operations, business development, product management, and engineering.

Previously, James was co-founder and COO at Hyper.sh, an open source cloud-native virtualization startup and creator of the OSS K... Read more

I am a business leader and technology enthusiast with a strange and wonderful attraction to all things IBM i -, semiconductor -, and automated data collection-related. As a team leader and an individual contributor for startups, SMBs, and Fortune 500 companies, I get energy from developing and driving operational plans to build profitable business units. Most unique experience: Launching an international technical publication. Most exciting: Delivering a product with unprecedented performance levels. Best: Meeting my clients face to face.

Varsity Logistics, Inc. is the leading provider of multi-carrier parcel and freight shipping software for the IBM i platform. Varsity’s ShipSoft suite of software modules enable companies to have a single shipping system to automate shipments for any parcel or LTL carrier. Functionality includes rate shopping/quoting within order entry, shopping cart, or at point of shipping.  Additional functionality options include order optimization/containerization, consolidation, reporting and carrier bill auditing.  This automation can be applied across multiple distribution centers, while achieving total... Read more

We help automate business processes.

Cobwebb Communications has been providing IBM i customers across the globe with business critical document and back office process automation solutions since 1986. Our service offerings and our client base has grown over the years, but our core focus remains the same; to deliver industry leading document automation solutions that save time and money for manufacturing businesses running IBM i business applications.

From printing barcodes, emailing invoices, scanning supplier invoices, to automating manual processes using digital workflows, we help IBM i busin... Read more

Watch, Notify, Protect!
Head to booth 415 to hear about Shield’s latest “peace-of-mind” solutions.

Shield’s extensive experience in the IBM i community offers customer-led solutions to suit the most demanding environments. Frequently refreshed code ensures optimum efficiency that keeps overhead to a minimum.

High Availability for IBM i, Nagios plugin for monitoring IBM i, and Enterprise Message monitoring, these integrated solutions allow you to pre-empt issues before they become a problem.

Well-known for top-class customer support, we listen, and always go the extra mile. Our highly techn... Read more

Dawn has been involved with COMMON for over 20 years and has been a consistent volunteer since 2008. She's been a member of the strategic education team, a subject matter expert, and a speaker. Now, as President of COMMON, she's focused on leading COMMON as the industry leader of IBM i education, networking, and community.  

Dawn is a leading authority on IBM i performance management, work management, systems management, and general system diagnostics. She has in-depth knowledge of the IBM i operating system developed through her distinguished career with IBM.

A former IBMer, Dawn is now an ind... Read more

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I started my IT career in 1984. I started working on an IBM SYSTEM/38 in 1986, and upgraded to the AS/400 in 1989.  I worked for STERIS Corporation from 1991 until I semi-retired in 2022. Since then, I have worked as an Independent IBM i Administrator.  My career started as a programmer, but always gravitated toward system administration.

Ryan Moeller is a software engineer working on Db2 for i, specifically on the SQL Query Engine (SQE) team. He joined the team in the Rochester, MN development lab in 2020. Ryan specializes in SQL, database development, and query performance analysis.

I5, java, security

With 35 years of experience on the IBM midrange platform, Floyd has been extensively involved in the software management of DevOps , Enterprise Modernization and refactoring projects on IBM i, from planning stages through to delivery. His expertise in hybrid application development both native and Cloud makes him a trusted advisor for companies in project rollout, managed services and the introduction of agile methods. Floyd is a trusted global speaker on the subjects of DevOps, Release Management, Modernization, Version Control and BI.

Robert Nettgen wanted a career in radio broadcasting, but saw that profession declining and found better pay working in IT.  A PC developer in the ‘80’s, Rob started administering AS/400s in the early ‘90s for a Radio/TV group owner.  In 1999 Rob accepted a job as IT director of a two-person IT department for a small subsidiary of an insurance company.  He came into an office where passwords were shared, rarely changed, PCs were connected directly to the Internet, there was no firewall and vulnerabilities were in abundance – a good place to learn how to build information security from...

Our Mission: Bring an easy solution to the market for performance monitoring and capacity planning of your highly virtualized environment with a simple and easily comprehensible UI.
It is intended as the operation front-end tool which can simply and quickly identify load abnormality and locate problems at the infrastructure level.

Zend by Perforce helps organizations use enterprise PHP to build innovative web and mobile solutions, and modernize existing applications. Our proven enterprise PHP development platform includes software infrastructure, tools, and best practices along with service options. Learn more and try Zend for free at www.zend.com.

Trevor Perry is a technologist by trade and a motivational speaker by passion. His keynote speeches and breakout sessions are in demand across the globe at technology conferences and events. He is an Australian of Irish heritage who lives in America, and spent time faking an English accent performing street theater in Texas. As a techie, Trevor understands managing life/work balance and his sessions present new perspectives, practical commonsense ideas, and encouragement for your professional and personal development. Trevor always brings his unique perspective to every session, entertaining, motivating, an... Read more

I am a Junior Full Stack Developer at Everbrite LLC. We run our production applications on the IBMi Power Server. Primary languages are CL, RPG, DB2 SQL and Java, and the UI: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Drupple, React, and Sencha.
My position is a fast paced job and it includes Help Desk phone calls for the IBMi applications, Jira tickets, and development projects. My management team gives all developers plan, design, and development responsibilities to enhance the production applications.
I'm also heavily involved in my local user group, WMCPA, I currently hold a position as the Social Media Directo... Read more

Felix Portnoy is a Design Principal at IBM, where he serves as a key driver in the transformation of IBM Power, with a focus on delivering exceptional customer experiences and elevating design culture and practices across the organization. Felix is a published researcher and the recipient of numerous awards in academia and industry. He completed his Ph.D. in Information Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Additionally, he holds an M.A.Sc. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Toronto and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Haifa.

Beer, Broncos & Baseball! Oh, and anything IBM i / Db2 related of course!

Pascal Ruckebusch adopted IBM i at the exact beginning of AS/400, three decades ago, and never left it … Pascal's experience on IBM i covers system and application development, training and operations. Twice CTO of 2 major IBM business partners in France, his technical skills and professionalism are widely recognized. 1000+ IBM i partitions are hosting one of the products designed and/or maintained by Pascal before creating M81 … There are now 800 more with M81’s products !