Power Systems and IBM i Update
Nigel Adams, IBM i Product Manager, IBM UK
This session will look at the hardware and software announcements that have been made during the course of this year.  On the face of it this may seem a quiet year with no major new hardware or software releases. However that is not the case - there have been many hardware announcements, in particular the exciting new Solid State Disks. And software enhancements have included for example a number of significant enhancements to DB2 Web Query. Presentation

PowerHA on IBM i

David Tulloch, Senior IT Specialist IBM UK, IBM UK
Version 6 Release 1 of IBM i has been available for nearly one and a half years!  As you are getting ready to move to V6R1 you should also be seriously thinking about moving your High Availability operations to PowerHA.  PowerHA is the IBM strategic “hardware” based solution for HA and DR and there are a host of reasons why you will be interested in it. We will cover the product offering and the product strategy going forward as well as the benefits and characteristics in relationship to other approaches currently available in the market. Presentation

"What are we going to miss most after the recession ends"?

Chris Tiernan, Grosvenor Consultancy Services  LLP

Even though our staff numbers fell by only 8%, I was under much greater pressure from the CFO to reduce IT costs. This was mainly because income suddenly fell off a cliff. Not only that but, to be seen to be fair, the pain was spread evenly across all functions so almost all of the SMT kept asking me to do more for them to help them save or increase income too. OK, I was able to cut training, travel, consultancy and some projects but I couldn’t help feeling that all that really did was to build up problems for the future. Surely, we started those projects to improve the future of the organisation and help us do better in the upturn. Why do we always seem to be squeezed at both ends? There must be some way of explaining to the Board that IT costs are really just costs from other areas of the organisation which have been dumped on IT and that cutting projects actually costs us a lot more as we lose the benefits we would get from completing them. What can we do to break this vicious circle? I wonder how others coped. Presentation

IBM i Storage Update and Directions

Fred Robinson, IBM i Technology Centre, Rochester
Confused by the vast range of apparently 'fantastic' storage options and solutions?  Join Fred as he leads us through the maze in a informative and future based way. A clear set of messages that will leave the session attendees in no doubt as to the Roadmap for Storage ahead. Presentation