2026 - Helsinki
2026 Helsinki
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026-Opening Sessions
- Hits: 4394
Welcome to GSE Nordic Region Conference 2026 with a presentation of the conference, the Logistics, Networking Opportunities and how to get the most out of the Conference.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026-Opening Sessions
- Hits: 3983
IBM Z raises the bar again with z17 - the most scalable, scalable and efficient, general purpose computing platform on the planet. The Large System Performance Reference (LSPR) ratings of the z17 will be discussed along with its hardware performance drivers; topics include processors, cache and memory topology, SMT, subcapacity models, product offerings and workload variability. Join Dave as he reveals the highlights of this technical marvel, and learn how you can measure the impact of z17 on your workloads.As AI rapidly evolves, enterprises face key challenges such as data quality, security, integration with existing systems, and ethical concerns. This keynote will outline the most critical obstacles and trends shaping AI adoption, offering actionable insights for enterprises to effectively integrate AI technologies while maximizing their potential for innovation and growth.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 IMS/MachineLearning Track
- Hits: 6349
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 IMS/MachineLearning Track
- Hits: 6119
Driving the future of IMS: 2026 IMS Modernization update
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 IMS/MachineLearning Track
- Hits: 6411
Managing IMS is challenging on its own, but when regulations and external expectations stack up, the day‑to‑day upkeep can quickly become complex and exhausting. In this presentation, I’ll give you a glimpse into the realities of IMS housekeeping and what it takes to keep a 4 IMSplex running smoothly in a banking environment. We’ll look at the practices, routines, and safeguards that help us maintain stability, compliance, and performance in such a demanding setup.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 IMS/MachineLearning Track
- Hits: 5667
This introductory session is designed to demystify the Data Definition Language (DDL) within the context of IMS. Participants will gain valuable insights into the foundational structures of IMS DDL, understand how to define databases and segments, and learn the syntax that governs the creation and manipulation of IMS database hierarchies. By the end of this session, attendees will be equipped with the knowledge to confidently navigate the IMS-specific DDL, laying a solid groundwork for future endeavors in database management.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 IMS/MachineLearning Track
- Hits: 6330
With both internal and external cyberattacks on the rise, customers must deal with adherence to government regulations, fines for non-compliance, and most importantly negative publicity and customer impact if an attack does occur. While most customers have disaster recovery plans in place, recent events have revealed that DR is not enough in the event of a cyberattack. In this session, we’ll give a brief introduction to the IBM Z Cyber Vault solution, how it differs from DR, and how it can help customers reduce recovery time by providing an environment to help detect the attack sooner and verify recovery procedures before recovering to the production environment. Then we’ll dive a bit deeper into what this means specifically for an IMS environment.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 IMS/MachineLearning Track
- Hits: 5095
A lot of IMS systems were set up a long time ago, and have been kept that way for years under the mantra "if it ain't broken, don't mess with it". But what about when you do have to modernise things? This presentation will showcase a project of implementing IMS HP Tools, adopting IMS Catalog and IMS Connect, along with IMS managed ACBs, all in under a year, and future areas of consideration. Along with the lessons learned, a few useful tricks for populating IMS Catalog from old copybooks will be demonstrated.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 IMS/MachineLearning Track
- Hits: 6278
Securing IMS Connect Workloads
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 IMS/MachineLearning Track
- Hits: 6130
Whilst the technical implementation of IMS Managed ACBs is not overly difficult, there are many other issues that need to be understood to make this a successful conversion.
In this session we will touch on why you need Managed ACBs, and cover many of the other issues that need to be considered.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 IMS/MachineLearning Track
- Hits: 5017
BoF.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 IMS/MachineLearning Track
- Hits: 4893
Securing IMS Connect Workloads.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 IMS/MachineLearning Track
- Hits: 4242
With the introduction of the IMS catalog, IMS has embraced a modern, metadata-driven approach to managing database and application definitions. The catalog stores metadata for DBDs, PSBs, and other critical resources in a structured format that can be queried using SQL. This opens new opportunities for developers, DBAs, and system programmers to access IMS metadata in a dynamic and flexible way—without relying on traditional static source libraries or manual navigation.
This session will focus on how to effectively retrieve and analyze IMS catalog data using SQL. Attendees will learn how to construct SQL queries to access DBD and PSB definitions, explore program-to-database relationships, and extract metadata to support auditing, DevOps pipelines, and system documentation. Real-world examples will demonstrate how SQL-based access to the IMS catalog streamlines system management, improves transparency, and enhances automation efforts in modern mainframe environments.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 IMS/MachineLearning Track
- Hits: 6559
Do you need a modernized approach to performance monitoring and issue resolution for IMS systems? NRB will introduce how they leverage IMS Performance Analyzer, streaming and Grafana dashboards. The presentation will cover the architecture of the solution and the benefits gained from incorporating IMS data into a scalable analytics ecosystem.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Mainframe Infrastructure Track
- Hits: 4394
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Mainframe Infrastructure Track
- Hits: 4279
* Short intro of what System Boost Recovery Is
* How to use STC System Boost Recovery
* How System Boost Recovery can change your systems TOPOLOGY and CPU Polarity
* Analyze test cases with STC System Boost Recovery with SMF 99-12 data
* Present a method how to use STC System Boost Recovery to gain Capacity Benefit
* Discuss pitfalls when using STC System Boost Recovery
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Mainframe Infrastructure Track
- Hits: 4515
Stephen WarrenSession Evaluation
This session will cover the highlights of new functions found in z/OS 3.2. As we discuss these exciting new functions, we will identify which are available on release(s) prior to z/OS 3.2. Hold on tight - this will be a whirlwind overview of a big release!
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Mainframe Infrastructure Track
- Hits: 3849
Enterprise messaging and IBM MQ are a critical part of any system. This session shows you how MQ is rapidly evolving to meet your needs. Irrespective of your platform or environment, this session introduces many of the recent updates to MQ, whether that's in administration, building fault tolerant and scalable messaging solutions, or securing your systems.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Mainframe Infrastructure Track
- Hits: 3890
z/OS is going to change the way sysprogs configure the system.
The shift will be focused on how to make it simpler for Non z/oS users
It will use industry standard tooling
Sysprogs are invited to weigh in on the topic
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Mainframe Infrastructure Track
- Hits: 4620
As AI continues to revolutionise every aspect of our lives, this presentation explores the cutting-edge intersection of IBM MQ and Agentic AI. Discover how the innovative MQ Agent uses AI to diagnose and resolve complex MQ issues and learn how MQ is poised to become the backbone of reliable, scalable, and secure agentic AI systems, empowering businesses to harness the full potential of this rapidly evolving technology.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Mainframe Infrastructure Track
- Hits: 4277
Primarily: The NIST publications for establishing a Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) can be overwhelming but the basic concept of creating a ZTA is based upon common-sense steps and practices that can be applied to the most critical controls for z/OS. Remember you are dealing with people. In the primary part of this overall session, we will discuss a practical approach to creating and providing the two basic elements required in a ZTA, the Policy Decision Point (PDP) and the Policy Enforcement Point (PEP).
A "quick dive": With machine identities we need to know of potential critical vulnerabilities in SSL/TLS Connections to server end-points, all end-points, across the entire z/Fabric. And with new regulatory concerns and possible processing exposures, to expand the role of key rings, certificates, related ESM profiles and ICSF controls to achieve a Secure Boot of z/OS.
For sure: “Bad Actors” are out there using whatever means necessary to upset the status quo.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Mainframe Infrastructure Track
- Hits: 4600
IBM MQ is the backbone of many mission-critical systems, and understanding its behaviour is key to maintaining performance and reliability. This session explores how OpenTelemetry brings powerful, standardised observability to MQ environments, enabling end-to-end tracing and deeper insights across distributed applications. It also highlights how the MQ Console complements this with real-time metrics and operational visibility. Whether you're running MQ on z/OS, Distributed, or in the cloud, learn how to modernise your monitoring strategy and unlock actionable insights.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Mainframe Infrastructure Track
- Hits: 4205
Some people think reading SMF data is some kind of black magic. Others put SMF into the "too hard" bucket. And I was the same. Until recently.
This past year I learned about using SMF with IBM MQ for z/OS. This presentation is the result of my efforts and hopefully will make SMF seem less scary and worth trying out for yourself if you have never used it before.
We'll cover how to get your queue manger to create the data; how to get the data out of SMF; and what to do with it next.
Then we'll take a look at the kinds of questions you can answer using the data you have collected.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Mainframe Infrastructure Track
- Hits: 3450
Go beyond the silo. Join us to see how you can transform your mainframe ITSM and ServiceNow implementation by leveraging Observability to provide the unified data you need for proactive and efficient operations. Combining both can speed problem-solving, identify and resolve problems faster, moving you from a reactive to a proactive operational model. Map Mainframe dependencies to the CMDB for proactive issue prevention and easier management. Improve efficiency and reduce errors!
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Mainframe Infrastructure Track
- Hits: 3489
Enterprise messaging and IBM MQ are a critical part of any system. This session describes general high availability and scalability considerations, and how to maximise message availability on z/OS and on other platforms.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Mainframe Infrastructure Track
- Hits: 3352
AI is transforming everything we do. How do we take this amazing technology, originally introduced on the IBM z16 and greatly enhanced with the IBM z17, and infuse real-time AI insights for our existing applications? This session will give an quick overview of the technology, but focus mostly on deployment of AI models onto z/OS and how applications can leverage these models to be able to do AI within the scope of a transaction and still meet the most stringent of SLAs!
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Skill Track
- Hits: 2476
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Skill Track
- Hits: 2496
The presenter will cover basic IPCS commands and MVS dump reading fundamentals that should help anyone new to SVC dump analysis get productive quickly. Imagine the look on your work colleagues' faces as you deftly navigate SVC dumps like a pro, finding basic root cause information that will help decide if you're looking at yet another example of in-house "pilot error" or if you've got a real APARable system event on your hands. And even if you must send the dump up to the next level of support, your vendors will love you for doing some of the up-front preliminary work. You're sure to become one of their all-time favourite clients...
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Skill Track
- Hits: 2500
Simplify knowledge transfer with mob programming
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Skill Track
- Hits: 2492
Mainframers are portrayed in movies through the lens of being secure, inaccessible, and the place that hackers enter to steal secret data. While this is a great parallel for Hollywood to have given the platform, this can also make them aloof and foreign to many.
This talk is a light hearted exploration of the role that mainframe computers have played in movies, whether it's Jaws or Independency Day, through SpiderMan and Thor, and how the mainframe is both the hero and the villian
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Skill Track
- Hits: 2490
I would like to cover all IBM Mainframe Skill resources (free and subscription based educations, portals, etc.) and programs (mainframe educations, advocacy, community, etc.).
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Skill Track
- Hits: 2513
Baking cakes and operating a mainframe have distinct purposes and processes, but they share some surprising parallels.
Both involve adequate preparation (mise en place), precise instructions, careful attention to detail, and the potential for unexpected outcomes.
While baking a cake requires specific ingredients, measurements, and cooking times, similarly mainframes requires specific software, configurations, and commands.
This session is designed as an exploration in the similarities between Technology and Baking! 🍰
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Skill Track
- Hits: 2644
Managing and understanding mainframe jobs can be challenging for students and new developers, especially when working in limited-access learning environments like IBM Z Xplore. In this session, we present Z-Agent, a lightweight system that integrates Zowe CLI with a Python backend to collect, analyze, and visualize job execution data from z/OS — all without requiring privileged SMF access.
Using only student-level tools, Z-Agent demonstrates how to extract valuable insights from job metadata, JCL outputs, and dataset attributes. We’ll show how to transform this raw data into dashboards that track job success rates, ABEND trends, and runtime analytics. The talk also highlights how AI-assisted log analysis (via Watson or OpenAI APIs) can help interpret job failures in natural language.
This project bridges modern DevOps principles with mainframe education, providing a practical example of how APIs and open-source tools can enhance mainframe learning and observability in hybrid environments.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Skill Track
- Hits: 2365
How mentors and mentees can use Zowe and other open-source tools in a hands-on curriculum around the full DevOps lifecycle
- Each phase serves as a standalone instructional unit to introduce mainframe concepts and modern tools, while building technical proficiency using DevOps principles
- Insights gained from teaching both newcomers and experienced professionals how to work with DevOps in a mainframe environment
- Practical examples from my personal experience leading these type of workshops, integrating Zowe CLI and APIs into labs and projects, creating a learning experience that prepares students for modern enterprise environments.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Skill Track
- Hits: 2454
Write your first COBOL program!.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Skill Track
- Hits: 2418
Does your inner critic make you feel like your best isn’t enough, and that people will eventually think of you as a fraud? Not unlike the Dunning–Kruger effect, Impostor Syndrome may have you under-estimate your own abilities.
Studies suggests that individuals who experience feelings of being an impostor might also struggle with feelings of depression.
Together we can work to alleviate this feeling, and to reach a higher level of self-belief.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Skill Track
- Hits: 2405
Learn how Python Works on the platform
Understand how tools like ZOAU can change the way you do things on the platform
Turn a JCL job into a Python Program
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Skill Track
- Hits: 2463
In this session we will talk about how Generative AI is transforming the way developers and testers interact with mainframe applications. Unlocking new levels of productivity, automation, and innovation.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 General Interest/Performance Track
- Hits: 6379
- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 General Interest/Performance Track
- Hits: 6695
Bring your mainframe data to your AI agent with z/OS Connect.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 General Interest/Performance Track
- Hits: 6737
Red Hat OpenShift AI provides trusted, operationally consistent capabilities for data scientists, devsecops engineers and application developers to experiment, serve models and deliver innovative applications. OpenShift AI integrates optimized vLLM framework and advanced tooling to automate deployments, self-service models, tools and resources. In this session, we will discuss how OpenShift AI integrates with IBM Z and LinuxONE to leverage IBM z17 on-chip (Telum II) and off-chip (Spyre) accelerators, auto-scaling, CI/CD for models (MLOps), and securing model endpoints for enterprise use cases. Join us to gain insights into accelerating AI adoption by operationalizing inferencing across the OpenShift ecosystem for real-time workloads in Hybrid Cloud environments.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 General Interest/Performance Track
- Hits: 6344
Today’s developers want speed, feedback, and modern tooling—but mainframes often seem out of reach. In this session, I’ll walk you through my team's experience with z/OS and how we made mainframes more attractive and practical for newcomers. Let’s explore how you can modernize not just your systems, but your approach to talent.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 General Interest/Performance Track
- Hits: 6179
Machine Learning is perceived as the way to sip through large amount of data, draw conclusion, capable of predict outages, pinpoint root cause, suggest remediation. After many years of trying, the result is still not ideal (“oh no, false positive!”). Does this mean we should give up? If not, how can we turn the “not so ideal” results into something useful? This session will clarify the ML myths and hypes. Share how machine learning can be used pragmatically; and how can clients help make this a reality. Collect feedback on a few approaches such as Event Grouping, Gen AI and LLM; brainstorm on other ways to make AI useful. Brainstorm on the balance between leveraging the power of AI and safeguarding wrong decision or actions in IT operation space.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 General Interest/Performance Track
- Hits: 6409
Digital certificates are critical for secure operations, yet their setup and maintenance often introduce unnecessary friction. This session explains the core principles of certificate management, highlights common challenges, and presents a new toolkit that simplifies and accelerates certificate provisioning during mainframe software installation.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 General Interest/Performance Track
- Hits: 6339
* Skills acquisition
* Education
* Neuroscience
* Memory
In this session, we will take a detour into the field of neuroscience to look at how the human brain functions as it acquires new skills. Finding the time to invest in developing your existing mainframe skills and learn new ones is always a challenge, and even more so for experienced mainframers. Yet your professional abilities underpin your day-to-day responsibilities, career potential, and are a critical investment. The modern mainframer will need to acquire new skills throughout their lifetime and develop new job capabilities at regular junctures. What impact is the growing presence of automation and AI in the workplace having on this process, and do these tools make the process of learning new skills easier or more demanding of you?
Whether you are newly exploring the weird and wonderful world of the IBM mainframe and deciding where you career will take you, or you are a seasoned mainframer with many years of experience on Z, this talk will provide valuable insight into how our brain’s learn new skills and tools and techniques to enhance this process.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 General Interest/Performance Track
- Hits: 6326
After a similar session at GSE 2024, a delegate exclaimed “This was the skills session we needed at the start of the conference!” –
This session aims to paint an important foundational picture of the challenges, opportunities, and practical realities of the mainframe skills question.
We will explore the history of the skills challenge in the industry.
We will then look at the variety of tremendous opportunities and resources – training as well as technology - available for early-career mainframers.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 General Interest/Performance Track
- Hits: 6342
As the demand for modernization grows across z/OS environments, system developers face a critical choice between continuing with traditional HLASM and embracing newer tools like Metal C. This session presents a practical comparison between development in Metal C and HLASM, showcasing how Metal C enables faster development, better maintainability, and comparable — often superior — performance. Attendees will see real-world code samples and benchmarks illustrating how Metal C simplifies system-level programming without compromising control or efficiency. We'll also cover how Metal C reduces the skill barrier: new developers can be onboarded faster, with less reliance on highly specialized assembler knowledge. This session is ideal for z/OS architects, application developers, and systems programmers who are considering transitioning from assembler to more modern, C-based approaches in their low-level codebases.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 General Interest/Performance Track
- Hits: 5167
Mainframes remain critical for powering essential business applications. However, understanding how transactions flow and components communicate can be challenging. This session provides an overview of typical mainframe architectures, walking through common transaction flows within z/OS. We’ll examine the interactions between subsystems like CICS, IMS, and associated components, explaining how they work together to ensure speed, reliability, and scalability. You'll gain insights into the movement of data through message queues, network pathways, and attachment facilities. Whether you’re an architect, developer, or operations professional, this session will solidify your foundational understanding of mainframe connectivity and transaction processing, providing a practical basis for improved system management.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 General Interest/Performance Track
- Hits: 5401
Experience first hand how AI assistants and Agents are coming together to transform the user experience on IBM Z to increase productivity and speed task resolution. In this session, you will learn how IBM watsonx Assistant for Z provides conversational AI for any questions on IBM Z and how it provides a runtime environment to run AI agents that are capable of automating operations and providing system insights through an AI chat. Learn about and see demos of the included foundational AI Agents that can interact with your sub-systems like CICS, IMS, Db2 and systems management software including Concert for Z, Z System Automation, OMEGAMON, or Z Workload Scheduler. Learn how to ingest your own enterprise knowledge and how you can easily build your own AI agents.
S511 - OpenTelemetry: Simplifying Mainframe Integration into enterprise-wide observability solutions
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 General Interest/Performance Track
- Hits: 4920
Many modern organizations are implementing enterprise-wide observability solutions to gain end-to-end visibility across all their systems, and IBM Z plays a crucial role in many of those environments. OpenTelemetry offers a vendor-neutral, open-source framework to simplify the collection and management of telemetry data (traces, metrics, and logs) from diverse environments. This session will show you how OpenTelemetry bridges the gap, providing visibility into transaction flows spanning critical z/OS components such as MQ, CICS, IMS, and Db2. We’ll demonstrate how instrumenting these applications generates standardized OpenTelemetry data, allowing seamless integration with your existing enterprise observability platform. You’ll learn practical steps to enable OpenTelemetry on z/OS and discover how to leverage this data to improve incident detection and accelerate troubleshooting.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Application Development/Cloud & Containers
- Hits: 5931
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Application Development/Cloud & Containers
- Hits: 6040
The IBM z16 and z17 are equipped with the Telum processor which has a dedicated AI Acceleration unit. In this presentation/demonstration we will start with a simple AI model and guide you through the steps needed to have it run on the Telum AI unit, including IBMs Deep Learning Compiler.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Application Development/Cloud & Containers
- Hits: 6224
Many say the mainframe is vintage. Others say the mainframe is vogue. How do these different views come about and what can we all do to ensure that the mainframe is no longer regarded as old by the ignorant? What is the real problem and how do we tackle it? Come with me on a fashion journey and give the mainframe new clothes, just like a Croatian government body did. We did an in-platform modernization on Z and a mass refactoring of a PL/1 codebase with a migration from IMS to Db2 on Z incredibly fast using AI. Let me show you the details.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Application Development/Cloud & Containers
- Hits: 6116
Our opinion of the mainframe's most widely use language is formed by our own experience and the opinion of others. But sometimes opinions are misinformed.
This session will examine a range of commonly-held truths about the COBOL language.
It will use market and industry data to correct some of the misunderstandings, or to underscore some of the true statements.
The session aims to provide some helpful insight to decision makers, early career learners, or experienced enthusiasts some of the latest perspectives about the COBOL language and its place in today's application development world.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Application Development/Cloud & Containers
- Hits: 6004
AI-Powered Application Understanding & Impact Analysis
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Application Development/Cloud & Containers
- Hits: 6124
VS Code is becoming the #1 choice of many mainframe developers. Vendors are coming up with extensions for their products. But there is always something special. Something home grown, site specific, that is a must have - typically a set of ISPF panels to kick of build or do in house reporting. Maybe something else. How do you make it available to your developers in VS Code?
Come to this session to learn how to write your first VS Code extension and make your custom in house 3270 tools available in VS Code.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Application Development/Cloud & Containers
- Hits: 6050
Mainframe Assembler programming remains a crucial skill for maintaining and enhancing legacy systems in industries such as finance, government, and transportation. Despite the availability of newer programming languages, Assembler continues to be valued for its efficiency and control over system resources. This paper explores how Assembler is utilized today, the challenges and opportunities it presents for the future, including the growing need for Assembler programmers, advancements in automation, and how Assembler can integrate with emerging technologies such as AI and cloud computing. Additionally, it addresses how organizations can continue to rely on Assembler while tackling the shortage of skilled professionals in this field.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Application Development/Cloud & Containers
- Hits: 6200
De-mystifying Abends from z/OS with watsonx.ai – what even is a sock4 (S0C4)?
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Application Development/Cloud & Containers
- Hits: 5400
* AI can be like having an expert assistant working for you 24/7. Discover how agentic AI is transforming z/OS development workflows by acting as your companion that understands mainframe code and business logic. This session introduces AI agents that can autonomously navigate COBOL, PL/I, JCL and other codebases to answer questions, suggest improvements, and help developers understand complex legacy systems. Learn how these AI agents differ from traditional code analysis tools by providing contextual understanding and interactive assistance.
* We'll demonstrate practical use cases including code documentation generation, impact analysis for changes, and automated code review suggestions. Live examples include AI agents helping developers understand unfamiliar programs, trace data flows, and identify potential issues—all without requiring deep expertise in every corner of the codebase. Perfect for teams looking to accelerate onboarding and improve productivity.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Application Development/Cloud & Containers
- Hits: 5411
* AI erupted into almost every aspect of humanity a couple of years ago. Along with overarching concerns that it could eliminate entire categories of jobs, there are more nuanced questions of how good (or bad) AI actually is. Sycophantic behavior, hallucinations, doom loop, and other negative characteristics of AI can harm its usefulness.
* In this session we will discuss general and particular areas of zos application development where AI deficiencies might manifest.
* Utilizing real life examples we will propose strategies to mitigate and overcome these deficiencies, and improve AI’s ability in assisting zos application development and maintenance.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Application Development/Cloud & Containers
- Hits: 5912
Mainframe applications serve as the foundation for numerous organizations, facilitating essential business functions. This session will explore how generative AI and test automation offer a streamlined experience for developers and testers, thereby minimizing risks in routine development projects as well as in intricate hybrid-cloud initiatives.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Application Development/Cloud & Containers
- Hits: 4842
A modern approach to developing with api's on Z.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Closing Sessions
- Hits: 4399
Quantum computing is no longer a distant concern. "Harvest now and decrypt later" is an immediate threat and geos have put a stake in the ground to complete the first round of migrations by 2030. Most organizations have not started this process and struggle to know where to begin. Join this session to unpack the quantum threat, understand the PQC timeline and shed light on what you can do to jumpstart this journey today.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Conference Agenda Overview
- Hits: 5452
Conference Contents
CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE Agenda Overview
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Db2/DevOps Track
- Hits: 5942
- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Db2/DevOps Track
- Hits: 5978
This session provides an in-depth look at the latest enhancements delivered through Db2 for z/OS continuous delivery, along with insight into our roadmap and strategic direction as work begins on the next version of Db2. We will showcase selected key capabilities designed to improve operational efficiency, performance, and overall user experience. Additionally, we will share findings from recent subsystem parameter studies to help you better understand their impact and how customers across the community are leveraging them in their environments.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Db2/DevOps Track
- Hits: 5795
Bringing Mainframe into the Future: OpenTelemetry for Db2 for z/OS
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Db2/DevOps Track
- Hits: 5705
The role of the DBA has evolved over the years. As businesses across the globe embrace digital transformation, and customer expectations increase, the traditional rules of engagement must be reconsidered, and the DBA remains a key lynch-pin in the Agile journey to DevOps. This presentation will review the old rules of engagement, and express the importance of communication, trust, embracing change, and automation tools in modern software development.
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- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Db2/DevOps Track
- Hits: 5705
Distributed applications, both read and update, accessing Db2 is by the fast growing area of new business application transaction processing.
High Performance DBATs (HP-DBATs) is a significant and valuable performance feature for distributed applications introduced in Db2 10.
Use of this feature can also be dangerous if not implemented in an intelligent way.
The main objective of this session is to help users implement HP-DBATs in a safe controlled way and to maximise the performance benefit.
This session will cover the following topics:
Overview of preexisting support for thread pooling and inactive connection support; What are HP-DBATs and operational characteristics
Where are the performance benefits coming from
Which application workloads are best suited to HP-DBATs and how to identify them
What are the risks
How to get into a safe starting position
WLM considerations and setup
War stories based on real world customer experiences
- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Db2/DevOps Track
- Hits: 5900
* There Ain't No Such Thing As a Free Lunch, quote from "The Moon is a harsh Mistress". Choose whatever platform you like, but bad SQL is going to cost dearly.
* KELA "the Social Insurance Institution of Finland" - have some 1½ billion SQLs per day, both CICS/PL1 and Dynamic Java programs.
* A good SQL cost about 0,05 € per 1000 rows fecthed, but bad SQL can be like 1€ per a row read.
* How to manage this challenge? Even a modest effort using KAIZEN methodology have gained some 15 - 20 % reduction in CPU usage.
* Hear what we found out, what we have found in 1 year.
- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Db2/DevOps Track
- Hits: 6817
Technology landscape driving requirements for profile tables
- Evolution of profile tables
- Sample customer use case: Large U.S. financial services firm
- Other use cases
- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Db2/DevOps Track
- Hits: 6009
BoF
- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Db2/DevOps Track
- Hits: 5875
Db2 13 customers are faced with the removal of Db2 Data Studio as their swiss army knife desktop tool, and need to get Db2 Admin Foundation up and running.
This talk will cover how to do installation and configuration of the stack, covering topics such as different security managers, AT-TLS rules, high availability, pre-reqs, and more ...
- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Db2/DevOps Track
- Hits: 4993
This session presents the latest innovations in how Db2 for z/OS exploits AI to deliver deeper insights, smarter operations, and enhanced DBA productivity. We will highlight new AI-driven capabilities across the Db2 ecosystem, including the expansion of SQL Data Insights to support unstructured content, recent advancements in Db2 AI for z/OS, and emerging AI agent technologies that streamline and automate DBA tasks.
Attendees will gain a clear understanding of the technical foundations behind these capabilities, along with detailed use cases that demonstrate how AI is transforming data management, performance optimization, and system resiliency in modern Db2 environments.
- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Db2/DevOps Track
- Hits: 5892
SysplexWLB is one of features allowing to achieve continues availability in data sharing for remote DDF clients. However to effectively use it there are some requirements to meet, often not understood correctly. Also new features in Db2 z/OS 13 give sysprogs and Db2 administrators more "power" to enable it globally for clients coming to Db2z.
This presentation will explain the concept of sysplexWLB ,how it works, what is required to implement it, sample ideal architectual setup, zparm settings, and recent enhancements in Db2 z/OS 13 for sysplexWLB
- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 Db2/DevOps Track
- Hits: 4571
This presentation explores the critical process of auditing IBM DB2 for z/OS database access, focusing on the tools and techniques essential for ensuring security, compliance, and operational integrity. We will examine the role of DB2 audit traces in capturing detailed access and activity data, the implementation of audit policies to enforce organizational standards, and the utilization of System Management Facility (SMF) records—such as SMF Type 102 —for comprehensive monitoring and analysis. Attendees will gain insights into configuring these components effectively, interpreting audit data, and addressing common challenges in mainframe database auditing. Practical examples and best practices will be shared to demonstrate how these mechanisms support regulatory compliance and safeguard sensitive data in a z/OS environment.
- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 CICS/Security Track
- Hits: 7100
- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 CICS/Security Track
- Hits: 5947
Discover the latest open beta features in CICS Transaction Server. See what’s coming next and share your feedback to help shape the future of CICS.
- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 CICS/Security Track
- Hits: 6318
Ever wondered how banks process thousands of transactions every second or how large companies manage massive amounts of data? It is all thanks to powerful systems like CICS (Customer Information Control System)! In this session we'll introduce you to the world of CICS and show you how CICS, key part of the mainframe, helps run some of the biggest businesses in the world. Attendees will gain insights through real-world examples into why CICS remains the MVP (Most Valuable Player) of modern IT infrastructure, handling millions of transactions per second with unmatched reliability, speed, and security. By the end of the session, you'll know what CICS is and its role in the mainframe world.
Whether you're completely new to the mainframe and CICS or looking to deepen your understanding, this session will show you why CICS is the true MVP. Get ready for an exciting journey into the world of high-speed transactions and secure systems that keep our modern world running!
- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 CICS/Security Track
- Hits: 6554
Experienced CICS system programmers are often the single best knowledge base their organisation has — but much of that value is scattered across inboxes, chat threads, ticket histories, and, most critically, “tribal knowledge” that never makes it into formal documentation. In this session, “Turbo‑charge CICS knowledge for AI use,” we’ll show how to turn that fragmented expertise into an AI‑ready knowledge layer that can reliably support modern AI assistants and specialised CICS agents. We’ll focus on pragmatic, low-friction techniques for extracting high-signal operational know‑how: structured SME conversations (remote-friendly), capturing real troubleshooting narratives, and using transcripts as raw material to produce curated, reviewable knowledge documents — so your best practices and hard-won lessons become reusable, searchable, and consistently available. You’ll learn how to prioritise what to capture (runbooks, “why we do it this way,” failure modes, and decision heuristics), how to reduce ambiguity and “it depends” answers into context-rich knowledge, and how to establish lightweight validation so the content stays trusted as CICS evolves. The goal: move from ad hoc expert interruption to scalable expertise-on-demand, enabling AI systems to go deep on CICS-specific questions rather than staying generic.
- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 CICS/Security Track
- Hits: 6716
Effective testing is essential for building robust systems. Dive deep into a structured approach to the testing pyramid for CICS applications. Using Test4z, we will demonstrate how unit tests form the foundation of the pyramid, enabling rapid validation of individual components. We'll then explore how integration tests and, finally, end-to-end tests in production-like environments build upon this foundation as you move up the testing pyramid.
- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 CICS/Security Track
- Hits: 6450
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z/OS middleware configuration is often manual, time‑consuming, and difficult to audit consistently. This session introduces a configuration‑as‑code approach using the z/OS Middleware Configuration Tool (zconfig). |
- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 CICS/Security Track
- Hits: 6310
One of the highlights from CICS TS 6.3 is the support of OpenTelemetry tracing. This session will introduce you OpenTelemetry tracing that is widely used in cloud and off-platforms, how CICS supports it, and how it may help you uncover the myth of the parts of your business on the z platform.
- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 CICS/Security Track
- Hits: 5867
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Take a guided walkthrough of the newest CICS Transaction Server 6.3 performance report. We’ll highlight key insights to help you understand what these results mean for your workloads and how to optimize for peak performance. |
- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 CICS/Security Track
- Hits: 6080
AI coding agents are dramatically increasing development velocity — but they are also amplifying a long‑standing problem: testing does not scale at the same rate as code generation. As agents produce more code, faster, and across broader surfaces, manual and semi‑automated testing quickly becomes the bottleneck, re‑introducing risk at precisely the point teams believe they’re moving faster.This session explores a central paradox of AI‑assisted development: the same agents that exacerbate the automated testing problem are also the most viable solution to it. We’ll examine why traditional test approaches struggle in an agent‑driven world, particularly for complex systems like CICS and z/OS where meaningful validation requires end‑to‑end integration testing, not just unit tests. We’ll discuss how AI‑generated code frequently lacks corresponding tests, why hand‑crafting integration tests does not keep pace, and how this discrepancy can undermine confidence in AI‑accelerated delivery.The second half of the session focuses on the opportunity: using AI coding agents to generate new Galasa integration tests alongside — or even ahead of — the code they produce.
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- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 CICS/Security Track
- Hits: 5957
Come to this session to find out how to integrate CICS with AI in the latest CICS TS version 6.3
- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 CICS/Security Track
- Hits: 4499
BOF.
- Details
- Parent Category: 2026 Helsinki
- Category: 2026 CICS/Security Track
- Hits: 4985
This session will introduce you the latest features in CICS TS 6.3 for securing your business.