1999 IBM VM and VSE Technical Conference
May 24-27, 1999

IBM's premier education event for VM and VSE, the IBM VM/ESA* and VSE/ESA* Technical Conference, was held in Orlando Florida, May 24-27 at the Renaissance Orlando Resort.

- Conference presentations

Link to some of the conference presentations which have been made available.

- Conference Summary

This fourth combined VM and VSE Technical Conference in the US included 4 days of elective sessions, a optional fifth day of workshops, and a sold-out IBM and vendor product expo.

So, was this event worthwhile?

The rating on the satisfaction survey said it all with the highest rating ever. (90 satisfaction rating).

Attendance

Attendance was up a bit, and we're always glad when the seats are filled with people to hear our message. Similar to 1998, there were over 500 people, including the 50+ IBMers and customers who made the effort to travel to the United States to attend this event.

Conference activities

In addition to a general session and breakout topics, attendees participated in these activities:
  • Vendor and IBM expo & reception (during two lunches, two evenings)
  • Open House sponsored by VM lab to encourage attendee interaction
  • Optional weekend workshops by Richard Lewis and Chuck Morse for VM Web Server Installation, Steve Gracin & Jon vonWolfersdorf for VSE/ESA Connectivity Options, and Dan Janda & Stanley Jones for CICS/VSE Health Check.
  • IBM night at Sea World where we were treated to private shows at the dolphin, Sea Lions and Shamu stadiums. Ying Chu had the special treat of feeding the dolphins.
Fortunately for our conference attendees, the STS-96 mission for Discovery was delayed to the week of the conference. Those who didn't fall back to sleep after the alarm went off were able to to catch the launch by simply walking across the street to the Sea World Parking lot and look UP. And many more fortunate made an effort to be close enough to feel the ground shake.

Open House Summary

The "get acquainted" reception was held in the "Upper Dolphin Lounge" of the open-air hotel lobby. This is the third time that we sponsored this activity at the conference and while I thought we'd have a few more than last year, we doubled...more than 300 stopped in!

General Session Summary

Ying Chu (Director, IBM S/390 VM and VSE IBU) provided a brief presentation about the IBU and focus areas, and coincident with "announce day", she announced VM/ESA V2 R4.0. J. Sebastian Perera, Aerospace Engineer at NASA's Space Center gave a detailed discussion about the International Space Station technology.

Breakout Summary

Over the course of 4 days, there was one general session and then 188 breakout sessions on VM, VSE or General Interest to both VM and VSE. For each session time, there were 7 or 8 choices.

VM topics focused on VM/ESA V2R4.0 - product update, individual sessions on Java & NetRexx, Performance, Open, OVVM, Pipelines, TCP/IP, Web serving, and Year 2000, VMSES/E, Storage, ADSM...

We are grateful for the many customers who presented their experiences, and also for the folks from IBM support organizations - ITSO, WSC, and Medium Size S/390 team (including Gary Eheman) contributed technical presentations, exhibits, and workshops. Once again we were treated to sessions by IBM Fellow, Mike Cowlishaw. Many of my hardworking colleagues from the VM lab treated customers to technical presentations for which we are most grateful, including: Alan Altmark, Bill Bitner, Christine Casey, Michael Donovan, John Franciscovich, Tom Mayer, Stephen Record, George Madl, Dr. Brian Wade, Romney White.

VM Platform Directions & Discussion Session

So as not to interfere with the primary intent of the conference, technical education, we schedule the platform management direction and discussion for later in the week. In this session, George Madl, IBM VM Platform Manager, briefly discusses VM investment directions then opens the floor for discussion. Sixty (or more) people were in the room and kept me busy taking notes. These are the comments that I captured during the session.
  1. ADSM V4 for VM?
    Tivoli ADSM V3.1 had just been announced that week.
  2. Would like to see an MQ Pipes Stage, and also more CMS Pipelines development
  3. Improvement of Interface to SQL/DS
  4. One customer said the VM IMAP server will be too late for them.
  5. All e-business etc is predicated on strong TCP/IP
  6. 64-bit (it was brought up that the Aug Share will have a discussion on this)
  7. multi-platform maintenance on parm disks concept - cms, gcs, segment eliminate (I probably didn't write this too clearly but rest assured that Romney understood this one.)
  8. Would prefer to be able to track file server (SFS, BFS)
  9. cross-system platform back requires consensus throughout the company (IBM Branch marketing influence)
  10. Since the OS/390 special ESP deal, he hears only OS/390 and is also upset that there is no full UNIX branding for VM.
  11. SAP, TIVOLI, ERP not seen for VM
    DCE Client-only limitation (only went halfway)
  12. re previous comment: asked that we not close down on further investigation
    MQ Pipes better investment than further DCE would be.
  13. JDBC Interface to DB2, Pipe to OBDC, and Help web vendors with web technology
    TCP/IP performance (fix so static pages can take lots of hits)
    (discussion included that there are limitations by code bases, suggested that a small HTTP server using the RSK (the kernel),
  14. Business partners have incentives to sell OS/390 in the job. Is there anything to entice others? (eg. awareness, t's and c's,

    Also, include VM in marketing plan for S/390 (attitudinal)

  15. need branding image
  16. Cited a cost of computing example of someone moving two major apps from 9121 VSE to RS/6000 and an NT server in the cafeteria even though cost of computing/total systems cost and people is more.
    An ITG reports mentioned on cost of computing was mentioned.
    > old URL was removed 01/10/00
  17. Grow Utility
    • Grow guest in production environment
    • Parallel Sysplex test environment
      (need to understand the performance comparison)
    (Note: Utility is indeed a focus are for VM investment.)
  18. Educate/Education
  19. When putting a new VM in new shop, nothing new in education for new operators. There was VM Install class, but it wasn't basic, not what needed.
  20. Entry level VM Education
  21. Spend money teaching IBM marketing people about VM
  22. More on-demand education
  23. e-business formal education
  24. "202"-level VM session instead of a VM 101.
  25. Interactive Intro concepts, virtual machine concepts
  26. VM Documentation: Update the Primer with SFS and Byte File System most of the installations use one or both, yet now have no intro doc/primer.
  27. web-based/CBT/VM Education The person who commented works for a not-for-profit org so cash is a factor in education and it helps when they are able to share class materials among colleagues.
  28. New admin, sys prog need education in everything (educ ideas)
  29. Sterling Software Inc now offers a 3-day VM basics class for new system programmers. Here is the url:
    http://www.vmd.sterling.com/general/services/upcoming.html#VMBASIC

Expo Summary

The US expo typically has a good turnout, good layout, and good attendance. This year it was a sell-out. Thank you for your support!

The IBM exhibit is an island in the center with the vendor booth surrounding the outside walls. We use this format so that there are all "good" spots, and no "front and back" of the room.

Our IBM Island also included S/390 Multiprise, VSE exhibits, Education and Training, DB2 Control center, Marty Ziskind with his P/390 technology, and Steve Saroka ( S/390 Service Update Facility), Bonnie Martin and Ros Kearse for IBM Control Center for DB2 for VSE & VM, Erich Amrehn with IBM ITSO Redbooks and Residencies, Andy Gangone with IBM S/390 Integrated Server.

VM exhibits included: Brian Wade with Reusable Server Kernel, Christine Casey and Michael Donovan with Java and NetRexx, Tom Murphy with VM Parallel Sysplex Test support of OS/390 Guests. Gary Eheman with a VM e-business and Java demo, Tracy Dean with VM Office Solutions, Jim Elliott with VM and VSE product information, Richard Lewis with VM New Technology demo including connectivity, Java, MQ Series, and more. For reference, our VM home page was available for reference and to acquaint people with the extensive resource available to them. In addition, to the people named here, the lab folks stick close to the booth areas to support the exhibits and also to be available to speak with attendees. It makes it easier to find us that way. Thank you to the many people who supported the expo in any way (staffing, set-up, tear-down, info assembly, etc.).

Conference exhibitors included these vendor/developers or business partners:

VM Assist Beyond Software, Inc
B I Moyle Associates Brain Power Intl.
Bus-Tech Inc Connectivity Systems
Cross Access Corp. Data 21
EISCO Technology Decision Technology
HYDRA Systems IntelliWare Systems
Sterling Software, Inc Phoenix Software Intl
Polaris Communications Inc PSI Information System Svcs
Safe Software, Inc. Software Diversified Sv
VM Resoures Ltd UNICOM Systems, Inc
Mainline Information Systems Velocity Software, Inc
ViaServ Automated Migration Svcs
Software Engineering of America  

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