COMMON POWERUp 2026

Best Practices is all about meeting IBM system compliance to achieve optimal results. Don’t let old myths or newly formed bad habits be the difference between success or a failure in service delivery. This session will examine V7R4/R5 System configurations, BRMS Backups, Disaster Recovery, and Security Management. Examine assumptions, technical gaps, blunders, and recommendations. Hear actual lessons learned so you do not make the same IBM i assumptions others have made. IT is not a game of chance.

Learning Objectives:

1. Distinguish between outdated IBM i practices and modern, compliant configurations. 2. Learn proven methods to optimize BRMS backups, DR routines, and system security. 3. Apply real-world lessons to improve performance, reliability, and audit readiness.

IBM i shops are at a crossroads. Core applications continue to run the business reliably—but aging architectures, monolithic code, and skill gaps are slowing innovation. Executives are asking for speed and flexibility, while developers are stretched maintaining decades of business logic. The good news? Modernization doesn’t mean starting over. It means unlocking new value from what you already have. In this session, Amy Blea will break down a practical, business-aligned approach to application modernization on IBM i. We’ll explore why modernization is no longer just a technical upgrade—but a strategic investment that reduces maintenance effort, improves agility, and prepares applications to participate in AI, cloud, analytics, and API-driven ecosystems.

Learning Objectives:

In this session, Amy Blea shares real modernization journeys from IBM i clients—what sparked the change, the roadblocks they hit, and the outcomes they achieved. You’ll learn: * How companies modernized applications while keeping the business running * What worked—and what stalled—when moving from green screen to modern web and API-driven interfaces * How different teams adopted tools like VS Code, Git, DevOps, and AI-assisted development * Where AI-powered code assistants sped up code understanding, conversion, documentation, and developer onboarding Whether you’re a CIO looking to future-proof your IBM i investment or a developer eager to move beyond maintenance work, this session delivers practical guidance, tools, and inspiration to accelerate your modernization journey confidently and sustainably.

Do you love you some internal storage? You know it, you’ve used it, and it’s served you well! But times they are a changin’! what do you know about external storage? What can it do that internal storage can’t do? Come and see us compare the current generation of internal storage to the current generation of external storage. We’ll compare relative costs, capacities, and compare which features are available on Internal and external storage. Come and learn your options from experts in the field who will help you come to a learned decision during your next upgrade.

Learning Objectives:

Compare internal and external storage Learn about encryption, replication, and protection

Are you managing an IBM i environment that hasn’t been updated in years, struggling to meet modern regulatory requirements, or facing disaster recovery (DR) challenges that put your business continuity at risk? In this fast-paced, practical session, we’ll walk through how a large regional retailer, processing $Ms in transactions per day, modernized IBM i DR after 20+ years of “don’t touch it” status—improving recovery, reducing operational drag, and closing compliance gaps.

Learning Objectives:

What you’ll learn from our client story: * From legacy to modern DR: How the client transformed an IBM i DR setup that was essentially untouched for over 20 years. * How Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) were significantly improved versus the prior approach. * How the client lowered its run-rate and cleaned up ops by streamlining and fencing in ongoing costs and day-to-day management effort. * What we implemented to minimize the impact of modern cyber threats. * How our client ensured faster, more reliable recovery for a high-volume environment by reducing its DR recovery debt

The IBM i Network Client File System (QNTC) is used to communicate with servers that support Microsoft’s Server Message Block (SMB) network file system protocol. Distributed File System (DFS) is a protocol layer that sits atop of SMB and provides extra functionality like data integrity, data accessibility, and load balancing. Attend this session to learn more about QNTC, and the SMB and DFS protocols.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand what the SMB protocol is and its various versions. 2. Understand what QNTC and DFS are and how each are used. 3. See a demo of QNTC accessing a DFS namespace.