COMMON POWERUp 2026

Many IBM i teams face a dilemma: decades-old physical files (some internally described, no DDS) are accessed by hundreds of RPG and COBOL programs — many without source. Redesigning files breaks logic. Rewriting programs takes years. But modern apps need clean JSON APIs — now!

This session shows how to expose any legacy file as a full-featured REST/JSON microservice — without changing a single line of existing code. Using IBM Rational Open Access: RPG Edition, we intercept all file I/O (READ, WRITE, UPDATE, CHAIN) and route it through a generic ILE RPG handler layer. One service program handles all operations for all files — supporting: Multi-format logicals Field mapping & validation JSON in/out via noxDB or SQL Integration with modern Frontends, Node.js, or any HTTP client

Live demo includes:
A 1970s RPG-II program writing to CUSTMAS.
Open Access handler intercepts the WRITE, logs to audit table, validates data, returns JSON response.
Call from Postman → POST /api/customer → data lands in legacy file, old program runs unchanged.
Auto-generated OpenAPI spec from handler metadata.

You’ll learn:
- When Open Access beats file conversion
- How to build one reusable microservice for all files
- Patterns for gradual modernization: old 5250 + new web apps in parallel
- Bonus: auto-API docs + full audit trail from intercepted ops

Result: Immediate API enablement, zero risk, no downtime. Technologies integrated: IBM i, Rational Open Access, ILE RPG, SQL, JSON, REST, OpenAPI — all on your existing system.

Learning Objectives:
- Understand how IBM Rational Open Access intercepts file I/O without changing legacy programs.
- Build a generic ILE RPG microservice layer to expose any physical file as a REST/JSON API.
- Implement automatic API documentation (OpenAPI) and audit trails from intercepted operations.
- Apply gradual modernization patterns to run old 5250 apps alongside new web/mobile frontends.
- Evaluate when Open Access is superior to file redesign or program rewrites.

While the tech industry races to retrofit systems for AI agents, IBM i has been quietly agent-ready for decades. This session uncovers how IBM i's core design principles, established long before the AI revolution, make it remarkably well-suited for today's agentic workloads. We'll explore IBM i's integrated database architecture, object-based security model, and unified storage architecture, demonstrating why these aren't just legacy features but the exact characteristics modern AI agents require. You'll discover how IBM i's design philosophy of "everything is an object" maps perfectly to how AI agents need to understand and interact with enterprise systems, and why the platform's stability, rich SQL services, and programmatic interfaces make it the ideal foundation for autonomous AI workflows. By the end of this session, you'll see IBM i through a new lens—not as a system that needs to catch up to AI, but as a platform that was architected for intelligent automation from the start.

Learning Objectives:

Understand how IBM i's integrated database architecture (Db2 for i) eliminates the middleware complexity that hampers AI agent deployments on other platforms, and why tight database-OS integration accelerates agent decision-making and reduces operational overhead. Analyze the object-based security model and single-level storage architecture of IBM i, recognizing how these design patterns provide AI agents with consistent, granular access control and unified object addressing that modern containerized systems struggle to replicate. Identify the key metadata and introspection capabilities built into IBM i (including QSYS2 services, system APIs, and object attributes) that enable AI agents to autonomously discover, understand, and interact with system resources without requiring external documentation or configuration files. Evaluate the strategic advantages of deploying AI agents on IBM i compared to cloud-native or traditional Unix/Linux platforms, considering factors such as system stability, API consistency, security boundaries, and the elimination of infrastructure sprawl. Recognize practical use cases where IBM i's agentic-native architecture delivers immediate business value, including automated system monitoring, intelligent database optimization, security remediation workflows, and autonomous operational tasks that leverage the platform's comprehensive SQL services and system interfaces.

AI has finally progressed to the point where it can be a useful tool for maaaging merge conflicts. Let's take a look at popular options and see how they can be used for the RPG language. What works and what doesn't? Ho can I optimize what's available for the best results? We will use real world examples and the currently available tooling to look at the options we have for dealing with the biggest headache in using Git. We will also talk briefly about best practice of managing branches to mitigate the impact of merge conflicts.

Learning Objectives:

Become knowledgeable about the current options in optimizing the use of Git and branch management

RPG has always been about getting the job done, but shifting to a procedure-driven approach can completely change how you and your team build applications. In this session, we’ll start with the fundamentals of procedures and quickly move into real-world examples that highlight the benefits: improved readability, easier maintenance, and greater reusability. You’ll see how these advantages translate directly into a more efficient, more effective development team. To wrap things up, we’ll explore how today’s AI code assistants thrive in a procedure-driven environment, giving you a powerful edge in modern RPG development.

Learning Objectives:

Learn how Procedure Driven RPG will reduce technical debt, increase developer moral and allow you and your team to develop faster.

The year 2040 may seem far off, but for IBM i professionals, it’s closer than you think. Many applications that use six-digit dates still rely on the “1940” pivot year rule — and that assumption will soon start causing real problems. In this session, Simon Hutchinson will explain why this issue matters, what systems and code are most at risk, and how to begin identifying potential trouble spots in your applications. He’ll also demonstrate IBM-provided tools and techniques that can help you prepare now, before the 2040 date challenge becomes an urgent crisis.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this session, attendees will be able to: - Understand that the IBM i “1940” date rule will remain in effect and what that means for existing applications. - See why testing with a “1970” rule does not impact RPG date operations. - Implement practical methods to identify potential six-digit date fields that may cause issues as 2040 approaches. - Review examples of RPG remediation techniques to future-proof applications. - Gain insight into IBM’s tools and recommendations for managing date transitions safely and efficiently.

There's so much to cover in BRMS when setting up the backups that discussing recoveries sometimes gets lost. In this 20 minute session we will focus solely on the recovery process for both full system and single item recoveries. A few tips and tricks for making sure that you are able to recover exactly what you need when you need.

Learning Objectives:

1. Learn the steps to a full system recovery 2. Learn to recover single objects and IFS files 3. Take home a few tricks to make sure you are able to recover what you need