If you are in the US, you probably get pro- or anti-Trump advertisement, even if you are at IBM TechXchange
It was the worst impression. Everything else was great. Dixi!
One evening last week I wanted to watch a video on Youtube. I was in Las Vegas, Nevada, at IBM TechXchange and it was before US President elections. I didn’t count how many times I’ve got political advertisements but it was a real horror story. “He is racist”, “She wants to destroy our country”, “He is against women rights”, “She stole money from people”, and so on, and so on. Sorry, it was not political advertisement. It was pure hate against people who have another opinion from both sides. It doesn’t matter who you vote for, but if you vote against, you are lost. No agenda, no future.
That’s why IBM TechXchange has very bright future. It has very good agenda and talented team of people who can execute. Let me use this newsletter to write down my impressions.
Sunday
I came late on Sunday and wanted to get a bottle of bier in the hotel’s shop. No way! Please show your ID that you are 21 years old at least. I love it when people think I am underaged. So I saved some dollars (and some health) because I didn’t have my passport with me.
Even if I was in Luxor and TechXchange was in Mandalay Bay, it was not so long way. As for me it took 10-15 minutes to go by foot. Both hotels are connected together with a passage. I didn’t even need to go outside.
Monday
Monday was a community day. This is very good opportunity to come into the conference center, learn where everything is located, meet your friends and network a little bit.
First time I tried to point to my name, I pointed to some other name. Yes, there are many IBM Champions in the world!
Because the first day is Community Day, let’s talk about community OpenPOWER CPUs and what’s hapenning with OpenPOWER Foundation.
It was great to meet James Kulina, CEO of OpenPOWER Foundation, in person after our online contacts this year, and chat with him a little bit about future plans. The biggest news are that yes, there will be opensource Power10-compatible CPUs available. The plan is that they will come next year. The guy you see at the table is Todd Rooke, CEO of Solid Silicon, the company which promises to deliver these new opensource Power10 CPUs.
Another news for all opensource POWER enthusiasts. There are plans to produce OpenPOWER board in Raspberry Pi format. But unfortunately the plans have no delivery date now. Todd confirmed that they know the need for such device and work on it.
There was enough time to relax and recover on Monday using retro-gaming machines. This was great idea from IBM TechXchange team.
The best impression of the first day? We with Ralph are everywhere:
We tried to repeat the picture several times:
The original picture is still the best.
Tuesday
The second day was the official opening of IBM TechXchange.
Do you know who was one of these drummers on the stage? Ayal Steinberg, IBM’s General Manager of TechXchange and technical community. I envy him! I think he had a lot of fun being there on the stage at this moment! We talked a little bit afterwards but I can’t find our selfie. Or did I forget to take it? It will be the task for the next TechXchange.
But even before the official opening the technical sessions already started.
As for me the day continued with hardware news presented by Bargav Balakrishnan and Bill Starke.
By the way you can see it much better on their slides. They are published already.
Of course the future Power11 was not the only topic of the presentation but also news from IBM i and IBM PowerVS worlds. What I missed during the session are any news from IBM AIX world. I am not very shy, so I told it directly to Bargav after the session.
But it doesn’t mean that there were no AIX sessions at all! I was there and did my work but on the next day. On Tuesday there were another heroes - Antony Steel and Shawn Bodily. They both did several presentations on AIX and the features, you may find very useful like GLVM.
I liked the format of AMAs (Ask-me-anything) sessions in the Sandbox area. It is more “democratic” and you can talk directly to the presenters. Unfortunately for me it was too loud and I couldn’t really concentrate during such sessions.
The day is over? Not really! It is time for beach party! With good music.
Wednesday
The next day was difficult to start. But we have to bring it to work:
Yes, we had an AIX patching “mini-track” this time. Christian Sonnemans started our mini-track with his session how to patch AIX without downtime and I finished it with automated patch management.
Christian did a wonderful session explaining the deeps of AIX LiveUpdate, how it works and how to prepare the systems to minimize blackout time.
I hope my presentation was not too much worse after Christian’s really deep explanations.
After the presentation I decided to have some time for fun before starting the next session.
I finished my “AIX security day” with AIX security lab - “Dive into PowerSC capabilities”. During the lab I could try out (and troubleshoot) the newest version of PowerSC for all three platforms - AIX, IBM i and Linux on IBM Power. As you may imagine there was not enough time to check out every feature but I talked to Andrew Laidlaw, who did this lab, and maybe we will make it once again at Common Europe Congress 2025 next June. We will have twice more time for the workshop and I hope many participants.
Wednesday finished with IBM Champions dinner where I could met some other my favourite Champions but unfortunately I still missed some of them.
Thursday
How do you feel after three days full of new informations and talks with the best technology minds?
Yes, it was the place for tired IBM Champions.
Time for the closing ceremony!
And time for IBM TechXchange Excellence Awards:
You don’t see my smiling face here, but I was very glad that Youssef and Walid with their team got one of the awards!
Unexpectedly I’ve got the award too - for community advocacy. We celebrated it with Ralph Belfiore on our way back to Frankfurt in the airport.
Special thanks
There were many people during the IBM TechXchange who came to me to say hi. Thank you very much for everyone who found me and chatted with me. Your feedback is the most important part of this blog. Without your feedback the blog is non-existent and simply dead. You, your thoughts and your ideas make it alive!
THANK YOU!
Andrey
Hi, I am Andrey Klyachkin, IBM Champion and IBM AIX Community Advocate. It means I don’t work for IBM. Over last 20 years I worked with many different IBM Power customers all over the world both on-premise and in cloud. I specialize in automating IBM Power infrastructures making them even more robust and agile. I co-authored several IBM Redbooks and IBM Power certifications. I am an active Red Hat Certified Engineer and Instructor.
Follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter and Youtube.
Meet me on events like IBM TechXchange, Common Europe Congress and GSE Germany’s IBM Power Working group sessions.
Thanks Andrey, great discription for an amzing week!