Only 4 days to change IBM Power world!
Yes, this is one more article about the Common Europe Congress.
I know that many of you expect technical information from this newsletter. You read the code, understand the commands, and manage IBM Power environments daily. I mean here not managing people who work with IBM Power, but administering your IBM Power estates, making them highly available and reliable, as we know IBM Power, and solving complex problems. Still, I use the newsletter to publish my own thoughts and reports about past and future events, such as the Common Europe Congress 2025, which took place last week. Why? Because if you want to develop as a professional, you should visit these events, listen to the speakers, and meet the people.
If you look at the picture above, you can find me somewhere in the second row, between Juan-Manuel Alcudia, the president of Common Europe, and Torbjörn Appehl, the vice-president of Common Europe, and behind Janalie Greim, the marketing manager of Common Germany. Near me, behind Juan-Manuel, is my friend Mirza Ćutuk of InnoBoost SA, Switzerland.
If you look at all these people, they are entirely different, with different backgrounds and different job titles. They are developers, administrators, consultants, managers, and even salespeople. They work with IBM i, AIX, and Linux on IBM Power. They support old-school software, develop new software, or build new solutions on IBM Power. This is the real power of the IBM Power community. We came together to discuss the state of the platform, its future development, and showcase our solutions.
What can we change? It is IBM’s platform!
It is IBM’s closed platform. Even if there is the OpenPOWER Foundation, as part of the Linux Foundation, the IBM Power platform is developed by IBM. Does it mean that we can’t change anything?
No! We can!
My last example of such change is (or are) Github Actions for IBM Power. We talked about it last year at the Common Europe Congress 2024 in Milan, Italy. Yes, it took almost one year and many iterations. Yes, the implementation is not as I hoped. YES, it is implemented and open for every open-source project in the world now. Feel free to use and point to it in the open-source projects you'd like to be ported to IBM Power.
This year, we discussed the idea of creating an Advisory Board for IBM AIX. Will it ever be created? How will it function? Will it help to further develop AIX? I have no idea. We started the discussion, and let’s see what will happen tomorrow.
About tomorrow
You probably already heard about the mystic IBM event in Munich on July 8th. If you didn’t register for it, it is the right time! Pause the reading, go and register for the event. You don’t have to book a hotel in Munich or travel there. You can visit it virtually.
But if you were at the Common Europe Congress 2025 last week, you had the chance to visit NDA sessions. Every year, IBM and Common Europe create some NDA sessions. These sessions are not on the agenda before the event, but you can register for them during the event on IBM’s stand. The advantage of these sessions is that you get a sneak preview of the future technologies and can ask your questions.
If you were there, it is no longer a mystic event for you. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend any of these NDA sessions. On the other hand, I work with a very talented team of others on the Redbook about this future technology. Anyway, I think there will be something during the July event that can surprise even people who attended the NDA sessions.
AIX and Linux on IBM Power track
It was my pleasure to be the AIX and Linux on IBM Power track lead for the third year in a row. It seems like we’ve got incredible 30 slots for our sessions this year! I really tried to count them several times right now, got different numbers, and missed some sessions that are not marked as AIX/Linux track.
I heard last week that we have too few AIX sessions. Sorry for that. I really want to see more and more AIX and Linux technical sessions. They shouldn’t be some salesy sessions, but real techy stuff for different levels - for beginners, for experienced specialists, and for complete AIX nerds.
That’s why my appeal to you - submit your proposals! We can only choose from the proposals we have. If we have many Linux and very few AIX proposals, the track will most probably have more Linux sessions. I don’t know why it happens, but last year we had ca. 10 PowerSC-related proposals. This year, we received many Ansible and OpenShift-related proposals. If I see them, I suppose that these topics are more interesting for the audience.
I also invite everyone from Europe to work on the track. We will start working on it in October or November this year. We are all volunteers and don’t get paid for the work. We meet every week to discuss ways to make the Common Europe Congress the best platform for the AIX and Linux on IBM Power community in Europe. Simply respond to the newsletter with your application if you are ready to work with us. I can’t guarantee it, but we will discuss your application at the next meeting.
Am I satisfied with the event?
Last week I got it back - “Andrey, you are never satisfied!” Maybe it is right. I always want to make everything better. Is IBM Power the best hardware platform? Sure, but what can we do better? Is AIX a rock-solid and stable UNIX-compatible operating system? Of course, but what can we do better? Is the Common Europe Congress the most popular IBM Power-related event run by volunteers in Europe? YES-YES-YES, but what can we do better?
We had several problems last week. One of the speakers couldn’t come, and I only learned this when his session started. Communication problem. He wrote an email (not to me), but it was not forwarded to me, and the sessions were not rearranged. Thanks to Alfonso Cancellara, Red Hat, our first-time speaker, who jumped into the breach and delivered another session. Thanks to David Spurway and Paul Chapman (both IBM), who were ready to deliver additional sessions.
We had some problems with the agenda, where not all speakers were marked as speakers. I couldn’t add my own session to the schedule, because it was fully booked. One of our speakers almost missed his session because he hadn’t had it on the schedule.
I didn’t like the food and “alcohol vouchers”. I know we were in Sweden. It was Swedish-style. But I know another Sweden - with the food I like and home-brew beer. Okay, not a true home brew, but from many microbreweries. Really fantastic beer!
Does it mean I am unsatisfied with the event and would never recommend it to anyone? Quite the opposite! I am very satisfied with the sessions I visited and the discussions I had. During my AIX open-source session, we had a very live discussion about IBM support and the future of open-source on AIX. I loved to visit Hugo Blanco’s (Sixe) session about KVM on IBM Power. This is really new technology, and it is not promoted by IBM. Only at the Common Europe Congress you could talk to people who have experience with it. Of course, I’ve got Hugo’s question about microk8s on IBM Power during my Kubernetes on Power session.
My favourite discussions are always outside of the sessions. You go to the vendors’ booths and talk to the people about their solutions. You meet people in the lobby and talk about technical challenges. You go together to a bar or a restaurant in the evening and become friends.
My satisfaction level is at 150%. If I speak about last week’s problems, it is only because I want to make it 200% for everyone.
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Mark your calendar!
Next year, the Common Europe Congress will take place in June in Lyon, France. I don’t remember the dates, but I will publish them anyway in this newsletter.
Meanwhile, you can take Zouhair Oulli as an example. Zouhair lives in France, and English is not his native language. I don’t remember when I saw him for the first time. Was it 2022 in Alicante, Spain, or 2023 in Prague, Czech? He started working with IBM i and made his first steps. He saw the problems every newcomer to IBM i world has. Did he say, “Bad IBM! They do nothing?” No. He started his list of IBM i resources for newcomers. He began writing about his problems and how he overcame them. This year, he presented his first session at the Common Europe Congress - “IBM i Ecosystem: Resources and Events for a successful career”. We need more people like Zouhair in the IBM Power world. We need people like Zouhair writing about IBM i, AIX, Linux on IBM Power, and all other topics you can imagine.
Be like Zouhair! Start blogging about your problems, your solutions, and have a lot of fun!
Andrey
Hi, I am Andrey Klyachkin, IBM Champion and IBM AIX Community Advocate. This means I don’t work for IBM. Over the last twenty years, I have worked with many different IBM Power customers all over the world, both on-premise and in the 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.
You can meet me at events like IBM TechXchange, the Common Europe Congress, and GSE Germany’s IBM Power Working Group sessions.