COMMON EUROPE CONGRESS 2025: Full Schedule

WELCOME TO COMMON EUROPE CONGRESS 2025

Don’t forget to reach out to your local country user group to get the discount code for the congress!

Common Europe, in collaboration with Common Sweden, is delighted to be holding its annual flagship event, Common Europe Congress, in the friendly city of Gothenburg offering extensive education, networking and relaxation opportunities. It’s also a great opportunity for exploring the city… so why not take a family mini-break as well.
Congress education areas targeted are IBM Power hardware, Application Development, Advanced RPG, Open Source tools and Languages, System Management, Db2 and SQL, IBM Storage, IBM i services and microservices, Security and Compliance and much more.
There will be two AIX / Linux tracks, to emphasize the Power Systems character of Common Europe.
Top IBM Business Architects and industry experts have already agreed to share their knowledge on the latest announcements, customer cases as well as practical subjects.
The congress content includes:

3 ½ days of latest education delivered by top IBM and industry leading speakers punctuated by large breaks offering maximum networking,
Three-hour in-depth workshops, 60 minutes’ education sessions and solution provider’s special slots,
A Solution Providers’ Centre open for 2 ½ days with top European and worldwide technology companies at their booths presenting innovative practical solutions that will enhance our solutions,
A Congress Dinner in the hotel with live entertainment.

We have negotiated special room rates in the Congress hotel itself,
The Common Europe Organization Team looks forward to seeing you in picturesque Gothenburg.

You will be able to validate your attendance (Check-In to sessions) using your personal schedule.

10:40 CEST

vSCSI, NPIV or NVMe. Internal or external. What IBM i administrator should know about storage options

Tuesday June 3, 2025 10:40 - 11:40 CEST

09 - R14

Bart Grabowski - IBM Champion & Platinum Redbook author talks about internal and external storage devices. Descrive differences between vSCSI, NPiV or NVMe. What are the storage options today.

Speakers

Bartlomiej Grabowski

IBM POWER Systems Principal Support Specialist, DHL

Bartlomiej Grabowski known as Bart, a B.A Computer Science. IBM Champion and Platinum Redbook author with over 15 technical publications. +18 years of experience in various worldwide solutions works for DHL IT Services - one of the biggest IBM i installations. He runs a personal blog... Read More →

Tuesday June 3, 2025 10:40 - 11:40 CEST
09 - R14

Storage

11:50 CEST

Turn up the Power: External Disk and Hardware Replication on i... A Case Study! LIMITED

Tuesday June 3, 2025 11:50 - 12:50 CEST

09 - R14

Your IBM i does a great job of managing internal disk, so why upgrade to external storage using a SAN? Your replication software may require some extra time and attention, but it gets the job done - so why change? Turns out there are lots of reasons to change both! This won't be a nuts and bolts how-to session. Rather it will be a case study of the decisions made by one large appliance and electronics retailer to implement these technologies, including the considerations, decisions, trade-offs, and benefits. You may not leave this session knowing how to do it, but you'll understand why you might want to, and you'll be ready to ask many of the right questions to get you there.

Some of the topics we'll discuss will include:
- HA vs DR
- RPO (Recovery Point Objective) and RTO (Recovery Time Objective)
- iASP's
- Tool-kits
- Backups
- Flash Copy
- Recovery Scenarios

You'll leave this session better prepared to:
- Determine if external storage is right for your environment
- Understand the trade-offs involved with external storage and hardware replication
- Know what questions to ask along the way!

Audience:
- Anyone who is curious about using external storage and hardware replication with their IBM i is encouraged to attend!

Speakers

Steve Wolk

CTO, PC Richard & Son

Steven Wolk is the Chief Technology Officer for PC Richard & Son, a family owned and operated chain of 66 appliance and electronics superstores located throughout NY, NJ, CT, and PA. Founded in 1909, PC Richard has always been known for honesty, integrity, and reliability throughout... Read More →

Tuesday June 3, 2025 11:50 - 12:50 CEST
09 - R14

Storage

14:00 CEST

How to store and protect your container data LIMITED

Tuesday June 3, 2025 14:00 - 15:00 CEST

09 - R14

Storage has always been a challenge for IT users, with challenges such as integrity, replication and migration of large data sets.
These challenges are not new, and with modern decentralized systems based on containers, they have not disappeared.
Kubernetes is the most popular orchestrator for containerized workloads. Because containers delete all saved data as standard, this can create major challenges for many types of workload.
Come and learn more about the challenges, and learn about functions and technology that helps solve this problem in one container-based environment.

Speakers