COMMON Belgium - April 25, 2007
Business Service Management:
Bringing monitoring to a new level In times of a 24/7 need of availability of systems, monitoring is not only a pure IT-topic anymore: CEO's and CFO's want to be informed how their business is running, want to understand where risks Reside and want clear and pinpointed information when things go wrong. SkillTeam shows how Business Service Management takes this step up from technical monitoring of an IT-environment towards giving a clear view on how a business is running.
After gathering a thorough experience in IBM's iSeries as a well appreciated teacher in IBM's Education Center, Steven developed a keen interest in solutions around business continuity (high availability, monitoring, security). In his job as Business Development Manager for iSeries at SkillTeam, he combines a clear technical insight with a perfect feeling for the customer's business need and knows how to bring this in a sparkling speech.

Franz was the iSeries product manager at IBM Belgium and Luxembourg until last year. He joined IBM in 1988, and Successively worked in the Second level support team (technical support) , as a system engineer (in support of various partners and customers), and at IBM Learning Services (as business segment manager). Throughout his career he has always worked in the AS/400 and iSeries area,but he has also developed skills in Windows servers (NT and 2000) and in Linux (Intel and PowerPC). He currently works as an STG sales specialist in the SMB market.
Microsoft Windows has been for years the operating system of choice for the desktop, both for business and domestic usage. The arrival of Windows Vista, which requires strong hardware and software investments, together with a massive migration effort, has led many companies to postpone the migration, and take time to evaluate other possibilities. Among those, Linux is more and more perceived as a viable alternative, with the arrival of strong enterprise offerings (from Novell and Red Hat) for business usage, and mature free offerings for home usage (Ubuntu, OpenSuse, Fedora, Freespire, Mandriva, etc.). This session will position and compare the main Linux desktop distributions and how they can compete with MS Windows.

9:00 - 9:30 Coffee and Welcome
9:30 - 10:45 Business Services Management (Steven Vanden Berghe - Skillteam)
10:45 - 11:00 Coffee break
11:00 - 12:15 Linux - A Vista alternative ? (Franz Bourlet - IBM)
12:15 - 12:30 COMMON Belgium - General Assembly (Gustaaf Legroux) 12:30 - 13:30 Lunch
13:30 - 14:45 Tips & Technics (Jean-Pierre Geuens - Excelligent)
14:45 - 15:00 Coffee break
15:00 - 16:15 i5/OS Annoucements (Jos Vermaere - IBM)

Jean-Pierre Geuens has been working for many years as Senior Application Architect with Appligen, a Belgian independent software developer on System-i. In 1988 already Jean-Pierre was the technical founder of AAA financials, a software solution with an object oriented architecture, aiming at openness and integration with other applications. One of Jean-Pierre personal objectives is to realize integration of IBM's latest tools & concepts into fully integrated end solutions for Appligen's customers. He has a leading roll in achieving integration of new i5 technology (web 2.0, XML, HATS, Webfacing, database design, Websphere technology, SOA, …) in Appligen solutions and implementing these solutions to capitalize on existing investments : evolution instead of revolution. Presentation: from Green over refaced to roll based user interaction. The road from a traditional green screen application to a nice looking task related user interface seems long and not without pitfalls. Webfacing and HATS are promising refacing tools that generate a graphical user interface starting from the existing display files. Within a few hours your application can look and act different. Are they easy to start with? Are these tools worth the effort? How far can you go in customization and what can you expect from them? What skills and prerequisites are recommended?

Jos Vermaere is Senior Server Solutions Architect and iSeries Specialist 27 years of IBM, spent mostly as Systems Engineer, later as IT Specialist in the mid-range systems environment (S/3x, AS/400, iSeries). Joined the ITSO in 1987 until 1991; strong link with ITSO remained up to today; authored and co-authored several ITSO deliverables (Redbooks, workshops, presentations, etc.). Several presentations for the COMMON organization. Currently role as Systems Architects in the Server and Technology Group. During this session, provide an overview of the System i announcements done during the past months. Outline of the roadmap for i5/OS and System i.