Welcome to your IBM i update for June 2025, this is the second of a two part special reporting from the June IBM i events in Sweden and the UK – this part covers the i-POWER event in Northampton, UK.
Here, I give insight into what it’s like to attend and provide ‘top takeaways’ from the pick of the presentations.
Watch the video below, or read the full article underneath.
iPower Northampton Overview
Welcome to Northampton for the i-Power event, the largest UK event of its type, put on by the good people at i-UG .
This two day event enjoys a slant on education, with day one dedicated to workshops while day two focused on information and arming the IBM i professional with the knowledge needed to stay ahead of the game in the coming 12 months.
iPower Technical Workshops
Let’s start with day one. And what makes day one really special is the delegates access to world leaders and experts in specific technologies and areas in IBM i.
Indeed, a handful of these workshops were all-day affairs.
Here, you’d get the opportunity to deep-dive into a particular subject to get, what essentially, is expert tuition that would normally cost you, or your company thousands of pounds – for the price of a ticket.
In Room one, you could sit with your laptop and Andy Youens who got you going on open source development.
Room two, had Brigitta Hauser who provided a master class of insight into DB2 and SQL services while room 3, had renowned security expert, Carol Woodbury who provided a deep dive into IBM i Security… with a little SQL later in the day when she was joined by the inimitable Scott Forstie.
Now, should you be thinking of joining a workshop, what should you expect? Well, first, you’d need your laptop… but the rest is normally covered in the class.
For example, during Andy Youens class, after he first introduced open source development and provided and overview of Python, his first practical assignment was the setting up of the environment.
On set-up, the first practical assignment was to access the DB2 using Python.
The next logical step was to provide examples and demonstrate how you can call and use IBM i programs and finally, he provided real-worl applications and use cases.
The idea here is that by the end of the day workshop, you would have a solid understanding of how to effectively use Python within your IBM i enterprise, empowering you to develop robust and efficient applications.
The feedback from all the workshops was top-notch, so if you’re considering expanding you IBM i skill set, then – next time!
Refreshments, Gala Dinner & Entertainment at iPower Northampton
After a long day of learning, there were pre-dinner drinks to be enjoyed in the Expo hall followed by the Gala dinner.
This year we had entertainment from Alexander Trekin who spoke on herding cats. Brian Farr who provided insight into navigating the new era of cyber threats plus we enjoyed a quick-fire ‘pub quiz’, hosted by Andrew Simpson – with all the questions being IBM i related… and our table won, a bottle of bubbly each courtesy of Rocket Software – so thank you for that (I’d like to say I made a solid contribution to the win but thankfully, there were others on the table with a much greater knowledge than I).
Finally, we enjoyed a game of bingo – I kid you not, disco bingo in fact – match the song played to the song on your bingo sheet and the first to a line and full house, wins!
i-UG Chairman Mike Ryan updates on Ignite educational programme
The following day started with an introduction from Mike Ryan, the Chairman of i-UG. Here he provided an update on their educational program – ignite.
Within the initiative, students would learn coding on i using tools such as node-red but deployed on a Power server with IBM i.
Indeed, the program has been such a success, that the University of Wolverhampton awarded Mike an honorary Doctorate. Congratulations Mike, it’s well deserved.
Scott Forstie – IBM i – The Future Starts Now
Following the introductions and i-UG activities, the batton was passed to Scott Forstie who spoke on how the future starts now with IBM i.
Now, this was a really feature packed presentation and included much on OS 7.6… and should you be interested in learning more, please do see the April 2025 edition of the IBM i Update – i covered the release there.
One of the unique elements was his reminder of the the IBM i guided tours to help you get up to speed and the best out of the latest and greatest from the Rochester rabble.
Indeed, Steve produces his own educational videos with Tim Rowe. providing short demonstration of tools and techniques with examples too, so, ‘isee’ is well worth a look (sorry).
Scott even gave out stickers for our laptops so we don’t forget.
Giveaways and freebies from the event
While we’re on the subject of giveaways – the delegates weren’t disappointed.
You had thermos flasks multi-tenant usb leads from Digital Space, key tags and usb chargers from Celerity, foldable cooling bags from Service Express, mugs were available from most vendor – so you could pick a colour to suit your kitchen and there were pens, pens and more pens including pens from Proximity.
Well done to all the vendors who contributed to the event.
VSCode for IBM i and the watsonx AI coding assistant
But I digress, one of the elements that Scott touched upon was with VS Code, I too touched on this within in part one of the June update, and Scott reinforced the idea that VS Code will very much be the future development environment for coding on ‘i’.
Indeed, the ‘Code for i’ development extension for VS Code has been around now for nearly a year and a half and while developing in this way is not currently as feature-rich as RDi, it will be the only way you’ll be able to make use of the Watson Coding Assistant for i.
Speaking of which, there is now a waiting list should you wish to try the public preview.
In this preview, you would get access to the first release of the product in which WatsonX will help explain and summarise code and generate documentation.
While I received a demonstration of the product while over in Sweden, I’m intrigued to see how it works in real life situations.
Scott explained that future iterations of the product will be able to generate code but didn’t give a timeline for delivery. (Join the waitlist) But he did provide targets for the future iterations, the first be able to generate and compile free format RPG.
The next step would be for the explanation and generation of COBOL code with the final step being be able to transform old RPG – so that’s to modernise, or restructuring existing code without altering its external behaviour.
This is crucial for managing your codebase and ensures your code remains efficient and compatible with modern systems. Again, compelling stuff from big blue and we look forward to learning more in the coming weeks and months…
iPower Summary and delicious food!
Following the keynote, the day was a blur of sessions and presentations including those from vendors, but also there was food – a great spread for bellies of all requirements.
In summary, another cracking event put on by i-UG and should you be in the UK, an IBM i professional with a thirst for knowledge or a pressing technological need for your enterprise, then i-POWER is certainly the event for you.
And that’s it for your second of two part IBM i update for June 2025.
I’ll be back next month with more for you, the IBM i community.
All the best, Andy.
Catch our previous May 2025 IBM i Update here. We’ve also got a summary of all the IBM i Updates published in 2024 here.
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