i-UG meetings 2015: the UK’s only IBM i User Group

2014 was a hugely important year for i-UG, the independent organisation which represents the IBM i community in the UK.

i-UG was formed following the merger of The National i User Group (NiSUG) and The Computer Users Association (CUA) and works to raise awareness of the IBM i platform – and its many benefits.

As the official representative of Common Europe in the UK, i-UG draws membership from organisations large and small throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. All the members have one major thing in common – they depend on the IBM Power servers running the IBM i operating system (i.e. iSeries or AS/400) that run their businesses.

i-UG meetings give members:

“the opportunity to listen to top-level speakers from IBM, business partners, the vendor community and users themselves and gather real information to assist in key decision making about IT and business in general. From the AS/400 through the iSeries, on through System i and Power Systems, our members are kept up-to-date with IBM thinking and technology emergence that is relevant to their businesses”.

Initial details of i-UG meetings in 2015 have been released, with the first meeting taking place in mid-February in Rochdale, plus a further four events later in the year.

First meeting:

Thursday 19th February at the Norton Grange Hotel, Rochdale

The agenda for the event is currently being decided, but you can register for the event on the i-UG website. At previous meetings a wide variety of subjects have been covered, including:

• IBM announcements, especially those related to IBM i
• IBM i modernisation
• Data security on the IBM i
• 24 x 7 operations
• Infrastructure considerations
• Pervasive technologies
• Compliance management
• Information management tools
• EDI.

Attendance is free to all delegates who are fully paid up members of i-UG.

Second meeting:

Scheduled for May or June with a venue to be confirmed.

Third meeting:

Incorporates International i-Power on 9 and 10 September at Wyboston Lakes in Bedfordshire.

At the International i-Power 2014 event which took place in Windsor, Proximity’s Shahid Latif presented a session on responsive PHP development. There were also presentations from other IBM i experts including Mike Pavlak who provided an ‘Introduction to MySQL V2’ and Alison Butterill (IBM i Product Manager, IBM Power Systems) who spoke about the ‘Application Modernization Redbook’.

Fourth meeting:

Being held at The Mount Hotel, Wolverhampton with a confirmed date yet to be decided.

If you are not already a member, but are interested in joining i-UG, you can find further details on membership here.