GS UK Virtual Conference 2025

Mainframe@60: The Diamond Anniversary of Digital Dominance

Time Table

Jump To Tuesday 29th April
Jump To Wednesday 30th April
Jump To Thursday 1st May

Tuesday 29th April

Stream Session Presentation Title Speaker Company Time
Keynote: Conference Opening Leanne Wilson Vertali Limited 09:30 - 09:45
15 Minute Break 09:45 - 10:00
Virtual Room 1 1A Own Your Origin Story: Embracing Diversity in Mentorship Richelle Anne Craw Beta Systems Software Ltd 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 2 2A Unlocking the Power of Mainframes: A Beginner’s Journey Meena Chand University of Wolverhampton 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 3 3A What’s new in MQ Gwydion Tudur IBM UK LTD. 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 4 4A Diving into z/OS Open Source Development: An Overview Igor Todorovski IBM 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 5 5A Acting on Near Real-Time SMF Data: Proactive Mainframe Performance, Capacity and Cost Management Steven Thomas SMT Data 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 7 7A My Mainframe Honeypot - A week of constant bombardment. Kevin Milne National Westminster Bank (Natwest) 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room A AA Unlocking the Power of IMS Shared Queues: Why They Matter! Vaibhav Sharma BMC Software Ltd 10:00 - 10:45
30 Minute Break 10:45 - 11:15
Virtual Room 1 1B What's new in Security for CICS TS 6.2 Mark Pocock IBM UK LTD. 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 2 2B Easier than you think: Mainframes and Life Skills John Baker IBM 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 3 3B Seamless MQ Upgrades: Leveraging Ansible and Python on IBM z/OS Mainframe Dragos Gheorghe Ensono 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 4 4B Embracing Modern Open Source tools on z/OS with zopen community tools and IBM Open Enterprise Founda Igor Todorovski IBM 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 5 5B Java shared classes and other corners of performance Colin Paice Stromness Software Solutions 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 7 7B When something goes wrong! Colman O'Carroll Virtel 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 9 9B Db2 for z/OS Data Sharing Performance Tuning John Campbell Triton Consulting 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room A AB Defragmentation in IMS Databases – Myths and Facts Sahil Gupta BMC Software Ltd 11:15 - 12:00
30 Minute Break 12:00 - 12:30
Virtual Room 1 1C Developing CICS applications your way, using Visual Studio Code Andrew Twydell IBM UK LTD. 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 2 2C Lightning Strikes, Mainframe Resiliency & Modern Development Practices Ben Davis IBM 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 4 4C Back to the Future with COBOL Sudharsana Srinivasan IBM UK LTD. 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 7 7C Turning the tables on Cyber Criminals Allen Saurette MainTegrity Inc 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 9 9C Securing the monster under the bed with System Profile Monitoring Keziah Knopp IBM 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room A AC The Final Countdown: Preparing for the IMS Managed ACBs Mandate Anshul Agrawal BMC Software Ltd 12:30 - 13:15
30 Minute Break 13:15 - 13:45
Virtual Room 1 1D Is it time to exchange CICS Web Service (SOAP and JSON) for z/OS Connect? Andrew Smithson IBM UK LTD. 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 2 2D Wowee it's Zowe opening up the mainframe to non-mainframers Joe Winchester IBM UK LTD. 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 4 4D Basics on using Python with z/OS Steven Pitman IBM 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 5 5D z/OS Communications Server Technical Update Sam Reynolds IBM USA 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 7 7D Tackling Insider Threats Before They Strike Johnathan Crossno Rocket Software UK Ltd 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 9 9D Unsung Heroes of the Db2 for z/OS Application Development (Db2 13 Edition) Emil Kotrc Broadcom Mainframe Software 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room A AD Personal IMS – expanding ZXP hands-on capability Ross Cruickshank IBM 13:45 - 14:30
30 Minute Break 14:30 - 15:00
Virtual Room 1 1E Exploring Future Directions with AI on IBM Z Stephen Warren IBM USA 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 2 2E The Power of Words – “I am” Joanne Lockwood SEE Change Happen 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 3 3E Building a Zero Trust and Secure IBM MQ Enviroment Gwydion Tudur IBM UK LTD. 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 4 4E The Next Generation of Mainframers John Mertic Linux Foundation/OMP 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 5 5E Pardon the Interruption: CPENABLE and Interrupt Delay John Baker IBM 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 6 6E z/OS Communications Server Network Security Overview Navya Ramanjulu IBM UK LTD. 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 7 7E Nines All the Way Down: Resiliency for Linux on IBM Z and LinuxONE in the Context of DORA Brian W Hugenbruch IBM USA 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 9 9E IMS OTMA Use of Virtual Storage Stephen Nathan IBM USA 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room A AE New products, features and functionalities for Compilers and Programming Languages on z/OS Roland Koo IBM 15:00 - 15:45
30 Minute Break 15:45 - 16:15
Virtual Room 1 1F From Skills Shortage to Skills Acceleration: GenAI's Role in Mainframe Vineet Dumir IBM 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 2 2F Unlocking Efficiency: A Deep Dive into IBM zIIP Processing Anshul Agrawal BMC Software Ltd 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 3 3F IBM MQ and Kafka, what’s the difference and how can they be used together? Gwydion Tudur IBM UK LTD. 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 7 7F Best Practices for Securely Bypassing z/OS Dataset Access Controls Emil Kotrc Broadcom Mainframe Software 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 9 9F Bring your Data to DevOps Anthony Anter BMC Software Ltd 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room A AF Platform Engineering Use Cases: The Self-Service Wave Per Kroll Broadcom Mainframe Software 16:15 - 17:00
End of Day's Sessions 17:00 - 17:30

Wednesday 30th April

Stream Session Presentation Title Speaker Company Time
Virtual Room 1 1G Breaking Barriers: The Power of Diversity in Tech Jessielaine Punongbayan Dynatrace 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 2 2G Developing CICS applications your way, using Visual Studio Code Dave Nice IBM UK LTD. 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 4 4G Stop Agonizing & Start Virtualizing Jim Wankowski Rocket Software UK Ltd 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 5 5G Unlocking DB2 Performance: Key Metrics from SMF Data Mary Solomon SMT Data 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 6 6G IBM Z Workload Scheduler - What's new with V10.2 Marco Cardelli HCL Technologies 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 7 7G Securing FTP - What's all the Fuss about Colin van der Ross Software Diversified Services (SDS) 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 9 9G Taming Page Splits: Reduced Stress for DBAs in Db2 13 Saurabh Pandey BMC Software Ltd 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room A AG Git Branching: Moving to recommended model – theory, practice and demo Ian Mitchell IBM UK LTD. 10:00 - 10:45
30 Minute Break 10:45 - 11:15
Virtual Room 1 1H Improving resilience and scalability with new capabilities in CICS TS 6.2 Jenny He IBM UK LTD. 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 2 2H Integrating with the mainframe - you have options… Andrew Smithson IBM UK LTD. 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 3 3H The diminishing returns curve...or audit 101 Colman O'Carroll Virtel 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 4 4H Observability 2.0 - Much more than just logs,metrics and traces Neel Shah Middleware 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 5 5H What can SMF data tell us about our z Mainframe internal usage. John Ticic IBM 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 6 6H Upgrading IzWS Davide Canalis IBM 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 7 7H Quantum Computer Hybrid Cloud SOC Analytics As A Service Casimer DeCusatis Marist University 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 9 9H Db2 for z/OS Data Sharing Update Mark Rader IBM USA 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room A AH Metrics in DevOps: Buckle Up for a Roller Coaster Ride to Success! Atul Bhovan BMC Software Ltd 11:15 - 12:00
30 Minute Break 12:00 - 12:30
Virtual Room 3 3I Unveiling the Ways to Audit Resources and Users in RACF Rogerio Eugenio Malaquias Camargo Kyndryl 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 5 5I The Latest IBM Z Performance Brief David Hutton IBM USA 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 9 9I Db2 for z/OS Health Check Topics Mark Rader IBM USA 12:30 - 13:15
30 Minute Break 13:15 - 13:45
Virtual Room 1 1J CICS Banking Sample Application: Our CI/CD Journey to Automated Build, Test and Release Justin Taylor IBM UK LTD. 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 2 2J Ansible on Z 101 Tom Baskerville IBM UK LTD. 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 3 3J What are RACF "Industry Best Practices"? Daniel Burk IBM GDR 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 4 4J Bring The Proven Power of Ansible Software Management to the Mainframe Jan Prihoda Broadcom Mainframe Software 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 6 6J Customising IzWS Panel EQQAJCLE a.k.a. Accessing JCL from the AD database Anna Dawson IBM UK LTD. 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 7 7J RACF Update: z/OS 3.1 and More! Mark Nelson IBM USA 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 9 9J Best Practices for managing distributed applications Anthony Ciabattoni IBM USA 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room A AJ Addressing Enterprise Pain Points in IBM's Mainframe DevOps René De Vleeschauwer Ikan Development 13:45 - 14:30
30 Minute Break 14:30 - 15:00
Virtual Room 1 1L CICSPlex SM - A Minimalist Approach Ezriel Gross Rocket Software UK Ltd 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 2 2L The Evolving Landscape of Database Administrators in the Mainframe World Sameer Satyavolu BMC Software Ltd 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 4 4L Configuring the z/OS Container Platform Michael Fitzpatrick IBM USA 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 5 5L How busy is that mainframe, really? Scott Chapman EPS 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 6 6L IBM Z Operations Unite streamline mainframe operations Domenico D'Alterio IBM Europe 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 7 7L Using Wireshark to look at networking data Colin Paice Stromness Software Solutions 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 9 9L Preparing to Pass Your Db2 for z/OS Administrator Certification Exams Emil Kotrc Broadcom Mainframe Software 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room A AL Semeru (Java) on z/OS: Key Updates & Why Upgrade? James Tang IBM 15:00 - 15:45
30 Minute Break 15:45 - 16:15
Virtual Room 1 1M Accelerate mainframe application modernization with generative-AI and automated testing Suman Gopinath IBM 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 2 2M z/OSMF workflows automation with Zowe Pavel Zlatnik Broadcom Mainframe Software 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 3 3M An IBM Champion's Guide to Advocacy Niall Ashley Vertali Limited 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 4 4M Effective strategies for Git and source control on z/OS Igor Todorovski IBM 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 5 5M (Primer to) The IBM Z Processor Optimization Primer David Hutton IBM USA 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 8 8M Getting Started with NetMaster’s SmartTrace Phillip Schoen Broadcom Mainframe Software 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 9 9M zParms: Overview, Best Practices, and Recommendations Emil Kotrc Broadcom Mainframe Software 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room A AM Java Flight Recorder (JFR) Adrian Popescu IBM 16:15 - 17:00
End of Day's Sessions 17:00 - 17:30

Thursday 1st May

Stream Session Presentation Title Speaker Company Time
Virtual Room 1 1N Who is Afraid of the AI Big Bad Wolf Gatien Dupre Virtel 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 2 2N IMS Managed ACBs: Real world customer pain-points and their solutions Subhasish Sarkar BMC Software Ltd 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 3 3N Your Journey to Conscious inclusion Joanne Lockwood SEE Change Happen 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 4 4N The Secret to Open Source on the Mainframe John Mertic Linux Foundation/OMP 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 5 5N Drawers, Of Course Martin Packer IBM UK LTD. 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 6 6N Unlocking z/OS Data to Streamline System Monitoring and Alerting Rachita Issar Broadcom Mainframe Software 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room 9 9N ABC's of Db2 for z/OS Indexes Karthikeyan Dhanapal BMC Software Ltd 10:00 - 10:45
Virtual Room A AN IBM Watson Code Assistant and DevOps Story in a client story demo Joseph Taffe-Atkins IBM UK LTD. 10:00 - 10:45
30 Minute Break 10:45 - 11:15
Virtual Room 1 1O Simplifying CICS Configuration: Harnessing the Power of Code Tom Baskerville IBM UK LTD. 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 2 2O Optimising IBM IMS Buffer Pools for Enhanced Performance Amar Verma BMC Software Ltd 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 3 3O Testing Mainframe applications as a newbie Mainframer! Jade Carino IBM UK LTD. 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 4 4O Top 5 open source mainframe powerups no mainframer should be without Joe Winchester IBM UK LTD. 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 6 6O IzWS Dependencies Anna Dawson IBM UK LTD. 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 7 7O Building Effect Mainframe Vulnerability Management to Meet DORA Requirements Cynthia Overby Rocket Software UK Ltd 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room 9 9O Claims, Drains and Automobiles Marcus Davage BMC Software Ltd 11:15 - 12:00
Virtual Room A AO How a software developer thinks about RACROUTE Rob Scott Rocket Software UK Ltd 11:15 - 12:00
30 Minute Break 12:00 - 12:30
Virtual Room 3 3P Bridging the gap between Auditing and RACF Security Niall Ashley Vertali Limited 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 4 4P 0-to-PyPI - Developing Open Source z/OS Python Packages Chad McIntyre IBM 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 7 7P The Pervasive Encryption Journey: Data Security, Key Rotation, and Quantum Resilience Gregg Arquero IBM USA 12:30 - 13:15
Virtual Room 9 9P Db2 for z/OS Development all new "2025 SWAT Tales" Anthony Ciabattoni IBM USA 12:30 - 13:15
30 Minute Break 13:15 - 13:45
Virtual Room 1 1Q Achieving Resiliency in CICS with CPSM Aleksandr Charcikov Rocket Software UK Ltd 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 2 2Q RACF for Dummies Niall Ashley Vertali Limited 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 3 3Q Mastering SQL Performance on IBM Z: Analyzing and Optimizing Queries for Maximum Throughput Saurabh Pandey BMC Software Ltd 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 4 4Q Mixing Python & COBOL Steven Pitman IBM 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 6 6Q WAPL Calculations beyond JCL Directives Adrian Angelov IBM 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 7 7Q What It Means to Measure IBM Z Security Brian W Hugenbruch IBM USA 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room 9 9Q Db2 13 for z/OS Latest Features Keziah Knopp IBM 13:45 - 14:30
Virtual Room A AQ COBOL Upgrade Advisor for z/OS TBC Test Company 13:45 - 14:30
30 Minute Break 14:30 - 15:00
Virtual Room 1 1R CICS Technical Introduction for non CICS people Ezriel Gross Rocket Software UK Ltd 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 2 2R Look Beyond Slides: The Secret to Engaging Presentations Sujit Neb BMC Software Ltd 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 3 3R Empowering Mainframe: Modern Full Stack Development in the Mainframe Ecosystem Hizir Cagin Bektas Broadcom Mainframe Software 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 4 4R Bang for your z/OS buck with Go! William O'Farrell IBM 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 6 6R Using Your OMEGAMON Data With Your Visualization and AI/ML Platform of Choice Daniel Wiegand IBM 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 7 7R Transforming Security Automation: Revamping complex interfaces for simper solutions Elijah Swift IBM USA 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room 9 9R All Aboard the Network Express! Myles Pearson IBM UK LTD. 15:00 - 15:45
Virtual Room A AR Operations: The last mile of DevOps Anthony Anter BMC Software Ltd 15:00 - 15:45
30 Minute Break 15:45 - 16:15
Virtual Room 1 1S Mainframe Data Wrangling: Preparing Your Mainframe Data for AI with Python Joshua Powell Broadcom Mainframe Software 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 2 2S Unsung Hero of z/OS Mainframes - JCL Prema Jogdand BMC Software Ltd 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 3 3S Where does your Ansible code come from? Fabio Alessandro Locati Red Hat 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 4 4S Making Observability Work: User Insights on OpenTelemetry Priorities for the Mainframe Ruediger Schulze IBM Europe 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 6 6S Modernization of OMEGAMON with key enhancements Ashok Mahay IBM UK LTD. 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 7 7S Vivat REXX: The Danger of Executing REXX in an Authorized Environment Jake Labelle F-Secure 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room 9 9S How to help IBM AND YOU Quickly Resolve IMS problems Stephen Nathan IBM USA 16:15 - 17:00
Virtual Room A AS Network Segmentation Mechanisms on z/OS Michael Fitzpatrick IBM USA 16:15 - 17:00
15 Minute Break 17:00 - 17:15
Keynote: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Leanne Wilson. Vertali Limited 17:15 - 17:45
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