SHARE : SHARE in Seattle 2015

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SHARE in Seattle 2015

SHARE Starts 60th Anniversary Networking & Education with a 'BANG!'

SHARE hosted over 1,000 enterprise IT professionals in Seattle who came together from March 1-6 for an educational week filled with lectures and roundtables on some of today’s most pressing enterprise technology topics, including the new z13 Mainframe, Security, Big Data, Mobile and many more. In addition to user-focused content, attendees also celebrated the future of the user group as SHARE kicked off celebrations honoring its industry milestone of 60 years of change influence.

Seattle also marked the fifth year of SHARE ExecuForum, a sold-out event for IT leaders to connect on solutions to the critical business challenges facing their organizations. SHARE President James Vincent also took time to announce the first-ever SHARE song and music video (press play below to watch!) as well as upcoming Member initiatives to be rolled out in 2015 to all SHARE Member organizations and representatives.

Attendees enjoyed making new connections and networking with colleagues from around the country with locally themed receptions and 500+ sessions to choose from. SHARE events, like SHARE in Seattle, continue to prove that in-person events are an invaluable way for user group members to make connections with fellow enterprise IT professionals, vendors and IBM executives — all while gaining valuable education through sessions and hands-on labs that help members stay at the forefront of the always evolving enterprise IT field.

Keynote Highlight

On Monday, March, Ross A. Mauri, General Manager of z Systems at IBM Corporation presented The New Generation Mainframe is Here.

Mauri discussed how the new generation of the IBM mainframe has been designed to meet the needs of the mobile generation and Internet of Things.

"Mobile is changing the way we live and changing the way IT systems need to be built. [IBM] studies show that in the next two years the average will reach 50 [mobile] transactions per day per user, and over the next four years it's headed to reach 100," explained Mauri.

On Tuesday, March 3, Philip Young, Information Security Specialist (also known as the "Soldier of FORTRAN") presented The Security Gap.

As part of his address, Young highlighted what attendees can do to help bridge the divide between the mainframe and security worlds as well as how to embrace hacker culture for the betterment of z/OS.

“'Hacker' isn't a bad word. Most hackers are like you or I with jobs at large corporations, and their jobs are to defend the system. What better way to defend the system than attacking it like an attacker would?” Young noted.

Young went on to discuss real-life security breaches and ways to work with hackers to uncover security flaws and amend those vulnerabilities

For an online recording of the two keynote presentations, plus other top-attended sessions from SHARE in Seattle, click here and purchase access to SHARE Live!, our virtual attendance option that lasts for up to 6 months post event.

Program Highlights

SHARE in Seattle brought user insight and expert perspectives together to address the latest technical advancements.

Here are a few highlights from the session rooms:

Application Architecture and Development Infrastructure Program

In addition to normal conference activities, SHARE in Seattle 2015 was one in which collaboration and inclusiveness within the volunteer ranks was extremely encouraging. There seems to be a general feeling that the volunteer mattered and it has had a positive effect on morale. The upbeat, positive feeling started with the Saturday Board meeting and spread to the discussions within the projects themselves.

Based upon the attendee numbers and feedback, Seattle was a wonderful venue for the AADI Program. Three (3) out of the four (4) AADI projects had higher headcounts in Seattle than in Pittsburgh (2014). The only Project that was down was the CICS Project, by 25 percent; however, the CICS Project was up 16 percent over Anaheim (2014). CICS headcounts still are still amongst the highest of any Project at SHARE.

LE and Programming Languages Project

This project put on 21 technical sessions in Seattle and overall attendance was up around 7 percent compared to Pittsburgh (2014). The Assembler Boot Camp block of sessions continues to be extremely popular with attendees. The project’s coverage of z/OS assembler language topics is one of the few places the information is still actively discussed. The best attended and attendee feedback rated session was How to Take Advantage of the New COBOL V5 Compiler - Migration. All the technical sessions received strong positive feedback based upon attendee evaluations. The session with the highest attendance and best feedback was REXX Language Coding Techniques. The session COBOL V5 User Experience also received good feedback and could be in contention for a best session award, to be announced in Orlando, August 9-14, 2015.

Information Management Program

IMS Project

During the week the IMS Project had 16 sessions and two hands-on labs, all with very good attendance. Two of the sessions were part of the SHARE Live! virtual event program. There were also 20 different customers and five vendors represented at the sessions.

Linux and VM Program

Attendees primary interests focused on the following five areas:

User experience sessions. We continue to look for more user presentations.
Hands-on labs and the bring-your-own-computer (BYOC) REXX lab continue to draw attendees and receive high marks. The new mobile hands-on lab drew a good number of attendees despite the late time on Thursday and allowed participants to see how easy it is to install the tools and build applications.
z/VM from the basics through more advanced topics.
Interest in recent features added to the Linux distributions and announcements of new features being made available.
How-to sessions by IBM and vendors.

Linux Project

The two KVM sessions we had drew standing-room only crowds (42 each), most likely due to IBM's "Statement of Direction" with the introduction of the z13.

MVS Program

MVS Core Technologies Project

Technical Highlights:

z/OS 2.2 by John Eells

z13 sessions by Harv Emery, Harry Yudenfriend, Peter Relson and Daniel Rosa

Bob’s Bedtime Stories for System Programmers (part of SHARE Live! virtual event)

Bruce Koss did FOUR user sessions; he is a great asset to the project

IBM really brought it with the z13 and 2.2 information.

We had a full slate of user experiences which, as always, were well-attended, well-rated and had great comments.

MVS Storage (MVSS) Project

[Project Manager Russell Witt] spoke with several first-time SHARE attendees, all were pleased with the content and level of the presentations. Many were surprised at how many sessions were available.

SHAREwide Prorgram

zNextGen (zNG) Project

Almost all of our sessions attracted a healthy crowd, with our star sessions on Thursday, A Piece of Cheese: Interesting Mainframe Analogies and How to Attract New Mainframe Talents to Join Your Enterprise? IBM and Minnesota Companies’ Experience and Best Practices leading the way.

SHARE Recognizes

2015 SHARE President's Award

2015 SHARE President's Award Winner Karla Houser The SHARE President's Award is bestowed at the discretion of the current SHARE President and is meant to recognize the individual effort of a SHARE volunteer who has performed outstanding service for SHARE in the preceding year. In the case of the March 2015 recipient, it was for MANY years of outstanding service.

Karla Houser: In the words of 2015 SHARE President James Vincent, Karla Houser exemplifies the meaning of the term "volunteer." She loves a challenge and brings great enthusiasm and new ideas to everything she does. As Program Manager of the Enterprise Data Center team, Karla has achieved numerous milestones, including having played a key role in developing new topics and material as well as in finding new material to present as part of SHARE Live!. Karla was also instrumental in establishing the Welcome Desk at SHARE event receptions and continues to work hard to make new attendees feel welcome. Congrats Karla!

Best Session Awards

SHARE is proud to feature a variety of technical sessions from users and experts around the world. In recognition of their exemplary presentations, SHARE congratulates the following session presenters, and their organizations, for receiving the highest attendee ratings from SHARE in Pittsburgh, held in August 2014.

Highest Rated

We recognize the highest rated sessions in the categories of User, IBM and Vendor. These individuals were recognized on-site at the SHARE General Session.

User Session: CICS and Threadsafe: Exploiting the Open Trasaction Environment, Russ Evans, The Evans Group, Inc.

IBM Category: z/OSMF Hands-on Labs – Choose Your Own – II, Greg Daynes, IBM Corporation; Marna Walle, IBM Corporation; Kenneth Irwin, IBM Corporation; Kim Bailey, IBM Corporation; Xiao Zhen (Joey) Zhu, IBM Corporation

Vendor Session: So You Think Nobody Can Hack Your Mainframe, Think Again!, Mark Wilson, RSM Partners

Best Session Awards by Program

We’d like to especially recognize and thank the Project Managers who identified these compelling topics and outstanding speakers.

Application Architecture Development and Integration

IBM Category: Managing Multi-version Applications in CICS, Matthew Webster, IBM Corporation
Project Manager: Glenn Schneck, ASG Software

User Category: CICS and Threadsafe: Exploiting the Open Transaction Environment, Russ Evans, The Evans Group, Inc.
Project Manager: Glenn Schneck, ASG Software

Enterprise Data Center Program

User Category: The State of Mainframe Security – or Lack Thereof, Mark Wilson, RSM Partners; Brian Cummings, Tata Consultancy Services
Project Manager: Brian Cummings, Tata Consultancy Services

IBM Category: z/OS V2R1 Communications Server Performance Update, Dave Herr, IBM Corporation
Project Manager: Angela Schmitz, AS Communication Consulting Services

Vendor Category: So You Think Nobody Can Hack Your Mainframe, Think Again!, Mark Wilson, RSM Partners
Project Manager: Brian Cummings, Tata Consultancy Services

Information Management Program

IBM Category: IBM DB2 11 for z/OS Performace, John Iczkovits, IBM Corporation
Project Managers: Patrick Koeppen, Peck Software, Inc.; James Martin III, Fundi Software

Linux and VM Program

IBM Category: z/VM Platform Update, Bill Bitner, IBM Corporation
Project Manager: Dan Martin, Rocket Software

MVS Program

User Category: SDSF: Beyond the Basics, Bruce Koss, Wells Fargo
Project Manager: Mary Anne Matyaz, CA Technologies

SHARE-wide Program

User Category: Keynote Session: Security Trends — Looking to Future Threats, Robert Andrews, CISO – Mainstream Security
Project Managers: Martha McConaghy, Marist College; Martin Zimelis, maz/Consultancy

RAVES!

SHARE wouldn’t be what it is without high-impact, high-value input from legions of individual contributors. To better recognize these outstanding efforts, SHARE continued the RAVE – Recognize a Valiant Effort – Program at SHARE in Seattle. For year-round award highlights, visit the SHARE Volunteer Recognition page.

The following individuals were recognized by their peers for their contributions to enhance networking, assistance, support and presentations while at SHARE in Seattle:

RAVE Recipient: Brian Jagos, CA Technologies
Nominated by Rick Barlow, Nationwide Insurance

RAVE Recipient: Dan Martin, Rocket Software
Nominated by Rick Barlow, Nationwide Insurance

RAVE Recipient: Jim Willette, Sunrise eServices
Nominated by Karla Houser, Caterpillar Inc.

RAVE Recipient: Diana Donnellan, Sunrise eServices
Nominated by Karla Houser, Caterpillar Inc.

RAVE Recipient: Aron Eisenpress, City University of New York
Nominated by Karla Houser, Caterpillar Inc.

RAVE Recipient: David Morlitz, IBM Corporation
Nominated by Karla Houser, Caterpillar Inc.

RAVE Recipient: Rich Garcia, IBM Corporation
Nominated by Karla Houser, Caterpillar Inc.

RAVE Recipient: Karen Zader, SHARE Association
Nominated by Justin F. Bastin, EMC Corporation

RAVE Recipient: Tony Negro, EMC Corporation
Nominated by David Lytle, Brocade Corporation

RAVE Recipient: Tom Ross, IBM Corporation
Nominated by Dennis Pherigo, MasterCard

RAVE Recipient: Ivan Gelb, Gelb Information Systems Corp.
Nominated by Dennis Pherigo, MasterCard

RAVE Recipient: Lindsey Reck, SHARE Association
Nominated by Gail Bymun, Fiserv

RAVE Recipient: Donna Hudi, SHARE Association
Nominated by Justin F. Bastin, EMC Corporation

RAVE Recipient: Kevin Hosozawa, IBM Corporation
Nominated by Karla Houser, Caterpillar Inc.

RAVE Recipient: Lauren Alexander, SHARE Association
Nominated by Tom Lund, Texas A&M University

RAVE Recipient: Jerry Seefeldt, NewEra Software
Nominated by Carla Flores, CA Technologies

RAVE Recipient: Paul Robichaux, NewEra Software
Nominated by Carla Flores, CA Technologies

RAVE Recipient: Catherine Perkins, SHARE Association
Nominated by Jerry Seefeldt, NewEra Software

RAVE Recipient: Liz Holby, SHARE Association
Nominated by Jerry Seefeldt, NewEra Software

RAVE Recipient: Roxane Rosberg, Vanguard Integrity Proxy
Nominated by Carla Flores, CA Technologies

RAVE Recipient: Richard Lewis, IBM Corporation
Nominated by Martin Zimelis, maz/Consultancy

RAVE Recipient: Angela Schmitz, AS CCS
Nominated by Thomas Cosenza, IBM Corporation

SHARE Live!

SHARE Live! provides the user community with a virtual conference option for those who were unable to join us in-person at SHARE in Seattle. Selected content from each day was streamed live, and participants also receive access to the 20+ hours of recorded proceedings for six months post-event.

You can still purchase your access to virtual recordings and share the top-notch technical content with your colleagues.

SHARE Mobile App

The SHARE Mobile App continues to be well-received by attendees — with over 1,100 users — and provides the functionality to create schedules, view session updates and the exhibitor listing, connect with attendees, and even download show documents. In addition, session evaluations as well as on-site updates can be accessed through the app.

Not receiving all the updates you would like? We highly recommend leaving push notifications turned on so you do not miss a moment.

SHARE Attendees Connect via Social Media

SHARE in Seattle again saw an exciting amount of conversation on social media. Attendees engaged to share their thoughts, quote speakers, post photos and discuss the overall event experience using the official event hashtag: #SHAREorg.

The activity doesn’t stop with Seattle, though. Social media is a great way for those interested in SHARE to stay up-to-date on the latest information, connect with new professional contacts and engage with industry influencers. Join SHARE’s social media communities today to stay updated on upcoming events, webcasts, announcements and much more:

	Daily tweets helped attendees stay updated on event milestones and tune in to updates during the week by tagging and searching for #SHAREorg. Stay connected with SHARE throughout the year by following @SHAREhq and tagging your IT comments with #SHAREorg.
	By becoming a fan of "SHARE Association", attendees were able to post comments and pictures from sessions and networking events to the SHARE wall. Visit our page and check out all the pictures from the event!
	IT professionals in the "SHARE Association" LinkedIn group are able to interact with valuable professional and personal connections. Plus, follow the SHARE company page for updates straight from SHARE.
	@SHAREhqpics allows attendees and members a behind-the-scenes look at SHARE event and life at SHARE HQ both during and between events.

Congratulations Passport to Prizes Winners

Thank you to all SHARE in Seattle Passport to Prizes vendors and attendee participants! Winners from Seattle are outlined below.

ASG – Nick Harley, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama
Black Hill Software – Linda Duvall, U.S. Department of Treasury
BMC Software – Rob Landstrom
CA Technologies – Rick Vogel, Grange Mutual Ins. Co.
CorreLog, Inc. – Jessica Caceres, Navy Federal Credit Union
EMC Corporation – Regina Robbins, SAS Institute Inc.
Enterprise Systems Media, Inc. – Dan Huehl
Hitachi Data Systems – Robert Wobb
HostBridge Technology – Richard Tran, IBM Corporation
IBM Corporation – Dennis O'Brien, Bank of America-Concord
IN-COM Data Systems – Robert Rosas, USAA
Innovation Data Processing – Roberto Otero, Banco Bradesco S.A.
Luminex Software, Inc. – Chris Sills
MVS Solutions Inc. – Sharon Hurd, Trofholz Technologies Inc.
NewEra Software – Jing Pan, Pacific Life Insurance Co.
Oracle – Bobby Bell, Group Health Cooperative
Rocket Software – Terry Cooper, IBM Corporation
Serena Software, Inc. – Terry Traylor, Charles Schwab
Software Diversified Services – Kevin Chin
Software Engineering of America, Inc. – Denise Mortenson, USPS
SUSE – Rick Smith
Syncsort Inc. – Pedro Acosta, IBM Corporation
Trident Services, Inc. – Dean Sweet

Thank You to Our Partners and Sponsors

We would not be able to put on such a successful event without the commitment of our Strategic Partner, IBM Corporation; our Platnum Premier Sponsor, EMC Corporation; our Gold Premier Sponsors, CA Technologies and Oracle; our Silver Premier Sponsors BMC Software, Innovation Data Processing, Hitachi Data Systems and Luminex Software, Inc.; or our Conference Sponsor, CorreLog. We are also grateful to our Technology Exchange Expo exhibitors and media partners.

Thank You to Our Volunteers

SHARE in Seattle would not be possible without the countless hours of support from volunteers. A special thanks to all SHARE Project Managers who act as the guiding light of the event's technical program. They help put together a program full of compelling content based on attendee interests and feedback.

To learn how you can volunteer with SHARE, visit www.SHARE.org/volunteeropportunities.

Proceedings DVD Information

SHARE in Seattle 2015 Proceedings DVD All full-conference attendees receive a SHARE Proceedings DVD as part of registration. Proceedings DVDs are mailed six to eight weeks after the event and include presentation materials from participating SHARE in Seattle speakers. This is a valuable tool you can share with colleagues when you return to the office!

Save the Date

SHARE in Orlando
Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort
Orlando, FL
August 9-14, 2015

Join us for SHARE in Orlando to take advantage of professional development opportunities and the best in enterprise IT content, including high-quality, user-driven educational sessions, access to industry leaders, new innovations and peer networking events. Plus, SHARE in Orlando will feature the first-ever New to z Systems program as well as even more 60th anniversary tributes and initiatives.