The RPG & DB2 Summit - Fall 2009

With a little snow and a lot of excitement in the air, over 130 System i professionals met at the Sofitel in Minneapolis for the sixth RPG & DB2 Summit conference, everyone eager to share the latest and best development tips and techniques.

We definitely got the latest from IBM! In his Keynote Address, Ian Jarman surprised us with the very first public preview of IBM i 7.1, due out in spring 2010. Ian talked about potential DB2 and RPG enhancements, including native integrated support for XML within DB2, and open I/O for RPG. Click here for the report from IT Jungle.

Attendees took full advantage of the education in all forms - half-day workshops, over 50 break-out sessions, an open Q&A hour paneled by the Summit speakers, after-hours round table discussions, and many opportunities to network with instructors and other students.

To fuel all the learning, the Sofitel impressed us with exceptional food and service. In fact, one attendee told us that he wanted to live at the Sofitel. Hmmmm . . . wonder if he ever checked out?

Just for fun, we gathered together Tuesday evening for a reception, banquet, and lots of door prizes and laughs. And, of course, Bruce Vining's 29th birthday celebration!

Check out our photo gallery for more highlights of the week, or view Scott Klement's video diary on YouTube.

The Young i Professionals also announced the availability of their Virtual Learning Center (VLC) site with free tutorials on various IBM i related topics - powered by an IBM i, naturally! And just for the record, we all qualify as "young" in the eyes of the generous YiPs group!

Many thanks to RPG & DB2 Summit media sponsors, IBM Systems Magazine, System i Network and MC Press Online, our vendor sponsors, and guest speakers Scott Klement, Kent Milligan, Aaron Bartell, Barbara Morris, Bruce Vining and Mike Cain. We would also like to thank a few visitors who dropped by to spend some time with attendees, share their expertise and answer questions - Gina Whitney and Sue Romano (SQL pre-compiler), Tim Clark (DB2 and MySQL) and Pat Botz (Security). Each and every one helped to make this Summit an event to remember. Oh - did we mention the food?

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