By James Vincent, SHARE Director of Conference Operations
Yee-haw — SHARE is going to Texas! SHARE Fort Worth (February 23-28) is shaping up to be an exciting experience for Members, Delegates, and vendor partners. Kicking the week off is our Monday keynote with Kris Paronto, a former Army Ranger from 2nd Battalion 75th Ranger Regiment and private security contractor. His presentation “13 Hours: Bottom Up Leadership and How it Saved Lives in Benghazi” will certainly knock your socks off to get the week rolling with full energy.
The topic lineup through the week will include something for everyone in the mainframe ecosystem. One of the many timely hot topics is around the IBM z15 — and interestingly enough, we have 15 sessions specifically around z15 details. If you are looking for information on the hottest new mainframe out there, you will be in the right place! We not only have great sessions, we have the experts onsite from IBM, Broadcom, and many other vendors to answer any of your questions.
Another big topic will be around open source and the mainframe. You may have already heard of Zowe, but do you really know it? SHARE’s got you covered! You can get topics from learning what Zowe is all the way through learning how to leverage GitHub to manage development version control. The mainframe has also been a leader in hosting for the open source OS Linux running on the premier z/VM virtualization platform. SHARE will have great sessions around everything Linux on Z for you to catch.
Want to get your hands dirty? No, we are not going to have you cleaning out the horse stalls, fortunately. We have a full week of both hands-on labs and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) lab sessions. These sessions give you an opportunity to dig into different topics and solutions, and install, configure, and get things working, all with experts there to assist if you need it. What better way to kick-start a new project or learn a new discipline? Hands-on labs are where the rubber meets the road. Try the software or solutions before you get back to the shop and get a leg up with getting the solution implemented quickly for your company or customer.
Two digital badges will also be offered around the DevOps and Security competencies. Do you want to show that you know your stuff when it comes to DevOps or Security within the mainframe space? Then get your digital badge in those areas. There will also be the Women in IT activities and Cyber-Resilient Z! HA/DR (High Availability/Disaster Recovery) Escape Room to check out.
There is so much more that SHARE Fort Worth will have to offer, especially around networking with peers and experts, our high-quality education, and open discussions with all our vendor partners. But we also need to have a little fun too, because having fun while you’re (net)working is paramount to keeping things interesting. SHARE’s opening reception on Sunday evening will fulfill that requirement! Look for more information soon on the planned activities.
SHARE Fort Worth runs February 23-28 — be there! I know I will be, so find me and say hello! I’ll have the cowboy boots on...