Tech workshops straddle full day of seminars while kickoff dinner and keynote by IBM's Alison Butterill launch this year's gathering of southern California's IBM i faithful.

Summary

• Conference Dates: July 17-19

• Main Seminar and Vendor Expo: July 18

• Number of Sessions: 35

• Number of Speakers: 18

• Locations: National University and Wyndham Hotel, Costa Mesa, Calif.

• Focus: IBM i Education

A resurgence of interest in the IBM i platform and its steady advances in technology during an era of growing interest in cloud and mobile computing has struck a chord among users in southern California who this year decided to expand the traditional one-day educational seminar into an event that now spans three days.

Marking the 25^th anniversary of the OCEAN User Group's existence, this year's 2014 OCEAN IBM i Technical Conference and Vendor Solutions Expopromises capacity attendance at the 35 sessions on Friday, July 18, at National University in Costa Mesa, Calif., plus an optional cutting edge hands-on Ruby on Rails workshop Thursday afternoon leading up to the evening's networking hour and keynote dinner presentation by IBM i Product Manager Alison Butterill.

The conference continues Saturday morning with optional hands-on learning labs along with administration of the COMMON Certification exams. Meanwhile, IBM i solution providers will be available all day Friday in the vendor expo area at National University to answer questions from attendees during lunch and session breaks.

"This is by far the best educational value our organization has put together for its users in the past 20 years," said Perry Mills, president of OCEAN. "Between the state-of-the-art training available in the pre-and post-seminar workshops, plus the 35 sessions conducted by 18 world-class speakers, not to mention dinner Thursday at the Wyndham Hotel, lunch Friday, and a chance to hear one of the world's foremost authorities on IBM i—Alison Butterill—it's an opportunity that simply cannot be missed at any price."

Yet the member price for the basic seminar through June 20 is only $195 (excluding the workshops) and $245 after that date. New pricing this year is allowing organizations of two or more individuals who sign up together prior to June 13 to do so for a mere $170 each. Member pricing extends to anyone belonging to an IBM i user group or anyone who lives or works more than 100 miles from an IBM i user group. Non-members need to add $100 to all prices, though a one-year membership to OCEAN is only $80 for an individual and $250 for a corporate membership. The Thursday and Saturday workshops are $50 and open to regular conference attendees before non-attendees may register.

Among the topics covered at this year's conference are Modern Programming Tools and Techniques, Web and Mobile Development, SQL and DB2 Database Topics, Systems Management, and Strategic Directions. Of course the latest advances in free form RPG as well as Open Access will be taught as will "three approaches to Web with RPG," working with JSON in RPG, an introduction to Ruby for IBM i, along with PHP, XML Service, and JavaScript.

“Web, mobile, and cloud computing, along with business analytics are changing the workplace and the role of information technology professionals," said Margaret Matthews, 2014 Conference Chairman. "This conference has been designed to teach the skills required to stay abreast of these emerging technologies, improving your company’s bottom line and deepening your competitive skill sets.” 

In addition to Butterill, the list of speakers includes some internationally known programmers and trainers from throughout North America including Aaron Bartell, Larry Bolhuis, Dan Cruikshank, Susan Gantner, Jesse Gorzinski, Scott Klement, Doug Mack, Lief Morin, Eamon Musallam, Jon Paris, Mike Pavlak, Craig Pelkie, Paul Ratchford, Roxanne Reynolds-Lair, Alex Roytman, Robert Swanson, and Robin Tatam.

For more information and to register, visit http://www.ocean400.org/