commoneuropecongress2026

Watsonx.data on IBM Power combines the performance and reliability of IBM Power Systems with the flexibility of an open, hybrid data lakehouse architecture. This solution enables organizations to unlock the full potential of their data by integrating structured and unstructured sources across on-premises and cloud environments.This session includes a demonstration that shows how credit card transaction data from an Oracle Database and customer and card data from EDB Postgres, both running on IBM Power, are ingested and transformed in watsonx.data to create a unified analytical view.

With the end of SAP ECC support, SAP is accelerating the transition to the cloud through its S/4HANA Private Cloud (RISE) and Public Cloud (GROW) offerings. This strategic shift involves a redesign of business processes and a migration to modern cloud environments. IBM Cloud PowerVS is positioned as a high-performance, secure, reliable, and sustainable alternative, while offering competitive pricing that is often lower than that of other hyperscalers.

This session explores the industry’s shift from traditional, passive AI chatbots to autonomous agents capable of planning, acting, and adapting to achieve complex goals. It examines the emerging “agentic era,” outlines six best practices for designing, orchestrating, and governing agent-based systems, and presents a practical roadmap from prototype to production. Attendees will leave with a clear framework for safely deploying AI agents and positioning their organizations for the next wave of enterprise automation.

Modernizing applications but unsure how modern databases, Linux, and cloud-native platforms fit alongside trusted IBMi and AIX workloads? For many clients, modernization isn’t about replacing what works - it’s about extending it with new capabilities on the same Power platform.This session explores how Linux on IBM Power enables an evolutionary modernization journey by introducing new-age applications, industry and banking solutions, and AI workloads on Linux - leveraging open-source databases to surround existing systems, with PowerVM as the stable foundation. Clients can run diverse Linux workloads - across Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and SUSE supporting modern application frameworks, APIs, digital and AI services, all tightly integrated with core IBMi and AIX environments.We’ll show how PowerVM provides flexibility, isolation, and operational consistency today, while creating a continuous, low-risk path toward cloud-native maturity with OpenShift on Power. As modernization needs grow, workloads can progressively move from traditional Linux partitions to containerized applications managed by Red Hat OpenShift without forcing an immediate platform or operating-model shift.Through real-world “surround-and-extend” patterns, attendees will see how organizations deploy modern applications and databases on Linux, integrate with existing enterprise data, and gradually adopt cloud-native architectures at their own pace. This approach accelerates innovation, reduces risk, and maximizes the long-term value of Power while preserving the stability of the systems that run the business.If you’re looking for a practical modernization strategy that spans PowerVM today and OpenShift tomorrow, Linux on Power offers a clear and proven path forward.

Building a container image is easy, but making one that is production-ready is a craft. Too many modernization projects get stuck with bloated, gigabyte-sized images that waste storage and slow down deployments. Following the "Gentle Introduction to Containerization" at last year’s Common Europe Congress, this session focuses on the developer techniques needed to build lean, fast container images specifi cally for IBM Power.
The session starts with a quick look at container anatomy to explain how image layers work and how the Copy-on-Write (CoW) fi lesystem affects storage costs and runtime speed. Armed with this foundation, attendees will then participate in a live "makeover" of a bloated application to systematically strip away the excess.
Key topics will include:
- The ppc64le Wheel Trap: Why a lack of pre-compiled ppc64le binaries often bloats images with heavy build tools like gcc, and how to solve it.
- Multi-Stage Builds: How to compile natively in one stage and ship only the tiny binaries in a hyper-minimal UBI Micro base.
- Smart Caching: Structuring builds so heavy compilations run once and then cache, making subsequent builds near-instant.
- Multi-Arch Basics: A quick closing look at using manifests to support both x86_64 and ppc64le from a single pipeline.

This session first explains the benefits of using LU (Live Update).
I will describe the importance of applying security patches and fixes and regulations for a Dutch bank. After this I will short explain how this technology helps us to minimize the impact on availability. The biggest part of this session will be about explaining how this technology works.
After this I will explain the differences between AIX 7.2 and AIX 7.3 TL04 and beyond.
I explain how new improvements such as Live Library Updates will mitigate the need of restarting (parts) of applications. Also subjects such as adjusting LPAR profiles and IP-sec migrations during a LU will be covered.
Of course, I will show practical examples how to achieve LU run without failures, and how to recover from these failures.