I trust that all of our customers that attended xChange13, Serena’s global user conference, are back in their offices implementing one or more valuable tips they learned from the conference. And I know there wasn’t any shortage of great information delivered, especially from the Mainframe product team.
The most highly anticipated and rated session at xChange13 came from Bob Yates, Mainframe Account Manager, who showed off the new migration utility. Customers who have old repositories in products that are no longer supported are feeling exposed and left behind. Many of them face serious audit finding when the state of these repositories are discovered. The new migration utility pulls out the code, the relationships, the histories and the version from old repositories from CA-Panvalet, CA-Librarian and CA-Endevor. Along the way it validates the repository and fixes the errors it inevitably finds.
Also in the mainframe track, veteran users showcased how to get the most out of their solutions by taking the technology to new levels. R&D introduced the 2014 roadmap and showed off some advanced features that are coming soon while partners shared how to exploit the Serena mainframe ecosystem. With every session filled and positive feedback received, the mainframe track was, once again, the place to be at xChange13.
Our customer presentations really set the tone for the track. Prakash Balakrishnan, from Nationwide Insurance, showed how they were making use of off-host development by exploiting the client-pack. This was followed by Serena’s Bob Yates describing all the other capabilities that Client Pack had to offer. Long-time user and ChangeMan ZMF guru, Michael Bailey of MetLife, laid out a comprehensive plan of user configurable tweaks that make administration as easy as possible. Many of these great ideas will, one day I’m sure, find their way into the product.
Thank you to all of our customers and partners for informative and entertaining presentations. Liberal sprinklings of Belgian chocolate and a cool demo are always crowd pleasers. If you missed xChange13, contact me and I will be happy to share the presentations with you. Or watch the xChange13 playlist on YouTube to see some of the main stage presentations.
