TPF Users Group 2026 Conference Agenda

Conference Theme: Agentic AI in the TPF Environment

Click Here 2026 Conference Information

 

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Sunday - March 22nd, 2026

4:00PM - 6:00PM Early Registration Open

4:00PM - 6:00PM Board of Directors / Subcommittee Chairs Meeting (Closed) Subcommittee Chairs and Directors only

6:00PM - 6:30PM New Attendees Orientation

Monday - March 23rd, 2026

7:30am - 6:00pm Registration Open

7:45am - 9:00am Breakfast provided by TPFUG

9:00am - 11:00am General Session - Opening

• TPFUG Welcome - John Chauvenne (Travelport)
• Vendor Introduction - Connie Walberg (IBM)
• IBM Lab Welcome - Luanne Jagich (IBM)
• Conference Theme "Agentic AI for z/TPF"
• Agentic AI for z/TPF - Mark Gambino (IBM)
• AI and Security for Enterprise Data - Beth Peterson & Theresa Brown (IBM)

11:00am - 11:15am Break

11:15am - 12:05pm Subcommittee Meeting - Operations and Coverage

Addresses the issues with operating and managing the TPF systems, including Console support (TOS), Virtual Tape, DASD subsystems, performance, load and incident management in the TPF environment.

• Welcome
• Presentations
• The AI in AIROE - Stephen Johnson & Robert West (DXC Technology)
• RTMC Update - Liz Potapova (IBM)

12:05pm - 1:05pm Lunch provided by TPFUG

1:05am - 2:05pm Subcommittee Meeting - Operations and Coverage (Continued)

• Presentations (Continued)
  • Anomaly Detection - Michael Shershin (IBM)
  • RTMC Futures - Josh Wisniewski (IBM)

2:05pm - 3:15pm Subcommittee Meeting - System Control Program

Addresses CPU, DASD, and tape components as well as the general issues of TPF shipments, packaging, support standards, documentation, and procedures.

• Welcome
• Presentations
• Identify all Tape NSVs for a Given Dump - Michael Shershin (IBM)
• Name Value Pair Area Enhancements - Michael Shershin (IBM)
• ECB Heap Enhancements - Part 2 - Gabe Nieves (IBM)
• VFILE from VSSI: File Transfer - Shaken, not Stirred - Rick Troth (VSSI)

3:15pm - 3:30pm Break

3:30pm - 4:55pm Subcommittee Meeting - Application Development

Addresses issues related to development of applications for the zTPF environment, including the application program interface presented by zTPF, programming language compilers, development, and test tools, and development methodologies.

• Welcome
• Presentations
• Glibc Update - JT Plotzke (IBM)
• DFDL Enhancements - Bradd Kadlecik (IBM)
• zDFExplorer - Intelligent Data Navigation for z/TPFDF - TSI

5:00pm – 6:00pm Monday's Hot Topics

• Hot Topic 1 - TBD
• Hot Topic 2 - TBD

6:30pm - 9:30pm TPF Users Group Reception and Special Program

• Location: Stillery Midtown
• Address: 1921 Broadway, Nashville TN 37203
  615-760-5158
• More Info: Stillery Midtown

Tuesday - March 24th, 2026

7:30am - 6:00pm Registration Open

7:45am - 9:00am Breakfast provided by TPFUG

9:00am - 10:50am Subcommittee Meeting - Development Tools

Addresses TPF Toolkit and other source development tools. This includes test tools, zTPFGI, VPARs, VTAPE, and other third-party products.

• Welcome
• Presentations
• TPF Documentation: Generative AI vs Tool-based approach - Nayan Zaveri (Crazy Ideas)
• z/TPFGI Update - What's New - TSI
• z/TPF Development Visual Studio Code Extension - Matt Gritter (IBM)
• z/TPF Debugger - Kathleen Chalas

10:50am - 11:05am Break

11:05am - 11:45am Subcommittee Meeting - Development Tools (Continued)

• Presentations (Continued)
• AI-enabled Mainframe Modernization and Migration - Infosys Perspective & Capabilities - Sudheer Guduri (Infosys)
• Agentic AI AAVA for TPF documentation - Nagendra Honavalli (Ascendion)

11:45am - 12:05pm Subcommittee Meeting - Database

Addresses all issues related to TPF Database/TPFDF, Business Events, Recoup, Pools, and the file systems in TPF. This includes DASD file systems.

• Welcome
• Presentations
• Mainframe and MongoDB - Stephen Spence (Travelport)

12:05pm - 1:05pm Lunch provided by TPFUG

1:05pm - 2:40pm Subcommittee Meeting - Database (Continued)

• Presentations (Continued)
• Business Event Error Handling Enhancements -Austin Frank (IBM)
• z/TPF Support for MongoDB version 8.0 - Austin Frank (IBM)
• TPFDF Performance and Storage Improvements - Chris Filachek (IBM)
• z/TPF Database Usage and Analysis - Chris Filachek (IBM)

2:40pm - 3:00pm Subcommittee Meeting - Communications

Addresses TCP/IP, MQSeries and inter-processor communications, including MPIF, OSA, etc.

• Presentations
• 64-bit MQ Limited Browse and What's Next for z/TPF MQ - Jamie Farmer (IBM)

3:00pm - 3:15pm Break

3:15pm - 4:55pm Subcommittee Meeting - Communications (Continued)

• Presentations (Continued)
• Remote Certificate Expiration Monitoring and Security Improvements - Jamie Farmer (IBM)
• Future TPF IP Routing Solution - Jamie Farmer (IBM)
• HTTP/2 Support for Enhanced HTTP Client - Claire Durant (IBM)
• z/TPF Support for OpenTelemetry Automatic Trace Context Propagation for REST - Josh Wisniewski (IBM)

5:00pm - 6:00pm Tuesday's Hot Topics

• TBD
• TBD

6:00pm - 9:00pm Vendor Reception and Exhibition Programs

• Location: Row Kitchen & Pub
• Address: 110 Lyle Avenue, Nashville, TN 37203
  629-263-7418
• More Info: The Row Kitchen & Pub

Wednesday - March 25th, 2026

7:30am - 9:00am Registration Open

7:45am - 9:00am Breakfast provided by TPFUG

9:00am - 10:30am Ongoing TPF Education

• The New z/TPF Developer Experience - Zach Polleck (IBM)

10:30am - 10:45am Break

10:45am - 11:30am General Session

• Introductions / Announcements / Membership Roster Updates
• Board of Directors Report
• Financial Report
• Subcommittee Reports
• Requirements Subcommittee Session
• Welcome/Introduction
• Requirement Submission and Voting
• Conference Adjournment