Join us for CMG’s Regional Event in Toronto, an exclusive, in-person gathering bringing together industry experts, technology leaders, and practitioners to explore the intersection of Mainframe and Artificial Intelligence. Hosted at IBM Markham, this one-day event will feature insightful presentations, real-world case studies, and interactive discussions on how AI is transforming mainframe operations, security, and application development.

**Don’t miss this opportunity to engage with experts and peers at the forefront of Mainframe & AI innovation.**

IBM Canada Software Lab
8200 Warden Ave., Markham, ON L6G 1C7

Jul 28, 2026 08:30am ET – Jul 28, 2026 05:00pm ET

 

 

Thank You To Our Sponsor!

 

 

 

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Sessions

9:15 AM – From AIOps to Agentic Systems: Why Monitoring Is Not Enough (and Never Was)

Presenter: Arvid Trubin, TruTech Development, LLC

Most AIOps solutions today detect and explain anomalies, but they rarely act. In critical environments like IBM Z mainframes, this gap can prevent true operational resilience. This presentation argues that effective AIOps requires a shift from passive observation to autonomous control, built on a foundation of rigorous workload modeling.

Drawing on a patent-backed framework, the session will explore the progression from simple metrics to autonomous infrastructure, including workload modeling that connects business activity to system resource consumption, context-aware analysis that segments diverse workloads for more precise service-level decisions, and automated execution that enables true agentic capabilities.

Attendees will learn why reliable system models are a prerequisite for self-healing infrastructure and how organizations can evolve from reactive monitoring to proactive, autonomous control.

10:00 AM – One Conversation, Complete Visibility: AI is Redefining Mainframe Observability

Presenter: Michael Kiehl, Senior Manager, Product Management | AIOps & Automation, Mainframe Software Division | Broadcom

Imagine asking a single question and watching AI investigate across your entire z/OS environment — correlating performance metrics with console messages, tracing dependencies across CICS, MQ, DB2, and IMS, and delivering a purpose-built dashboard. We’ll showcase how AI and autonomous agents are reshaping the mainframe observability landscape, and we’ll be honest about what we’ve learned along the way including security considerations.

11:00 AM – An Introduction and Update to Mainframes

Presenter: Jonathan Gladstone, IT Educator & Consultant

Mainframes continue to power many of the world’s most demanding business systems, yet they remain one of the least understood enterprise platforms. This course-based badge session provides a structured introduction to modern mainframe computing, explaining how today’s IBM Z systems support high-volume transaction processing, virtualization, resiliency, security, and hybrid enterprise architectures.

Participants will gain a practical understanding of mainframe architecture, workload management, system configuration, and key cost considerations, while exploring how the platform has evolved to support cloud integration, AI, and modern application development. Whether you’re new to the mainframe or looking to refresh your knowledge, this session offers a solid foundation for understanding why mainframes remain a critical part of enterprise IT.

 

12:15 PM – 1:15 PM | Lunch & Networking (60 min)

 

1:15 PM – Move Beyond Silos: Unify Your MF Observability and ITSM Tools for Effective Mainframe Service Management

Presenter: Matheus Milani – Product Manager, The WatchTower Platform, Mainframe Software Division | Broadcom

Go beyond the silo. Join us to see how you can transform your Mainframe ITSM and ServiceNow implementation by leveraging WatchTower to provide the unified data you need for proactive and efficient operations. Combined observability can speed problem-solving, identify and resolve problems faster, and move you from a reactive to a proactive operational model. Map Mainframe dependencies to the CMDB for proactive issue prevention and easier management. Improve efficiency and reduce errors!

 

2:15 PM – Behind the Build: A Tour of the IBM Markham Lab

Presenter: Ben Castle, IBM

Go behind the scenes at the IBM Markham Lab, home to Canada’s largest software development lab and one of IBM’s largest software development centers worldwide.

Join Ben Castle for a guided tour showcasing the technologies, innovation spaces, and collaborative engineering environment where IBM teams develop enterprise software, AI, hybrid cloud, and automation solutions. Attendees will gain insight into how IBM engineers bring new technologies from concept to production while supporting organizations around the world.

Whether you’re interested in IBM Z, AI, software engineering, or enterprise innovation, this tour offers a unique opportunity to experience one of IBM’s premier development facilities and learn more about the people, processes, and technologies shaping the future of enterprise computing.

 

3:00 PM – GenAI-Infused Tools for Z: An AI-Powered Mainframe Resilience Platform — Solutions vs. Alerts

Presenter: Jack Jia, IBM Software

This session will explore how AI-powered IT operations management platforms can help organizations simplify operations, proactively manage risks, and improve resiliency by unifying siloed data into actionable insights.

The presentation will focus on the shift from alerts to solutions, including observability across infrastructure, anomaly detection, proactive remediation, and expert guidance supported by generative AI.

Attendees will see these concepts illustrated using IBM Concert for Z as a use case, showing how GenAI-infused tools can help teams isolate and diagnose operational issues, collect events and metrics from disparate data sources, and support faster resolution of mainframe operational challenges.

 

4:00 PM – AI Lightning Talks: How to Improve Performance with AI

Presenter: Anoush Najarian, Software Engineering Manager, MathWorks
Presenter: Sindhuja Parimalarangan, Senior Performance Engineer on the MATLAB Performance team, MathWorks
Presenter: Nayara Aguiar, Senior Performance Engineer, MathWorks

AI coding agents are quickly changing how teams approach software development, testing, and optimization. In this lightning talk session, MathWorks experts will share real examples of how AI-assisted development has helped improve performance for customers — and how attendees can apply similar approaches in their own work.

The session will feature three focused talks:

• Performance Skills in the MATLAB Agentic Toolkit, Presented by Anoush Najarian
• Speeding Up the FSDA Toolbox with AI, Presented by Sindhuja Parimalarangan
• Performance Optimization of Generated Code for Embedded AI, Presented by Nayara Gomes de Aguiar

Together, these talks will explore how AI coding agents, performance-focused skills, and optimization techniques can help developers identify opportunities for improvement, streamline workflows, and produce faster, more efficient code.

Attendees will leave with practical insight into how AI can support performance improvements across MATLAB workflows, toolboxes, and embedded AI applications and how to apply this in their own work.