We are pleased to announce the European Operations Technical Conference (EOTC) 2014.

The conference will be held from Monday, March 17 through Friday, March 21, 2014 in the IBM Lab in Boeblingen, Germany. Conference language will be English.
The conference is a 2 track event:
•    First track is focused on Mainframe (z/OS) themes  with IBM Tivoli System Automation for z/OS and IBM Tivoli NetView for z/OS.                                                    This track will be held from Monday, March 17 (1 PM) through Wednesday, March 19 (5 PM).
•    Second track extends out into the enterprise and is focused on the distributed systems, especially IBM Tivoli System Automation for Multiplatforms and IBM Tivoli System Automation Application Manager.                                                                                                                                                                                                         This track will be held from Wednesday, March 19 (1 PM) through Friday, March 21 (1 PM).

Additionally we plan to provide workshops running in parallel to the presentations for both tracks.

This conference addresses the needs of System, Network and Automation Administrators.  Sessions are presented by representatives from IBM software development teams and YOU, the product exploiters.  Interaction and feedback is both expected and encouraged.
Topics cover a range of IBM system management products, including IBM Tivoli System Automation Family and IBM Tivoli NetView for z/OS. Other topics might be GDPS, OMEGAMON, z/OS Automation Infrastructure, TWS and the IBM Tivoli Systems Management strategy.

Discussions can include product futures and requirements.

As last year we will again require all attendees to sign a non-disclosure agreement. This allows all speakers to talk freely about product futures and plans.

Customer presentations are not only very welcome and appreciated but extremely necessary as a contribution to the success of this conference. I'd like to encourage you to pass on any suggestions.

With the decision to make this early announcement we want to give you the chance to ask early for your travel approvals.

Also we are sure that this gives time to collect interesting project work into a presentation for the EOTC 2014.  Please send your session titles, together with a small abstract and the planned duration as soon as possible. The registration process will start by begin of next year. Keep in mind that if the agenda is filled the chance to get entrance to the conference without conference fee is gone!

For the z/OS track we expect a conference fee of € 280,00. For the distributed track we expect a conference fee of € 180,00. If you are going to attend both tracks the overall fee will be € 400,00. The fee will be charged to all GSE members who attend (except speakers).
Non GSE members have to pay an additional amount of EUR 100,00, but this additional amount is taken into account when a GSE membership contract is signed within 2014.
Travel, lodging and other expenses must be covered by the attendees (including speakers).

Registration will be done in the same way as last year but you will get a separate invitation when we are ready with the registration process.

Please send the internet mailing address and the company name of anyone who is interested to get more information once the registration is opened to  gfrey@de.ibm.com .  Also please send session proposals to this address.