IBM's System i executives are once again setting forth on a UK tour with their In-Touch Update events.

"We're less than four months into the year and IBM has made a wide range of announcements -- Version 6 Release 1 of the operating system and a completely refreshed range of hardware based upon POWER6 processors," says Nigel Adams, IBM's UKISA i5/OS product manager. "These events are aimed at updating customers on all these latest announcements, including detail on some of the most important software announcements and a run-through of the new hardware range."

The In-Touch events have become something of an annual fixture and this year they take the form of free-to-attend morning sessions that are rounded off by lunch. The dates and venues are: April 22, IBM Edinburgh; April 23, IBM Leeds; April 24, IBM Manchester; April 29, IBM Warwick, April 30, IBM Bedfont Lakes (near Heathrow); and May 01, IBM South Bank (London).

Sessions will kick off with an overview of IBM's brand-new Power Systems hardware range that replaces the Systems i and p, plus a good look at the new capabilities of the operating system previously known as i5/OS (now IBM i). There will then be a presentation of the new opportunities that have been opened up now that IBM i can run on Big Blue's blades.

The events will finish off with a look at IBM's System i High Availability Solutions Manager (HASM) disk-based clustering solution as well as the DataMirror iCluster HA offering and SAN disk storage support.

Further details and registration can be found here.