Benoit's Field Notes

A few notes on AI & Agentic Engineering, IBM i & IBM Z, Cloud Design Patterns, IoT, and DevOps — all drawn from real customer engagements as an AI Engineer at IBM Client Engineering EMEA, based in Montpellier 🇫🇷

Content grows continuously with each project and enablement session. Reach out on LinkedIn — always happy to connect.

Event: Bob & Premium Package for i — Partner Enablement, Oct 8th 2026

Posted on October 8, 2026

Free 2-hour online workshop for IBM Business Partners — spot the IBM i opportunity, deep-dive into Bob Premium Package for i 2.0, and explore agentic AI possibilities. [Read More]
IBM Bob On-Premises: Agentic AI Without Leaving Your Data Center

Posted on October 1, 2026

IBM Bob On-Premises brings the full agentic AI coding assistant inside your own infrastructure — no data leaves your network. Critical for regulated industries, IBM i, and IBM Z shops. [Read More]
IBM Bob in EMEA: Leading the Agentic AI Wave in Enterprise

Posted on September 28, 2026

What I've learned running IBM Bob with enterprise customers across EMEA — from first demos to production, and why IBM i is where Bob has the most impact. [Read More]
IBM Z Application Modernization with Bob

Posted on September 25, 2026

Bob reads COBOL, explains JCL, generates zUnit tests, and scaffolds z/OS Connect REST APIs — making mainframe code legible and evolvable without a big-bang rewrite. [Read More]
IBM i for Beginners: The Most Underrated Platform in Enterprise IT

Posted on September 18, 2026

IBM i runs a surprising share of global commerce. Here's what it actually is, why it matters in 2026, and how to start learning it — with hands-on labs. [Read More]
IBM Redbook: Modernizing IBM i Applications with AI

Posted on August 11, 2026

Co-authored IBM Redbook on modernizing IBM i applications using AI — covering Bob, agentic workflows, RPG comprehension, test generation, API enablement and Infrastructure as Code. [Read More]
IBM Bob Expands: Premium Packages, New Architecture, Enterprise Control

Posted on July 1, 2026

Premium packages for specialized domains (IBM i, IBM Z, Java), a new decoupled architecture, and centralized enterprise controls — the announcement that changed how I position Bob. [Read More]
IBM i Application Modernization with Bob

Posted on February 4, 2026

The full IBM i modernization journey with Bob — code comprehension, RPGUnit test generation, DDS-to-DDL migration, REST API spec, and Ansible IaC. All from a single lab. [Read More]
IoT & Big Data: From Sensor to Dashboard, via IBM i

Posted on October 1, 2025

End-to-end IoT pipelines for engineering and business school students — MQTT, Node-RED, time-series storage, and real-time dashboards connected to IBM i business data. [Read More]
Cloud Design Patterns: Event-Driven, CDC, and Mesh Architectures

Posted on August 29, 2025

Real cloud design patterns from a Polytech Montpellier course — Kafka event streaming, Debezium CDC from IBM i, and data mesh concepts applied to enterprise modernization. [Read More]
AI Engineering with IBM Bob: The Agentic Revolution for Enterprise

Posted on May 29, 2024

How IBM Bob transforms enterprise software engineering — and the ibmi-assistant prototype that explored LLM-powered assistance for IBM i before Bob existed. [Read More]
IoT Meets IBM i: Real-Time Dashboards with VMS and Event Streaming

Posted on May 16, 2023

Connecting industrial IoT sensors to IBM i business systems via Kafka — a real production pattern for predictive maintenance and operational intelligence. [Read More]
Infrastructure as Code for IBM i: Ansible, DevOps, and the MOP Way

Posted on January 30, 2023

Ansible automation for IBM i system management — library backups, user profiles, PTFs, IFS operations — structured as Method of Procedure runbooks for safe, auditable system changes. [Read More]
DevOps for IBM i: Git, CI/CD, and the Merlin Experience

Posted on June 27, 2022

IBM Merlin brings Git, CI/CD pipelines, and automated RPGUnit testing to IBM i — the DevOps experience developers have been waiting for. [Read More]
API-Enabling IBM i with IWS and TAI Security

Posted on April 12, 2022

Expose IBM i RPG service programs as REST APIs using IWS — no code change — and secure them with OAuth2/JWT via Trust Association Interceptors for enterprise API gateways. [Read More]
Data Fabric & AI: watsonx.data, Governance, and the Unified Data Layer

Posted on February 28, 2022

IBM watsonx.data as the open lakehouse for unified federated queries across IBM i Db2 and cloud data stores — with the RetailOne reference architecture. [Read More]
Archive: App Mod, AI, Cloud & IoT — Early Field Materials (2019–2020)

Posted on December 1, 2020

An archive of early field materials — presentations, demos and videos on IBM i App Modernization, OpenShift, Watson ML, H2O Driverless AI, Node-RED, IoT and more from 2019–2020. [Read More]
Node-RED & Watson IoT: Prototyping Connected Systems

Posted on May 19, 2019

Node-RED and Watson IoT Platform labs for university sessions — a practical introduction to event-driven IoT pipelines, and the origin of node-red-contrib-db2-for-i. [Read More]
Machine Learning on IBM i with scikit-learn

Posted on May 14, 2019

A first experiment running scikit-learn ML models on Db2 for i data — proving in 2019 that IBM i is a first-class ML platform with no infrastructure changes needed. [Read More]

Event: Bob & Premium Package for i — Partner Enablement, Oct 8th 2026

IBM Bob On-Premises: Agentic AI Without Leaving Your Data Center

IBM Bob in EMEA: Leading the Agentic AI Wave in Enterprise

IBM Z Application Modernization with Bob

IBM i for Beginners: The Most Underrated Platform in Enterprise IT

IBM Redbook: Modernizing IBM i Applications with AI

IBM Bob Expands: Premium Packages, New Architecture, Enterprise Control

IBM i Application Modernization with Bob

IoT & Big Data: From Sensor to Dashboard, via IBM i

Cloud Design Patterns: Event-Driven, CDC, and Mesh Architectures

AI Engineering with IBM Bob: The Agentic Revolution for Enterprise

IoT Meets IBM i: Real-Time Dashboards with VMS and Event Streaming

Infrastructure as Code for IBM i: Ansible, DevOps, and the MOP Way

DevOps for IBM i: Git, CI/CD, and the Merlin Experience

API-Enabling IBM i with IWS and TAI Security

Data Fabric & AI: watsonx.data, Governance, and the Unified Data Layer

Archive: App Mod, AI, Cloud & IoT — Early Field Materials (2019–2020)

Node-RED & Watson IoT: Prototyping Connected Systems

Machine Learning on IBM i with scikit-learn