conferences

Michigan OakTable Symposium (MOTS) is a unique event taking place just before Oracle OpenWorld — 16-17 September. Why unique? This is the first conference (is it not?) where all presenters are members of OakTable Network, a group that gathers number of like-minded IT professionals with scientific approach to Oracle database technology and to the life in general.

It happens in Ann Arbor, Michigan — a place I wanted to visit for a very long time. For those of you who are cost conscious and don’t have much in their education budget, this conference is a great value priced at a third of the Oracle OpenWorld pass and I can assure you that quality of presentations is on par with or higher then the top Oracle OpenWorld sessions. The conference is organized by volunteers from OakTable Network and few good friends as a non-commercial event so you will hear no marketing crap whatsoever.

Unlike, huge OpenWorld crowd, which has always intimidated me a little bit, MOTS is going to be a cozy event with strictly limited cap of only 300 participants – ideal size to support peer networking and opportunity to mingle with some of the folks you’ve been dying to talk to.

I especially enjoyed this video promotion:

My immediate reaction on the OakTable list was:

Am I hallucinating or I just saw the image of me right next to Cary, Mogens and Jonathan? As much as I’d be proud, I’d never qualify myself as deserving such comparison.

And Mogens clarified it:

The order in which we appear is based on TAOACDOEL (Total Amount Of Alcohol Consumed During Ones Entire Lifetime – pronounced “tao-AC-dole”). You’re still young, so you only made 4th position.

Updated: 29-Jun-2010, 30-Jun-2010.

For me, ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2010 started on Friday with the ACE Directors briefing. Best practices topic was touched there slightly and I twitted about it. I decided that the feedback deserves a blog post so I’m simply quoting the conversation here. If you have anything to add, you know where to find the comment box.

It is time… Time for one more very special conference for me. Why special?

1. I have never been to ODTUG Kaleidoscope before. I always like new conferences — new experience.
2. Unlike Sheeri, I do not speak! This is one of those rare conferences where I come to slack off, meet old friends and make new ones, go to lots of sessions and actually learn stuff.
3. Coming from the DBA background, it’s not often that I come to development oriented conferences and I think I should do more of that.
4. It’s in Washington, DC. I lived there for some time and have number of good friends there. I’m really excited to see them again!

So what am I going to do there? I just arrived and right in time for the Oracle ACE Directors’ briefing that will run for the whole days of Friday. This is a super secret meeting where Oracle’s super secret plans are shared. Nobody can talk about that after this meeting or their tongues are cut off on the spot. For those of you who didn’t realize I’m joking, the ACE Director’s briefing is where Oracle shares the roadmap of its products — some of it is long term strategy and some is about the upcoming releases. There are few things that we are asked not to share in public but, frankly, there is nothing really sensitive. One of the most interesting parts of the briefing are the Q&A moments when all kind of questions get asked (sometimes tough ones) and, to the most parts, gets answered.

It took me the same time to get to the hotel from Dulles International Airport as flying from Ottawa. Oh well, the beauty of DC traffic. Now I’m sitting at the back of the room enjoying the demo of the new APEX 4.0 and quietly having a bite. I see quite a few familiar faces (or rather backs) that I’m about to say hello to (pending the next break).

I’ve never attended the North California Oracle User Group Conferences even though they are organized every quarter. However, I’ve been always jealous of the great agenda they put together. A couple months ago, Chen Shapira reminded me once again that the next NoCOUG conference was coming up and asked whether I would be able to come to present. What a chance, I thought, easy to plan as I have no other conferences in May.

So, at NoCOUG Spring Conference 2010 in just 10 days, I’ll be doing my two hour long presentation — Demystifying Oracle RAC Workload Management. If it’s your local conference, I hope you can attend and say hello. You might also want to download the whitepaper that I put together few years ago for Hotsos Symposium — Oracle RAC Workload Management.

The conference is free to members of NoCOUG and only $50 to non-members but it would make more sense to just join the user group as its annual fees are unbelievably low — I couldn’t say it better than Iggy Fernandez did:

How much does a NoCOUG membership cost? It doesn’t cost $400, as you might expect to pay for so much educational value. It doesn’t cost $300 and it doesn’t cost $200. It doesn’t even cost $100. Yes, a calendar-year NoCOUG membership only costs $95! Won’t you join today?

As the the Icelandic volcano ashes are clearing out and we finally have high hopes of flight home, I want to post the slides of the two presentations I did.

My first presentation was a double slot session about Oracle Clusterware internals. Presenting first thing in the morning on the first day is not easy at this event. Miracle Open World traditionally organized as 160% conference with 80% of technical content and 80% of networking and social interactions. Of course, the last 80% go deep into the night. Needless to say that 5am wake up call was tough — I had to craft few more slides to add some 11gR2 information and publish the first production of We Do Not Use TV Studio.

But I felt surprisingly well and fresh. The presentation itself was quite dynamic and all demos worked as planned except pausing OPROCD — 50/50 that eviction happens during my actions and it took me 10 time to repeat it. I couldn’t recall that I was lucky more than twice in a row until that session but… things happen. You can see the slides below for the reference. However, without the text and demos behind the slides, they are not very useful I’m afraid.

I’m in Denmark these days at the wonderful Oracle conference organized by Miracle A/S — Miracle OpenWorld 2010. This is the sort of 80/80 conferences that we all love — we spend 80% of our time on technical content and 80% on networking with your peer. Of course, you have to sacrifice something like sleep but such is life.

Opening session was something special this year (as if it’s non-special any other year) — Jonathan Lewis was talking about something that he admitted he is not an expert in! He was presenting about Microsoft SQL Server and whether it’s and Enterprise-ready RDBMS. His conclusions were positive.

The opening was rounded up with a new film production demo from We Do Not Use TV Studio.

Of course, the strongest continued in the party house as usual. This year it was Mogen’s house and I still didn’t see him this morning. Because my presentation starts at 9am in the morning I had to leave the party early but we still managed to stick around past 1am sipping very nice and smooth tequila brought by Graham Wood.

Time to grab a bite and get ready to my dual-slot presentation — Under the Hood of Oracle Clusterware which is the very first presentation of today. More to come — stay tuned.

[One thing that's great about jet-lag is that it allows you to catch up on blogging and all the email that's built up while you've been away at the conference. Not much else you can do at 2:30 in the morning.]

I'm glad I went to the Hotsos Symposium again this year. Attending conferences is an expensive business when you're a contractor as it means more lost income, so I can't go to every conference I'd like to attend but this one should probably remain near the top of my list.

Lows

- My presentation, obviously. There was a funny moment in the office today when I was looking at the OEM Top Activity page - because, yet again, it had highlighted a performance problem we were previously unaware of - and our architect said perhaps I shouldn't be using it because I couldn't be trusted not to break OEM!

- Somehow contriving to miss both of Richard Foote's presentations but at least I was able to enjoy his entertaining company at dinner one night.

- The weather - not what I had in mind at all!

Highs

- The people, as always. Not only are there lots of smart speakers and attendees at Hotsos, but the informal setting makes it easier to catch up with them. It was particularly good to get time to speak properly to a few people I've only met briefly before, buy Kerry Osborne that beer and to see Polish Paul Matuszyk there after I recommended it to him 4 years ago! As for Monique, she's one of a kind

I generally wouldn't visit the Hotsos Training Day, mainly because I've been away from home and work for long enough, particularly when you add the travelling time at either end, but this time I was determined to attend because Tanel was presenting.

It was a busy room with a very high percentage of attendees staying for the additional day. I suppose once people were actually allowed out of the office in the current economic climate, they figured they might as well pack in as much learning as they could. Tanel described it as one of the peaks of his career and I can understand that. It's an honour to present at the Symposium, so a whole day must be a pretty special privliege, but he's more than earned it with the number of good presentations and blog posts he's come up with.

It didn't get off to a good start, though, as there was a problem with the focus of the projectors, but that was soon adjusted a little and people were happy as long as it was good enough to read the text.

Speaking of text, he kicked off spending quite a bit of time talking about using the right tools for the job - sqlplus, basically - and how we can make our own performance more efficient before we even start looking at performance issues. Make no mistake - despite having a love of pictures these days, I'm fundamentally a command line chap who frequently finds himself doing the things Tanel talked about, which consequently made me chuckle.

- When diagnosing Oracle problems reported by others, I ask them to stop using TOAD, their JDBC application or whatever it is they're using and login to sqlplus. Once the problem is recreated there, I know it's a real problem.

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There she goes, squirreling into the corner of your carry-on.  Ready for another adventure.  Tucked between a fun floppy hat and the flourescent sun-block, of which she uses plenty, pale creature that she is, Monique is situated to prove to you that a seasoned traveller knows best.  Dressed in a curly mohair (so as not to show the wrinkles that betray one new to the jet set) and sporting a pale chiffon scarf - to double as a disquise in those cities where she is already known for her somewhat silly escapades - she seems to wink at you and beckon you along.  Forget your cares, but by no means your playing cards, and step lightly into whatever dreams your next voyage should hold for you:  let Monique be your guide.  

Her very presence alleviates all the maladies brought on by the jostling of trains, the dipping of ships, the swerving of buses and even by the simple fact that you are far from home.  For she has discovered the secret to successful travel; with the exception of the luscious few minutes in the X-ray machine, where she delights in making funny faces at the operators searching for more dangerous contents.  Monique never looks back.

Charleen Kinser Designs

(With thanks to Carol Dacko for bringing along an interesting dinner companion for my own cuddly friends. Somehow I doubt they'll ever be the same - she's terribly sophisticated for my lot!)

I heard someone bemoaning the lack of Swag at Hotsos - just an event program, couple of magazines and a small clockwork toy sponsored by Oracle. I don't think I ever come to the Symposium expecting Swag - it's just not that kind of event. But you do tend to get good speaker gifts, including the best speaker gift I ever received. This year, it's a digital photo frame.

As for that clockwork toy, the Cuddly Toys think it's *brilliant*!!! At first, their reaction was "What's THAT?!" then when I wound it up and let it dance in front of them, they fell in love.

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The only thing is that it doesn't run for long per wind-up, so my right wrist is aching from them continually beggind me to "Do it again, Douglas!"

Then again, their reaction wasn't quite as relaxed as when they met Carol Dacko's friend while we were at the restaurant. Apologies for the quality of the photo, it was dark in there, but at least it proves that Little H and Chris were allowed out for dinner and that not all Cuddly Toys are made the same.

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They were just stunned by their new friend. What's THAT?

All will be revealed in the next post ....