Tag: meeting

OpenWorld 2010: ACE Director Meeting – Day 1

Yesterday started by me waking up at silly o’clock. The joys of international travel. At least I can see on twitter that I’m not alone. 🙂

ACE Director Meeting – Day 1

Since we are not allowed to talk about the content of the meeting, I’m only going to mention the opening talk by Thomas Kurian who gave an overview of the big announcements at OpenWorld this year.

Now you people out there know how cynical I am at times and how underwhelmed I’ve been about some of the previous years big announcements. Well this year I’m blown away. I’m genuinely excited about the events this year. I’ve read some of the press speculation and quite frankly they have all underestimated this years OpenWorld by several orders of magnitude. The press are going to be hit by a barrage of new stuff right across the company. I defy anyone who truly understands enterprise computing to not be impressed by the breadth and scale of the announcements this year.

The thing I liked most about Thomas Kurian’s talk was the passion he delivered it with. I’m not talking about that crazy Ballmer on crack football coach fake crap. I’m talking real passion for the products and the direction of the company.

From my own perspective, I think Oracle taking over Sun was the best thing that could ever have happened to Sun. I know a lot of the Sun fanboys would disagree, but let’s be real. Sun was terminally ill. They had lots of good people, lots of good technology, but were incapable of giving it any direction at all. They were a mess. The only way they were going to survive was by getting some vision. Enter uncle Larry. I must admit to not understanding Oracle’s motives for the Sun deal, but this year it’s all starting to make sense to me. I look forward to seeing the press frenzy.

The evening was quite sedate. Just some food in the bar then bed. I woke up again at silly o’clock this morning. Once again, lots of ACEDs on twitter obviously suffering the same timezone issues. The early rise allowed me to get myself up to date and do some Yoga, which was great after a day of travelling and a day of sitting in meetings.

The downside of doing Yoga in a hotel room is they tend to have a lot of mirrors. In my head I know I look like Brad Pitt in Fight Club, but there was this fat, hairy guy staring back at me in various contorted positions. Quite off putting. 🙂

Next stop, round 2 of the ACE Directors meeting…

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle ACE Director meeting and stuff…

The ACE Director meeting went well yesterday. On the database base side there were a couple of really neat things mentioned that they are considering for the next release. As usual it’s all a big secret, so it looks like I’ve got to keep my fingers crossed and my gob shut for a couple of years…

Lots of the other stuff went over my head. I’m just a DB guy, so the middleware and SOA stuff confuses me. 🙂

The prototype of the Oracle games console was awesome. Can’t wait to see what impact it has on the gaming sector. I think it’s going to strike fear into the hearts of Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony.

It’s was cool to hook up with all the usual suspect, and meet a few new faces.

After the meeting it was a very jerky bus trip into the city to check into the InterContinental hotel. I’m so close to the Moscone Convention Center that if I threw myself out of my 19th floor window I would practically be in/on Moscone West, albeit rather flat. My room is awesome.

In the evening I went out with a couple of the guys to a local Irish bar where Anjo forced me to drink beer. He really is a very bad influence on me. Doug Burns bailed on us. Probably suffering from “jet lag” again.

So I have today off before the circus comes to town tomorrow. I’m a combination of exited, nervous, daunted and tired.

On a slightly different note, I actually cleared my inbox for the first time in several months. I feel an air of calm descending over me… 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle ACE Directors Meeting…

Today was the Oracle ACE Directors meeting from 10:00-16:00.

Database:

As far as the database was concerned, I was hoping we would get a sneak preview of the much hailed “Big Announcement” planned for Larry Ellison’s keynote speech on Wednesday. Unfortunately all attempts to draw something out of Mark Townsend resulted in phrases like, “Wait until Wednesday!”

This is certainly increasing the intensity of speculation. I just hope it lives up to the hype. At least it’s hype about the database I suppose. 🙂

There wasn’t much on a technical level I’ve not already covered as part of my 11g OCP notes, but there were a few things that helped me understand the bigger picture of what Oracle 11g is trying to achieve. It just puts things into context a bit, rather than thinking of things as individual features.

Other snippets include:

  • The 11.1.0.7 patchset comes with a little something extra. The Graphical Explain Plan Monitor from Grid Control is now part of Enterprise Manager. Mark did a demo of this feature and it looks really neat.
  • The 11gR2 beta program is just about to start. I was kinda expecting an announcement about 11gR2 during the conference, but it seems this is a little way off yet.
  • There were a multitude of, “we may or may not be announcing this feature this week”, statements. I’m not sure what can be published, so I’ll just point you to Lewis Cunningham, who has already listed some of them. 🙂

Middleware and Apps

As far as the middleware and applications were concerned, I’ve come away feeling more confused than when I went in. The recent aquisitions mean there are a whole bunch of overlapping products and it is not always clear which you should pick. All products will eventually have a smooth transition to 11g Fusion Middleware, but that is some way off. Currently, it feels safer to keep your head in the sand and wait for 11g Fusion Middleware. That said, I think what they will end up with will be a killer app server… probably…

I’m feeling relatively in the swing of the SF timezone, which is a big improvement from last year. So it’s out to meet the bloggers later. A couple of years ago this was a small affair. It seems like this year half the conference will turn up. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…