Work and Oracle ACE Director… (again)

Work (or not)

The company I work for was taken over 2 years ago and I’ve been waiting since then to see what the result of this takeover would be. In that time loads of staff have left and it’s been a bit of a nightmare.

Yesterday I had a meeting where I had to make some decisions about my future in the company. As most of my colleagues already know, I don’t believe there is a role for someone like me in a company like this, so I’ve made the decision that our paths should diverge.

The result of this is that some time in the next 12 months I’ve got to get off my ass and find a new job. At this point I don’t have a clue what I want to do next. I guess time will reveal all.

Oracle ACE Director

On a more pleasant note, I’ve been invited to become an Oracle ACE Director!

My initial reaction was, “We’re not worthy”, but then I decided it would be a cool thing to do. I’m waiting for clarification of the level of commitment required before actually accepting the offer. Most of the commitments are things I already do, but others include:

  • Attend annual Oracle ACE Directors’ meeting at Oracle Open World
  • Attend most web conferences with product team
  • Attend local Oracle event(s)
  • Present at non-Oracle event(s)

For someone like me, with no company backing, this is actually quite a big commitment. All the time comes out of my holidays and all the expenses come out of my pocket. Committing to Open World every year in itself is quite a financial drain. I guess guys from big consulting companies do this as part of their job already, but for me it involves putting my hands in my own pockets.

Over the next few days I’ll get some more feedback and have to make my decision. I like the sound of getting involved, but it may be a step too far for someone in my position.

Cheers

Tim…

ACE Director 2…

This morning I received and email detailing the merger of the ACE program with the Fusion Middleware Regional Director scheme. It’s a pity this mail didn’t come a couple of days earlier, then my “toys out of the pram” post yesterday wouldn’t have happened. I’m sure over the coming weeks the people I consider the stars of the Oracle world will be recognized as they should be.

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle ACE Director?

Eddie wrote about the New Oracle ACE and Website, which was news to me, so I thought I’d take a look. The new category of “Oracle ACE Director” supposedly signifies “a higher level of expectation in terms of community activity”.

I must admit to feeling there were definite tiers in the ACE program. I personally consider certain individuals to be on a different level to the rest of us mortals, so the introduction of an ACE++ seemed like a good idea.

When I looked at the list of people who are ACE Directors the cynic in me came out in full force and here’s why:

  1. Every ACE Director has expertise in “Oracle Fusion Middleware”. There is not a single person listed as an ACE Director from a Database Management or Development background. So knowledge of the database, the product that made Oracle great, is not worthy of any note.
  2. The majority of ACE Directors are newly assigned ACEs, with a few notable exceptions. So all the people who were previously deemed worthy of ACE-dom are not actually as worthy as the new kids on the block.
  3. In my opinion, some people stand head and shoulders above the other people in the list of ACEs. When I look through the list, none of the real stars of the Oracle community are listed as ACE Directors. It seems people like Tom Kyte, Jonathan Lewis and Steven Feuerstein (to mention just three) don’t currently qualify as having “a higher level of expectation in terms of community activity”. Are you sure?

I’m sure that some of these points will be rectified in the coming weeks, and I don’t want to put other people and their achievements down, but for the moment, this whole re-jig of the Oracle ACE program doesn’t look right to me.

Cheers

Tim…

UPDATE: I subsequently read the top “Oracle ACE News”story, which says,

“The Oracle ACE and Oracle Fusion Middleware Regional Director programs have merged, with the latter now being known as “Oracle ACE Directors.” Furthermore, Oracle Database experts (on management and app development) are now eligible to serve as Oracle ACE Directors as well.”

That explains a lot of my current gripes. Hopefully, the rest will be ironed out soon.

Transformers…

For the last year or more in the UK they have been showing a Citroen advert on TV with a car that turns into a robot then dances, ice skates and runs. The camera work on this advert is really clean and you can see everything really clearly. I went into the Transformers movie expecting to see something similar, which no doubt tainted my view of the movie.

It’s a good movie and no doubt deserves the 8/10 ratings people have been giving it, but there were two major drawbacks, which seem to be common to every film these days:

  • If I make it longer, it must be better! Wrong! Keep kids films like this under 90 minutes and they will go down a storm. Take them above 90 minutes and they become boring.
  • If I shake the camera it will look exciting! Wrong! It just makes me want to start fitting. It seems these days the only prerequisite for being a Hollywood camera person is to have an acute case of Parkinson’s.

Moaning aside, I enjoyed it, but with a few minor modifications I could have come out saying it was the best film I’ve ever seen.

Cheers

Tim…

A dose of the real world from Andy C…

I had to smile when I read Andy C’s latest post.

I don’t doubt the intention of the BAAG movement. I think most people would agree it makes sense, but sometimes you are forced into making decisions without the full weight of evidence behind you. In an ideal world you would go away, study the problem and come up with the correct solution, but management and customer demands don’t always make that possible.

It reminds me of a scene in Alien:

Ripley: Ash. Any suggestions from you or Mother?
Ash: No, we’re still collating.
Ripley: [Laughing in disbelief] You’re what? You’re still collating? I find that hard to believe.
Ash: What would you like me to do?
Ripley: Just what you’ve been doing, Ash, nothing.

And we all know who was the hero and who was the bad guy in that movie! 🙂

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting we should all be gung-ho random DBAs, but Andy’s post serves to remind me that my lofty ideals are not always possible or practical.

Cheers

Tim…

Where’s my forum and blog gone???

It appears my hosting provider had a few problems yesterday evening. I seem to have lost any of my database backed stuff, like the forum and blog for a few hours. I think most of the articles were still present, but I can’t be sure.

Anyway, this morning things seem back to normal. I guess it’s good to keep you all on your toes. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

PS. Doug, random off-topic posts are good. 🙂

Oracle 10g RAC using NFS…

I’ve mentioned it before, but I really like Kevin Closson‘s blog. For some time he’s been evangelizing about Oracle RAC over NFS, so I thought I would give it a go to see what it’s all about and here is the result.

Oracle 10g RAC On Linux Using NFS

I was only using two machines, and I didn’t have access to a NAS that supported NFS, so I was forced to use one of the RAC nodes as my NFS server. I know it’s a dumb idea, but it proves the technology.

If you are just playing about, the nice thing about this solution is you don’t need to worry about “real” shared storage. I prefer it to the VMware approach because you don’t need a single server with loads of memory to fake two virtual machines and the shared storage. Finding two poor machines is always easier than 1 good one. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

When is Oracle 11g released?

So all the pomp and ceremony is over and Oracle 11g is launched, but as yet I’ve not heard anything about a release date. Does anyone know when it is likely to hit the shelves. I kind-of though that was the big news, but as yet I’ve not seen any press releases or blog entries that specify a date. It’s not available for download on OTN yet, so I’m assuming the “Launch” and the “Release” are not the same thing.

Have I missed something?

Cheers

Tim…