OTN Tour of Latin America 2015 : AROUG, Argentina – Day 2

I mentioned in the previous post we were spending the day sightseeing today. Last time I was in Buenos Aires I did a bus tour. You can see some of the photos here.

This time Debra, Mike, Cindy and I went on a private tour in a minibus. I took the GoPro with me, so I’ve got a bunch of super wide angle photos (here). I’m sure anyone who does photography will laugh at them, but they look fine to me, so long as you look at them on a large screen. 🙂

It was a really nice day. We got back early, so Mike could go back to the conference to do his final session. Debra, Cindy and I spent the rest of the day chilling in the executive lounge at the Hilton, taking advantage of the free internet. It’s good when you are with people to have a good honors (not honours) status! 🙂

We were there for a few hours, but at about 20:00 we headed off for the airport. Debra also gets access to the lounge at the airport, so we spent 25 minutes there before heading for the plane.

I’ve already posted all my thank you messages, but once again, thanks Argentina! I hope to see you soon!

On the flight I watched Project Almanac, which was kind-of predictable, but good. After a little over two hours we were in Sau Paulo. Last time I came to Sau Paulo the taxi ride to the hotel was very slow as the traffic was a nightmare. Travelling at 02:00 meant the roads were quiet and we breezed through to the hotel. I was in bed by 03:00. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

OTN Tour of Latin America 2015 : AROUG, Argentina – Day 1

I woke up far too early and spent a few hours on the computer.

A number of folks on the tour have built up so many Hilton Honours points they get access to the executive lounge, so I was signed in as a scummy guest and I got breakfast for free. 🙂

At about 09:00 we walked across to the AROUG event, which had the following order of events.

  • The day started with an introduction to OTN and the ACE program by Pablo Ciccarello.
  • I was up next with my “Pluggable Databases : What they will break and why you should use them anyway!” talk. I had a full room and the response to it was really good. I got some good questions at the end and amazingly, I managed to finish on time. 🙂
  • Then came Debra Lilley with “PaaS4SaaS”.
  • Next up was “Controlling Execution Plans (without touching the code)” by Kerry Osborne. This was a double session, split by lunch.
  • After that was Mike Dietrich with his “How Oracle Single/Multitenant will change a DBA’s life” talk.
  • I closed the day with “It’s raining data! Oracle Databases in the Cloud’. Once again, a busy room and some good interaction with the audience. I’m not sure how many people feel ready for a move to the cloud, but the level of interest is definitely high.

I got really tired in the middle of the day. At one point I sat in a big chair and started to nod off, so I went out and got a giant cup of coffee, which perked me up. 🙂

There were a couple of the other speakers I was interested in seeing, but they weren’t presenting in English, so no luck there. 🙂

After the event we walked back to the hotel and I was coerced into drinking alcohol. Well actually, I just fancied it. 🙂 Due to the fact I rarely drink, I felt very drunk very quickly. My alcohol tolerance is truly pathetic. 🙂

From the bar we wandered over to meet the other speakers and organisers at a barbecue restaurant. You might think that wasn’t the best place for a vegetarian to be, but you would be wrong. There was loads of good stuff I could eat, plus excellent company! 🙂

After far too much food, we headed back through the rain to the hotel and then to bed.

This really concluded the AROUG event for me. All my sessions were on day 1, so I get day 2 to do a bit of sightseeing. 🙂

I’d like to send out a big thank you to everyone who came to the event, including the attendees and the speakers. Also, big thanks to the organisers at AROUG and the ACE Program, who made this possible for me.

Cheers

Tim…

OTN Tour of Latin America 2015 : UYOUG, Uruguay – Day 2

I woke up early and started working on the computer. I wrote a couple of blog posts and logged in to work to check some stuff out. I also re-recorded the vocal for the ALL, ANY and SOME video. The mic I was using wasn’t too good, but I was keen to get it done, rather than wait until I got back to the UK. Overall, it was a pretty busy morning.

I then headed out for my last session of the conference. It was a panel session with Ronald, Mike, Nelson and myself. Putting Ronald and me on a panel together pretty much guaranteed nobody else would get to say anything. I thought the panel went really well. Having someone from a MySQL background on the panel added a different dynamic. Most of the discussion was focussed on why you would pick MySQL over Oracle or vice versa. There was a surprising amount of agreement and some good banter. 🙂 The reaction from the crowd was very positive. 🙂

That marked the end of the UYOUG conference for me. I hope all the attendees enjoyed the event. I know I did. Thanks very much to everyone for organising it and thanks to the Oracle ACE Program for getting me here. Big thanks to Edelweiss and Nelson for looking after us! 🙂

From there we got some lunch and I went back to the hotel to do some more work.

At about 17:30 we headed off to catch the ferry to Buenos Aires. I was meant to get a little video footage, but I forgot. 🙂 It took a little over 2 hours to complete, then it was a walk across to the hotel. I did remember to get some footage of that! 🙂

I got to bed a little after midnight, which wasn’t too bad. Tomorrow is the first day of the AROUG conference in Argentina!

Cheers

Tim…

The Proliferation of I.T. Voodoo…

When I say “voodoo” in this context, I’m really talking about bullshit explanations for things based on guesswork, rather than reasoned argument built using facts and investigation.

It’s really easy for voodoo explanations to proliferate when people are starved of facts. There are several ways this can happen, but a couple of them that spring to mind and really piss me off are:

  • A user reports a problem. You fix it, but don’t give a meaningful explanation of what you have done. As a result, the user is left to “make up” an explanation to tell their superiors, which then becomes part of the folklore of that department. When you fix a problem, you need to provide a technical explanation of what you have done for those that can cope with it and a more layman friendly version for those that can’t. If you don’t do this, you are starting to dig a really big hole for yourself. Users will make shit up that will haunt you forever. Next time you want to process that big change it will be blocked because, “Bob says that we always have a problem when you reboot the payroll server on a Tuesday if the parking barrier is locked in an upright position. Today is Tuesday and the parking barrier was locked in an upright position this morning, so we don’t want to risk it!” Once this shit takes hold, there is no going back!
  • A user reports a problem.  You don’t do anything, but it mysteriously “fixes” itself. You need to make sure all parties know you’ve done nothing. You also need to suggest someone actually finds the root cause of the issue, without trying to start a witch hunt. Unless you know why something has happened, people will make up bullshit explanations and they will become department folklore. etc. See previous point.

For so long I.T. has had a poor reputation where user engagement is concerned and it *always* generates more problems for us than it actually does for the users. Get with the flippin’ program!

Cheers

Tim…

PS. Can you tell I’m pissed off about something? 🙂

OTN Tour of Latin America 2015 : UYOUG, Uruguay – Day 1

After 15 hours of sleep I still managed to feel tired. 🙂 I went for breakfast at 6:30, then started to feel a little weird, so I took some headache pills and headed back to bed for a hour before meeting up with Debra and Mike to head down to the venue for the first day of the UYOUG leg of the tour…

The order of events went like this:

  • Pablo Ciccarelo started with an introduction OTN and the ACE program, which was in Spanish, so I ducked out of it. 🙂
  • Mike Dietrich speaking about “How Oracle Single/Multitenant will change a DBA’s life”.
  • Me with “Pluggable Databases : What they will break and why you should use them anyway!” There was some crossover with Mike’s session, but we both emphasised different things, which is interesting in itself. 🙂
  • Debra Lilley with “PaaS4SaaS”. The talk focused on a POC for using PaaS to extend the functionality of Fusion Apps, which is a SaaS product.
  • Me with “Oracle Database Consolidation : It’s not all about Oracle database 12c”. I think this is the least technical talk I’ve ever done and that makes me rather nervous. Technical content and demos are a reassuring safety blanket for me, so having them taken away feels a bit like being naked in public (why am I now thinking of Bjoern?). The session is a beginner session, so I hope people didn’t come expecting something more than I delivered. See, I’m paranoid already!
  • Mike Dietrich on “Simple Minimal Downtime Migration to Oracle 12c using Full Transportable Export/Import”. I think I’ve used every feature discussed in this session, but I’ve never used them all together in this manner. I think I may go back to the drawing board for one of the migrations I’ve got coming up in the next few months.
  • Debra Lilley with “Are cloud apps really ready?”. There was some similarity between the message Debra was putting out here and some of the stuff I spoke about in my final talk.
  • Me with “It’s raining data! Oracle Databases in the Cloud”. This was also not a heavy technical session, but because so few people have experience of running databases in the cloud at the moment, I think it has a wider appeal, so I’m not so paranoid about the limited technical content.

So that was the first day of the UYOUG conference done. Tomorrow is an easy day for me. I’ve got a panel session in the middle of the day, then I’m done. 🙂

Thanks to everyone who came to my sessions. I hope you found them useful.

Having slept through yesterday’s social event, I will be going out to get some food tonight. They eat really late here, so by the time we get some food I’ll probably be thinking about bed. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

OTN Tour of Latin America 2015 : The Journey Begins – Arrival at Montevideo, Uruguay

ace-directorAfter the quick flight to Montevideo, I was met by Edelweiss and Nelson. A couple of minutes later Mike Dietrich arrived. You know, that guy that pretends to understand upgrades! We drove over to the hotel, arriving at about 11:00. Check in was not until 15:00, so I had to wait a few minutes for them to prep my room. The others were going out to get some food, but I had a hot date with my bed. I got to my room, showered and hit the hay.

I was meant to meet up with the others at about 19:00 to get some food, but I slept through. In fact, I slept until about 04:00 the next day, which was about 15 hours. I think that may be a record… I’m feeling a bit punch-drunk now, but I’m sure once I start moving things will be fine…

Today is the first day of the tour proper. Fingers crossed…

Cheers

Tim…

OTN Tour of Latin America 2015 : The Journey Begins – Buenos Aires Airport

ace-directorThe flight from Paris to Buenos Aires was long, but relatively uneventful. One little patch of turbulence, then plain sailing.

For the main meal they didn’t have me down as vegetarian. I don’t know why I bother ordering special meals because the vast majority of the times I don’t get them. Interestingly, they did have a vegetarian breakfast for me, probably fixed one up after the dinner issue, but they gave it to the lady 2 seats away from me. She had seen the issue with the dinner and passed it across to me. In big letters on the tray it said 27J, which was my seat number, so I’m not quite sure why it was so difficult. I honestly think a lot of people look at me and think, “There is no way he is that fat and a vegetarian!”, so they give it to someone who looks suitably skinny… 🙂

I watched Insurgent, which was OK, then started to watch Fast & Furious 7, but couldn’t get into it on such a small screen. Amazingly, I did manage to catch small snatches of sleep, which was very welcome, interspersed with the obligatory periods of standing at the back of the plane pretending there aren’t loads of hours of sitting left.

So now I’m in Buenos Aires airport waiting to get back on to the same plane to fly the last 25 mins to Montevideo. I will be back in Buenos Aires in a couple of days, but I will be arriving by ferry next time! 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

OTN Tour of Latin America 2015 : The Journey Begins – CDG Airport

ace-directorI’ve been in Charles de Gaulle airport for about three hours now. Only another four to go… 🙂

I tried to record another technical video, but you can hear kids in the background. Now the timings are sorted, it should be pretty quick to re-record when I get to a hotel, so that’s good I guess. I’m not sure I can face doing another one today.

My YouTube channel is on 199 subscribers. About to ding to the magic 200. 🙂

Perhaps I should get the GoPro out and do some filming of the barren wasteland, which is the K gates in Terminal 2E.

Cheers

Tim…

OTN Tour of Latin America 2015 : The Journey Begins

ace-directorI’m about to board a flight to Paris, where I will wait for 7 hours before starting my 14 hour flight to Montevideo, Uruguay. I think you can probably guess how I’m feeling at this moment…

Why won’t someone hurry up and invent a teleport device?

I will probably put out little posts like this along the way, just so friends and family know what is going on. It’s wrong to wish your life away, but I’m really not looking forward to the next 20+ hours…

Hopefully I will get power in Paris, so I can do some stuff on my laptop…

Cheers

Tim…