UKOUG Breakthrough 2022 : Day 2

 

Day 2 started pretty much the same as day 1. I arrived late to avoid the traffic.

The first session I went to was Martin Nash with “Oracle Databases in a Multicloud World”. I was a bit late to this session, but from what I saw it seemed the general view was “don’t be stupid, stupid”. Multi-cloud can add some complexity and latency, but if it’s what you need, it’s all manageable. If you do have a system where multi-cloud is not suitable, don’t do it for that system. Most things can be migrated, but some things are easier than others. Pick your fights. Sorry if I came to the wrong conclusion… 🙂

I often get the feeling that some people think everything has to be all or nothing. We have Oracle Cloud Apps on Oracle Cloud. A bunch of stuff on Azure, with more to come. One of our major systems is moving to AWS in the next couple of years. Then of course we still have a load of stuff on-prem. This isn’t because we are desperate to be multi-cloud. It’s just the way things have happened. I’m sure we’ll run into some issue along the way, but I’m also sure we’ll solve them. Once size does not fit all…

BTW Martin now works for Google, so we have to hate him. 🙂

Next up was Jasmin Fluri with “The Science of Database CI/CD”. I already had the long form of this presentation because I read Jasmin’s masters thesis, but I was interested to see how she summarised some of it into a presentation. She did a great job of getting the main points into a 45 minute session, which can’t have been easy. It was also a little depressing, because I’ve come a long way , but I’ve still got such a long way to go. Ah well…

After Jasmin was Erik van Roon with “Scripting in SQLcl – You Can Never Have Enough of a Good Thing”. The session discussed how to extend the functionality of SQLcl with your own commands written in JavaScript. I get the distinct impression Erik has too much time on his hands. If anyone wants to join me in staging an intervention, just let me know. 🙂 I’m not sure if I will use this functionality, but it’s always good to know it exists, because you never know when it might come in handy, and knowing it’s possible is the first step.

Last up for me was “The Death of the Data Scientist, But Long Live Data Science” by Brendan Tierney. To summarise Brendan talked about the recent mass layoffs of data scientists, suggesting a number of factors including a glut of data scientists on the market, low return on investment from many data science teams, and the simplification and automation of data science to the point where it had now been integrated into products and domain-specific staff roles. It’s typical hype cycle stuff. We’ve moved from the “Peak of Inflated Expectations” to the “Trough of Disillusionment”, and the job market has corrected itself because of that. It doesn’t sound like a move from DBA to data scientist is a great career move right now. 🙂

I spent some time chatting to Brendan, then it was off to beat the traffic home so I could return to real life again.

UKOUG Breakthrough 2022 is over now, and it was a good introduction back into the world of face to face conferences for me. I’m still very nervous about the thought of travelling, but based on the last few days I’m hoping I can get my conference mojo back. Just don’t expect too much too soon. 🙂

Thanks to all the conference organisers and speakers for giving up their time to make this happen. See you all again soon.

Cheers

Tim…

Author: Tim...

DBA, Developer, Author, Trainer.