Tag: 2014

UKOUG Operating System and Storage Event : Summary

Today was the UKOUG Operating System and Storage Event. I was a tourist for this event, as I didn’t have any presentations to do. Added to that, I’m a grunt DBA, so I wasn’t too sure what would be waiting for me at an OS and storage event… 🙂

Thanks to the miracles of Google Maps, I managed to be late for the event, so I missed the first session. Why is it I can get to foreign countries on time, but I can’t get to something that is pretty much in my own city without getting lost?

I bumped into a few people I know there, including Jason Arneil and Martin Nash and a couple of my colleagues. 🙂

First up (for me) was “Patching Linux with Spacewalk and Ksplice” by Wayne Lewis and friends. Spacewalk looks kind-of neat. It’s a free open source product, with Oracle’s version of it available from public-yum.oracle.com. Basically, it allows you to easily set up a local repositories, manage and track OS package updates across your Linux infrastructure. You can use it for free, or if you want you can choose to buy support from Oracle. The choice is yours. The second half of the session was on Ksplice, which I’ve known about for a long time. As it turns out, my understanding of what Ksplice actually does was quite off the mark, so it was good to be educated… 🙂

Second up was “Bringing OpenStack to the Cloud” by Stephen Bourke and friends. OpenStack is used to build public and private clouds. That is honestly as much as I actually know about it. 🙂 This session discussed what OpenStack is and talked about Oracle’s implementation of OpenStack. You can read more about it here:

What was most refreshing about Oracle’s implementation of OpenStack is they are keeping it open. At a time when other OpenStack vendors might be trying to provide ClosedStack, Oracle are staying true to cause.

Next up was “Dtrace in Linux and Solaris” by Mike Carew. I’m not one of those guys that spends my life using Dtrace, strace or systemtap, but occasionally you have to get down-and-dirty, so it is good to keep on top of this stuff. Some great strides have been made to bring Dtrace to Linux, but it is still quite limited in comparison to the Solaris implementation. Perhaps as it matures we might get a feature like this on Linux, which I learnt about for the first time today!

“Virtualisation Case Study – How Not To Do It!” by Philip Brown was interesting as it was almost the polar opposite to my feelings about virtualisation. In fairness to him, this was a presentation of how not to do it and ultimately he did make the point that if you do it badly you are going to have a bad experience, which is definitely true. My counter to this is, if you do it well you are going to have a good experience. 🙂 It’s all about using virtualisation where it is appropriate and knowing what you are getting into before you make that leap. Due to me not being able to keep my gob shut, there was a prolonged discussion about this topic after the session, which was fun. You can of course read my thoughts on virtualisation in this article.

I really enjoyed the day! Well done UKOUG and to everyone I saw presenting today. I certainly came away with a lot of good stuff to think about…

Cheers

Tim…

 

2014 OTN MENA Tour

Just a quick shout out to the 2014 OTN MENA Tour, which starts in a few days. The events are:

  • Bizerte, Tunisia, 26th May
  • Béja, Tunisia, 27th May
  • Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 29th May
  • Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 31st May
  • Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 1st June

This is the first time this tour is happening, so please show your support and register.

Good luck to all the folks who are taking part. Unfortunately I can’t be there, but I hope to take part in a future event…

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle Midlands : Event #4 – Registration Open

Registration has opened for the Oracle Midlands Event #4 on Monday July 14th.

This event includes a session on “Designing Efficient SQL” by Jonathan Lewis as well as lightning talks by Jonathan Lewis, Richard Harrison, Salih Oztop, Patrick Hurley and Martin Widlake.

The event is free, thanks to the sponsorship by those kind people at Red Gate. There is also a rumour that the Oracle Press teddy bears may return! 🙂

Please show your support by registering and coming along to see some great speakers. I’ve already registered, so I’ll see you there!

Cheers

Tim…

OUGN : Summary

With the exception of a 5+ hour layover in Amsterdam, the trip home was pretty straight forward. I flew to Amsterdam with Lonneke Dikmans, Ronald Luttikhuizen and Roel Hartman. During my rather excessive layover, I played catchup with all the internet stuff I missed during the trip… 🙂

I must say OUGN 2014 was a pretty cool event all round! The speaker lineup was incredible. The location (on a boat) was fun. I’ve not done that for a while. In addition to the presentations, I got a lot of time to talk to people about technology, which is what I love doing, so that made me happy…

Big thanks to the organisers of the event for inviting me and paying the bill for the boat and hotel room! Thanks to all the speakers and attendees that managed to put up with me for a couple of days. On a boat, there is nowhere to run! Thanks also to OTN and the Oracle ACE Program. They didn’t fund this trip for me, but I’m still happy to be flying the flag on their behalf. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

 

OUGN : Day 2

Day 2 started really early. Having got to bed about 02:00, I was up at 05:30 and thinking about my 08:30 session. The previous evening’s conversation with Brynn was playing on my mind a little (in a good way), thinking how that conversation should/would affect my session. The session itself seemed to go well. I enjoyed it anyway. 🙂

From there it was more conversations with people, including a chat with Martin Bach, Martin Nash and one of the attendees (sorry, I forgot your name) about some Exadata issues he was having. I freely admit to knowing nothing about Exadata, but I do know about most of the technology stack that makes up Exadata (like ASM, RAC etc.). Since a number of the issues people have are not really “Exadata” issues, so much as “RAC” issues or “ASM” issues, it’s surprising how much you can get involved in these discussions, provided you don’t try to pretend to be something you are not!

After that I attempted to catch up on some sleep, which didn’t really work out, so then it was off to lunch.

After lunch it was time for an open database panel session. This is the first time they’ve done this sort of thing at this event, so I’m not sure what people expected, including us panalists. 🙂 I think this sort of thing needs to run for a few conferences to let people get a feel for it, before you make a decision about whether it is going to work or not going forward. You have to give it an opportunity to mature… 🙂

After that it was off to Martin Bach‘s session on Oracle 12c, features that didn’t make the top 10. There were some things I already knew about and some things that passed me by. Food for thought!

Next up was Martin Nash speaking about what an Oracle DBA should know about Linux administration. I was pretty confident I was going to be so ahead of the game here, but he mentioned a number of things I’ve not played with. I’ll probably end up downloading his slides and working through some stuff.

Then it was my WebLogic session. Marcus Eisele did a session called WebLogic 101 in the morning and after a quick discussion I decided that we were effectively giving the same talk. I’m always a little nervous about doing WebLogic talks, but this made me even more nervous. As it turned out, with the exception of one person, I got a different crowd to him, so it was fine.

After my last session of the conference, I inevitably did some more chatting and then went off to see “Oracle Cloud Oddessy“. From there it was dinner, chatting to Mike Dietricht in the bar, then off to bed to sleep through the overnight ride back to OSLO.

Cheers

Tim…

PS. I think I got married to Debra Lilley by the ship’s captain…

OUGN : Day 1

The journey to Norway was pretty straight forward, but during the second flight, from Amsterdam to OSLO, my nose and eyes started to stream. I didn’t feel ill, but I was starting to worry I might be getting ill right before a conference. I landed in Norway, got the train to the centre of OSLO and walked to my hotel. I was meant to go out to dinner, but I figured bed might be a better option…

The next day we met up and headed off to the boat to begin the conference. After boarding, we went to the keynotes. Since these were in Norwegian, a few of use ended up at the back of the room chatting. 🙂 As soon as I got access to my room I headed on up to check it out. I’ve been on one of these ferry/cruise ships before and I think they are kind of cute.

After some food it was off to the first sesson of the day. I went to Connor McDonald speaking about Analytics. I’ve been to a number of different talks on analytic functions over the years, including my own. It’s kind-of cool to see how different people approach the same subject and what they focus on compared to you.

Next up it was my session. Compressing a 60 minute session, that I always overrun on, into 45 minutes was a challenge and I had to miss some stuff out, but it’s all good. I got some good feedback after the session, which is also nice for the ego. 🙂

From there is was on to Lasse Jenssen‘s session on version control in the database. I really enjoyed this session as it raised lots of important discussion points! After all these years, there is still not a single product that really does everything, but there are a number of products like Red Gate SQL Source Control, that are coming closer to the mark.

After that I got locked in conversation with a number people and missed the next session. I spent a long time talking to Cary Millsap about a whole bunch of stuff unrelated to technology. Then it was off to the evening drinks and dinner, where I sat with Cary and Connor. Once again, lots of chat about none technical stuff. Pretty cool!

At about midnight we decided to head off to bed and I bumped into Brynn Llewellyn, who asked if he could have a quick word with me. Two hours later we eventually knocked that conversation on the head and I actually went to bed. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle Midlands : Event #3 – Registration Open

Registration is now open for Oracle Midlands Event #3 on Tuesday 20th May..

As I mentioned in a previous post, Christian Antognini will be the speaker for both the sessions this time. He’ll be covering “12c Adaptive Query Optimization” and “Row Chaining and Row Migration Internals”.

Red Gate Software have kindly offered to sponsor the event again, so registration is free!

I’ve already registered. 🙂 Please make the effort to come along and support the event!

Cheers

Tim…

OTN Yathra 2014 : It’s a Wrap

The OTN Yathra 2014 tour is over and I’m back home now. Here are all the blog posts from the tour.

Although I come from the second biggest city in the UK, Birmingham has a very slow pace in comparison to other UK cities. Friends had told me how busy India was, so I was quite nervous about this trip and how I would cope with it. My initial fears were confirmed during my first taxi ride from Amritsar airport to Jalandhar. Getting ill on the first morning of the tour wasn’t a good omen either. Once the kind folks at the Lovely Professional University sorted me out with some medical attention, things started to get better and I started to believe I might make it to the end of the tour alive. 🙂

As the tour progressed I got into my stride and really started to enjoy the whole process. As I’ve said many times, I’m not a fan of travelling, but I like being at different places. The travelling part of this tour was very strenuous, which was my own fault for choosing to do all 7 events, but that was easily outweighed by getting the opportunity to connect with the attendees and speakers in all the cities.

Here come the much deserved thank you messages:

  • Thanks to everyone from All India Oracle Users Group (AIOUG) involved in the organisation of this tour. Aman, Sai, Satyendra and Murali did a great job of making the logistics as simple as possible.
  • Thank you to Oracle Corporation for the use of their offices and to all the Universities that let us visit them.
  • A big thank you goes out to Oracle Technology Network (OTN) and the Oracle ACE Program, without whom this tour would not have happened.
  • Thank you to my fellow speakers. I’m not sure I would have stayed sane on my journey from Jalandhar to Noida without the company of Raj Mattamal. 🙂 Raj, Debra and Hans were welcome distractions from the hours spent in airports, planes and taxis. Thanks everyone for putting up with me. Thanks to all the other speakers that dotted in and out for specific events. It was fun to hook up with you all.
  • Finally, thank you to all the attendees for coming and supporting this event! Without you being there, the events would not happen, so if you want to see more of these events in future, please join AIOUG and get your friends to join too. 🙂

My lasting memories of India will be:

  • Crazy traffic.
  • Fantastic food.
  • Very friendly people.

Until next time…

Cheers

Tim…

OTN Yathra 2014 : Chennai

Yesterday’s flight from Bangalore to Chennai was very short. It felt like less than an hour to me. Hans Forbrich wasn’t coming to this event, so it looked like Debra Lilley and I would be on our own for this journey, but we bumped into Kuassi Mensah at the airport. 🙂

The hotel was very nice, but doing in-room check in freaks me out. I know the hotels think it is something special, but I would rather check in at the front desk and go to my room on my own. There is something about having other people in my room that reminds me I am only one in a very long procession of people to use that space. Gives me the creeps…

Today’s Chennai event was held at the Loyola-ICAM College of Engineering and Technology (LICET), not far from our hotel. The keynotes from the University staff focussed on development of knowledge, rather than focussing just on facts or what skills you need to get a job. One of the slides read,

“Data becomes information when it is organised. Information becomes knowledge when it is placed in actionable context. Without context there is little value.”

I am always concerned when people or institutions focus totally on what is job-worthy as I think it develops blinkered individuals. Applied research can only be a part of the whole picture, not the total focus. It seems LICET has the same point of view as me. At the end of the keynote I felt really inspired and quite excited about the day ahead. 🙂

As part of the engineering course, the LICET students have access to a stripped back car, which has all the internal systems on display, allowing the students to see both the individual systems and how they fit into the big picture. I was asked if I wanted to drive this car, so I can now say I’ve driven in India. 🙂

I had a few minor issues with my laptop, but despite that my sessions got very positive feedback. As always, I spent a lot of time answering questions between my sessions and at the end of my last session as well.

Thanks to everyone at LICET and all the attendees for coming to the event. It really made for a great last event of the tour!

I fly home early tomorrow morning, so that I can get back in time for work on Monday. I’ll write a wrap-up post when I get home. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

OTN Yathra 2014 : Bangalore

Yesterday’s flight to Bangalore was pretty quick, about 80 minutes if I remember correctly. We landed and were picked up by a car from the hotel. We were told the traffic would be terrible in Bangalore, but it wasn’t too bad. Debra managed to keep her eyes open for much of the journey. There were also a lot fewer car horns in comparison to Hyderabad. 🙂

The Marriott in Bangalore is very swish indeed and of course it has a buffet for dinner! 🙂 I slept OK, but felt quite tired this morning. I think the events of the week are starting to get to me…

At the conference today, my sessions were at 15:00 and 17:00, so after the introductory session, I went to the speaker room, which was open to the attendees so we could chat in small groups. I played with APEX, between chatting to attendees and listening to Debra speaking to attendees about Fusion Apps.

After my first session I watched Supriya Ananth do a session on Pattern Matching in 12c, which was very interesting. I think I’m starting to understand it, but it’s going to take a lot of practice. Then it was back to me for the final session of the day. The group were asking lots of questions, which I love, but it did make me overrun by 20 minutes and there were still more questions to answer at the end. 🙂

Thanks to everyone at the Oracle office for another great day and thanks to everyone who came along to the talks, especially those that put me on the spot with some really good questions. It would have been nice if there was more time to just sit and chat about Oracle, but sadly, that was not to be.

So that was my penultimate event. Tomorrow I fly to Chennai for the last event on Saturday…

Cheers

Tim…