Tag: 2016

I left my room kind-of late so my day pretty much started with my first session…

My first session at the Sydney event was “Pluggable Databases – What they will break and why you should use them anyway!” The reaction from the crowd was good and people came up to speak to me and ask questions after the session. This is my favourite bit of conferences, so I don’t mind if it means I miss some sessions. 🙂

By the time I was ready to move to another session, it was my turn again. This time with “Improving the Performance of PL/SQL Function Calls from SQL“. I was happy with the way the talk went, and once again I got people speaking to me after the session, which was good.

Next up was Connor McDonald with “Big Data – A database dinosaur’s point of view”. Connor always puts on a good show and his session went down really well with the crowd. It was targeted perfectly for a bunch of Oracle DBAs and developers.

The final session I went to for the day was Connor again, this time with “New Features in the Next Generation of Oracle Database“. This was a variant of the session I saw him give at OOW16, and not surprisingly it went down well with the crowd too.

By the start of this event I was more used to the time zone, so there was less adrenaline and caffeine involved in getting me out in front of people. As a result I felt a lot more chilled out for this event. That’s no reflection on the previous events. Just how I was feeling at this point in time.

As with all one day events, it was over almost before it began. 🙂 Thanks to everyone at IAOUG for inviting me to event. Thanks to everyone who came to my sessions and came up to talk to me during the event. Thanks also to the ACE Program for getting me here!

In the evening I walked across to a local burger place with Bjoern Rost, we got veggie burgers and fries, then chatted about random stuff for ages. 🙂

Next stop Gold Coast!

Cheers

Tim…

Having spent a couple of days with friends in Pukekohe, it seemed really hard contemplating resuming the tour. I always have a post-tour crash, where I have a massive adrenalin dump and just want to forget about the world for a while. By staying with friends I kind-of had this a bit early. 🙂

I got dropped off at the airport, went through check-in and security, then went off to the lounge. For some reason, I don’t know why, I had a business class ticket for the short Auckland to Sydney flight, so I had lounge access, which means food!

Having stuffed myself, I rolled myself onto the plane. It was a rather old one, so business class felt a little like economy plus in more modern planes. Beggars can’t be choosers though. It was a good job I stuff myself in the lounge as there was no vegetarian stuff on the menu in business class.

After about 3+ hours we were landing in a very wet Sydney Airport. I got the train from the airport to North Rhyde, then walked to the hotel dragging my bag. I foolishly got off the train a stop too early, so it was a bit of a trek in the rain dragging a bag.

Anyway, safely in the hotel I bedded down for the night, ready to start the Sydney event the next day. Here we go!

Cheers

Tim…

PS. There is a 7 Eleven next door to the hotel and large Slurpees are $1. I’m living the dream baby!

I woke up early and took a taxi to the event, got a chair and a coffee and played catch-up with my blogs and videos. After an hour it was time to start the NZOUG event in Auckland. It was a three track event with the same timetable as the Wellington event, so I will only be talking about the sessions I attended.

I started the day with “Pluggable Databases – What they will break and why you should use them anyway!” I think the session went well. 🙂

Next up was Francisco Munoz Alvarez with “Discovering Oracle Cloud, how it works and feels!“. This was a general introduction to the pros and cons of cloud services, then some specifics about Oracle Cloud.

The next session was “WebLogic 12c: What You Need to Know” by Frank Munz. I watched Frank present this session in Colombia earlier in the year. Such this the life of a regular conference goer. 🙂

I was up next with my cloud database session called “It’s raining data! Oracle databases in the cloud“. I sometimes come off a little negative in this session. It’s not that I’m a cloud hater. It’s just that certain aspects of the cloud are not where I want them to be yet. I always advise people to get free trials and try things out for themselves. My issues may not be the same as yours. 🙂

After lunch I was up again with “Improving the Performance of PL/SQL Function Calls from SQL“. It’s good when live demos go well. 🙂 I like doing this session. I think it’s quite punchy.

From there I moved on the “Oracle Database Event Streaming 101 – Unlock the value of your data” by Mike Donovan. Kafka is very cool and it is fast becoming part of the plumbing for loads of systems. If only there was more time in the day, so I could play with Kafka…

The last session I went to was Arup Nanda with “Big Data Simplified for Oracle Professionals“. This was an overview of the “history of” and “current state of play of” the technologies used in the big data world, with spin to help Oracle folks understand the concepts. Trying to even put a definition to “big data” is kind-of tough, so I think Arup did a great job of pulling it all together in 45 minutes. 🙂

That was the end of the event and the last of my conferences in New Zealand. 🙁

From there we headed off to a place called “Mexico” to eat. Not surprisingly it was Mexican food. 🙂 It was a really nice way to finish the day! I got a lift back to my hotel, did my washing and fell into a coma for about 8 hours. 🙂

Thanks to everyone at NZOUG for inviting me for another event. Thanks to everyone who came to my sessions. Thanks also to the ACE Program for letting me fly the flag once more!

I’ll be stopping with friends for the next couple of days, so I may drop off the map until the Sydney event. 🙂

Cheers

Frank and I were on the same flight to Auckland, so we picked up our bags from the conference hotel, then got a taxi to the airport. It was after rush hour and the Wellington traffic seemed incredibly quiet, so there was no problem getting to the airport.

Check in and bag drop for New Zealand Air was all self service. It took me three attempts before it would recognise my flight details, but I got there in the end. From there it was off to the lounge, with me piggy-backing on Frank’s Star Alliance status. We had already eaten, which was a pity because they had a lot of food on offer. We were looking for a seat when we noticed the Dbvisit gang, some of which were on the same flight as us. Happy days!

The flight to Auckland was really quick and pretty uneventful. I barely had time to start my laptop before it was time to shut it down.

We landed and made our way to the baggage claim where we met Francisco, but not my luggage. One of the airport staff went off to see if he could find it, which he did. It had been loaded onto a cart to be sent across to the international terminal. Fortunately Auckland is a pretty small airport, so I got it back really quickly.

From there Francisco drove me to my hotel, then drove himself and Frank back to the conference hotel. I had to stay at a place in the city because all the rooms were taken in the conference hotel. I actually had an apartment in the city. Judging by the people walking in and out there seemed to be lots of workmen staying there. When I got into my place I had great harbour view and a washing machine and dryer. Awesome. 🙂

I went straight to bed, ready for an early start for the Auckland event the next day (today). See you there!

Cheers

Tim…

I slept for about 12 hours last night, which was really good news!

I met up with Frank in the hotel lobby, we checked out and took a taxi to the hotel for the NZOUG event in Wellington. Some quick hellos and a couple of coffees, then it was time to start. It was a three track event, so I will only be talking about the sessions I attended.

My “Pluggable Databases – What they will break and why you should use them anyway!” session was in the first block. The room was busy and I felt quite hyper so I probably sounded a little excitable. 🙂 I think it went well though.

Next up was Arup Nanda with “Case Study of Cross Platform Large Database Migration Using RMAN with Arup Nanda”. The session started with a summary of potential methods to perform platform migrations, then dived into the method he used to convert a system when moving to Exadata. He used a combination of Incrementally Updated Image Copy Backups, RMAN convert and Transportable Tablespaces.

The next session was “A Manly Man’s Guide to Open Source Tuning Tools” by Bjoern Rost. I’m not entirely sure who the “Manly Man” was… 🙂 I saw a variant of this session at the AMIS event earlier in the year. He spoke about (rlWrap, SQLcl, MOATS, MOATS 2.0, Snapper, SQL Developer, EDB360, TUNAs360).

I was up next with my cloud database session called “It’s raining data! Oracle databases in the cloud“. After lunch I was up again with “Improving the Performance of PL/SQL Function Calls from SQL“. Both these sessions felt like they went really quickly. I had fun during the sessions, so I hope everyone enjoyed it. I got some questions at the end, which is usually a good sign.

From there I moved on to “Docker in the Oracle Universe” by Frank Munz. I know virtually nothing about Docker, so this session was pitched perfectly for me. 🙂

The last session I went to was Anton Els with “The Oracle Database 12c Controlfile – A valuable source of information!” Anton was showing the link between the information in the controlfile and datafile headers and how they affected the recovery process. I learned a couple of things which I can now speak about like I always knew them. 🙂

And almost as soon as it started, it was over… 🙂

Thanks to everyone at NZOUG for inviting me and making my short stay fun. Thanks to everyone who came to my sessions. Thanks also to the ACE Program for making this happen for me.

After the event Frank and I went to get some food at The Crab Shack, who fortunately also do vegetarian stuff too, then it was off to the airport for the trip to Auckland…

Cheers

I got to Birmingham Airport about 2.5 hours early, so I had no drama at the bag check or security. I’ve mentioned a couple of times I’ve been really nervous about this journey. As I waited the nerves started to take their toll and I puked before I got on the plane.

The flight to Dubai was unusually uncomfortable. I think part of that was because I was already really tired before getting on the plane. The more tired I get the more fidgety I get and it just feeds off itself. I didn’t sleep, but I did a little head nodding. I was wearing an Oracle T-shirt and an air steward asked me if I worked for Oracle. Rather than explain everything I just said yes, then sat there feeling annoyed for telling such a stupid lie.

I arrived at Dubai airport and as expected the upgrade didn’t include lounge access. I headed over to the C gates and waited for my flight. Dubai airport is all about shopping and there is very little provision for seating. This is especially true of the area around the C gates. For such a modern airport, the seating arrangements are pretty crappy. I was planning to sleep on the floor, but at the last minute I got a touch of shame and decided to wait until I got onto the plane. Oh yes, I puked again too…

Priority boarding and business class seats rule! I was the first person on the plane and I think I was first person to puke in the plane toilets on that trip. I changed into the joggers and a different T-shirt and managed to get some sleep, but not as much as I wanted.

The flight to Auckland was pretty good. I slept through the first lot of food. When I woke up I got some fruit and some nuts. By the time breakfast came I couldn’t be bothered to eat. The stewardess was freaked out about how little I had eaten during the flight. It’s not like it’s going to kill me. 🙂

I wasn’t issued a ticket to Wellington and I was told to check that my bags were sent straight through. My baggage tag said they would be, but the Emirates staff weren’t sure. I got to Auckland and the “first port of entry” thing meant my bags weren’t really checked through to Wellington. I picked them up and bumped into Frank Munz. We were on the same flight to Wellington, so we checked out bags and he signed me into the Air New Zealand (Star Alliance) lounge. 🙂

The flight to Wellington was really quick. Less than an hour. We picked up our bags and got a taxi to the hotel. I had planned to meet up with Frank to grab some food, but I fell asleep and woke up at midnight, local time. I was then awake for about 2 hours, then slept again for 4 hours until my alarm.

So that’s the trip from Brimingham > Dubai > Auckland > Wellington complete.

Cheers

Tim…

In a couple of hours I’ll be taking a taxi to the airport to start my journey to Wellington, New Zealand. The actual departure time is 21:20. The flight to Dubai takes about 7 hours usually, so if I’m true to form and can’t sleep sitting upright in economy, I’m going to be pretty miserable by the time I get to Dubai. I’ve then got 3 hours in Dubai airport, where I don’t think I qualify for lounge access, despite my upgrade for the next flight.

From Dubai it’s a 16 hour flight to Auckland, which I was really dreading until I got an option to upgrade to business class. If I can lie down I can sleep anywhere. On several occasions I’ve slept on tiled floors at airports with no problem. If I’m sitting upright, or with that slight tilt you get with an economy seat, I just don’t sleep. The best I get is some head nodding. It cost me a lot of money to upgrade this flight, but 16 hours is a long time to be in an economy seat if you can’t sleep. Having a business class seat should allow me to sleep, so even if I get on the plane in a bad mood, I should be able to sort myself out during this flight. The current plan is to try to sleep half and work half of the time. Let’s see how that works out. 🙂

When I get to Auckland it is a 2 hour wait before getting on a 1 hour flight to Wellington. I’m hoping by this time I will have had a lot of sleep and will feel OK for the conferences in Wellington and Auckland over the next couple of days.

Total flight time will be approximately 24+ hours, with total elapsed time from leaving home to arriving at the hotel being about 32+ hours. I feel a little sick just thinking about it…

I normally write blog posts about travelling as I go, but depending on how this one works out and how tired I am, I might drop offline for a couple of days, so I thought I would put something out preemptively to start the ball rolling. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…