Tag: 2017

Oracle OpenWorld 2017 : User Group Sunday

The day started with a run walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. We gathered in the hotel lobby, and since I am now a performing monkey I had to do the splits for Jeff Smith, then we got a taxi across to the visitors center at the city side of the bridge.

Some folks stayed behind to wait for the other runners to get there. A group of us just walked across and back.

The view was terrible. 🙂

Then it was back to the hotel to get ready for the day to begin.

The registration queues were really long, but they moved quickly. I didn’t have time to pick up the additional materials because I had to get to the first official events for me at OOW17, which were the multi-presenter EOUC events.

I was present at both, but I had my 6 minute slot in the second session. The attendance was low this year, especially for the second session. I think database people left after the first session, which was a pity as the Dev Champions spoke about things database people need to know too. The internal layout of the Marriot Hotel didn’t help. Things were so much more obvious in Moscone. I found the sessions enjoyable. I really like this format.

After those sessions were complete I met up with Gilbert Standen to talk about his Oracle on Linux Containers project Orabuntu-LXC, which will support Docker in the future.

From there is was back to the queues to pick up the rest of my registration items, then back to the hotel. In the evening we went down to the pier for the Oracle ACE dinner. After a quick photo call it was food, drinks and socialising for the rest of the evening.

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle OpenWorld 2017 : Day Off

The Saturday before OpenWorld is a day off and for me it has typically become a day in bed. A few days into the trip the lack of sleep has begun to take its toll and three days of concentration at the OAUX, Dev Champion and ACE Director briefings means you feel like you need a break and the conference hasn’t even started yet… 🙂

This year there was a slight change to the plan, as a “mystery event” had been planned for the Dev Champions. Earlier in the day I had bumped into Bjoern and Connor and said I had a daydream it was a boat trip on the bay. Guess what we did?

I am available to read palms and tea lives at a very reasonable rate!

We were bussed down to the pier, got on a boat and went around the bay with some food and drinks. It was a really nice experience. Amongst other things we got to see some kite surfers doing some crazy speeds, lifted about 50cm off the water on those blades/foils.

On the way back we sat down on the upper deck and had a meeting about the program, which gave us some more opportunities to ask questions and give feedback.

From there it was a bus back to the hotel, a quick chat to a few people, then back to bed. I realise some people will think it’s super boring to be sleeping so much, but OpenWorld is a marathon, especially for those of us that are doing the meetings the week before it also. It’s effectively a 8-9 day conference, so it’s really easy to burn out if you don’t take care of yourself.

Tomorrow is User Group Sunday!

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle OpenWorld 2017 : Oracle ACE Director Briefing

Can you guess how I slept last night? 🙂

I met up with a bunch of people in the hotel lobby and walked over to Oracle HQ for the Oracle ACE Director Product Briefing. Due to the changes to the travel funding this was a smaller event this year, with around 40-50 people.

Once again the majority of the content was under NDA, so I can’t say anything specific, but the recent announcement by Larry Ellison and the press Wall Street Journal (WSJ) ads mean you probably know what took a substantial amount of time. I can’t remember the last time we had so much database content in the ACE Director Briefing. The skew meant there were slim pickings for those that weren’t database people and hadn’t made the previous days sessions.

I’m going to repeat what I said yesterday, which is very self-indulgent of me, but try to remember the following over the next few days.

  • Judge the announcements on the detail, not the headlines. The headline is the Tinder photo, not the person you will end up sitting across the table from.
  • There is some interesting stuff that is possibly not what you were expecting. I like vanilla icecream, but if I’m expecting to taste chocolate and I get vanilla it’s going to make me pull a face. Once I reset my expectation, vanilla is nice.
  • Just because a feature/product/service isn’t a good fit for me, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a bunch of people out there who will want it. Despite what I believe, I am not the center of the universe. Neither are you!

Once all the sessions were over we had some nibbles, drinks and conversation until it was time to get on the bus to take us from Redwood Shores to San Francisco. Once I had dumped my stuff in the hotel I popped out with Bjoern to get some food and supplies, then it was back to my room and bed.

Tomorrow is a day off, before the madness starts. There is a Developer Champion mystery event in the afternoon, so that will be interesting…

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle OpenWorld 2017 : Developer Champion Product Briefing

Another night of broken sleep and another early start. 🙂 I walked across to Oracle HQ with Bjoern Rost, where we grabbed some food, said some hellos and started the day.

This is the first Developer Champion Product Briefing, and there were some faces that were new to me. There were about 20 Developer Champions, made up of some Oracle ACEs, some Java Champions and some others. There was also a bunch Oracle staff, so most of the day the room had about 30 people in it.

It’s good to have a mixed crowd in the room. It’s far too easy to stick within your little echo chamber and have a very blinkered view of the world. Seeing the way others reacted to the content from the day was very interesting.

We were under NDA, so I’m not going to risk saying something I shouldn’t and getting into trouble. The vast majority of the information was stuff that you will hear next week, so you’re not missing out, there’s just a time lag. 🙂 I like to think much of the value was in our feedback, but that’s probably me just being overly self-important.

As far as next week is concerned I would suggest:

  • Judge the announcements on the detail, not the headlines. The headline is the Tinder photo, not the person you will end up sitting across the table from.
  • There is some interesting stuff that is possibly not what you were expecting. I like vanilla icecream, but if I’m expecting to taste chocolate and I get vanilla it’s going to make me pull a face. Once I reset my expectation, vanilla is nice.
  • Just because a feature/product/service isn’t a good fit for me, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a bunch of people out there who will want it. Despite what I believe, I am not the center of the universe.

Doing 10 hours of geek is pretty tough, especially when you have very little expertise in some of the areas.

We went straight from the briefing to get some food and before I knew it, it was bed time. What a tough day!

Big thanks to the Developer Champion Program for inviting me and putting on this event. Thanks to the speakers for making time for us at the busiest time of the year! A special fanboy thanks goes out to Wim Coekaerts for coming back to us. I’ll get to stalk him again tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the ACE Director briefing, which has a large percentage of database stuff in it, so I will be on more familiar territory, and get more detail about what I heard today. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle OpenWorld 2017 : Oracle Applications User Experience (#OAUX) Strategy Day

As is always the case during the first few days in the US, sleep was broken. I woke up at 01:30 and dozed my way through to the next morning. I met up with the wife and a few folks and walked across to Oracle HQ for the Oracle Applications User Experience (#OAUX) Strategy Day.

The agenda for the day was as follows:

  • Check-in, breakfast, and opening remarks : Misha Vaughan, Vikki Lira
  • Oracle Applications Cloud top-level UX messages and Q&A for FY ’18 : Jeremy Ashley
  • OAUX Cloud Rapid Development Kits (RDKs) : Karen Scipi, Lancy Silveira
  • OAUX Innovation : Jake Kuramoto, Andrew Gilmour
  • Wrap-up and closing remarks : Misha, Vikki

There was a group of us in the room, with 4 others connected over Zoom and permanently visible on the big screen.

I wrote a lot of notes throughout the sessions, but rather than sharing them I’ll direct you to the OAUX Blog and Usable Apps site, where you can get most of the information first hand. You can also check out Lucas Jellemas’s post about the day, that includes a summary of the areas that were covered, along with some photos.

This year the event was compressed into half a day, which I guess made things much simpler for those attending over the web. I think it worked well and still allowed us to get an idea of the current goals and emphasis of the UX team, whilst giving us an opportunity to feed back about both our pain points and successes. As someone who self-identifies as a command line junky, I find this stuff really interesting and oddly relatable to what I do. It’s always good spending time with the UX team because they are a fun group of people. I plan on spending some time at the OAUX Exchange next week, which I would urge others to come along to if they are attending OOW17. Last year it was a great way to spend a few hours! If you are interested you can register here.

Once the OAUX sessions were wrapped up, the wife and I went across to another building at Oracle HQ to visit my dad. As usual he spent most of his time telling me how amazing I was, how I had totally eclipsed his achievements in every way possible and how I had married beneath myself. It was all really embarrassing, but all completely true…

Just as dad was ready to depart, who should walk in to get a coffee but my sister-in-law Maria. We sat gossiping for a while about all sorts of stuff and laughing far too loud in what was otherwise a quite coffee shop. 🙂

Once the family reunions were done Debra and I walked back to the hotel where we bumped into Bjoern Rost. We had a quick chat, then it was back to my room to dump my stuff before heading out for dinner with the UX team and the other attendees from today’s sessions.

It was a really great day. Lots of information and lots of cool people! Big thanks to the UX team for inviting me again this year. I really appreciate it!

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle OpenWorld 2017 : The Journey Begins

The day started quite reasonably with a 06:30 taxi to the airport for a 09:00 flight to San Francisco via Newark.

Birmingham airport was very busy, but I had bought the Premier Access for $89, so I walked up the priority lane, past the massive crowds and did security really quickly. It’s like the really cheap version of business class. 🙂

The flight to Newark as delayed by about 15 minutes,  but apart from that it was fairly straight forward, talking a little over 7 hours of air time.

Using Newark as the first port of entry to the USA can be a bad idea if you have a connecting flight. You have to go through all the usual airport security to “leave” the airport, then recheck your bags for your domestic flight. The reason I bought the Premier Access was to speed up this section of the journey, but it turns out is doesn’t really help. Since we were 15 minutes late and I originally had a 2 hour layover, which was really 1:45 when you consider boarding close times, I resigned myself to missing the next flight. Somehow the stars aligned and I made it as boarding was beginning. Amazing!

The flight from Newark to San Francisco was hard. The flight itself was fine but the tiredness really started to sink in. The last hour was torture. I must have gone to the toilet about 10 times to move my legs. I knew I was just over-tired, but I started feel a little frantic. We eventually landed, and not having to go through US security was great.

The next challenge was trying not to have a fight with the hotel about the hotel shuttle. I was tired and they were very unhelpful. Rather than escalate the argument and get deported, I gave up and got a taxi for $44…

I got to the hotel, dumped my stuff, scrubbed myself clean and went out for some food with Lucas Jellema. From there it was back to bed for an early night. I slept from 21:30 to 01:30 local time, then dozed my way through to the next day.

Tomorrow is the Oracle Applications User Experience (#OAUX) strategy day…

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle OpenWorld 2017 : I’m Presenting!

A few weeks ago I tweeted about being a member of #TeamRejectedByOracleOpenWorld again. Since then I found out one of my presentations was accepted for JavaOne as part of the Oracle Developer Champion program, so I will be going to San Francisco this year after all. This is the presentation I’ll be doing if you want to come along.

Make the RDBMS Relevant Again with RESTful Web Services and JSON
Wednesday, Oct 04, 4:30 p.m. – 5:15 p.m. | Moscone West – Room 2002

Since I’ll now be in San Francisco, I’ll get to join in with a bunch of other stuff. The week before the conference starts I’ll be part of these events at Oracle HQ.

  • Oracle Applications Users Experience (OAUX) Strategy Day : I was lucky enough to get invited to this last year and it was really fun and interesting. Now I get to go back again. 🙂
  • Oracle Developer Champion Briefing : I’m really not sure what to expect from this as it will be the first one.
  • Oracle ACE Director Briefing : I think this will be a smaller affair this year due to the changes in travel funding, and it’s compressed into a single day. It’ll be good to catch up with everyone again!

In addition to my JavaOne presentation, I’ll be at the EOUC presentations on User Group Sunday.

EOUC Developer Champions Show the Cool Tech They Use
Sunday, Oct 01, 11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. | Marriott Marquis (Golden Gate Level) – Golden Gate C1/C2

EOUC Database ACES Share Their Favorite Database Things
Sunday, Oct 01, 10:45 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. | Marriott Marquis (Golden Gate Level) – Golden Gate C1/C2

The wife kicked me out of the list of speakers for the Oracle ACE session. So much for family loyalty… 🙂 These multi-speaker sessions have been really well received in previous years, so please come along and join in the fun!

Like last year, it’s going to be a really long and hard trip, but since this could be my last one I’ve got to make the most of it!

See you there!

Tim…

VMware Workshop : The Journey Begins

I mentioned a few days ago I would be attending the “VMware Expert Database Workshop Program Oracle Edition”. That trip started today.

I got up at silly o’clock to get my taxi to the airport. As usual I had some problems sleeping, worrying about potentially missing my early flight. Thanks brain!

The airport was really crowded. There were queues to the queues to the queues. I find it really irritating when you tweet about it and get a, “I’m sorry, we really care!”, type of message. Nonsense! If you cared you would staff accordingly! You know the schedule of the planes. Sort yourself out!

One of my colleagues happened to be on the same plane, on his way to see family, but he arrived at the airport a little later than me, so didn’t make it through to the gate until boarding time. That was a pity as I wanted to impress his wife with my witty repartee, whilst he squirmed waiting for me to start swearing and generally being obnoxious. Despite views to the contrary, I can behave when I need to. 🙂

The flight to Cork was only about 70 minutes, so it was shorter than the queues I had already stood in!

Once at Cork I was met by the driver and a few minutes later Frits Hoogland turned up. We headed to the hotel and sat down in the lounge chatting about Docker, Ansible and Vagrant while we waited for our rooms to be sorted. We arrived hours before the official check-in. 🙂 After a while we were joined by Martin Klier and the conversation continued.

Once our rooms were ready we headed up to them for a while, before getting together in the evening to meet everyone and get some food. After the food we stayed up in the hotel lobby until about midnight chatting about tech. It was good fun, but probably a bad idea since we had an early start planned for the next day! 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

OGh Tech Experience 2017 : The Journey Home

I woke up really early so I decided to head straight for the airport. It was a 20 minute bus ride to the station, then a train to the airport, or so I thought. It turned out there wasn’t a straight through train, so I had to go via Utrecht. Once at Utrecht I got on a train the the airport, but it stopped early due to work on the lines, so I had to change to a third train for the last bit of the journey. I was now really glad I had set off early. 🙂

Even with the unplanned changes to the journey, I still arrived a couple of hours early for my flight. The airport bag-check area was chaos. I had done an online check-in, and I didn’t need to check bags, but it took quite a bit of time to negotiate the hordes. Once past the bag-check, it was a smooth run through security, although I did get the most thorough search I’ve ever experienced. I think I may be married now, or pregnant!

My gate was really close, so I didn’t have much to do other than wait a couple of hours, listening to the conveyor saying, “Mind your step!”, every couple of seconds.

The flight home took a little over an hour. No dramas. From there is was a taxi home and the OGh Tech Experience 2017 was done!

As I said in the last post, I’m sorry to everyone for not being more involved in the event. It was out of my hands! Thanks to everyone at OGh for inviting me. This trip was self-funded, but I would still like to thank the Oracle ACE Program for continuing to let me fly the flag. Thanks to the attendees that supported the event and thanks to all the speakers for doing what you do! I hope to see you all soon, but in better health next time! 🙂

Here are the posts I put out during this trip.

Cheers

Tim…

OGh Tech Experience 2017 : Day 2

I woke up on day 2 feeling pretty dreadful, but I lay in the bath for a while, waiting for a dose of Lemsip to kick in. By the time I got out of the bath I was feeling OK-ish.

By the time I finished the 20 minute bus ride and the short walk to the venue I wasn’t feeling so great, but the adrenalin started to kick in, which always helps. I sat for a while chatting to the people in the speaker room.

My first session was “It’s raining data! Oracle Databases in the cloud.” It went a lot better than I expected. There were a lot of people in the room and I managed not to cough too much and generally stayed snot-free. 🙂

After that there was a gap of about 2 hours until my next session. I hid in the speaker room for most of it and had another dose of Lemsip before my next session.

My next session was “Pluggable databases – What they will break and why you should use them anyway!” By this point the adrenalin was starting to wear off and I started to find it a little harder to find my words, getting a little tangled up a couple of times. Hopefully it wasn’t too bad for the audience.

From there I went back to the speaker room for five minutes, then headed back to the hotel to sleep.

I’m glad I managed to get through my sessions, but I feel bad I was not able to contribute more to the event. The fun thing about most events is interacting with everyone, as well as watching some of the other presenters. Instead I was pretty much absent for the whole event. I’ve had a few people message me asking where I was. 🙁

Sorry everyone!

Cheers

Tim…