UKOUG Tech16 : Wednesday

Similar to last year, I had a presentation on a day I wasn’t attending, so I used my “lunch break” to drive in, present and drive back to work. I did get to see a bunch of people while I was waiting for my session to start, including my dad and wife. 🙂

My session was called “Put your feet up and have a REST. Take a tour of JSON support in the Oracle database.” It was basically a romp through the JSON support provided by ORDS, APEX and Oracle Database 12c (12.1 and 12.2). More importantly, it gave me an opportunity to stand on my soapbox and preach my “how to stay relevant” message.

As a DBA and PL/SQL developer I’m a firm believer in the Thick Database Model, but we are no longer in a position to dictate terms. What we should be trying to do is make the stuff we develop, as well as stuff we have already built over the last 20+ years, as accessible as possible. You can’t achieve that by forcing people to use an Oracle client and telling them to call a packaged procedure. What you can do though is present them with a web service that makes it easy for them to use your code.

I’ve been pushing this message for years with XML web services and SOAP web services from the database. Nowadays the basic message is still the same, but the tools are a little different, and of course XML has been replaced by JSON.

So the question is, do you want to be legacy or play with the “cool kids”? 🙂

Thanks to everyone who came to my session and those that spoke to me during Sunday, Monday and today. Thanks to the folks at UKOUG for inviting me to come and play. As always, big thanks go out to the Oracle ACE Program for letting me continue to fly the flag in my cloud free skies. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

UKOUG Tech16 : Super Sunday

tech16_300wMy blog posts about a conference usually start with a post about my journey to the event, so…

I got in my car, drove 4 miles, parked my car, walked about 100m.

That’s it. 🙂

I met up with a gang of people in the ICC and pretty soon we moved up to the main reception area, where we had a natter and coffee before everything kicked off. They couldn’t find a badge for Mr Debra Lilley, so I had to make do with one for some guy called Tim Hall. There were several tracks, so I’ll only talk about what I saw…

ukoug-trondFirst up was Trond Enstad with “NodeJS & Oracle – A Match Made in Heaven”. The session was based around a live demo, including a new installation of Node, Oracle Instant Client and Oracle Node Driver. Trond built a Node app to act like an OS monitoring agent to capture “sar” data from the server and insert it into a DB table, so APEX could be used to visualise it. I now feel I am truly one of the cool kids!

Me: Alexa, am I cool?
Alexa: You’re cooler than cool. You’re the coolest!

I bet she says that to all the guys!

ukoug-jeffNext was Jeff Smith with “Auto REST Enabling Your Tables, Views, & More With SQL Developer & REST Data Services”. The session started with a basic REST primer and an introduction to ORDS. Jeff then gave some examples of how the AutoREST functionality of ORDS can enable RESTful access to tables and views. He also talked about AutoREST of PL/SQL objects (procedures, functions, packages etc.), which will be available in ORDS 3.1. Jeff was super jet-lagged, so once he finished his session I walked him to his hotel, tucked him into bed, then headed back to the conference. 🙂

ukoug-lonnekeMy little excursion made me a bit late for Lonneke Dikmans presenting “Internet of Things (IoT) in the Enterprise – A Case Study”. The session presented a proof of concept (POC) using air conditioning sensors, which constantly send information to Oracle IoT Cloud Service. When a problem with the temperature is noticed a ticket is raised automatically. A BIMServer was used to build a detailed model of the building. The maintenance folks could see the ticket and drill down from that into the model of the building, allowing them to potentially organise maintenance and fix things before the users even noticed the problem. Pretty cool, but not as cool as me according to Alexa!

ukoug-alexThe last session of the days was “Oracle 12c for Developers” by Alex Nuijten. This was a quick-fire session, covering lots of different development features that Alex likes from 12.1 and 12.2. I like these types of sessions because they cover so much ground. The audience was great, with lots of questions and interaction! It’s always interesting hearing other people’s questions. I wrote down a bunch of questions I didn’t know the answer to, which I will look into and add to my articles on the subjects. 🙂

Once the final session was over I had a quick chat with a bunch of people before heading home.

That’s UKOUG Tech16 Super Sunday done! I’ll be at the UKOUG Tech16 event all day tomorrow, as well as at the ACE dinner in the evening, so I hope to see you there!

Cheers

Tim…

PS. I got a new sticker. The ORDS one in the middle. 🙂

ords-sticker

UKOUG Tech16 : I’m Speaking

tech16_300wI originally thought the BGOUG event was my last speaking event of the year, but as it happens I am now presenting at UKOUG Tech 16 in a few days time.

If you fancy coming along to my session, it’s on Wednesday 11:30 – 12:20 and it’s called Put Your Feet Up & Have a REST. Take a Tour of JSON Support in the Oracle Database.

We might be celebrating my nephew’s birthday on the Saturday this year. If that’s the case I will be able to come to the Sunday event for the first time ever.

As for the week days, I will be in on Wednesday just to present, then I will be going back to work. One of my colleagues wants to do Wednesday, so I have to be in the office to provide cover. I will be doing one of the other two days (Monday or Tuesday), but I don’t know which yet.

See you there!

Cheers

Tim…