Oops I've done it Again

Oops, another blog posting missed. I need to refer to this in a current posting so hence slotting this in now.

I live in Ireland, N Ireland near Larne and about 20 miles from Belfast so the annual Ireland OUG conference is very special to me, and as it happens I am also the UKOUG Councillor accountable for the Ireland Community.

The event is always held in March and this year at the new Convention Centre which is excellent. The office got a fantastic deal and everyone commented on how great it was, I hope they can pull off the same magic for 2013.

Our Oracle keynote was Jon Paul, who is the country lead for Ireland, and although I teased him about it being a little salesy it was great to hear about things happening in Ireland.

Oracle's Jon Paul

 

Alan Stewart

The presentations were excellent with a great mix of Oracle, Well known presenters from the ACE Program and most importantly local talent. The best session of the day went to Alan Stewart from NI Water who gave his warts and all story of their upgrade to EBS 12. Alan followed Nadia Bendjedou from Oracle who is the queen of EBS and she sat on through his session. One of his comments was on the number of patches post upgrade that were required and Nadia commented that it was much more for a bigger footprint, and accepted Oracle needed to make it easier. Nadia also conducted a masterclass on planning upgrades.

Ultan O’Brien and Richard Bingham from Oracle talked about Fusion and its support and there was also talks about what is available. I gave my ‘Should I upgrade or go straight to Fusion’ presentation and showed the Fusion TubeMap. 

Nadia and I

BI is really well mainstream in Ireland and there was an excellent stream plus a masterclass from Mark Rittman. I was particularly pleased with the middleware track, Grant Ronald from Oracle on ADF, along with ACE Directors Simon Haslam and Lonneke Dikmans to name just a few. Another ACE Director Roel Hartman looked after HTML and APEX. Server Tech coverage was also great but my favourite one here was the customer story from Deirdre O’Dowd – Department of Justice & Equality not only because it was a local customer presentation but because many years ago I worked with this team in Killarney.

 

Our wrap up keynote was Mogens Nørgaard a special favourite of the Irish community, and he talked about what he had learnt from Oracle. He was as open and controversial as ever but well received, even though he did present in his bath robe! Why? Because he could, however it was actually a reference to his current article in Oracle Scene.

So another great Irish Conference, thanks to all the speakers, the office especially Faye to the exhibitors and sponsors, and most of all to the delegates. See you next year.

P.S. another special thanks to Peak Indicators for the after event drinks.