My OOW16 - OTN

During OOW itself there were lots of things going on with OTN. Their lounge became the unofficial meeting place for ACEs.

Laura Ramsey did her video streaming from here and I took part in two. One video with Marcelle Kratochvil as part of the #OTNWIT series and the second a more general discussion with Laura.

They had their T Shirt bar, which did have a special time for ACEs to avoid the queue but I was speaking at that time, and they also had a special area creating art. I never got to do either and was actually annoyed that when the lounge advertised opening times the stands within it did not have to stay around. For instance on Thursday the lounge was open 10-2 but the art stand packed up at 12. 

Back to my main OOW16 page:

My OOW16 - Certus

Right from the moment I arrived at Oracle HQ I was on duty for Certus. I met with development and made arrangements to meet with more during OOW itself.

I was joined at OOW by Tim Warner our COO and Richard Atkins our EVP of Cloud Application. We met up at the EMEA Partner Reception on the Saturday night. I ached from my cycle ride and didn't stay too long, but did enjoy catching up with lots of people.

The highlight of our week was our presentation with England Rugby. Patrick McMaster from England Rugby was a guest on the Customer Red Carpet Program, and Richard was his host.

Certus have been beta testing HCM since the early days of SaaS, and for release 11 we included ERP as well. We had a couple of meetings during the week, and testing for release 12 starts in just a few weeks.

We met with not just development but also SaaS Strategy. Certus know working with development is a big investment but with new releases every 6 months we have to keep up and ensure our people know what they are delivering.

We also meet with Customer Success, this is a growing area within Oracle and again our strategy is to work with Oracle.

eclipse lens

Another area we work with is Partner Enablement, not only do we insist all our resources are specialised but we also are a training partner and deliver much of the training around EMEA. They have an annual reception to say thank you to partners and they gave us each a little gift of clip on lenses for smartphones, really fun.

Certus doesn't have a stand at these events. We prefer to market via sharing information, through our LinkedIn Group, Oracle Scene etc, so I was surprised when an old colleague told me they had seen me on a screen in the exhibition hall.

It turned out to be IT Central Station, a kind of 'Trip Advisor' for Software. Both Tim and I had done a video each with them at Collaborate and they had us both playing at their booth; bigger than life size.

It was a busy week, but well worth it for Certus.

Back to my main OOW16 page:

My OOW16 - ACE Director Briefings

As a proud ACE Director, OTN is my sponsor at Oracle Open World.

We are asked to attend two days of briefings at HQ the week before OOW, and in fact the User Experience day, the day before the briefings is also an offshoot from the ACE program.

You can never have enough photos of Oracle HQ

The briefings are great and as I said before, the highlight for me is the Thomas Kurian session and he didn't disappoint. Yes everything is under NDA, but some of that gets lifted during OOW itself. The advantage of Thomas going first is that all other speakers know how much he has actually shared. He even talked about SaaS so I felt special. I have to explain again that whilst not being a technical practitioner it is understanding what and how the technology works and how it can help SaaS users that is my value to Certus.

The real value of the ACE briefings is to hear everything as close to reality as possible and not simply a marketing session.

The format of the briefings also changed, with breakout sessions giving more people options on what to see. It was basically split into database and middleware or perhaps I should say IaaS & PaaS, as cloud was defiantly the only thing on the agenda. I was actually impressed at the number of people who went to the sessions outside their normal area of interest.

My favourite session outside of Thomas was the very last session I attended from Jon Huang who talked about future direction for #PaaS4SaaS. Defiantly under NDA and defiantly worth keeping an eye on.

Another advantage of the ACE Director program is that we get extended Cloud trials in exchange for giving feedback. I was very surprised to be 2nd on the leader board for feedback but articles and blogs all count and I have given a couple of webcasts to Product Management.

My most recent article is in the current Oracle Scene.

It is a long time since our mascot Stanley was lost but we have a new one now, Lumpy who Bjoern Rost introduced at Kscope this year. I promised to make him a Stanley Jacket and I did. There was a small wobble when I realised the measurements I had didn't quite work but the day was saved by Stewart Bryson ho donated me his ACE Director lanyard. I was also really impressed by Bjoern's wife Connie who volunteered to help Jennifer for the week.

I was also given a present for work I have done during the year but I think it is really just to help me have fun on the road, a more portable drinks mixer. You can only just see it in the picture but the flask is engraved with the ACE Director logo.

 I can't thank OTN and the ACE Program enough for looking after us and bringing us out for OOW. Jennifer does a wonderful job for us.

Back to my main OOW16 page:

My OOW16 - Write Up

It's a wrap! Or at least I am home. Oracle Open World usually means I come home with a very long to do list.

I flew out to San Francisco the Monday before OOW and the journey was great apart from having to wait almost an hour for the shuttle bus to the hotel. After 18 hours travelling you do just want to get to the hotel. However I love the Sofitel, they do have the most comfortable mattresses ever and after the French Onion soup I had been craving since I left Heathrow, I slept wonderfully.

I don't do jet lag, but I was up at 3am, since the boss rang me for something without remembering where I was, and I hadn't switched my phone to silent. Still 'I love my job' and I soon went back to sleep.

Tuesday started slow but coffee with Maria Colgan was a great 'first up' and at this end of the week she wasn't too stressed by the OOW preparation. She told me about her new role taking over from Tom Kyte who has announced his retirement, however she is leaving the 'Ask Tom' to Connor & Chris who are doing such a good job.



Technically I had four sessions although 2 were my #EOUCDBAs.

Then immediately after Lonneke and I gave our #PaaS4SaaS session which we really enjoyed. It was rather a last minute entry and we only put it together whilst at HQ the Thursday before.

The highlight of my presentations was the England Rugby & Certus story about their journey to Cloud Applications.

But as usual I have broken the story down into a number of posts to keep your attention:

• ACE Director Briefings
• Certus
• OTN
• England Rugby Presentation
• User Groups
• PaaS4SaaS
• My 'Fun' Triathlon
• User Experience
• The Off Piste Fun
• My Thoughts and Those from the Analysts I follow

See you next year

My OOW16 - Same Old, Same Old or A Favourite Recipe?

As the world's most skilled procrastinator I have been in San Francisco for 28 hours and still not written my 'what am I up to' post.

So I looked at last year's pre event post and if I simply updated the session names it would work, although I don't get the post event holiday to Hawaii I had last year (why not? I ask myself).

Is Oracle Open World stale, and is it just a series of repeats, or is it something to look forward to? 

It certainly comes round too quickly, especially this year it is only 11 months since the last one!

So I have analysed the components of my experience and determined that each element falls into a number of buckets:

• "Its just the way Oracle do it" - stuck with it then 
• "I've always done it that way" - something I should look at changing
•  "the way I like to handle it" - more of a tradition, that I enjoy, and look forward to.

OTN generously fund my trip to Oracle Open World as part of my ACE Director credentials; my travel and my overly inflated hotel room during the conference. Hotels in San Francisco, at the OOW preferential rate are in most cases double what you would pay this week. They are guaranteed full occupancy so basically can charge what they like, criminal. 

OTN ask in return that I attend briefings in HQ the Thursday & Friday before. This is not a chore, and if I had to chose between the briefings and OOW itself, I would chose the briefings. If I could only chose one session, it would be Thomas Kurian's. He answers questions, he is honest and his passion for the technology shines through. I like the way he treats us as experts and doesn't give us the marketing spin. 

I am very proud that several years ago I suggested to the User Experience (UX) team in development that ACEs would be interested in what they do, and they in turn created an offshoot from the ACE program to teach those interested more about what they do. Over the years that program has grown to a wider audience but the training takes place on the Wednesday before at HQ. So I used to travel over on the Tuesday, however I have found that if I travel Monday I can arrange any meetings I need with Development for the Tuesday before the last minute rush kicks in for them.

One of the traditions is to have dinner on the Tuesday with Misha Vaughan from the UX team, a chance to catch up with my thoughts on their direction, customer feedback and simply as friends. We have a traditional restaurant as well, a Thai restaurant I have actually just left. 

So that is the week before OOW covered:

•  Monday travel
• Tuesday Dev meetings
• Wednesday UX  
• Thursday, Friday ACE Director briefings. 

We stay in the Sofitel near Oracle HQ and my next tradition is the night I arrive having their French Onion Soup, it tastes divine. Their service is slow but worth it. 

Hang on, Ive just remembered, I think it is a tradition, or perhaps a habit but there will also be Chi Gung with Kent Thursday and Friday early.

Friday evening we pack up and move out to the city. This year I can online check in and use my phone as a digital key, Im excited, not by the technology but by the idea I can bypass check in when I arrive. Another tradition I have, and not just for OOW, is that whenever I plan to stay 5 or more nights in one place, and this includes my home; I buy flowers. In San Francisco that is normally at a stall by the Cable Car terminal.

One of my favourite traditions, probably second, is my Open World Triathlon; well cycle, run & swim. There are organised cycle rides on Saturday but I like to do my own at my own pace as I am so unfit. This year Fiona Martin my UKOUG 'partner in crime' and I are tackling the challenge. Fiona is much fitter than me but did her first half marathon last weekend and recovering from that, so hopefully will not put me under pressure. We are doing the 'gentle pedal, lunch with wine and ferry home' cycle option. Aiming to arrive back at the hotel before the Partner Reception which marks our start to the main festivities event.

Sunday morning OTN have a run across the Golden Gate Bridge and providing we completed our cycle across on Saturday we will join in. My 'traditional' approach is to arrive early and start walking, and the runners will catch me up. 

Sunday is user group day which punctuates this triathlon nicely. It is also my absolutely top tradition is the EMEA DBA quick fire talks, where we give speakers just 5 minutes to tell us something about the database. It has been confined to release 12 but this year we are taking a 2hour walk through database history with their favourite features. I have 22 DBAs speaking and it will be a hoot. If you haven't signed up then do so now. Session IDs UGF2630 & 2632

Then I am in a joint session with Lonneke Dikmans from eProseed, where we will share our approach and achievements so far with our first commercial PaaS application. It is all about Immunisation but I promise you there are no needles to be squeamish about. Come along and see how you can use PaaS to build out from Cloud Apps. UGF2706

It is sad but this session clashes with a new initiative an OTN WIT panel. I was asked to take part in the panel but had to turn it down. I would encourage you to attend but actually I want you to come to our session (at least I am honest).

Then Sunday evening it is the ACE social, a chance to catch up with friends.

Back to the Triathlon, Monday starts with the last element, the swim. This is normally not much more than a dunk as the water is not warm. however I normally try to swim at least 50 metres. This is after all my dominate discipline of the 3 (and it still isn't pretty). This year I have to swim even faster as my first meeting of the day is very early and I will need to hotfoot it and hope no one notices the 'eau de bay' fragrance as there won't be time for anything more than a beach side shower.

Lunchtime Monday there is a User Group appreciation lunch for UG leaders and then in the  afternoon Lonneke and I team up again to demo PaaS in the UX expo. This is on a booth so you never know which way the conversation will go or who your audience is. Last year we had analysts which added another level to the nerves.

Tuesday is my quieter day although my dance card is already full of meetings, and in the evening there is the traditional SOA community event. However our leader, our Papa Smurf is not actually here this year and will be missed. I will also try and make some of the Oak Table World sessions over at the Children's Museum, and stop by the OTN lounge to support my sponsors.

Wednesday I have analyst sessions first thing and at lunchtime I have another session to deliver, a shared customer presentation with England Rugby, the RFU. Their story is about their implementation of not only HCM & Financials Cloud but also best practice and how this is transforming their business. If you like Sport and Rugby is the fastest growing sport in the US then this is a great customer case study even if you are not interested in Cloud. It will be a great session and I even plan on wearing a rugby shirt. It is also a combined Finance and HCM implementation and we will share the challenges and considerations that presented. Digital Transformation in Sport [CON2721]

Wednesday evening is the party. I like the fact it is somewhere new, not sure if I will be disappointed we don't have Billy Joel or excited we have Gwen Stefani and Sting instead.

Thursday as the event winds down I have another series of meetings. 

It is also my tradition that I stay the night of the last day, by then I have been living on adrenalin for over a week, and need to come down before i strap myself into an aircraft seat for 12 hours. I am buzzing and would be crawling up walls. Instead I will have a quiet dinner with those friends still in town, breakfast with the Dutch contingent and then send off many emails to get follow up tasks kicked off and find a little shopping time for me (although Brexit has made shopping in the US a lot less attractive financially) and fly home that evening much more relaxed.

I always arrive at OOW with too much luggage, spilt equally between the many hats I need; ACE, Certus, User group leader, UX advocate, etc, etc and the x Pat shopping supplies; tea, chocolate, marmite etc. I tell myself I will have almost empty cases to take home and then I go shopping.

I love Oracle Open World and yes many things could be improved; the rush of last minute invitations, some of the booking process, the mobile app (which was only launched today) but overall it works.

Most of my tasks are the same as last year, and the year before but it defiantly a much loved recipe I will continue to use. If you see me, say hallo, an please come to my sessions, if only for my wonderful english accent.

An ACE Tale of Teach, Motivate, Mentor & Achieve

I am often asked, “How long does it take to be an ACE?” and I’m sorry but the answer has to be “It depends”; it depends how far along the journey you are already are, and even then it depends on how big an impact you make.

But this isn’t a race, it is about being recognised for an on going community commitment. Even when you are awarded an ACE title we are all self reviewed each year. You have to maintain the commitment to keep the title.

I also often say that one of the roles of an ACE Director is to motivate and encourage the local community wherever we have the privilege to present.

Anyway, I want to tell you the story one such person on his own journey, and how that has been shaped by the people he has met.

Alexis Lopez is an ACE Associate based in Colombia. His skill set includes ADF & Java and he is an independent helping many partners and organizations within Colombia.

My first visit to Colombia was 2011, and it was great to be back again this year.

I had the pleasure of meeting Alexis on this years OTN Tour of North Latin America as he spoke in Panama, Guatemala and of course Colombia. I envy the user groups in Latin America, they have no problem attracting young professionals and I am always asking why they got involved?

Alexis comes from the city of Cali, and I knew that the Colombian User Group ASUOC is really active in Cali and my good friend Robin Castro Gil  who was once the President came from there, so I asked Alexis if he knew him.

Alexis laughed and told me that Robin was one of his lecturers when he was at university. Robin taught Project Management which was a module on Alexis’ computer degree at ICESI in 2005. Robin is now a professor at ICESI and currently completing his PhD in Montreal.

Robin (on right) at ASUOC 2011

When Alexis realised that Robin actually ran the user group he started to attend virtually from 2006 when he finished university and started working. The user group provided information on the many diverse technologies available within Oracle but what really hooked Alexis was the community interaction. He started to specialise in Oracle and went to work for an Oratech, an Oracle Partner as a developer.

Around 2010 Alexis met Mauricio Naranjo who at the time was the only local ACE Director and also specialized in SOA & Middleware. Mauricio blogged, spoke, was an author of a book and if you know Mauricio he is so passionate about what he does and this rubbed off on Alexis. Mauricio took Alexis under his wing and encouraged him to get involved more, to share his knowledge.

Mauricio & Alexis

This mentoring worked and Alexis started his own journey, after attending JavaOne LAD in December 2012 and watching the interaction and solidarity of the Brazilian community, he decided to create CLOJUG a Java User Group in Cali.

2016 has been an amazing year for Alexis, it has seen him gain ACE Associate, the first step on the ACE journey. He was also presented at Open World Latin America in Brazil earlier this year with a Duke Choice Award for Open Source Collaboration for this region. This was a joint award to Alexis and Cesar Hernandez another upcoming star and Java Champion from Guatemala. There is even a picture of this being awarded in the current OTN Latin America presentation video that Pablo Ciccarello, the community shares at each conference.

Alexis is a star of his community on the rise and will be encouraging others to join him at Java One this year with his presentation:  Worldwide JUG Collaboration: Think Global, Act Local [UGF7868].

There is nothing better for a teacher, than the success of former students, I know both Robin and Mauricio are proud of Alexis and all he has achieved at what is still the start of his community journey.

Alexis also got me to ride a horse, but that is another story 

So even if you have yet to start your journey, or want a little direction, reach out to your local ACE members and we will take the time to encourage you.

And keep an eye out for Alexis; he is going places!

What is your favourite Database Feature? Come Hear Ours at Oracle Open World

It is that time again, the run up to Oracle Open World and as is now tradition the EMEA Oracle User Groups are bringing you another two hours of ACE DBAs short talks.

The past two years they have had just a few minutes to share with you new features. This year we are shaking it up a little and they are sharing their favourite features, regardless of when it appeared. 

For me (and I'm not a DBA or even technical anymore), my favourite feature was the reason I moved to Oracle, or at least that is the myth I have created. I used to be an Ingres Programmer and Oracle had an 'ALTER' clause which they didn't!

So please join us for 2 hours of great fun. 

Currently the sessions are listed as OGF2630 & 2632 but we hope to have them merged in the next few days. Please sign up so we know what to expect.

Sunday 1 - 3pm Moscone South - 102

They are against the Clock and we will cut them off if they overrun. 

The running order is based on when the feature was introduced so it is a bit like a time-lapse video of the database history. It will be fun, don't miss it.

David Kurtz	Instrumentation
Sten Vesterli	DBMS_RANDOM
Bjoern Rost	services
Christian Antognini	Parallel Processing
Franck Pachot	Transportable Tablespaces
Alex Nuijten	Analytic Functions
Osama Mustafa	RAC
Kamran Aghayev	Clusterware
Tim Hall	Data Pump (expdp / impdp)
Carl Dudley	The recyclebin
Maris Elsins	Tracing by DBMS_MONITOR
Oren Nakdimon	Edition-Based Redefinition
Peter Scott	The LISTAGG analytic function and some novel ways to use it!
Brendan Tierney	Predictive Queries in Oracle 12c
Oded Raz	Data Redaction Hacking, Privilege Analysis, SQL/CL
Philip Brown	12c Privilege Analysis
Lucas Jellema	SQL Pattern recognition
Julian Dontcheff	OEM 13c Database Consolidation Advisor
Kim Berg Hansen	JSON_TABLE and other JSON query methods
Gurcan Orhan	connecting ODI to cloud services
Frits Hoogland	The dire need of database administration automation
Martin Widlake	Corrections to all prior topics