IOUG blogs

Today was a great start to the conference. Despite hearing there are over 40,000 attendees at the conference I thought everything ran smoothly. Sunday was Special Interest Group (SIG) day for the Oracle user groups. These presentations highlighted top speakers from the Oracle user groups. I attended a number of excellent presentations by highlighted speakers from the IOUG and other user groups. Lots of buzz that SIG presentations were excellent presentations to attend.  Focus of the day from everyone seemed to be understanding BEAs integration in Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle apps presentations.
My day at Oracle open world.

• Presenting on Oracle Open World at 8:30. Very happy to see it was standing room only at my presentation. Some people must of thought that it was the line for free breakfast.
• Breakfast with Mike Ault, one of my favorite database people.
• Quest users group, an excellent high energy group.
• ODTUG - love dem shirts!
• OAUG - awesome as always
• Definitely visit the Oracle user groups booth in the user’s pavilion.  IOUG booth rocks!
• Meeting with different Oracle product managers and product leaders.
• Bloggers event. A very cooool group.
• Duncan Mills presentations on Web architecture.
• I thought Steve Lemme’s presentation on Oracle Fusion Middleware was a very unique perspective and enlightening on the roadmap to successful projects using Oracle Fusion Middleware.
• Hooking up with different leaders from the IOUG and ODTUG, the two key technology user’s groups in the Oracle world.
• Food was excellent at the evening get togethers.
• Seeing Dan Norris, president of the Oracle RAC SIG.  Always lots of great humor and perspective.  Geaux RAC SIG!

Blogging can save your life!

One of the great stories of the conference was hearing how Debra Lilley (one of my favorite people) was stuck in an elevator at hotel and started blogging on how she was stuck on the elevator. Someone monitoring the Oracle blog for the conference called the hotel and helped get her out. Glad you’re okay Debra!

Thought of the Day

Loving seeing that with Oracle highlighting Oracle Open World as a green event once company advertised the green event by handing out advertisements using paper!

Quotes of the Day

“Chillaxxxxx”

“He’s like a satanic chihuahua under a strobe light”

Sunday Keynote: Carville and Matalin
Sunday as excellent with Mary Matalin and James Carville entertaining the attendees with a humorous and enlightening view of world of politics.Lots of interesting highlights.  James Carville said that we are in a time where things are changing faster than ever.  He said we can expect tremendous change in world events between now and the election.  He thinks if the people between 18 - 29 come out in high numbers its going to swing the election to Obama. He thinks there is going to be a tremendous generation gap in the US.   I really enjoyed their humor and insights.

Tony and Bonnie, we miss you and wish you were here!

Top ten ways to maximize your Oracle Open World experience.

1. Attend user group (IOUG, OAUG, Quest, ODTUG) events.   User groups are one of the best ways of networking at a conference.  Introduce yourself to leaders of the user’s groups and to volunteers they always want to be helpful and can give a lot of great advice on the conference.
2. Prepare questions to ask attendees at the conference to get conversation going.
3. Stop at the user group booth events and talk to the representatives and see how you can meet people with similar interests.
4. Introduce yourself to yourself to as many people as you can.  It can be kind of scary but everyone wants to meet other people.  Ask them on ideas on how to get the best out of the conference and who their favorite speakers are and what events they like to go to at the conference.
5. Look at people’s badges and see what areas they are interested in.
6. Spend sufficient time planning your schedule and which presentations you want to attend.
7. There are always great evening events.   See which ones would be interesting to attend.
8. Start each day early,  lots of people are relaxing having breakfast so it can be the easiest way to meet people before the day gets hectic.
9. Look at different blogs, podcasts and Oracle Mix on the conference, they can give you insights and the lastest information.  If you haven’t joined Oracle Mix you should consider joining.
10. Spend sufficient time in the vendor booth area.  Talk to the people at the booths and most important bring a lot of the free gifts home.

Have fun at the conference and I hope to meet you there!

IOUG at Oracle Open World
Oracle Open World (OOW) is going to be a great conference this year. The Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) again has a great role at OOW. OOW starts with the Special Interest Group (SIG) day, with the IOUG having a number of the best recognized speakers delivering presentations on areas ranging from Server Technology, Middleware and Business intelligence. The IOUG is the leading user group for Oracle technology. I highly recommend visiting the IOUG booth at OOW and attending IOUG presentations and events. OOW just keeps getting bigger and better every year. I’ve heard they are expecting around 40,000 this year. The conference is from September 21 - 25, 2008 at the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco.

George Trujillo Presentations
I’m very fortunate to get the opportunity to open and close the conference. My two presentations are in:

Getting Started with Oracle Fusion Middleware (Sunday September 21, 2008 8:30 - 10:30am)
Demystifying Oracle Fusion Middleware (Thursday September 25, 2008 13:30 - 14:30pm)

Leverage Networking at the Conference
It’s going to be a great networking opportunity. Throughout the week I will be meeting with Senior Oracle managers in the server and middle-tier technology areas. I will also be meeting with leaders from the IOUG, OAUG, Quest and attending Sun Microsystems events. Getting involved with user groups is one of the best things you can do do further your career in terms of getting into the information stream of industry leaders as well as getting great networking opportunities.

Key areas for me include:

• Getting the latest information on the BEA integration into Oracle Fusion.
• Interacting with attendees and seeing what their current challenges are related to Oracle Server technology. The Oracle DBA is working in an ever increasing level of complexity when it comes to database servers. Having the typical administration, tuning and backup and recovery skills is no longer sufficient. Having additional skills in RAC, Data Guard, Streams, Enterprise Manager and storage are very important for production DBAs. Yet, at the same time DBAs have to start increasing their skills in getting ready for a new level of management of Oracle applications and the upcoming Oracle Fusion applications.
• Finding out exactly where we are with Oracle 11g Release 2. The Release 2 of a major version of Oracle has always been the target platform most organizations move to. As always we can expect a significant amount of enhancements to Oracle 11gR1 as well a new features in the Oracle 11gR2.

I hope to see you there!

My game plan for Sunday at the conference:

1. Get there early to get registered and to get my game face on for the conference. Checking into the hotel, etc.
2. Meet and greet everyone and find out what everybody has been doing since Oracle Open World.
3. Peek into the University events.  The presenters are always fantastic.
4. Attend the Volunteer evening event. Volunteers are the heart and soul of the conference, so this is a great event to attend.
5. Go to the Oracle ACE dinner. A great group of people and an event I am looking forward to.
6. Attend as many SIG evening events as possible.
7. Find Steve Lemme. He’s always a great guide to all the activities of the day.

I’m going to be at a special event for my son, so I unfortunately will not be able to attend Saturday events.  I’ll probably be under communication blackout this day.  I’m bummed to miss the board meetings and the board dinner.  Always a great time with our board and the board members of the other groups.

Saturday is usually the warm up day for the conference.  I’ll have to hit the ground running on Sunday.

The collaborate conference is just about to start. Here are my top 10 things I recommend you do to get ready for the conference:

1) Solidify your personal schedule and set backups in case a room is full for a presentation.

2) Plan on spending time in the vendor booth area, plan questions to ask experts in the Oracle campground. Leverage your time there.

3) What is your networking game plan? One of the key benefits is to network at a conference. What are some good things to ask other people while you are there.
4) Look at all the breakfast and evening events. Plan ahead for activities.

5) Have your business cards and other information ready.

6) Download presentations in advance so you can ask more detailed questions during the presentations.

7) Make sure you check the daily agenda updates. There are always cool things added at the conference.

8) Read some conference blogs to make sure you are in the loop at the conference.

9) Go to web.mac.com/george.trujillo, then click on the Travel tab and then click on Denver to get a list of cool places to visit while in Denver.

10) Introduce yourself to peers, IOUG board members and conference volunteers. They all want to make sure you have a great time. You can look at their badges and their ribbons to see their interests. I’d also try to attend some SIG meetings.

One more for good luck: Bring an extra bag or suitcase to bring additional things back from the vendor booths, etc.
See you there!

George Trujillo.

Hi,

Denver is a great city to visit. If new to the IOUG or the Collaborate Conference, don’t hesitate talking to volunteers, members of the IOUG or board members for any suggestions on how you can maximize your conference experience.

Being from Denver, I thought I would share some of the fun locations I would recommend while in Denver. My list of things to do in Denver while at the conference can be found at web.mac.com/george.trujillo. Click on the Travel Tab then Click on Denver. I’ve included:
1) Top ten places to visit in Colorado
2) Top places within a two hour drive of Denver
3) Favorite restaurants in Denver and surrounding suburbs - Denver has the Palm, Mortons, Ruth Chris, PF Chang, etc. in downtown Denver. My list stays away from the chains.
4) Cool places to try in Denver.
5) Shop till you drop locations.

A few pointers for Denver:
In April it can be 80 degrees or 20 degrees, great sunshine and pretty cold all in the same week.
Downtown has a pedestrian mall (16th st) that will goes east and west, so its a great way to get from one end of downtown to another. Regular free shuttle buses go back and forth. The conference is on 14th street so you are only two blocks from the 16th st. mall area. Most places are between 14th and 17th street in downtown. Most active areas for clubs is the west side. Go to 15th st and Larimer, 17th and Market and restaurants and clubs are all around these intersections.

I also have a post at trubix.blogspot.com about ways to “Maximize your ROI at Collaborate 2008″.

I hope you have a great time while in Denver!!!!

Now that the RMOUG conference is over, its now time to focus on the Collaborate 2008 Conference in Denver, CO April 13 - 17th. Collaborate 2008 is the largest Oracle related user conference of the year bringing together the three key Oracle user groups: Independent Oracle Users Group (Technology related - DBA, Fusion Middleware, Storage, …), Quest (JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, Oracle Utilities) and the Oracle Application Users Group (OAUG).

Part of the value proposition of this conference is that you can go to any of the groups and attend just their conference, or you can attend presentations from any of the user groups. This is a great users conference. There is heavy focus on the user’s perspective with not a lot of marketing. If you can only attend one conference a year, this is the Oracle conference to attend. Go to www.ioug.org to get more details.

With all the activity going on with VLDBs, Oracle Fusion Middleware, XML, Oracle Applications, Storage , etc. Oracle technologists need to know more and more. To be able to listen to the industry’s top leaders has a very large ROI. However, I believe the networking can be just as valuable as the presentations. Every year I have someone tell me that something they learned at a breakfast, lunch or evening dinner paid for the conference. To leverage your experience at a conference I highly recommend you try to volunteer in some way. Volunteering is one of the best ways to network and feel part of the conference.

RMOUG was a great conference. My comments on the RMOUG conference can be found at trubix.blogspot.com. Kudos to the RMOUG team for putting on such a great local conference!

One thing that stands out at Oracle Open World 2008 in San Francisco is the changing role of the Oracle DBA. There are a number of reasons for this. Oracle DBAs that want to stay marketable are going to have to make sure their skills are consistent with the demands of the market. Oracle DBAs in demand are going to need to specialize in some of the following areas:

• Oracle High Availability - RAC and Data Guard
• Storage Management - Automatic Storage Management (ASM)
• Oracle Streams
• Oracle Grid Control - Using new tools, advisors and metholdologies for managing the enterprise.
• Oracle Fusion Middleware - Ability to manage multi-tiered architectures.
• Identity Management - Ability to work with Oracle Internet Directory and other LDAP servers.
• Ability to support Enterprise Web 2.0
• Ability to support multiple database platforms like MySQL.

The old days of an Oracle DBA being able to get by on just performance tuning and backup/ recovery skills are not going to be enough to stay marketable in the future. Basic skill sets are easy to find and easy to outsource. To get a better vision of the future you should look at new features in Oracle Database 11g that can greatly simplify database administration. Some of these include:

• Automatic SQL tuning
• New Diagnostics Advisor
• RMAN Advisor
• SQL Tuning Advisor

This list is a very small subset of all the diagnostic and advisor tools available in the Oracle Enterprise Manager for Oracle Database 11g. These large set of tools are going to play a large role in managing Oracle production environments. The old days of writing custom scripts are almost over.  DBAs are going to use more tools like Grid Control automate a lot of the day to day tasks DBAs typically perform.

George Trujillo

trubix.blogspot.com

web.mac.com/george.trujillo

mysql-dba-journey.blogspot.com

I led an Oracle Database 11g New Features panel of experts on Sunday. This panel has been recognized by Oracle as being leaders in the Oracle user community and recognized for their expertise in Oracle Database technology. The panel included:

• Dan Norris
• John King
• Charles Kim
• Plamen Zyumbyulev

The focus was on top features of Oracle Database 11g and how they were powerful enough that they should be included quickly after moving to Oracle Database 11g. I have been involved in the beta testing of Oracle Database 11g since the fall of 2007. I was on the Oracle Database Beta Leadership Council for a number of years until recently. Although I loved working with the beta program I can only be on so many councils and boards, so I’ve had to give up a few.
I along with the panel had a consensus that this is the best first release ever put out by Oracle. You may want to go out and visit the Trubix blog at http://trubix.blogspot.com. I have two blogs on Oracle Database 11g, one summarizing the top features and a second providing a more detailed overview of Oracle Database 11g.
Oracle Open World is strongly emphasizing Oracle Database 11g and Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g throughout the conference. You can also expect that Oracle Database 11g will be emphasized at the upcoming Collaborate 2008 Conference in April, 2008 in Denver, CO. I expect you will see a quicker adoption of Oracle Database 11g with its outstanding features as well as its stability. This option will be a stronger consideration for leap frogging Oracle 10g.
George Trujillo

trubix.blogspot.com

web.mac.com/george.trujillo

mysql-dba-journey.blogspot.com