IOUG blogs

This past weekend has been one that has given me a lot of time to think. Why do I have all this time? Turns out that on Friday I played my final game of Friday hockey which I play with a great bunch of friends. The fact that that  my team won that day was lost on most of us, at least on me, my friend Chris did seem to have a great memory of a 3 goal game, but  as a result of an injury that occurred 10 minutes before the end of the game, my memories are not as sweet. My back has always been a fragile thing and last Friday it failed me again. I could not continue and I had to sadly abandon the game and my team. It is very rare for me to ever leave a game due to injury and this being the final and deciding game of our imaginary Champion’s cup, I wanted to play, but I realized I would be of little help. Luckily my team playing with an extra player held on to win the “Rusty Nails Cup”, for me it was a great team victory but a personal defeat.
 

Tonight my team the Remax All Stars plays our Championship game. Our chances are very good this week to beat our opponents but we also know that we would need to be at our best. I believe in my team and I believe that we will win. There is a quiet confidence that has been growing all season and people where playing “playoff” quality hockey. We are a truly cohesive unit and best of friends. These are 12 of the best people you will ever meet and I would do anything for as I expect they would do for me. Now enter my bad lower back. It has still not fully recovered from Friday so I will not be playing this evening and this causes me the feeling that I am abandoning the team, and this really bothers me. I have worked hard as the rest of team has to get here, but now I can’t be part of it on the ice. I know I have to do what is best for the team and I will help by ensuring that the beer is cold and that we stay focused during the game. I have been given the responsibility of coaching the herd of cats that is my team, but I will not be able to affect the game’s outcome directly. As the goalie I know and accept the accountability for my team and to be a defensive foundation. I and my defensemen (Marshall, Jimmy, Terry and Kevin) are a solid unit; we know what to expect of each of us and how to best use it to help the team. It will be difficult to watch them play without me, but for me it will be more difficult to talk about game afterwards. The time when we get the cold beer and reminisce about the game and with some luck the victory that was, this is what I will miss most. I will have been an observer; a fan. I will be the outsider looking in.  
 

I know that this is what I will try not to take away from tonight. I am there for my team. We are here in some way based on what I had done up until this unfortunate and untimely injury. What I will do is that I will bring the lock for the dressing room door. I will provide insight to the team as the game progresses and will not dwell on what could have been. Myself and another injured player, Shep, will support the team and provide the motivation when they need it. Although we won’t be contributing directly on the ice, we will do our part. The past few weeks the team feels a sort of destiny to this season, which is one of a reaffirmation of our passion for the game. Good luck boys! One more win and we can complete what we all started.
 

As with my team; the passion for the user community was reaffirmed to me again on Friday (The Day The Back Went Out). The IOUG, OAUG and Quest Presidents got together to discuss the status of IOUG Forum and the rest of COLLABORATE09, and it was such a cooperative experience. We are a team that is working towards the greater good of the user community. Considering the fact that the economy is beginning a slow recovery we must be ready to pounce upon opportunity to be the best and most innovative people in our chosen Oracle specialty. This event is one that should not be missed; your future may depend on it.

Organizations today must wrestle with the challenge of technology that is changing on an ever increasing pace.  The result of this change is often technology that becomes outdated or new offerings provide more value than previous products. So what is an organization to do in this situation?

The scenario is one that organizations are facing. I had a client who needed their data warehouse to attain much higher performance then their existing platform. As a result of this need they purchased and implemented a Netezza data warehouse appliance solution. It was a successful implementation and achieved the information goals that they had identified. This happened 2 years ago and if the same requirement occurred today would their approach have been the same? Today we have options from database vendors that compete directly in this marketplace.  So would the organization have chosen the Oracle Database Machine if the option was available then?

This raises the question of what and when to buy. Generally I would recommend that people look at how the industry is developing and future direction of products. When selecting products to support your organization you will consider how well it meets your needs of today but how well will the product develop in the future to changing approaches and architectures. These factors must weigh into your decision and why we generally look to the vendors to define their product roadmaps. These roadmaps will aid your decision to ensure that both your vision and the product can be supported. Think about anyone who purchased the Red Brick database, where are they now?

This is another reason to attend the IOUG Forum at COLLABORATE09 this coming May. You must know what the Oracle product set can deliver today and what you will be able to achieve in the future.

I have discussed in the past the subjects of teamwork and winning and focus. Last night my Monday hockey team, the Remax All Stars won our semi-final game. We played a solid game from start to finish with the focus on the team and doing everything we can to gain a team victory.

The game was one that required us to drive to the end. It was an overtime win that was needed after a goal by the opposition late in the game. The team could have folded under the pressure of the late 3rd period score, but we did not we gathered ourselves up and with the help of the goalpost during the overtime period we were able to score during the sudden-death frame.

What can we learn from this? I look at it as a way that I work every day. I am very results oriented. I like to work to a goal and achieve it as well and as efficiently as possible. I draw on my experience to help drive the right solution at the right time, while considering the big picture. I find that we often focus on what happens at the end of a project. The hours of development, the hours of testing and the hours of fixing and changing things is often the focus of a project, but I feel that we need to put those hours in at the start to ensure that a project works to a solid standard and builds for the future. If we better understand what the business wants and more importantly what they need we can develop better solutions. Technology provides us with the ability to solve many business issues, but we also have to be proactive to surround people with an ecosystem that allows them to explore new directions in information and ultimately the organization.

You need to understand where you want to get to and how to get there. I look at learning from my experiences and those of my network of colleagues to solve and exceed expectations. The IOUG is my conduit to this network and I encourage you to be part of this and learn from experience by attending COLLABORATE09 in Orlando.

Ultimately the team, the entire team needs to drive from start to finish of a project. Just like my hockey team’s win last night, we could not have done it if we didn’t come together as a team.

On a fine Friday in Toronto, I wanted to discuss teamwork. Last night; my team The Steel Blades, won its first playoff game. The score was 2-1 but it was a game that exhibited a great need for teamwork to ultimately win. It is interesting for me to think that at the one moment of the game where we stopped playing like a team the other team was able to score on a breakaway, our teamwork had broken down. We were able to re-group and focus on the greater goal of the win rather than personal ambitions.

I work in teams all the time and I find it my most rewarding work and personal experiences. I think that being part of teams is critical for our success. I think of all the great teams I get to work with and each has its own dynamic and provide different value to me.

The IOUG is one of those great teams. We work with a great group of staff and volunteers. Each contributes a different component to the success of the user community. The volunteer Board provide strategic direction, as Mark Thorsby who advises the IOUG says, we are the front wheel of the bicycle and must steer the bike, the back wheel provides the power. This power for the IOUG comes from Carol McGury who provides great support and is a great advocate of the community. Carol along with the staff provides the IOUG with a great and powerful back wheel and are part of the greater IOUG team.

My company Thoughtcorp is another example of team work. We are a consulting company, but we work in a very cooperative way. We support each other and provide expertise in situations that complement each other’s skills. We work together on projects as well as on the growth of the company. They say there is no “I” in team, but I say that a team is a bunch of “I” each with their own skill which must be leveraged will formthe best team. You must harness each person’s potential to make the team great. The old sum of the parts expression would be very handy.

And finally how the IOUG and Oracle work together is another team example. We provide each other support to help each achieve our goals. I know that my discussions with Mark Townsend and Willie Hardie, who both a very senior and very smart people at Oracle in server technology, have worked with the IOUG to help to get out the word on COLLABORATE09 and the user community, to the greater customer base. So the next time you call support and they mention that a user group may provide you some benefits to learn more about Oracle, you will know that the IOUG and the Oracle teams worked together to evangelise the user community.

A team break down can happen quickly so you always need to be on your toes. You need to encourage communication and dialogue within the team. When people stop talking they tend to stop working as part of the team. Being part of a team is hard work, but is also the best way to ensure your success.

The news yesterday was that there seems to be a $6.5 billion offer on the table for Sun to be bought by IBM. When I first heard this news yesterday I wondered what the motivation was for making the acquisition and how it would fit into the “new” IBM. Sun of course is on the front-line of open-source, they bring us java, mySQL and lots of servers and this is makes them a target. I understand that the reduction in their market value also make them a target but I need to understand why one would persue this type of acquisition.

I have been part of a few acquisitions in my time. Some go well and others end in failure. Generally the success of any acquisition is in the way that the you incorporate the companies values into your own. Realizing the reasons you bought someone in the first place. I look at Oracle and how it has acquired some many companies that complemented their own. They always tried to by best of breed products and have integrated their technologies very successfully into their own. Consider the acquisition of companies like Hyperion, BEA, Peoplesoft, Stellent, Sunopsis among others, that have truly changed the products that Oracle provides. And the IOUG has helped these communities become integrated into the greater Oracle technology communities.

So how does the IBM and Sun combination work out? Consolidation is very in these days, so this would be some sort of consolidation. We can be sure that they would love to increase the bottom-line and the Sun server business is significant and has a solid reputation. The acquisition of mySQL by Sun was questioned at the time of how a company with revenues at the time of $70 million can be worth $1 billion. It has provided Sun with a great low-end database and has continued its growth, so this is a big pick up fo IBM. As for applications; sure Sun has developed a few open source applications but I have yet to see it take hold. It does reduce IBM’s competitors and solidifies them in the hardware industry as well as bringing them up to the leader level in open source, and all for only $6.5 billion. It will be interesting to see where this goes and I wonder what IBM will look like in 6 months from now. I’m just not sure that I truly see the benefits that IBM will garner from this relationship.

I have recently been putting together a course of data warehousing fundamentals for a Thoughtcorp customer. I always love to put training courses together and the training we are doing for our customer will prepare them to take on the system once it has been released. It not only helps customers learn but it gives value back to the customer in order to optimize the use of the money that they invested in this information system. The course provides them with best practices and direction as well as terminology and how to review and design data warehouses and data marts. This is one group of people that will be ready to welcome and embrace the technology that will optimize interactions with their current and prospective customers.

So why do I bring this up. It is generally because most people think they know more than they really do and those are the cases when your project can get derailed. I once worked at a government agency here in Toronto, we worked for a Project Authority who did not understand data warehousing but insisted that they did; these are the most dangerous users. I provided a robust design that had great dimensional strength, but the suggestion from this person was to provide the same table as the users use today. Of course this was short-sighted but it was the direction that we were mandated.  This person was also the same one who asked right afterwards the difference between a fact and dimension. So you can see that education even to those who are experienced can provided significant value to projects as well individuals. The more you know the more you can do. This is the basis of what we do in the user community. We provide experienced based training providing best practices and cost savings approaches. That is why you need to be part of COLLABORATE09.

As I often say; there are two kinds of people; winners and losers. Which one do you want to be?

This morning I read about a SQL Injection that may be impacting 450,000 people each day. A SQL Injection is a “viral” program that runs and could exploit vulnerabilities in SQL to access data that may not be for public consumption. Of course this should be a serious concern for everyone who runs applications on the Internet and for all of us who use it.  It brings up the question of security and how secure is your data.

We often focus our security on perimeter defences but this is not always enough. We need to also secure our data within our database. As you can see by the news of today that hackers have found a new way to into your data and they are exploiting database access via the middleware. This is why the IOUG Forum at Collaborate is hosting a SANS institute session on security. The session covers these security topics and provides guidance on how best to implement security and help you in understanding why you need to take better care of your data. This is also another reason for you to keep your software up to date and install security patches as required.

I am not sure that a SQL Injection hurts or not, but I know that the results of a security breach can last for a significant amount of time after it occurs.

This past weekend the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, who was on 60 Minutes and said that the economy was on the road to recovery and it was possible that we may see the results of this in the second half of 2009. He also warns us that we are “not out of the woods”. He mentions that the Fed is working on averting the risk of anything more serious. The issue of course is that there is a need to rebuild the financial industry and this could be difficult.  Consider that Bernanke has a PhD. in Economics from MIT and has specialization in the Great Depression, seems like he might be the right choice for our times. His key strategies are to not repeat the major fiscal failures of that time, such as the tightening of the money supply as well as the failure of the banking system and banks. If you consider the reaction to this crisis; it is completely opposed to that approach, they have reduced interest rates to all time lows and saved banks (although some would question how it has occurred).  This approach is learning upon the lessons of the past.

The user community is similar in your Oracle economy. The IOUG user group and the COLLABORATE09 event are the places to spend your limited funds to get the greatest return on investment. From other experienced Oracle technology professionals you get the chance to learn from the past. You are generally not the first person to experience challenges with your Oracle investments, learning from what others have done can save you time, money and productivity. And at a time like this it is more important than ever to reach for those goals.

Get ready for the economic turn around and make sure you have the skills you will need in the coming years…..it’s going to be a challenge.

This morning I received a note from a Facebook friend. It was about golf clubs and food, which are two of my favourite topics. What also struck me was how people use social networking sites and what they say. This is made more interesting that I am posting this thought via a social site as well, which I believe might put us in a potential infinite loop.

I find what people put into their Facebook status very interesting. Some people put down things about where they are while other put down something profound. Not sure how people get these statements, but I like them.

Have you noticed that Facebook changed the format of the page again? Not sure I like the changes but we could start a campaign to get them to change again…already done.
So what are my friends saying? Here are some samples:

• John wonders why when all is said and done, more is said than done.
• Debra is going for 3rd hotel this week – Solihull
• John – Hey! Heard you have cheese for Thursday! Cheese is goooood.
• Ari said hi to Al Roker – 2nd time this week already.
• Dan – Me: “What did you learn today?” My 5yo daughter: “Vultures pee on themselves to cool off.” Love public school
• Susan – joined Twitter. Not sure I need to update my status as no one is watching. But I’m watching John Mayer and I feel like I’m part of his life! :O
• Peter is just sending out the email to the Ottawa Oracle User Group about our meeting on March 25th. Also getting a plug in for the COLLABORATE09 conference.

I’m not sure about what it all means and still working on when smeone said “They were embracing their inner Galt”. I do know that I love how each person has personalized their use of Facebook to their own personality. It provides us an insight into people and an insight into the way they think and see the world. I am looking to see how we as a user community can answer the call and make this a valuable platform for ideas and exchanges of thoughts.

Social networking is emerging and we are trying to get the community involved. The IOUG is actively involved in utilizing the social networking scene to mobilize the Oracle technology population to attend the great IOUG Forum this May 3-7 in Orlando it is a great event.