IOUG blogs

A week has passed since I was last in San Francisco and I felt that now that I was over jetlag it would be a good time to look back at how the week went from mine and the user perspective.

The week for me has always been about networking and sharing and this week was no different. Although it looked like attendance was down, it was great to see the people who could make it plus the lines tended to be shorter. Which when you want to get to the corn dog at the Big Bash it was a good thing. The other advantage is that this was one year when I did not hear about people being unable to attend sessions due to room capacities. The people really do make this event. Below is a picture of me and a couple of IOUG Board members, Michelle Malcher and Todd Sheetz, at the IOUG booth at Open World. They along with the rest of the Board really did such a great job with the IOUG led programming that I am sure it helped everyone who attended one of out sessions.

The week as with most OpenWorld was about product direction and product understanding. I think as always Oracle presented their direction clearly for what they know and can talk about. The question of the finalization of the Sun acquisition was  handing like a big lead balloon over the entire event. I expect that when the EU finally allows this deal to go through, Oracle will have a strategy that will quickly integrate both businesses and communities together. The IOUG had some meeting with some folks from the various Sun communities and I feel that we have a number of synergies that will help both groups to benefit from the additional topics that become part of technology education.

I also met with a number of senior Oracle technology and Business Intelligence executives to see how they planned to focus their products in the next year and how the IOUG can help our users get ready for this technology. The focus for 2010 includes BI and Analytics and we are focused on providing the best Oracle BI event in conjunction with COLLABORATE10 event coming in April 2010 in Las Vegas. BTW, if you want to submit an abstract for COLLABORATE10, today is you last day….so click here to submit and abstract. The focus on driving down costs was clearly stated by all of the Oracle folks. The key is that through better more effective use of shared and open technology you can drive down costs. From a DW perspective the Exadata and Database Machine seems like the flavour of the day. I realize that this is some great technology and can provide some customers with some real performance, so don’t get me wrong about this, the other DW appliance manufacturers must be concerned. The latest version of the machine from Oracle and Sun show us where this company is going and how technology will make a difference. The speed of the basic machine along with Flash Memory provides the power not only for data warehousing but now for OLTP as well. Ray Roccaforte talked about how he expected this flash memory improvement to help DWing in the future, but for now it provides OLTP with the additional power of The Database Machine. I have to admit when I first discussed this machine with the VP in charge of this, I said I was surprised that Oracle had not gone after the OLTP market with this approach and now a year later here it is.

Lots of discussion around OBIEE and ODI/OWB, since this was my focus for the week and it was great to see how people are truly exploiting this technology. Considering how late Oracle arrived into the BI and DW tool game, they are making some solid moves into this domain and their tools can really provide the performance and results that companies are looking for.

Also met with some users involved with Z/Series Linux, a group that runs Oracle on Linux on IBM mainframes. This is a small but passionate group that was looking to the IOUG to support their networking and educational goals, and I expect that we will see many of these folks in Las Vages at COLLABORATE10 as we develop a conference-within-conference for the community.

The last evening was Aerosmith, Roger Daltrey, The Wailer and 3 Dog Night. I made it to 3 of 4, only missing the Dogs. Aerosmith was its usual polished self, with Steven Tyler being award and IOUG Lifetime achievement award. Daltrey was the biggest surprise as he delivered a great set of well known and lesser known Who material. He was in fine form and he voice in its 60th year was able to keep up. The Wailers were awesome. I grew up in Montreal with the music of Bob Marley and The Wailers and I had seen them perform before, so it was great to hear the wonderfully energizing music fill the San Fran nights.

The show wrapped and by the end of it many of us were happy to return back to share the word. I expect that 2010 will be an exciting year whether you are a Oracle or Sun customer, as we learn how the next evolution for Oracle and the user communities.

I am finally back in Toronto and going out to visit some customers in a beautiful part of Ontario in the Kitchener/Waterloo area, so I thought that a quick look back at OpenWold would be a good update for many.

The OpenWorld event was again a great event and I congradulate all those that put so much time and effort in organizing a event of this magnitde. Oracle has a fine team and my hat is off to them.

To all the IOUG members and perspective members who we met this week, it was great to catch up with all again, we have so few opportunities to see each other in person that we really need to embrace these moments. As we know the networking opportunities where we can put a face to a name are few and far between today. It was great to hear what people are doing and how they are getting things done. This stuff is gold.

I will make a more detailed update later today as I recover from my week. So until then keep your databases safe!

As every Wednesday comes at OpenWorld we know one thing. This is the day that Larry Ellison speaks to his customers and let’s them know  what Oracle has been up to lately and tells us what we should be looking at in the Oracle world. So today I decide to rename the day “Larryday”.

The keynote is the most important session of the week and you can always tell something is up as security dogs show up at the Moscone Center, you know Larry is coming.

Ellison finally took the stage after someone from Infosys, not sure \what they do, but running Toastmaster classes is not one of them.

As with most seminars this week, the promotion of the Database Machine/Exadata servers and this session was not going to be that different. I have to admit that I am very excited by this technology. I come from a background of implementing Netezza servers and I would suggest that right now they must be worried about the Oracle offering. It is amazing how

The challenge went out to IBM or anyone $10 million for anyone who can out perform the latest Database Machine. Consider that IBM is challenging Oracle claim that they are 16x faster; according to Ellison IBM thinks the claim should only be 6x faster. Here is Larry calling out the universe:

The surprise guest was next and this year it was Arnold Schwarzenegger who showed up and was here to “Pump you up”. He also commented that his IQ had gone up by 10 points just by showing up. Those who attend this event know that when you leave the event that your Oracle IQ is 10 points higher. Arnold said he loved all technology; hi tech, bio-tech, nano-tech, he loves it all. Consider how much he was helped by technology. Whether it was his body building career (food supplements) or movies, he uses it everywhere. Here is The Arnold up on the stage today.

Of course as with any politician he had to make his social comments about California being a green state and you have to admit they are doing more than most. His talk was funny lively and just what we needed to lighten things up and get back to the real world.

That’s it for now…..have to get ready for Aerosmith, Roger Daltry, 3 Dog Night and the Wailers. It is going to be a great night and will give you an update about how it went.

Next session…and its only 10:30. Now time to look at Oracle BI software. Oracle has been making a big push into this area of technology and business solutions and this week this is one of the things I will focusing.

So this morning session is talking about how people perform analysis and perform business analytics. The session from Dan and Tim Vlamis is showing how people look at information and how the Oracle BI solutions address these needs.

They discussed the Principles for designing to achieve optimial presentation of information. The following are the guiding concepts that must be considered when designing your reporting solution:

1. - Unity
2. Harmony
3. Balance
4. Rhythm
5. Proportion and Scale
6. Emphasis and Dominance
7. Variation

Consider one of Moore’s Laws which states that people will not get information if it is too hard to get to and will go without it instead of working to get it. So you need to ensure that you build with focus and build small and grow,

The “father” of visualization, Edward Tufte has 5 principles for Data visualization:

1. Above all else show the data
2. Maximize the data to ink ratio
3. Erase non-data ink
4. Erase redundant data
5. Revise and edit

As you can see the focus is to provide information and not fluff, this may seem obvious to you but really it is amazing how often people make something look good but forget  the value that the actual information contains.

The message today is clear…make the data teh focus and not the presentation interface.

More updates are coming……