My first OUGN seminar on Color Magic is over. Here is a summary of what it included.
I’m truely coming back next year!
The 2nd of April: Mastering Oracle Trace Data, Cary Millsap
One day with Cary Millsap. How cool is that? I know this is the kind of words my 11 year old daughter probably would use if she could spend a day with Justin Bieber. But this day I had been looking forward to for so long. The “Master Oracle Trace Data” class with Cary in Oslo.
I’ve fallen in love with the tools from Method-R a long time ago. But after a day with Cary I realized I’ve only used less than 1 % of it. The ways you can use these tools are endless. I’ve been to several presentations with Cary before, but I always learn something new. This day was no different. And the best part – it was not over with this. The next days Cary should join us on “the boat” for the OUGN spring seminar of 2014. Well … Cary pointed out that a boat with boats on it is really a ship :-). Thanks for a great course Cary!
The 3rd of April: OUGN Day 1
This is my first time on “the boat”. I was supposed to join last year, but had to work instead. Because of this my presentation (about Oracle End-to-end metrics) was moved to the first day on shore. I have really heard a lot of great things about the OUGN spring seminar and “the boat”. Now – I finally was here.
The first presentation I went to was “Stop making the same performance mistakes” with Tim Hall. A very good start!
I actually ended up having some great talks with Tim during the boat trip. Tim is the man behind www.oracle-base.com, and after using his blog for years it was very nice to actually meet him in person. A really really nice and clever guy!
Next up was actually me. This was the first time I was giving this presentation “Source Control – not only for developers”. When I started up I realized I was put into a developers track, and my presentation was aimed towards Oracle DBAs. Most people in the audience was clearly developers, probably having a lot more experience with Source Control than myself. I fought myself through the presentation, and was pretty exhausted when I finished. At least the presentation generated a discussion. One of my worst moments on the podium, but we can’t win them all.
The next hour I spent listening to Cary Millsap again. Talking about woodwork! Of course with a parallel towards writing computer software. As usually it was great listening to Cary. He obviously also knows a whole lot about wood work:-)
After the presentations it was time for the annual general meeting for the OUGN organization. And together with 3 others, I was elected as a new member of the OUGN board. I’m very excited about this, and is looking forward to the board meetings.
Then it was dinner, and eventually some partying. Well I missed the last part. After a couple of nights without much sleep, I crawled to bed at about 12 o’clock.
The 4th of April: OUGN Day 2
My first presentation this day was in Norwegian, “Smidig fra felten; hvordan være smidig i større selskaper” med Eira Brunstad, Chronos AS. A very good presentation on the topic “agile development”, which is not always easy to follow in big companies.
Then another norwegian presentation with Ingemar Jansson Haverstad – “Ytelse: fra myte til realitet”. As usually I really enjoyed Ingemar’s presentation. Theory & experience closely weaved together, in a very clear and consistent way. And of course on a topic (performance) that I really enjoy myself.
Then it was time to go to the Java track, and to watch “Advanced RAC programming features” with Martin Bech from Enkitec. I didn’t really know what to expect of this presentation, but it really filled in some gaps regarding application failover possibilities.
Then it was time for some lunch. I met Lars Johan Ulveseth, Tim Hall and Ilmar Kerm, and joined them for some pizza and some nice talks.
After lunch it was time to go to the “Database Roundtable” with Cary, Bryn and Tim Hall in the panel. A little slow start (as probably expected), but some interesting stuff came up as usual. And truly – Tim will talk about just anything 😉
Then it was time for “My Case for agile methods” and Cary Millsap again. I enjoyed this presentation even more that the woodwork. I might have another perspective on this than Cary, but really think that we could be more agile on the database side. I believe companies are to afraid of making changes in the database layer. In work towards a lot of Java projects, and believe Oracle resources are not let into such projects early enough or in right amount. Many application are developed without much involvement from Oracle resources. Because of this I think many databases suffers from a technical debt. When applications are put into production they spin around, but not as good and healthy as they could be. The problem is that changes on the database side is not something companies cherish. Therefor the technical debt builds up. With early and continuous involvement from Oracle resources, focus towards agile development, and refactoring on the database side, I believe development project could end up with more healthy, performing and scalable databases.
After a small break in my room, I went of to another Java session: “Leverer Java applikasjoner middelmådig SQL?”. In english this would be: “Do Java applications deliver inadequate SQLs?”. Well. I don’t think the session really answered this question, but I really enjoyed the talk by Ove Olsen, Dataess. I did not know about the EclipseLink framework (as an alternative to API’s such as Hibernate) and the advantages using this. I really think developers and Oracle resources should meet, speak and work more together.
Well … this became my last session for this OUGN. My head was full of ideas and new information that needed some digestion. The only thing left was a nice evening with dinner, beer, old and new friends, and the night club.
Phuuu … yes it did get very late. Or actually … early into the morning.
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