Live! 2005

Clearly, the highlight of this afternoon’s events was the debate entitled “Oracle 10g - Do you really need a DBA anymore?”. In my opinion, both sides did an excellent job arguing their points.

The “No” team graphically illustrated a life of perpetual vacations and flowing beer as the database ran itself. They pointed out that the so called DBA will be replaced by new titles that encompass the expanding role of information management as technology takes on the mundane tasks of the DBA as it has already done in so many other areas.

The “Yes” team made points with the predominantly DBA filled audience by illustrating that even the most complex self-landing airplanes built today still have a pilot co-pilot and navigator on board to take over if a system should fail. They claim databases will always need the DBA for the same reason. They also noted that the question is very specific to Oracle 10g not version 14z to be released some year in the future. They noted that 10g, though a big step in the right direction, has not totally automated every DBA process.

Overall, the debate was professional and entertaining. Both sides made their points. I think most in the audience would admit the “Yes” team won, at least on a technicality. Nevertheless, the very salient points made by the “No” team gave us pause to consider the changing role of the Oracle technologist.

With this final event, IOUG Live 2005 formally concluded, leaving only the University sessions tomorrow morning. I’m sure these will be worthwhile. I spoke to Steve Feuerstein today about his class and regret not being here tomorrow to attend it.

So I will sign off for now until my next blogging experiences at Oracle World in September ‘05 and Collaborate ‘06 next April in Nashville.

Till then, stay well and thanks for reading!

Tony Jedlinski

Is it my imagination or are people moving just a little slower today? It’s not that there is anything less compelling about the presentations this morning, but the intensity of the last two (or in many cases three) days is likely taking it’s toll. Perhaps it has somthing to do with the fact the Pleasure Island bars didn’t close till 2:00 a.m. last night.

I spent the morning at the vendor fair, checking out the Oracle booth and a few vendors of interest. I “hung out” at the IOUG pavillion (that’s a pretty fancy word for it I guess) greeting a handful of visitors and passing out SELECT Journals. Then I did an update for those who attended “Brownies with the Board”. Net-net, we are in great shape and looking forward to another exciting year. Sadly, I never got a brownie!

After a full day of presentations to attend, tonight was a change of pace. The social event or “Big Bash” as many of us old-timers call it was a HUGE success (with the exception of a typical Florida rainstorm).

Dinner was exceptionally good! The Disney caterers put served us an elegant meal of both beef and chicken plus tasty vegetables, white tablecloths and napkins included. I visited quite a number of tables and the unanimous response when asked about the food was “It’s excellent”, “The best conference food I ever had”, etc. Kudos to the IOUG Conference Committee, this was a big hit!

Many of us then went on to Pleasure Island to visit the clubs and socialize (as if you could hear the person next to you while the music was rocking). I particularly enjoyed the Comedy Club, an improv show which not surprisingly featured references to Oracle, doberman pincers, Schindler’s List and assorted other random responses from the audience. The cast was a lot of fun to watch as they demonstrated their quick wit and acting talents.

Did I mention that it was pouring rain for the better part of the night. This gave a new meaning to “bar hopping”.

My morning started with a great presentation on integrating HTML-DB with Oracle Application Server by Scott Spendolini. The presentation was right “on target” and well attended. Scott provided a wealth of links in his handouts that I plan to pursue.

Next I attended a special IOUG board meeting with Oracle Corporation. Of course, I am not at liberty to discuss the details, but clearly Oracle is taking additional steps to work closely with the IOUG as part of their increased coustomer focus. I am very excited about the future as we pursue mutually beneficial initiatives.

Following that, at the GAP luncheon I announced that in conjunction with IT Convergence and Oracle Corporation, the IOUG will be providing a hosted website environment for its affiliated user groups and SIGs. The site is under construction now and launch is planned for July 4th 2005. If you are interested in helping to build and/or maintain the site you can sign up to help at http://community.oracle.ioug.org/ . We are looking to build a team of HTML and HTML-DB developers to finish the “turnkey” website and common elements.

Now, back to the conference. I’ll report on the afternoon and evening events later today.

Wow, this afternoon / evening was amazing! I’ll just tell you about the highlights.

I attended the Oracle keynote speech by David Thompson, Oracle’ s new Senior V.P. and CIO. I wondered what David, who joined Oracle as part of the PeopleSoft acquisition would have to say. After hearing his address, I was impressed.. not so much because of the technology innovations (Oracle has always had those) but more so because I heard something special in his message.

David’s message conveyed that Oracle was indeed listening to its users and in particular the IOUG. Moreover, while talking to him privately afterward, I felt assured that Oracle is transforming into a far more customer focused organization than before. David said he came to Oracle because Larry convinced him that Oracle was changing to become more customer focused and realizes that they can’t be successful as a company focused on technology alone. This is good news fou you, me and the IOUG!

Following an afternoon technical session, it was time for the Welcome Reception in the vendor hall. I could feel the “elecricity” in the crowd and I know the vendors were excited about it. The food and beverage was plentiful and most vendors were surrounded by a small crowd of interested potential customers. Realizing that events like IOUG Live! would not be possible without vendor support I was pleased to see this.

Shortly after the vendor hall closed, a large number of attendees (about 500 by my count) moved upstairs to hear Oracle’s Tom Kyte ( of asktom.oracle.com) speak and field DBA questions. Tom explained that he usually had to ask “Why” before answering a user’s question on the website. He gave several examples where a problem had several very different solutions depending on the objective to be achieved. Sometimes, Tom said, giving an answer without first asking “why?” is like telling someone how to fire a gun without first determining if he understands which end the bullet comes out of!

During the question / answer period Tom gave great answers to at least a dozen highly technical questions. Several thoughts ran through my mind as he did so:

1. This guy is a walking Oracle Encyclopedia!
2. Wouldn’t it be great if we could clone Tom’s brain?
3. What were the bartenders and A/V folks hearing as we discussed the “alphabet soup” of Oracle technology?

Regarding #3… I couldn’t resist actually asking the A/V folks if they understood a word we were saying. They looked at me, smiled and said “Sure, we understood everything. You were discussing how to re-varnish your tables and re-organize your closet storage space.”

It’s great to have a sense of humor:)

I was energized by this morning’s guest speaker Rich Niemiec who once again reminded me of things that distinguish “Uncommon Leaders”. I have heard this presentation at least twice before, and I get something more from it each time. This time it was especially powerful as it was directed at an audience of about 1000 fellow IS professionals. Rich’s presentation as well as the inspiring words of Ari Kaplan and the other Board members reminded me of the reason I volunteer time to support the IOUG.

There were, as usual, more presentations this morning than I could possibly attend. Overall, from my point of view, the conference is flowing nicely as are the refreshments in the hall. It’s nice to have these amenities back.

I made a presentation on Building HTML-DB Production Applications for the Application Server / Portal SIG at lunchtime. I learned later that Oracle is considering re-naming HTML-DB. Do you have any suggestions? If you do, post them as a response to this blog or e-mail me at tony_jedlinski@ioug.org . I will pass on any suggestions received. Wouldn’t it be great to have something to do with naming this product?

OK, back to the sessions. I’ll post later tonight about the afternoon and evening events.

OK, I know for most attendees the conference doesn’t start till tomorrow, but I have had a busy first day.

Most of my time was spent attending University Session 11, a wonderful full day orientation class for the beginning DBA presented by Robert G. Freeman. Those who know me may wonder why I would spend a day in this “beginners” class after using Oracle for the last 17 years. The explanation is simple, I never learned to be a DBA, because I have one on my staff and use TUSC’s Remote DBA service. My desire to know more started just recently when I began to run Oracle on my laptop to prototype the HTML-DB applications I am developing for local user groups.

So today I volunteered to be “room monitor”… taking tickets, collecting survey cards, helping the presenter and whatever else needed to be done. In return for my service, I got to sit in on the session and fill in some gaps in my DBA knowledge. I am now, by my own assessment, too dangerous to work on my production systems but my laptop will never know what hit it. Seriously though, it was a great session as were all the others according to the informal poll I took at lunchtime.

My evening was spent catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. Now, after writing this blog entry, I plan to put the finishing touches on my Power Point presentations for tomorrow and Tuesday then rest up for what promises to be an outstanding conference.

I got up at 4:30 a.m. to make an early flight to sunny Orlando FL. The weather here is “perfect” mid 70s and sunny.

Naturally, I made it a point to check out Downtown Disney on such a perfect day. If it’s possible, there seem to be even MORE stores here than I remember from 2003. There are a lot of families and the kids (and most parents) have big smiles. I bought a Mother’s Day gift and had a nice meal.

Now, I need to go over that matrix of IOUG seminars one more time to make sure I don’t miss too much…

It is with great anticipation that I prepare to leave the office for IOUG Live! 2005.

Sure, my work will pile up, but if this year’s conference is like the ones that came before, I will return with so many good ideas that it will be well worth it.

I am initially looking forward to Sunday’s University class (DBA Basics for the Newer DBA). I’m not a DBA, but brushing up on some of the basics will enable me to communicate better with DBAs and handle the basics on my Oracle 10g PC installation.