DOAG 2013 was Very Good - Danke Schön !

Back from DOAG2013 and I can say it was One of the Best Conference Ever.

The organisation is near perfect, the venue is very suitable, DOAG has free public transport arranged. And there is good food all day long. (Good, Tasty, and free!). And the Mercator Lounge provided Exellent Coffee too.

Needless to say the content of the presentation was Excellent (and I've learned a bit more Deutsch as well). And I met up with  many old + lots of new friends.  (could insert long list of names, facebooks, blogs, and twitters...)

Learned a lot of useful stuff and also many hig-tech items. And Still need to investigate a lot of the notes I made. (I suppose there is a download option for ppts as well.. I want to re-read some).


If there is anything to remark, maybe two small things:
1. Tip: Gently nudge the audiences to fill in pieces of paper with remarks (ask UKOUG!). That way the speakers get comments from those who dont want to talk directly. And both the organizer and the speaker  Learn a bit extra. Some surprising feedback I've had too (possibly a blogpost someday)
2. Wifi... It didnt work for my laptop most of the time (slow, bloated, corporate box, so maybe "duh"), but also worked only half the time on the Nexus7. We all know WLan is difficult in public venues, but still.
Oh and: the time+again ticking of a box and clicking a button is .... childish and annoying.
(but most venues do it, probably for legal reasons...).

Please dont take these two points negative, because the total Conference was GREAT.
Please give me the excuse to visit again: Just accept one of my silly abstracts, put me in some graveyard timeslot and I'm a happy bunny.

Danke Schön !

Shoukran

Je dois remercier chaleureusement les marocains qui ont assiste au seminaire sur la haute disponibility des systems. Vous etiez des participant tres sympathique. Shoukran!

But I am going to lazyly, and safely, write the rest of this in english.

I am sure you all got the main messages about how "Simplicity" is your friend, and how you should avoid needless complexity - no matter what the salesperson tells your boss.

And after a brief chat with the folks from Omnidata I have one more piece of advice for you: Start a Usergroup.

Between the audience we had today, I think you have enough knowledge and experience to do some Interesting Exchanges. Why not start with some informal luch or dinner meetings and see which topics come up. And you can start giving presentations amongst yourselves.

You dont always need to fly-in some flashy-trendy foreign "consultant" to give you the lowdown. You can also chat amoung eachother in french, or any language you prefer (Frenglish when you mix in the IT jargon). 

A usergroup is good for knowlege exchange, and it is also great for networking. And you may find more sponsors then  you think. I think  Omnidata is interested already. And Oracle will probably want to participate as well.

If you need help, I'm sure the UKOUG or OUGF can offer you more relevant advice then I can type here. Feel free to contact Debra Lilley or Heli Helskyaho for all you need to know about running a usergroup.

It would be nice to find that next year you have a OUG going. I look forward to visiting the MOUG (Moroccan Oracle User Group) or GMUO (Groupe Maroccain d'Utilisateurs Oracle). Or even NAfOUG (North African Oracle User Group).
Disclaimer: I have no idea whether those sounds mean anything in your local languages, but I trust you to pick a name that doesnt sound like a Q in french.

Good Luck!

And one more Thanks for making me practice my business-French.
Like I told some of you, my wife and my 2 teenage kids are my main french teachers and I realize my french may sound a little youthly with a large anglophone influence and a dutch accent.
But I believe the main messages got across.

Tom Kyte at UKOUG on Complexity

You all guessed it: I love simple stuff.

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Must date back to the days I watched the Flintstones and Yogi Bear. Great Fun! Even my own kids, highscool-teenagers, already blogged about how their nostalgic primary-school days were refreshingly simple (and they have tons of jpgs to illustrate their memories).

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Today, at UKOUG TEBS, Tom Kyte gave us loads of "Simple" and very good advice.

"We still underestimate complexity."
So why are some vendor-supplied products so complex?
so why do we bespoke our own work to un-explainable levels of complexity sophistication?

"Less code is less bugs"
So why do we all increase footprints everywhere?

"Errors will happen, prepare to handle them!"
So why do we still hide, ignore, or report errors erratically ?

His security-message related to the Starship Enterprise is Brilliant!

And his main message remains this very sensible:
"Always Question Everything"
(including this anti-complexity rant)


I know, I know,
we are not wearing bearskins anymore.
we have even moved on from Cobol.

Real world business isnt simple.
And Real Appl.... oops Real World Requirements are driving this unavoidable(?) complexity. Not to mention that increasing complexity is part of my own job-seurity

But still, some of Toms messages were of Refreshing Simplicity.

Thanks Tom.

Edinburg and CBO Demos

I'm having some problems uploading my files to a server.
bear with me.

demo-scripts should be here soon:

HERE!

Simple Oracle DBA

Introduction ? Simple ! 

This blog will try to keep life simple for Oracle DBA's. 

 Because Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication (L. da Vinci) 

 Because Complexity sells better (E.W. Dijkstra) 

 Because life is complicated enough. Simple Oracle : Oxymoron ?

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Update : eeeh.. It has been some 18 years since I started this blog. 

I found out most of the original links below are now Dead.

Will Fix Soon-ish... 

note: this is what blogger does when you try to edit a post that is 16 years old...

Presentations Been there and done that, and got the presentations and papers to show for it. <! -- http://www.jmorganmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/man-with-megaphone.gif or http://school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart/images/presentation-boy.gif --> Below are the links to my most Favored Rants material. Most of my public presentations have grown from either client-pitches, project-blunders or "architectural" frustrations. Hence most of them are slightly missionary: I want to convince the audience of something. Something Simple. High Availability: How to keep it simple (ppt) Talk customers through the options for high-availability. Start with "What do you really need", going through "what can you afford", and then match that with the possibilities. Ever more Complex... When in doubt: Simplify! The link is to my presentation from the Miracle DBF in 2006, but the message still stands. Databases Everywhere (ppt) Everywhere indeed. What can we do to keep the systems running, and keep life simple for the DBA? DBA Two-dot-Oh even. Upgrade Nightmares (pdf) My down-to-earth vision on upgrades. And what you can do to keep life simple. Is my Backup Covered (pdf) It is about Recovery! Can you Recover? Can someone else do your recovery for you? The most boring subject, but surprisingly turned into my most asked-for ppt Backup, at a different level A paper/blogpost, aimed a SOA "architects". Rather then cover "backup" at the disk- or database level, you can use messaging systems (SOA, ESB, BEPL) to distribute your data over two or more systems. Redundancy at a higher level in the stack. Use at own Risk! Index Organized Tables, and all the benefits. Blogpost/paper, aimed at developers/implementors and ... DBAs. I have driven many to despair with a strong belief in the efficiency of IOTs and other seemingly excotic table- and index definitions to store data physically. And if you feel like presenting at a usergroup, but dont know what about: Remember your last big frustration or problem ? Try turning that into a presentation. Surprisingly, that worked for me.