Kscope15 - It's a Wrap, Part II

Another fantastic Kscope in the can.

This was my final year in an official capacity which was a lot more difficult to deal with than I had anticipated. Here's my record of service:

• 2010 (2011, Long Beach) - I was on the database abstract review committee run by Lewis Cunningham. I ended up volunteering to help put together the Sunday Symposium and with the help of Dominic Delmolino, Cary Millsap and Kris Rice, I felt I did a pretty decent job.
• 2011 (2012, San Antonio) - Database track lead. I believe this is the year that Oracle started running the Sunday Symposiums. Kris again led the charge with some input from those other two from the year before, i.e. DevOps oriented
• 2012 (2013, New Orleans) Content co-chair for the traditional stuff (Database, APEX, ADF), Interview Monkey (Tom Kyte OMFG!), OOW/ODTUG Coordinator, etc.
• 2013 (2014, Seattle) Content co-chair for the traditional stuff (Database, APEX, ADF), Interview Monkey, OOW/ODTUG Coordinator, etc.
• 2014 (2015, Hollywood, FL) Content co-chair for the traditional stuff (Database, APEX, ADF)

This has been a wonderful time for me both professionally and, more importantly to me, personally. Obviously I had a big voice in the direction of content. Also and maybe hard to believe, I actually presented for the first time. Slotted against Mr. Kyte. I reminded everyone of that too. Multiple times. It seemed to go well though. Only a few made fun of me.

I was constantly recruiting too. "Did you submit an abstract?" "No, why not?" and I'd go into my own personal diatribe (ignoring my own lack of presenting) into why they should present. Sarah Craynon Zumbrum summed it up pretty well in a recent article.

But it was the connections I made, the people I met, the stories I shared (#ampm, #cupcakeshirt, etc), and the friends that I made, that's what has had the most impact on me. Kscope is unique in that way because of it's size...at Collaborate or OOW, you'll be lucky to see someone more than once or twice, at Kscope you're running into everyone constantly.

How could I forget? #tadasforkate! This year was even more special. For those that don't know, Katezilla is my profoundly delayed but equally profoundly happy 10 y/o daughter. Just prior to the conference her physical therapist taught her "tada!" and Kate would hold her hands up high in the air and everyone around would yell, Tada! I got this crazy idea to ask others to do it and I would film it. Thirty or forty videos and hundreds of participants later...



So a gigantic thank you to everyone who made this possible for me.
Here's a short list of those that had a direct impact on me...

• Lewis Cunningham - he asked me to be a reviewer which started all of this off.
• Mike Riley - can't really say enough about Mike. After turning me away a long time ago (jerk), he was probably my biggest supporter over the years. (Remind me next year to you tell you about "The Hug."). Mike, and his family, are very dear to me.
• Monty Latiolais (rhymes with Frito Lay I would tell myself) - How can you not love this guy?
• Natalie Delemar - Co-chair for EPM/BI and then boss as Conference Chair.
• Opal Alapat - Co-chair for EPM/BI and one of my favorite humans ever invented. I aspire to be more organized, assertive, and bad-ass like Opal.

That list is by no means exhaustive. It doesn't even include staff at YCC, like Crystal Walton, Lauren Prezby and everyone else there. Nor does it include the very long list of Very Special People I've met. I consider myself very fortunate and incredibly grateful.

What's the future hold?
I have no idea. My people are in talks with Helen J. Sander's people to do one or more presentations next year, so there's that. Speaking of which...it's in Chicago. Abstract submissions start soon, I hope you plan on submitting. If you're not ready to submit, I hope you take try to take part in shaping the content by finding one of about 10 abstract review committees. Who knows where they may lead you?

Finally, here's the It's a Wrap video from Kscope15 (see Helen's story there). Here's Kscope16's site. Go sign up.

The Riley Family, Part II

You didn't miss Part I, at least not here you didn't.

Many of you know Mike Riley. If you don't, here's a little history. He's the past president of ODTUG (for like 37 years or something) and for the last two years, he's served as Conference Chair for Kscope. Yeah, that doesn't really follow, but you know I'm a bit...scattered.

Did you read the link above? OK, well, here's the skinny. Mike has rectal cancer. Stage III. If it weren't for the stupid cancer part, the jokes would abound. Oh wait, they do anyway. Mike was diagnosed shortly after #kscope13, right around his 50th birthday (Happy Birthday Mike, Love, Cancer!). Ugh. (I want to say, "are you shittin' me?" see what I mean about the jokes? I can't help myself, I'm 14). Needless to say, cancer isn't really a joke. We all know someone affected by it. It is...well, it's not fun.

Go read his post if you haven't already. I'm going to give my version of that story. I'll wait...

So, Sunday morning, Game 3 of the World Series went to the Cardinals in a very bizarre way. I was watching highlights that morning as I had missed the end of the game (doesn't everyone know that I'm old and can't stay up that late to watch baseball?). Highlights. Mike lives in St. Louis. He's a Cardinal's fan. Wouldn't it be cool if he and his family could go to the game (mostly just his family, I don't like Mike that much). So I make some phone calls to see what people think of my idea. My idea is met with resistance. OK, I'll skip the people. Let's call Lisa (Mike's wife).

Apparently Sunday's are technology free days in the Riley household, no response. I go for a bike ride, but I take my phone, just in case Lisa calls me back. After the halfway point, my phone rings, I jump off the bike to answer.

So I talked to Lisa about my idea, can Mike handle the chaos of a World Series game?

We hang up and she goes to work. BTW, I asked her to keep my name out of it, but she didn't. We'll have words about that in the future.

She calls back (I think, it may have been over text, 2 weeks is an eternity to me). "He doesn't think he can do it."

So I call Mike directly (Lisa had already spoiled the surprise.)

"What about Box seats? You know, where the people with top hats and monocles sit? Away from the rift-raft, much more comfortable and free food and beer."

Backstory. Mike had finished his first round of chemo less than a week before Sunday. To make things worse, he decided it was a good time to throw out his back. He wasn't in the best of shape.

Mike said he thought he could do it.

OK, nay-sayers aside, let's see what we can do. I emailed approximately 50 people, mostly ODTUG people; board members, content leads, anyone I had in my address book. "Hey, wouldn't it be great to send Mike and his family to Game 5 of the World Series? We need to do this quick, tickets will probably double in price tonight especially if the Cardinals win." (that would mean Game 5 would be a clincher for the Cardinals, at home, muy expensive).

Within about 20 minutes, a couple of people pledged $600.

Holy shit!

At the prices I had seen, I was hoping to get between $50 and $100 from 50 people, hoping. I had $600 already. Game starts. Now it's up to $1100 in pledges. Holy shit, Part II. This might just be possible. Another 30 minutes and were about an hour into Game 4. Ticket prices have already gone up by $250 a ticket. Given that maybe 4 people have responded and I have $1600 in pledges, I pull the trigger. I bought 4 box seat tickets for the Riley family. (I had to have a couple of beers because I was about to drop a significant chunk of change without actual cash in hand, I could be out a lot of money, liquid courage is awesome).

Tickets sent to the Riley family. Pretty good feeling.

Like I said, I was confident, but I was scared. Before the end of the night though, there was over $5K pledged to get Mike and family to Game 5. Holy shit, Part III.

By midday Monday, pledges were well over $7K. I'll refer you back to Mike's post for more details. Shorter: jerseys for the family and a limo to the game.

Here's the breakdown: 35 people pledged, and paid, $8,080. Holy shit, Part IV. Average donation was $230.86. Median was $200. Low was $30 and high was $1000. Six people gave $500 or more. Nineteen people gave $200 or more. The list is a veritable Who's Who in the Oracle community.

Tickets + Jerseys + Limo = $6027.76

Riley family memory = Priceless.

So, what happened to the rest? Well, they have bills. Lots of bills. With the remainder, $2052.24, we paid off some hospital bills of $1220.63. There is currently $831.61 that will be sent shortly. It doesn't stop there though. Cancer treatment is effing expensive. Mike has surgery in December. He'll be on bed rest for some time. His bed is 17 years old. He needs a new one. After that, more chemo and more bills.

"Hey Chet, I'd love to help the Riley family out, can I give you my money for them?"

Yes, absolutely. Help me help them. I started a GoFundMe campaign. Goal is $10K. Any and all donations are welcome. Gifts include a thank you card from the Riley family and the knowledge that you helped out a fellow Oracle (nerd, definitely a nerd) in need. You can find the campaign here.

If you can't donate money, I've also created a hashtag so that we can show support for Mike and his family. It's #fmcuta (I'll let you figure out what it means). Words of encouragement are welcome and appreciated.

Thank you to the 35 who have already so generously given. Thank you to the rest of you who will donate or send out (rude) tweets.

Context Switching: An Example

Last week at #kscope13 I saw an outstanding example of context switching. If you don't know what it is, Tom Kyte explains it here.

The two environments are just "different", separate and distinct. You can do plsql without SQL, you can do SQL (and many times do) without invoking plsql. There is a call overhead to go from SQL to PLSQL (the "hit" is most evident when SQL invokes PLSQL - not so much the other way, when SQL is embedded in PLSQL). Even if this hit is very very small (say 1/1000th of a second) - if you do it enough, it adds up. So, if it can be avoided - it should be.

The session was Using Kanban and Scrum to Increase Your Development Throughput presented by Stew Stryker (not to be confused with Ted Striker) of Dartmouth College (Stew gave me a gallon of Vermont Maple Syrup which exploded in my bag on the flight home, a gift for sharing my hotel room. Thanks Stew! ;)). So here's the example he gave to demonstrate context switching.

Take a list of names and time yourself writing out the first letter of each name, then the second, until you are finished.



Now, same list of names and write them out the way you normally would, left to right.



If the first method was faster, you are a freak of nature.

#kscope13

Back in September, I was asked, and agreed, to become to Content Chair for "The Traditional" track at Kscope 13. Like I mentioned there, I had been involved for the past couple of years and it seemed like a natural fit. Plus, I get to play with some really fun people. If you are ready to take advantage of Early Bird Registration, go here. (save $300)

Over the past few weeks we've finalized (mostly) the Sunday Symposium schedule. We're currently working on finalizing Hands-on-Labs (HOL).

Beginning last year, we've had the Oracle product teams running the Sunday Symposia. This gives them an opportunity to showcase their wares and (hopefully) provide a bit of a road map for the future of said wares. This year, we have three symposia: APEX, ADF and Fusion Development and The Database and Developer's Toolbox.

ADF and Fusion Development

- Oracle Development Tools – Where are We and What’s Next - Bill Patakay, Oracle
- How to Get Started with Oracle ADF – What Resources are Out There? - Shay Shmeltzer and Lynn Munsinger, Oracle
- The Cloud and What it Means to Oracle ADF and Java Developers - Dana Singleterry, Oracle
- Going Mobile – What to Consider Before Starting a Mobile Project - Joe Huang, Oracle
- Understanding Fusion Middleware and ADF Integration - Frederic Desbiens, Lynn Munsinger, and Shay Shmeltzer, Oracle
- Open Q&A with the ADF Product Management

I love that they are opening up the floor to questions from their users. I wish more product teams would do that.

Application Express

- Oracle Database Tools - Mike Hichwa, Oracle
- Technology for the Database Cloud - Rick Greenwald, Oracle
- Developing Great User Interfaces with Application Express - Shakeeb Rahman, Oracle
- How Do We Build the APEX Builder? - Vlad Uvarov, Oracle
- How to Fully Utilize RESTful Web Services with Application Express - John Snyders, Oracle
- Update from APEX Development - Joel Kallman, Oracle

(If you see Joel Kallman out and about, make sure you you mispronounce APEX). This is a fantastic group of people (minus Joel of course). Not mentioned above is the affable David Peake who helps put all this together. The community surrounding APEX is second-to-none.

Finally, The Database and Developer's Toolkit. I'm partial to this one because I've been involved in the database track for the past couple of years. Like last year, this one is being put together by Kris Rice of Oracle. There are no session or abstract details for this one as it will be based mainly on the upcoming 12c release of the database. However, we do have the list of speakers lined up. If you could only come for one day of this conference, Sunday would be the day and this symposium would be the one you would attend.

This symposium will start off with Mike Hichwa (above) and then transition to the aforementioned (too many big words tonight) Mr. Rice. He'll be accompanied by Jeff Smith of SQL Developer fame, Maria Colgan from the Optimzer team and Tom Kyte.

How'd we do? I think pretty darn good.

Don't forget to sign up. Early Bird Registration ends on March 25, 2013. Save $300.

ODTUG/Kscope Content Chair

So I have a problem saying No (No, No, etc, etc.).

ODTUG came calling this year and of course, I couldn't say no. I was asked to be the Content Chair for ADF/Fusion, APEX, The Database (like The Ohio State), Developer's Toolkit and Building Better Software. There is an entirely different track for BI/EPM stuff, that's being handled by Natalie Delemar.

Just in case I never mentioned it, I was the 4th (or was it 5th?) choice to lead the Developer's Toolkit track last year. My handlers made sure I knew that, presumably to keep me in line. Thankfully Lewis was much nicer, he never told me I was a 4th or 5th choice.

What do I do? Well, I have to get (wrangle) people to run each of those tracks mentioned above. They in turn will get (wrangle) 5-10 people to do their bidding, and by bidding I mean read and rank abstracts for Kscope 13. Then scheduling those sessions that were selected. Fun stuff.

Let's go over that list again:

• ADF and Fusion Development, John King
• APEX, Dan McGhan
• Building Better Softare, me and ???
• The Database, open Kellyn Pot'Vin (2012/09/25)
• Developer's Toolkit, Open Patrick Barel (2012/09/25)

Seems appropriate to add the sub-topics for each of those tracks too, so here goes.

ADF and Fusion Development
- ADF for Beginners
- Advanced ADF: Mobile, Cloud, Web, Services, etc.
- Customizing Fusion Apps
- SOA and Fusion Middleware

Application Express
- The Basics
- Advanced
- Infrastructure/Management/Security
- Plug-ins & Dynamic Actions

Developer's Toolkit
- Forms and Beyond
- IDEs
- Languages
- Version Control and Continuous Integration
- .Net

The Database
- DBA
- PL/SQL
- SQL
- Tuning

Building Better Software
- Agile
- Business Rules
- Code Generation
- Instrumentation
- Modeling
- Testing

Easy right?

I'm still trying to tie down people for The Database and Developer's Toolkit. If you're interested in leading a track, or just simply participating, yell at me.

It's a great way to get involved. It's a great way to help shape the direction you believe we're all headed. Do it. Get involved.

ODTUG @ Oracle OpenWorld

I really need to learn how to say no.

I, somehow, got roped (pun intended) into helping to put together a Sunday Symposium for ODTUG at Oracle OpenWorld this year. If you've been following along for the last couple of years, you'd know that I have this thing for DevOps (devops to me). For KScope 2011, I tried to put together a Sunday Symposium on this very topic. Lewis slapped me down though, "Tools Justice, tools." So we amended the Sunday Symposium to focus on the tools while doing those devopsy kind of things. Much better.

This year I tried to do the same thing. (Side note: The reason I am so "obsessed" with this topic is because I think things like testing, source control, and testing are done very poorly in the database world, the Oracle database world specifically. I know there are places that do it right, my first organization did it right, and then made me a bitter old cynic at each successive organization I came across. I also realize that doing some of these things on/in the database are much more difficult than wrapping up a binary or a web application. Data. It usually comes down to the data. Blah blah blah.). Kris Rice of Oracle SQL Developer fame ran KScope 12's Sunday Symposium...I gave him the topic, and he made it happen. Bonus points for Kris as he won the ODTUG Volunteer Contributor of the Year Award. You can find the slides from that Symposium here.

So here I am again, pushing the methodology or process involved around Oracle Database development. I think it's important. Very important. Fortunately I have a mentor who has spent way more time thinking about this than I. That would be Dominic Delmolino. Cary Millsap had sent me a presentation that Dominic had done at UKOUG in 2010. It was fantastic and about 23 hours worth of material. That was the original inspiration behind the 2011 KScope Sunday Symposium and I have tried to kept it going ever since.

So, back to the ODTUG Sunday Symposium at Oracle OpenWorld this year.

When: Sunday September 30th, 2012, 8:00 AM - 4:30 PM
Where: Moscone West - 2009
Who: Anyone can attend (provided you have an OOW pass of course)
Title: From Dev to Ops and Back Again: Insight into the Development Lifecycle from the ODTUG Experts
Presenters:

• Gwen Shapira - Pythian, Oracle ACE, Oak Table
• Dominic Delmolino - Agilex, Oak Table
• Timothy J. Gorman - Evergreen Database Technologies, Oracle ACE Director, Oak Table
• Robyn Sands - Oracle, Oak Table
• Stewart Bryson - RittmanMead, Oracle ACE
• Kellyn Pot'vin - Enkitec, Oracle ACE
• Dan Norris - Oracle, Oracle ACE Director Alumnus, Oak Table
• Cary Millsap - Method R, Oracle ACE Director, Oak Table

Pretty impressive line-up isn't it?

I'll be posting more details in the days and weeks to come. If you're heading to Oracle OpenWorld this year, check out one or more of these sessions, you won't be disappointed.

Kscope 2012 Recap

The Venue


The event took place this year in hotter-than-Hades San Antonio, Texas. Fortunately for all of us, the hotel and conference were in a single (Texas-sized) building; the JW Marriott San Anonio.

Just 20 minutes from downtown San Antonio and the airport, the JW Marriott Resort is situated in Texas Hill Country in Cibolo Canyons, where crystal clear streams and towering oak and cedar trees meet the majesty of the hills. The elements of authentic roots, hacienda style, beautiful views and healing waters serve as the inspiration in bringing this magnificent resort to life. The Hill Country resort features 265,000-square-feet of meeting and event space, the 36 hole TPC San Antonio and the sophisticated Lantana Spa.

Let's not forget the Lazy River, where many of my compatriots...lost themselves.

The River Bluff Water Experience offers six acres of heated pools, fountains, waterfalls, rivers, and an abundance of poolside lounges to soak in the sun.

Pretty awesome.

One other thing about the venue, I don't recall a single complaint or tweet about wi-fi. I've not been to a conference where someone doesn't complain about that. Well done Marriott, well done.

The People
If you known me for any length of time, you probably know this is my absolutely favorite part. To me, people are bright shiny objects. This sums it up nicely as well, a friend said this:

OH: "I don't think the world has enough people for me to feel like I have enough friends - all are welcome"

— oraclenerd (@oraclenerd) March 16, 2012

Tough to argue with that.

Day -1 I met Jeff Smith and Dan McGhan at the airport. Well, we didn't plan on meeting at the airport, but we happened to be there at the same time. Anyway, Jeff gave us a ride to the Marriott.

In the lobby we met Patrick Barel and Galo Balda, who we had been planning (via Facebook) on going to The Riverwalk and The Alamo that day. Unfortunately for Patrick, he's of the Dutch persuasion and I had recently seen Austin Powers in Goldmember. Now, I really have no context for the "hatred" of the Dutch, but it's funny, so I went with it. I'm sure others would be proud.



Where do you get a chance to publicly torture Don Seiler? Kscope. I'm sure this battle will escalate.



You can see all the pictures I took at Kscope here.

The Party
Armadillo racing? Check.
Sitting on a Texas Longhorn. Check.
Barbeque. Check.
Bull Riding (mechanical). Check.
Rodeo. Check!

Last year it was on the Queen Mary with Busta Move artist Young MC. This year, a full blown rodeo at the Knibbe Ranch. I'll spare you the picture of my war-wound from being thrown by the bull. In my defense, it was night. I may or may not have imbibed an adult beverage or two.



A friend and co-worker was even spotted chasing after a small bovine for a chance to win a pass to Kscope 2013. You should see the video. Fun. Speaking of videos, there are videos of Lisa Dobson riding the bull, Jeff Smith, Tim Gorman and Kellyn Pot'Vin out there. If you're nice, maybe I'll share.

My favorite moment though is definitely this one:



That's Danny Bryant awesomesauce.

The Staff


The YCC staff, minus Kathleen McCasland. From left to right: Aimee, Brianne, Larissa, Lori, Bo (err, Lauren), Melissa, Heather and Crystal (the new Executive Director).

It's difficult to say enough about this team. They're excellent at what they do and have a lot of fun doing it.

Let's not forget the ODTUG Board.

• Monty Latiolais (pronounced like Frito-lay) - President
• Barbara Morris - Vice President
• Jerry Ireland - Treasurer
• Bambi Price - Secretary
• John King - Director
• Cameron Lackpour - Director
• Mike Riley - Director (and former President)
• Tim Tow - Director
• Martin D'Souza - Director
• Edward Roske - Not Sure (site's been updated, and I'm lazy right now. I just know that he's everywhere and part time comedian.)

The Board members are all volunteers. They give up a significant amount of their own time to help put this event together. They are one of the bravest groups too...they got on stage for the General Session in singlets, you know those things wrestlers wear? I know way too much about some of them. Consider yourself lucky I am not including a picture.

I think that's part of what makes them great though, their ability to put themselves out there like that.

So maybe now you're starting to think, "Man, that would be a great conference to geek out at." You're in luck because early bird registration is open and next year's event is in New Orleans.

KScope 2012 Advanced Registration Ends June 9th!

It's almost here. Kscope 2012. Just 18 more days.

What's that? You're not going?

Need to justify the trip? Check out the bottom of the registration page here. There are some helpful hints for Developers, Managers and BI/EPM Professionals.

On June 9th, Advance Registration ends. If you hurry, you can save $300. Go now.

If you do sign up in the next three days AND show proof of such, I'll bring you an ORACLENERD T-Shirt (white on black, the classic). Limit 5. Donations always accepted (joke, I won't make you donate...unless I've had a beer, then I'll maybe hassle you for a few minutes, but nothing too harsh, I promise).

KScope + DevOps

Last year I had the pleasure of getting the Sunday Symposium together for KScope 11, this year, I have completed my takeover of the Database track by becoming the track lead.

I thought this was the best job ever, then I was attacked Nancy Kerrigan style by my handlers.

All that said, I think I've gathered a pretty good group of people to help review and select the abstracts for next year's conference (San Antonio, TX).

There will be 4 sub-tracks this year:
- Design/Data Modeling
- Maintenance (Performance, Tuning, Upgrades)
- MySQL
- (Dev)Operations

The one I am most excited about is the (Dev)Operations sub-track, aka, DevOps.

What is DevOps?

I'm glad you asked..

"DevOps" is an emerging set of principles, methods and practices for communication, collaboration and integration between software development (application/software engineering) and IT operations (systems administration/infrastructure) professionals.[1] It has developed in response to the emerging understanding of the interdependence and importance of both the development and operations disciplines in meeting an organization's goal of rapidly producing software products and services.

I am not necessarily a fan of the movement, but I am a fan of the principles behind it.

Every developer has a story about working with an evil DBA. LIkewise, every DBA has a story about some application that went to production where they were left completely out of the process.

But it is more than just a simple, "Can't we all just get along?" plea, this is about creating better software and streamlining processes.

My personal experience has been one of woeful cooperation, at any level. Our thought, our hope, is that this well help give other Oracle professionals better ideas on how to start down this road.

If you are interested in this topic, sign up. If you want to present on this (or any other) topic, register here.

KScope 11 Awesomesauce

I had planned on writing about each session I attended, but I just can't seem to pull it off. Previous years, I've blogged while on site...but it was difficult this year as I didn't have a lot of down time.

This was my very first Kaleidescope conference, and I would vote it as my favorite. The biggest difference between the others, intimacy. This event is smaller than COLLABORATE by a few thousand and smaller than OOW by a few million. I ran into Brent from Regina, SK, CANADA about 32 times. (He kept telling me it rhymed with...nevermind). I witnessed Brent drink a pint of Guiness in 3 seconds across the street from the convention center at the Auld Dubliner, along with a few others. Yikes. I can't, and don't, do that anymore.

But it was fun to run into him every 39 minutes as he would remind me that Regina rhymed with...

Of course there was work to be done.

Sunday was the symposium for the Database Development track, which I orchestrated (yo @ddelmoli, you like that?). You can read about my preparation here and here. I never did write it up officially, but it was fun.

Monday I did write up, here. Along with Cary Millsap's presentation on My Case for Agile Methods, Maria Colgan's presentation on Top Tips to Get Optimal SQL Execution All the Time and Jean-Pierre Djicks presentation on Managing Parallel Execution without Tuning in 11gR2.

One I didn't write up was Lonneke Dikman's Business Logic: The Debate Continues.... This one was fun because it was Lonneke vs. me, Eddie Awad, Mark Farnham, Dominic Delmolini and Paul Dorsey. If I didn't mention, Lonneke's presentation was in the Fusion Middleware tract...so I thought it would be fun. Unfortunately, those "put it in the middle tier" people didn't show up.

Here's Lonneke telling us how much business logic should go in the database



Then her reminding us that it should go over here, in the application tier



Seriously though, it was a fun hour. I think we all came away with a better understanding that the business logic should be in the database. :)

Did I mention the Queen Mary party, I mean event? That was fun, a lot of fun.

I'm going to work hard to participate in this again next year...

Next year's registration is open, FYI.

If you are a hardcore technical person, this is where you want to be. The people are great, the content is great and you can hear Brent tell you about Regina.

KScope 11: Managing Parallel Execution without Tuning in 11gR2

I've gotten to see Jean-Pierre Djicks speak a couple of times over the last month or so, and he doesn't disappoint.

Last month at the BI Forum, it was Big Data: Achieve the Impossible in Real-Time, which was really cool because he talked about the fusion of data capture/mining/whatever in regards to sailing, specifically the BMW-ORACLE sailing team.

It wasn't quite as exciting as that, but some pretty cool nuggets came out of it.

As a pseudo dba, or someone who's never had to manage some of the massive systems that many of you have to manage, memory management has been...well, intimidating (theme for the week, month and year).

Throw parallel into the mix and I'm pretty much a lost cause.

Now I can enable parallel, I have rudimentary knowledge of it...but you don't want me managing that on my own.

Enter Managing Parallel Execution without Tuning in 11gR2 (if I find the presentation, I'll link it up).

The one item that really stuck out at me was the idea of queueing. Prior to 11gR2, if all other resources were taken up by other SQL statements, your SQL statement would run serially. That's no longer the case (if enabled). Now, Oracle will queue up your SQL statement to run with the amount of resources that has been designated for it. In my experience, that's a good thing.

Prior to this release (and again, if you have it enabled), your SQL statement would run at the same exact time at the others, but since there are no resources for it, it would be slow as...well, slow. Now, you may have to wait a little bit for it to actually run, but it will run with the parallel resources that were intended (excuse my lack of articulation, I'm sure someone will correct me).

KScope 11: All Hail the Queen

The big event was hosted on the historic Queen Mary this year.

All I can say is, wow.

Let me try to run through a list of things to do on board...it won't be complete, I'm sure, but it should give you an idea.

- Food. +1 - lots of food, everywhere.
- Booze. +1 - again, everywhere.
-- Beers available: Corona, Heineken and something else. No fancy IPAs or anything, but I'm perfectly OK with that.
-- Wine and liquor was also available, but I rarely partake in either of those. This is especially true with liquor, it's why it took me close to 10 years to graduate from college. Bad things man...



- Events. +1
-- Ghost Tours - I didn't partake, but it was available. Check out the site for more details.
-- Live Band - I can't seem to remember the band's name, but they were apparently quite the hit. Playing requests from the crowd and heckling them a bit too.
-- Poker - Missed this one too, but many people did not. Reports suggest that the poker room was packed the entire night.
-- Dueling Pianos - I missed this one too, but rumor has it that Maria Colgan had quite the time there.
-- The Champagne Room, I mean VIP room. I believe this was for the Presenters and volunteers for KScope, a special section near the top (?) of the boat with a great view of the band and the aft side.
-- Don McMillan. +2 He had 2 shows, each with slightly different content tailored to the ODTUG/KScope crowd. If you don't know who he is, check out his page or watch this video.



Myself and Patrick Hurley (@phurley) were eating dinner and Mr. McMillan joined us for a spell. Remember, this is the guy (whom I didn't know at the time) who had interviewed me earlier in the week (oh yeah, I'm not that shy). I got to share my dream of being a comedian someday and shared with him my story of...well, I can't really share it here, but if you've met me and there was beer involved, you've heard it.

Throughout the day, we were told of a mystery guest...none of us could figure it out. Kathleen McCasland gave us a small clue, inadvertently, in a video address after lunch...it was a boy.

9:30 rolls around and the lovely ladies of ODTUG/KScope were trying to get us to go upstairs to where the band was, and the mystery guest would be making an appearance shortly.



Wow. Young MC. He seems to have the same problem as me...once a good looking, thin dude...now, not so thin. However, he was a huge hit and I have to admit it was fun seeing him live.

Sometime after that, I was caught in a "decent" picture of myself with a few others:



From left to right, that's Marc de Oliveira, Patrick Hurley, Dominic Delmolino, me, Cary Millsap and Eddie Awad. Picture by Sheeri Cabral.

To end the night, fireworks off of the back (aft) side of the ship. Awesome.

Thanks to everyone at KScope and ODTUG for a fantastic night. I had an absolute blast and many of the people I talked to did as well.

KScope 11: Top Tips to Get Optimal SQL Execution All the Time

This was my final session of the conference.

Prior to this one was Jean-Pierre Djicks on Managing Parallel Execution without Tuning in 11g Release 2. Conveniently, it was in the same room. Especially convenient given that it was in the same room the day after the Queen Mary event. I did want to see JP's other talk, Speed Up Your Data Warehouse with in-memory Processing, but it was just too much effort for me.

Besides, I had never seen Maria speak and I was trying to broaden my horizons. I wish I had seen her speak years ago...would have made life a lot easier.

Maria is not on Twitter but you can find her writing at the Oracle Optimizer blog.

The optimizer subject has always been a bit intimidating to me. I don't know why, it just has. I've mostly glossed over it.

No longer.

Despite my state (post Queen Mary event), a lot of things came together. The optimizer really isn't magic. Surprise!

The importance of statistics, which I've always known but never truly understood, was made clear. Extended statistics? Neat. Histograms, explained (better).

Awesome stuff...and really not as magical as you might think. Take a gander at the Optimizer group's Explain the Explain Plan for more details.

KScope 11: Cary Millsap

Today was a big day for me, my first Cary Millsap (@carymillsap) presentation.

I slept in, preparing my mind and body for the event (and missing the keynote) (it had nothing to do with beer consumed either).

My Case for Agile Methods

Not only is it my first time seeing him speak (yesterday counts, sort of), but it's something I can actually understand and have a very strong opinion about. Not that Thinking Clearly About Performance is way over my head, but it doesn't affect me as much as methodology does.

I fight with methodology on a daily basis, mostly resulting in me hitting my head against the closest wall.

I find that when I don't tweet or I'm not inclined to check my mail or twitter, something is going on that has my attention. That was the case this morning (minus a small family emergency that was eventually averted).

The slide deck itself was minimal, but very well done.

With his reputation as a technical leader in the Oracle community, you know you're going to get great content.

The good stuff is in Cary's style or delivery.

He tells stories.

I love stories. I live for stories. If you've met me, I'm sure I've told you a few as well.

It's easier, I think, to relate to stories. You can see yourself in the other person's shoes. Or something like that.

As to the content...I don't think it was anything ground breaking and I believe Cary knew that. What was ground breaking is the audience.

Database developers and DBAs in the Oracle ecosystem, seem to think it a dirty word. That's of course a gross generalization, but save for my very first IT employer, it's been true (1 for 8, batting .167 .125 (thanks Cary)) for me.

I want to see more of this type of talk, the "how" and "why" as opposed to just the technical details of doing a particular task. I can read the docs, I can figure that out. Putting it all into context is the hard part.