UKOUG 2012-What is it all about

The annual showcase conference of the UKOUG is coming up soon, actually it is just a week away now.

I attended my first UKOUG conference back in 1998 and I’ve been attending it on and off every since. Over the past few years I’ve been very luck to be able to attend it every year and during most of those I’ve presented at too.

This year will be no different as I will be co-presenting with Antony Heljula on using Oracle Data Miner and OBIEE to get some insight of on your data.

The core part of the conference runs over 3 days Monday to Wednesday, with many, many streams of excellent content for each area that the user group covers.  The real problem I have when I attend this conferences is that my interests typically span two if not three of the streams, so I’m typically seen running between presentation.

This year there are two pre-conference events. The first of these is the Oaktable Sunday, where there are two streams of presentations from members of the OakTable networks, who are a bunch of hardcore DBA types. So if you are one of those or would like to be one of those then try to get along to those session on the Sunday.

Also on the Sunday there is a Middleware event. This is being organised by Simon Haslam and Jacco Landlust. Like the OakTable event you will find some hardcode middleware experts sharing some of the work, their discoveries and offering lots of useful advice.

During the main conference look out for the Un-conference sessions where you will have the opportunity to give a short 10 minute plus, no powerpoint talk and some topic or issues you want to discuss. Whether you want to lead a discussion or to just sit in on one then these are a not to be missed. Check out the schedule near the exhibition hall.

The Oracle User Experience team will be at the conference this year to talk to you about your experiences of using the products. In addition they will be setting up a UX lab to get some feedback on their designs.

There will be more talks by members of the OakTable network during the lunch times. These will be shorter than the Sunday talks and again there will be no powerpoint.

You will have the opportunity to get hands-on experience building an Oracle RAC database using virtual machines on your own laptop with help from the experts from the IOUG RAC SIG and Pythian.

In addition to all of this there will be roundtable discussions, master classes and hands on labs.

You may have noticed that I haven’t talked about the actual streams that are running over the 3 days of the conference. There is so much going on at this conference that you will learn so much your boss will be sending you back next year. This conference is the most cost effective training you will ever receive.

I better get packing for a busy few days of learning, networking and having fun at the same time.

I’m going to make another blog post on what what my plans are for the conference, what presentations I will be going to, what events, etc.

Oh and don’t forget my advice in the latest Oracle Scene online or have a read of your free copy if you are attending the conference.

Oh I forgot to mention the social event.  Tut Tut.  There are lots of social and network events too so when you are finished with the presentations for a day, you can enjoy a free drink.