Category Archives: Oracle

Oracle CloudWorld 2024 Day 1

Posted on by Standard 2

If you missed my day 0, you can view it here.

As there was no Oracle EMEA Appreciation Event like the past couple of years, today was simply enjoying Las Vegas and getting over the jet lag.

Enjoying Las Vegas

First thing first, after getting up and sorting a few things out, was to get breakfast. My colleague Rishin Mitra, is staying nearby and walked over to my hotel. We went to Zeffer’s restaurant, which I have been before and recommended.

Rishin had chicken and waffles and I had french toast, massive portions!

Next, I went exploring and Rishin went back to his hotel to rehearse his presentation. He was fortunate to be selected to present 👍🏽 It was hot hot hot in Las Vegas with temperate hitting nearly 40oC 🥵

I’ve recently got into cycling and brought an eMTB, so thought I’d check out a cycle store in US to see if it had better range then UK, where I’ve struggled to get certain body armour like knee pads, etc. The nearest store was some considerable distance and pretty costly in an Uber, but I noticed in Uber app it offered me $3 for the bus, so I thought why not, it’s an experience 😊

45 minutes later, I arrive at the ‘Las Vegas’ Cyclery’.

There was a ball made out of used inner tubes 😲

After having a browse and deciding not to get anything, I went to the Fashion Show Mall back at the strip, for some window shopping and met up again with Rishin. As our breakfast, was so filling we’d both skipped lunch and thought we’d swing by Oracle CloudWorld conference to see how preparation so going on. It seemed like all ready for tomorrow.

Here’s a map of the layout of the conference, should anyone attending and be interested.

After, this we had a wonder down the LINQ promenade to look for a place to eat. We couldn’t find a place to eat, but we did wonder in this cool ‘ I LOVE SUGAR’ store which I had been to in the past.

I suggested we go to ‘The Cheese Factory’ in Caesars Palace shopping and food forum. So we had a wonder over to there and eventually ended up in ‘The Cheese Factory’.

The meal was as filling as our breakfasts! 🤦🏽‍♂️

That was the final thing we did before heading back to hotel and wrapping up the day.

Tomorrow will be registration, attending the Oracle Partner Success Summit, EMEA Welcome Reception and Database Premiere Customer Appreciation Event.

You can view my day 2 here.

If you found this blog post useful, please like as well as follow me through my various Social Media avenues available on the sidebar and/or subscribe to this Oracle blog via WordPress/e-mail.

Thanks

Zed DBA (Zahid Anwar)

Oracle CloudWorld 2024 Day 0

Posted on by Standard 1

Introduction

Similarly to the past couple of years, as an Oracle Ace Pro, I’m very fortunate to be able to get a complimentary ticket to Oracle CloudWorld. Again, with my employer Version 1, covering travel, accommodation and time, which I am very grateful for, I was all set to attend Oracle CloudWorld 2024.

Fortunately this year, I don’t have any critical pre-sales work during the conference, so I will be able to more enjoy and hopefully have this blog series out in a timely manner 😎 Unlike last year where a bid dominated my visit and consequently wasn’t able to complete my blog series (apologies!).

The Trip

Saturday the 7th September (earlier than last year) and the journey begins! All packed and ready to leave Manchester for Las Vegas OCW24 😎

A gruelling 16 hours trip! Starting from Manchester Airport.

The first leg is an 8 hour long flight to New York via Virgin Atlantic!

This time it was ‘Lady Love’ that had the pleasure of taking me 😉 Bye bye Manchester!

Landed in New York, now for immigration, baggage collection/drop off and get to gate for connection flight. But as we landed early, I had 3 hours not the 1.5 hours in the past 😐

Made it to the gate in reasonable time, as there was a wait at immigration but far less then last couple of years. But annoyingly the flight to Las Vegas was delayed.

Wasn’t too bad in the end, as was only an 1.5 hours delay as the plane came in late.

I met Jerry Seager, who happened to be on my plane to Las Vegas. He was coming from Heathrow and myself from Manchester, but common 2nd leg to Las Vegas. Jerry is from Sopra Steria and is my colleague from UKOUG James Herbert‘s boss. So now the next leg is 5 hours, making up lost time to Las Vegas.

Finally made it, 16 hours later in Las Vegas. It was 2pm when I left the UK and arrived in Las Vegas 10pm local time but back home was 6am! So was starting to feel it 😴 but did manage to get a power nap on the flight which helped.

My place for the week is my usual spot of Sahara hotel, which is at the end of the Monorail (Southbound), which I’ve always chosen to keep the cost down as the central strip hotels are expensive. I went for my standard tier, but I was very fortunate this time they didn’t have that room available and gave me an complimentary upgrade to a suite 😃

Oracle usually have an Oracle EMEA Appreciation Event with the EMEA Awards on the Sunday, but they not having this year, so tomorrow will be exploring Las Vegas and preparing for CloudWorld by getting my agenda all sorted!

You can view my day 1 here.

If you found this blog post useful, please like as well as follow me through my various Social Media avenues available on the sidebar and/or subscribe to this oracle blog via WordPress/e-mail.

Thanks

Zed DBA (Zahid Anwar)

Oracle Database 23c now Oracle Database 23ai

Posted on by Standard 1

Announcement

In case you missed it, yesterday 2nd May 2024 at 5pm (GMT) Larry Ellison and Juan Loaiza announced Oracle Database 23ai under the banner of “AI + Converged Data: Oracle’s Strategy for Data Management”. You can see the announcement here:
AI and Converged Data: Oracle’s Strategy for Data Management – YouTube

I was conveniently at the UKOUG Technology Strategy Day (LinkedIn post here), where Scott Hays, Steve Ramsay, Dominic Giles and Killian Lynch plus others were. They all alluded to big announcement that evening but for obvious reasons couldn’t share the details. But in the leading hours, I had seen posts on social media with the “23ai” name, which lead me to believe the rename was going to be part of the announcement 🙂 Post 5pm, was able to speak freely with Dom and Kilian and it totally makes sense, we’re in the era of AI, it’s the latest buzz word, we were due a letter change for some while now! Oracle’s slogan is “Bring #AI algorithms to where your data lives with Oracle Database 23ai”.

Versions over the eras

8i and 9i were for the era of internet, 10g and 11g for the era of grid, and finally 12c, 18c, 19c, 21c and 23c (up to 23.3) for era of cloud. 23ai is actually from 23.4 onwards and the release that will be the mainstream General Available (GA) release.

What’s New

There so much that new, which Oracle have broken down into 3 areas, see below:

AI for Data

  • Oracle AI Vector Search
  • Oracle Exadata System Software 24ai
  • OCI GoldenGate 23ai

Accelerating App Development

  • JSON Relational Unification
  • Graph Relational Unification
  • Free Developer Databases

Mission-Critical Data

  • Oracle Globally Distributed Database with RAFT
  • Oracle True Cache
  • In-Database SQL Firewall

More details of each feature is available here.

Support

Oracle Database 19c as of writing has Extended Support (waived) is till 30th April 2026, so customers have 2 years to move from 19c to 23ai. Latest dates can be found here:
Release Schedule of Current Database Releases (Doc ID 742060.1)

Availability

Oracle Database 23ai is only available on Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer, OCI Exadata Database Service, OCI Base Database Service and Azure Oracle Database Service. It also available on Always Free Autonomous Database as well for download in the Autonomous Database 23ai Container Image and Oracle Database 23ai Free. For the rest we have to wait for GA which I suspect is very imminent, weeks not months.

Where to get more info

If you found this blog post useful, please like as well as follow me through my various Social Media avenues available on the sidebar and/or subscribe to this oracle blog via WordPress/e-mail.

Thanks

Zed DBA (Zahid Anwar)

UKOUG Conference 23 Day 2

Posted on by Standard 1

UKOUG Conference ’23

If you missed my day 1, you can view it here.

Last night was the UKOUG Evening Celebration ’23, and although it finished at approximately 11:30pm, it took the team and board a couple of hours to pack up, debrief and have the traditional late night takeaway as some of us get too busy with the event, we don’t get a moment to eat properly or at all 🙁

Due to the late night, I skipped the first session and arrived for second session, however decided I’d use the hour to go over my presentation as I was presenting later in the day.

I had then planned to attend Kerry Osborne session, however one problem, Kerry wasn’t there! I checked with the team and they said he was delayed getting to the venue. So I looked who was around and saw Nigel Bayliss was around, and asked if he could fill the slot with any material he had already presented recently, as we had 50-100 people in the Ozone waiting for a presentation 🙄. He suggested Dom Giles, who kindly agreed to present minutes before the start time.

It was greatly appreciated, and Dom Giles presented “Oracle Database: What’s New, What’s Coming” which is what he presented at the recent Oracle DatabaseWorld at CloudWorld:

He talked about many new features in 23c and also what was coming. One of these new features that coming, was True Cache, which is similar to Redis which you put cache in front of the application to improve performance for data that doesn’t need to be most current data:

He also spoke about performance enhancements in 23c:

Finally concluded on database release and support timeline, the key being that 19c waived extended support increased by a year and 23c projected release in early 2024:

Whilst Dom was presenting, the UKOUG team had informed me that Kerry had arrived. So I went and spoke to him, luckily the next hour slot in Ozone was free as it was lunch, so I advised the audience that once Dom was finished, that Kerry would delivery his presentation in that free slot and they were free to stay and listen.

Next I attended “How to Improve Your Ability to Solve Complex Performance Problems” by Kerry Osborne, Google:

Has he had issues with his laptop, he decided to abandon his slides but still go through the process of how to solve complex performance problem, broken down into 3 parts:

  • Explain the basic process we must go through to solve a complex performance problem
  • Discuss some of the main factors that can inhibit our efforts
  • Discuss some of the techniques we can apply to improve our chances

It was interesting to hear from his 20 years of experiences, tips and tricks as well as experiences of working with of the best performance troubleshooters in the world.

Next, I went to have a light lunch and head to my next session which is unusual for me to attend, but as I’ve heard so much about CX lately, I thought it was worthwhile attending “Innovation with Oracle Intelligent Advisor” by Leona Chauhan:

Very interesting session, where I came to understand that Oracle Intelligent Advisor is a rules engine technology that is purpose built for automating complex policies and creating tailored personalised applications. For example, a company may have a complex maternity policy, that have large ruleset, that could be converted to rules and an application created off the back of these rules that will be used to question/interview the users and provide tailored response on their entitlement. The impressive part, was the tooling can take policy document and parse them into rules, which then can be refined into the final set of rules which the application is built off.

One of the key features is it automates decision-making, carrying out complex calculations, yet has a low code interface for development. This can save thousand of hours reducing errors in applications by intelligent online interviews, which can respond automatically, giving instant decision in a downloadable letter or form, which mirrors policy or process documents.

It can be embedded within a public webpage or private intranet site and can be integrated into ERP system, which can be on-premises or cloud. It is very flexible and is instrumental in giving the best customer experience.

Next what my own session “Harnessing the power of Oracle Exadata Database Machine“:

Where I talked about the “Oracle Secret Sauce”, well more it’s just simply Brawn Hardware with Smart Software. And it’s the integration of hardware and software that sets apart Exadata from the rest, as Oracle says: “Hardware and Software: Engineered to Work Together”.

I also went through:

  • Why move to Exadata
  • The benefits
  • What’s new in X10M (see blog post here for more info)
  • Migration Challenges
  • Tips and Tricks/Best Practices
  • How to tackle database consolidation
  • Different types of Exadata offerings/Responsibility Model
  • And of course, harnessing the power of Oracle Exadata Database Machine

Once my presentation was done, I was able to relax and attended “A Practical example of implementing TDE and TLS1.2 in an Oracle 19c Data Guard Environment” by Clive Archibald, Virgin Media O2:

This was delivered by one of my clients, Clive, who I have worked for nearly 10 years on their Exadata estate supporting their Smart Metering:

He went through a comprehensive example of how Virgin Media O2 had setup TLS 1.2, using certificates Azure Key Vault to manage them. Also went through example of how TDE was implemented.

Then came the final session of the conference (the best for last 😉), which I attended “Exadata: Strategy and Roadmap for New Technologies, Cloud, and On-Premises” by Alex Blyth, Oracle:

He first spoke about what Exadata is and the vision:

He then went onto discussing Oracle Exadata Exascale:

An exciting new feature, that uses Exadata platform to cater for broad spectrum of requirements, from small configurations to large deployment:

This is similar to how Autonomous database (shared infrastructure) can be consumed from a core and 1TB storage up to thousands of cores and petabytes of storage. It’s great for hyperscale, which Alex said selfishly Oracle needed for Oracle Cloud, but is also great for customer to use in the Oracle Cloud or on-premises, to allow for flexible elastic architecture.

Also, what great is state of the art storage efficient database cloning, meaning no more Exadata Sparse Clones with test master! Actual space efficient redirect on write technology:

Exadata Exascale, will facilitate a new OCI Exadata Database Service namely ExaDB-XS:

This will provide to be very flexible, elastic and cost efficient! It’s a really interesting space, which I look forward to:

So in summary, next gen software architecture, simple, flexible, efficient, foundation for multi-tenant Exadata Database Service:

Once the presentation was over, it was a case of wrapping up the conference, working with the team removing all the branding, pack up and leaving with the conference blues 😕:

Till next time! Hope to see you all soon!

If you found this blog post useful, please like as well as follow me through my various Social Media avenues available on the sidebar and/or subscribe to this oracle blog via WordPress/e-mail.

Thanks

Zed DBA (Zahid Anwar)

UKOUG Conference 23 Day 1

Posted on by Standard 2

UKOUG Conference ’23

If you missed my day 0, you can view it here.

Up bright and early, so I could get to the venue before the delegates. On arrival, I could see the UKOUG team had been busy getting all the branding up ready for the event 😎👏🏽:

The foyer to the main keynote area Ozone was ready for all the delegates to congregate:

Come 8am and the registration was open; it didn’t take too long for the area to fill up with lots of delegates, eager and ready to enjoy the conference (I hope):

Without our sponsors (reminder in case you don’t know, I am a UKOUG Board Member), we couldn’t put the conference on. It’s with their support we are able to continue, so it’s a big shout out to them, to thank them for their support:

UKOUG has had a hard time following Covid and we’re not out of the water, hence why I unashamedly continue to ask our sponsors to continue to support us, as well as organisations to send people to our conference. Without delegates, speakers and sponsors, we will no longer exist! I hope we are able to continue for many more years to come!

Richard Pepper, the president of the UKOUG opened up the conference with the welcome keynote, talking about how we are an independant non-for-profit organisation who’s been around for 40 years!

He also introduced how we’ll be working with Princes Trust, then introduced James Herbert, who is the Apps Member Advocate (my counterpart, where I am the Tech Member Advocate):

James explained our very new DISC model, that encapsulates what the UKOUG is: Discover, Influence, Share and Connect. We hope this will make it easier for our customers to understand the value of UKOUG, which we are going to add more to. We also want this to be a vessel for sponsorship as we envision larger sponsorship for each of the quadrants, providing the sponsors coverage throughout the year. Watch this space!

Next Richard spoke with Nick Wallace Oracle VP Technology Sales, Siobhan Wilson Oracle UK Country Leader and Kelly Pierce MBE Oracle:

They gave updates from Oracle CloudWorld which mainly were around Customer Success and CX.

Next I attended “23c – The Developer’s Release” by Connor McDonald, Oracle:

He spoke about many new features, to name a few:

  • Not requiring “from dual”
  • Drop “if exist”
  • Privileges on all schema objects
  • True boolean data type

Next I attended “The Future is Multicloud – Harnessing the power of Oracle Multicloud” by Sai Penumuru, Accenture:

Sai spoke about OCI and how Oracle are making it interconnected with other Clouds, and how this was going to be the future.

Next I attended “Oracle ACE Program & Community Programs” by Jennifer Nicholson, Oracle:

This was mainly to support her as an existing Oracle ACE. There were a few potential candidates that attended and wanted to learn more about the Oracle ACE Program.

Next I attended “Oracle ACE Product Update for ACE members” hosted by Jennifer Nicholson, Oracle. We had 3 Oracle guest speakers, of which firstly was Nadia Bendjedou:

Who talked about Oracle Apps Unlimited, how Oracle was still behind the product for at least 10 years which is on a rolling carousel. But reassured us it wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon despite the existence of Oracle Fusion Cloud Apps, due to the large user base out there.

Next Tirthankar Lahiri, spoke about the new AI Vector Search that will be introduced in 23c:

Finally, Ewan Slater talked about Oracle GraalVM:

Next I attended “Finding Widlake is a bit like Finding Wally” by Brendan Tierney, Oralytics:

Interesting presentation talking about how using AI Vision models can be used to identify where Martin Widlake was in a photo.

Next I attended “All you need to know about Oracle” by Debra Lilley, Inoapps:

This isn’t the traditional presentation I would attend, but Debra sold the idea of the presentation the day before when I attended the Oracle ACE dinner, so I thought I’d give it a shot. It was interesting as it went into the history of Oracle, of which certain aspects mentioned, I didn’t know about.

The final presentation of the day that I attended was “Oracle Zero Downtime Migration: Get To The Cloud!” by Roisin Tapley, Capgemini UK:

She went through her experience of migrating hundreds of databases for a client using Zero Downtime Migration. What was more impressive is that she a recent graduate with no experience of Oracle databases but was able to use Zero Downtime Migration with little effort 😎.

UKOUG Evening Celebration ’23

Once I was done with the conference, it was a quick dash to the Hilton hotel in Reading where our 40th celebration party was held. I arrived just in time before the first coach arrived, and was able to welcome all the guests of the coach. I then proceeded to the hall where the party was, only the exhibitors were allowed into the hall at this point, whilst final preparations were underway.

I used this time to take photos of each of the exhibitors, so I could thank them on X:

And eAppSys, but unfortunately I didn’t get a photo of their stand before everyone came in as no one was at their stand.

Come 5:30pm and the doors opened; Aidan and myself welcomed everyone into the party, where everyone got welcome drinks sponsored by Veran.

Next Richard along with Scott Hay, Vice President UK Software Sales Oracle welcomed everyone to the party:

Next, Chris Gilbert from Bespoke Comedy gave a really cracking parody of Oracle Tech and Apps:

He had the audience laughing at Oracle’s expense:

I loved how he depicted Oracle Database World:

And brought in the Tux Oracle Linux penguin which I believe most people didn’t get:

Next on was the famous Milton Jones, who is known for his one-liners:

He was good, but I preferred the tailored jokes Chris made as they resonated better.

Finally to close of the party, The Original Party Band performed live:

It was great to catch up with so many people and have a 40th year celebration. I hope we get to celebrate many more years and hopefully be at the 50th anniversary of the UKOUG! 🤞🏽

You can view my day 2 here.

If you found this blog post useful, please like as well as follow me through my various Social Media avenues available on the sidebar and/or subscribe to this oracle blog via WordPress/e-mail.

Thanks

Zed DBA (Zahid Anwar)