Tag Archives: Oracle

UKOUG Conference 23 Day 0 ACE Adventure

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Introduction

Since 2007 without fail, I have attended the UKOUG Conference in some capacity. Initially only as a delegate, then speaker as well as volunteer, and more recently as board member in the position of the Tech Member Advocate.

Also as an Oracle Ace Pro, I have the benefit of being invited to the Oracle ACE Adventures, which are trips before or after conference courtesy of the Oracle ACE programme, to reward Oracle ACEs for their contribution to the Oracle community.

So today was about travelling to UKOUG Conference ’23, which this year is at Oracle’s headquarters in the UK at Reading Thames Valley Park, attending the Oracle ACE Adventures, welcome speakers and volunteers at the UKOUG Speakers drinks and finally attend the Oracle ACE dinner (another benefit of being an Oracle ACE).

Oracle ACE Adventures

Tuesday 14th November and the journey begins with a taxi to train station to catch a train at approximately 7:30am from Manchester to Oxford for the first Oracle ACE Adventure of Bodleian tour in Oxford:

We initially got to learn all about the early history of the Bodleian Library:

We were privileged to enter the oldest Bodleian Library built in 1488:

You could smell the musky smell of old books that are nearly 500 years old. These books can only be access by “readers” that are doing academic work and have to apply for reader permit and then swear an oath.

Here a scene from Harry Potter was filmed, as I’m not familiar with Harry Potter, I couldn’t tell you the exact point in the film:

Here we got to see where the “readers” would read the books:

Next we went into the Divinity School which is directly below the Bodleian Library:

Here more parts of Harry Potter and others films were filmed as detailed above.

The roof of the Divinity School was amazing, with a lot of sculptures of the donators that help fund the completion of the school as funds had ran out:

Finally a photo of the Oracle ACEs on this ACE Adventures:

Next was lunch at The Ivy, where we met the mascot of the white polar bear at the entrance:

I had traditional fish and chips, which was very nice:

As well as The Ivy warm chocolate bomb:

Finally all of us enjoying our desserts:

The second part of the ACE Adventure was to attend the Reading Museum to see the replicate of The Bayeux Tapestry:

Our guide took us around the 70 metres of The Bayeux Tapestry, explaining in detail each section:

Finally a photo of those who attend this ACE Adventure:

UKOUG Speakers Drinks

Next I had to switch hats from Oracle ACE to UKOUG board member and attend the UKOUG speakers drinks, where I was welcoming speakers and volunteers for drinks and food. We at UKOUG greatly appreciate our speakers and volunteers, as without them, we couldn’t put the conference on.

Here was Richard Pepper, the UKOUG president, talking to some of our speakers:

Speaker mingling with other speakers:

Sai and myself for a traditional selfie:

Speakers having some food:

Speakers enjoying some drinks 😊:

Oracle ACE Dinner

After switching hats from Oracle ACE to UKOUG board member, it was time to switch back for the final part of the day which was the Oracle ACE dinner at the Narrow Boat in Reading:

This was hosted by Jennifer (who leads the Oracle ACE Programme) and well attended by almost all the Oracle ACE speakers that had by then all arrived at reading.

It was a very long day! So after the ACE dinner, it was back to the hotel to quickly write this blog post up, so I could get some decent sleep! As tomorrow is day 1 of the UKOUG conference and as a board member I needed to be there before registration opens. And also tomorrow is a very long day with the conference in the day and in the evening, the 40th anniversary of UKOUG celebration in a party for all delegates and extra guests!

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 CloudWorld 2023 Day 2

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

I know it’s been 3 weeks since my last blog post 🤦🏽‍♂️, just been extremely busy, but with many people asking me when am I going to finish the series, “the suspense is killing me”, it gave me motivation to just get it completed! 😎

Oracle CloudWorld Registration

Oracle CloudWorld actually starts on the Tuesday but you can register from Monday, so after spending the morning on bid work, I headed over to The Venetian Convention Centre, where the conference was held.

I would use the Las Vegas Monorail daily, and on route I would see The Sphere, it would light up in many different way, but inside was a concert hall. Pretty cool, below is how it looked as I passed:

Once arrived, it was surprisingly starting to get busy:

I heard over to registration, which thankfully wasn’t that busy:

Many people working on the registration desk, getting through the queue:

Right that was me registered 😎:

Oracle Partner Success Summit

I attended this event last year, it was pretty good and Safra made a flying visit. So I got there early to get front seats:

As expected Doug Smith opened up the Oracle Partner Success Summit:

And then welcome Safra Catz, the CEO of Oracle to the stage 😁:

Safra started with thanking the Oracle Partners:

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, every single one of you, we’ve had the most incredible year, because you have been a huge part of it, and you made our customers incredibly successful!”

Then Doug and Safra went on to discuss:

  • Innovation is key to success
  • Doing things fast, costs less
  • Benefit from economies of scale
  • Growing 45% year on year in OCI
  • Minimising labour, maximising efficiency
  • AI, data everywhere, the cool startups coming to OCI
  • All about customer success, change is hard, it’s the sociology, partners working with our joint customers for their success
  • Enterprises harnessing the AI for their customers/end users
  • Speed and security is important for our joint customers where their data is their Crown Jewels
  • Microsoft announcement, Azure with OCI, allows customers to bring Oracle workloads to the Azure Cloud. Openness is key, allow customers to choose what is best and not be locked in. Customer free choice, opens up for more and more business and success.

Next Jae Evans and Mike Sicilia came to the stage:

The topic was “Innovation: Building Solution Together”.

They talked about:

  • Integrating applications together is the most costly element. Oracle has end to end applications along with industry expertise.
  • Better, faster, cheaper Cloud. Differentiate by the ability to right size different option of Clouds. Sovereign Cloud, Cloud@Customer and Alloy.
  • Openness, integrate not only for Oracle apps, but others, the data fabric, the public APIs, presenting the best solution for the customer.

Next Jason Maynard, Mark Hura, Garret Llg and Cormac Watters came to the stage:

The topic was “Business Impact: Achieving Go-To-Market Success Together”.

They talked about:

  • Partners bringing industry expertise to enable customer success. Oracle helping partners navigate Oracle, so partners can help our customer to gain success.
  • Partners to do 70% of implementation.
  • Engaging early with Oracle, single account exec model. Industry focused, technology platform, utilising innovative.
  • Have to commit, and follow through together! To gain better outcome.
  • Partners as trusted advisors, advising customers to better gain success.
  • Start-ups, ISVs, Enterprises and Government, 4 types of customers. What is the architecture and transformation. Migrate, manage, and transformation.
  • 80% of go-lives via partners for Oracle Apps. Partners then bring innovation to the customers.

Key takeaways:

  • OCI differentiates from a technical and commercial perspective
  • Engage early, partners are more closer to customer
  • Mutually commit, and see it through together

Next Dan Haller and Ross Brown (I sat next to Ross last year at the Oracle Partner Success Summit 😉) came to the stage:

The topic was “Business Impact: Winning Together”.

They discussed:

  • Building differentiated solutions together
  • Leaning in, look at the whole of OCI to bring value to customer
  • See the economic benefits
  • Looking at workloads, moving them and then looking at the rest
  • Understand the distributed services
  • Clouds are built not bought
  • Build more together
  • One Oracle with you the partners

The final segment was Doug and Gary Miller:

The topic was “Customer Success: Delivery Together”.

They discussed:

  • Driving customer success together
  • Getting the value from Oracle technology
  • Working together, getting it right first time
  • More demand than capacity by two fold, so if more partners are up to speed and trained, can do more business
  • Don’t engage reactively, but proactively

Next Doug mentioned the Oracle CloudWorld Tour, so if you missed Oracle CloudWorld in Las Vegas, you could attend one more closer to home:

Doug closed the Oracle Partner Success Summit by announcing the Global Winners of the 2023 Partner Awards:

Version 1 had won the EMEA “2023 Oracle Partner Award Apps/ SaaS” for “Innovation” (more info on day 1), so we were entered into the global tier for judging but unfortunately we didn’t win. Well done to the Partners that won, detailed below:

After the Oracle Partner Success Summit, was the reception in the foyer, where hundreds of people from partners got the opportunity to network:

I met a few familiar faces, had a few soft drinks before heading to my next installment 😊.

Oracle Database Premiere Customer Appreciation Event

I’ve really enjoyed the Oracle Database Premiere Customer Appreciation Event in the past, as I get to met the majority of the Database and Exadata Product Management team, discuss challenges, customers, what would be good, etc. So was looking forward to this one! Especially as it was at the Madame Tussauds Las Vegas:

In association with AMD, no surprise seem as chipset in Exadata switched from Intel to AMD, more details here:

I took photos of every wax model, too many to share, but I will share a few below.

No idea who this is, drop me a comment if you know who she is:

This neither:

This I know is Vin Diesel 😎:

This is Whoopi Goldberg:

Johnny Depp:

The one and only “The Rock”:

Brad Pitt:

Evander Holyfield:

A favourite, Snoop Dogg:

The legend, Michael Jackson:

My all time favourite Tupac:

Pretty surreal, as his murderer was found in Las Vegas only days after Oracle CloudWorld 😲:

A good friend of Tupac but later rival The Notorious B.I.G.:

The American Boxing promoter Don King:

The legend Mike Tyson!:

On the way out, a wax model of Spider Man!:

I big one of The Hulk:

After playing a 4D game with Sai on the exit of Madame Tussauds, it was a trip back to the hotel on the Las Vegas Monorail and capturing some more Sphere photos:

Tomorrow will day 1 of the actual Oracle OpenWorld conference 👍🏽

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 2023 Day 1

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

Due to bid work, the day was consumed with that, with the evening attending the Oracle EMEA Partner Reception Event at the Commonwealth.

Oracle EMEA Partner Reception Event

The Oracle EMEA Partner Reception Event was for all Oracle Partners across EMEA, which I believe approximately 150-200 people attended.

We were hosted by Stefan Diedericks from Oracle.

I attended this event last year, however this year was different as Stefan was hosting the “Oracle Europe Middle East and Africa Partner Award“. We were proud to be finalist in the “2023 Oracle Partner Award Apps/ SaaS” for “Innovation” against Fujitsu for UK & Ireland. Our submission was based on our Cloudbridge Suite, which is our comprehensive set of tools designed to accelerate Integration, Data Migration, and Automated Testing for Oracle Cloud SaaS services, thereby helping our customers meet their business objectives with ease.

My colleagues Colm Gillard, Tim German, and Joel Acha hadn’t arrived in time, so I had the pleasure of representing Version 1 with Graham Smith should we win any awards.

Version 1 won the UK & Ireland “2023 Oracle Partner Award Apps/ SaaS” for “Innovation” 😁, along with Innoapps for “Business Impact” and Infosys for “Customer Success”:

We were all finalist for the respective EMEA Award, and it with great pleasure that we won the EMEA “2023 Oracle Partner Award Apps/ SaaS” for “Innovation” 🏆👏🏽😎:

It was great to be recognised for our innovation at an EMEA level, it’s a great milestone and I’m proud to be a part of it. You can read more info here.

After the awards, I met various people including but not limited to:

Friends from Vertice, Tony Cassidy, David Heraty and Abigail Giles-Haigh (now at Oracle).

Leona Chauhan the CEO of Magia Consulting and Philippa Clifford-Davies Oracle Channel Strategy Leader for Applications MidMarket.

Philippa had introduced Leona to Tony, David and myself as part of Unity programme to get partners that can compliment each other, to work together.

They say it’s a small world, but in conversation with Leona, not only did I realise she went to the same university I attended, but at the same time and was on the same course! 🤯 To add to that, we were born only 6 days apart (I’ll let you work out who’s older 😂), and lived very close to each other at the time but we hadn’t really crossed paths properly till now! 🤷🏽‍♂️

Other people I met:

Philip Wilson

Chris Mason

Finally I swung by the entrance to Oracle CloudWorld, where they were still preparing for the next day for registration.

Tomorrow will be registration, attending the Oracle Partner Success Summit and the Oracle 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 2023 Day 0

Posted on by Standard 1

Introduction

Similarly to last year, 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 2023.

This year was slightly different in the sense, that I had a major bid before, during and after, which impacted my ability to blog in a timely manner. So apologies this blog series is a couple weeks late. Better late than never!

The Trip

Saturday the 16th September and the journey begins! Since last OCW, we’ve decided to get a kitten and it seems like he wanted to come with me, as he wouldn’t get off my suitcase 😂

All packed and ready to leave Manchester for Las Vegas OCW23 😎 The same gruelling 16 hours trip as last year.

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

This time is was Fearless Lady that had the pleasure of taking me 😉 Bye bye Manchester!

Landed in New York, and similar to last year, I had to go through immigration, baggage collection/drop off and get to gate for connection flight all within 1.5 hours! 😬

Last year was close call, making it to the gate just in time, but this year was bad! The immigration queue was an hour apparently. I advised I needed to be at my gate in an hour, they kept just saying “let’s hope you make it” 🤦🏽‍♂️

It got to about 15 minutes to boarding, and only then they put me to the front of the queue! There were other people in similar situation, that had been waiting for some time. One person had totally missed his flight due to the long queues. I was fortunate, I had made it through immigration, picked and dropped my bag off and headed to gate, but the final hurdle was the security check which was another long queue! At this point I only had 5 minutes left, and the lady manning the queue said just go to the front and tell people you need to board. So that’s what I did and another lady followed me. We both made it through security, at which point I realised she was also on my same flight and also going to OCW23! 😲 We both had to “leg it” to the gate which took us about 15 minutes! We were worried we may miss the flight but they were still boarding when we arrived at gate, phew!

So now the next leg is 6 hours to Las Vegas, I was lucky my fare was economy+, so I had nice comfortable seat, some snacks and most important free WiFi!

Finally made it, 16 hours later in Las Vegas. It was 2pm when I left the UK and arrived in Las Vegas 9pm local time but back home was 5am! Surprisingly wasn’t feeling the jet lag like I did last year.

My place for the week is Sahara, which is the place I stayed last year. It’s reasonably priced, decent hotel and is at the end of the Monorail (Southbound), so easy to get to the conference in the middle of the strip.

One final thing before going to bed, was to have dinner. So I went to Mcdonald’s which is just across the road from hotel. I didn’t realise when I asked for a large Filet-O-Fish meal, I’d get a double filet, fries that are double the size of UK and a 1 litre drink! 🤯

Tomorrow due to my bid work, will be working in the day and then attending the Oracle EMEA Partner Reception Event in the evening.

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 switches to AMD for full Exadata X10M lineup, what else is new?

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Chipset switch to AMD

So back in September 2022, I noticed the Oracle Exadata Cloud Infrastructure X9M switched to AMD, where as the Exadata X9M On-premises and Exdata X9M Cloud @ Customer remained on Intel. More details in my blog post here.

It come as no surprise the whole lineup has now switched to AMD! Why? Well putting it simply AMD has beaten Intel on the number of cores for sometime now and with the scalability of Exadata it make senses to have the upper limit cores that AMD offers. Oracle is now using the AMD EPYC 9J14 processors.

Where has the Persistent Memory gone?

Since Exadata X8M, Intel Optane Persistent Memory has existed in the storage cells, bringing an additional layer to the multi-tiered storage architecture. Persistent Memory has the benefit of being order of magnitude faster then Flash but at the fraction of the cost of DDR memory resulting in the Exadata Persistent Memory Data Accelerator.

Simply put, you can’t have AMD chipset with Intel Optane Persistent Memory, so Oracle had to come up with a new solution which they glossed over in the announcement. Which they replaced the Persistent Memory with DDR5 memory and address the memory from the compute nodes using the new feature called Exadata RDMA Memory (XRMEM). This extends the existing Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA), to create a new shared read accelerator. Interesting Oracle compromised on the writes accelerator that Persistent Memory gave but they would have done the analysis and probably Persistent Memory was largely fronting reads and the penalty to flush to Flash instead of Persistent Memory probably wasn’t that significant. There is now 1.5TB DDR5 DRAM in storage cell compared to 256GB in X9M with 1.5TB Persistent Memory.

What else is new?

The other highlights are:

  • Increased memory configuration of 512GB, 1.5TB, 2.25TB and 3TB DDR5 DRAM in the compute nodes
  • PCIe 4 replaced with PCIe 5, to give 2x 100Gb/sec active-active RoCE network for impressive total throughput of 200Gb/sec
  • Extreme Flash storage server now has the introduction of “capacity optimised” flash drive combined with “performance optimised” flash cards to give impressive increase of 2.4x over X9M
  • 22TB disks instead of 18TB on X9M, giving 22% increase storage

Those that know me, will know I have been predicting:

  • Full switch to AMD chipset for whole Exadata lineup
  • Some sort of replacement for Persistent Memory
  • 22TB hard disk drives

I’m glad to say I was right on all accounts 🙂

For more Info

Please refer to the following links:

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)