Wow – this was a tough week in Nürnberg at DOAG 2022 Conference. It started with a lot of rain. And I mean RAIN. Luckily I packed my umbrella last minute before going to the train station. But before I tell you a bit about this week, and why it was so incredibly important to be at DOAG 2022, let me tell you at first why I love the German, Austrian and Swiss customers – a DOAG 2022 conference recap.
At first, a big THANK YOU
And before I write something about “my” week, let me give a very big THANK YOU at first to the DOAG team. DOAG Conference 2022 in Nürnberg had a complete conference program as it had it any other year. The best speakers from all over the world delivered awesome talks. It had the most tech-diverse program I have ever seen at any Oracle conference. And even the Postgres and Yugabyte fans had a ball when they and took a bath in Oracle-RED balls 🙂
So thank you to the DOAG team at first for putting such a great agenda together. I attended talks whenever possible as well as the keynotes by Oracle EVP’s Andy Mendelsohn and Cetin Ozbutun. Generally I learned a lot again. And then DOAG is also a lot about networking, discussion challenges, upgrade and migration projects, patching pain – and lots more.
The only “failure” in the system: Some of YOU were not there. I can only guess why that happened. But please promise, next year you’ll be back again. You’ll have to – and remember, DOAG has a alumni program for retired database people, too 🙂 Actually you missed a lot. And you were missed, too.
Just one wish to the DOAG team which I think many will sign too: Please don’t setup talks at 8am in the morning. You only make Daniel happy but for most of us, especially after-party it is a tough ride. My personal wish in addition would be that the last talks on Thursday end at 16:00h. Many of us have to head out to catch trains or flights.
I personally liked the idea with the theme-day “Database Upgrade and Migrations” on day 1 – but our topic was well represented. Hence, I can’t complain at all.
Oracle Executive Vice President Andrew Mendelsohn in his DOAG 2022 keynote
For me the fact that DOAG setup a complete program was a fantastic sign. Personally I think when you start reducing content because you fear that less people may show up due to Covid or general travel restrictions, you may start a negative downward spiral which may lead others to not come back because of a lousy weak program. Therefore, THANKS AGAIN to the DOAG team for such a fantastic conference.
Why I love the German, Austrian and Swiss customers
At first, please if you are from any other country and you were at DOAG, don’t feel excluded. And even though there are a ton of presentations in English (I had the feeling: More than in previous years) the majority of attendees is still from these 3 countries.
On Tuesday, Daniel and I held a “No Slide Zone – Upgrade to 19c and Multitenant” session for 1.5 hours. Thanks to the other speakers at the same time giving up their slots and agenda, and rearranging talks so most of the interested customers could come to this session. It is always a fun bet for Daniel and myself. We don’t know which questions will come from the audience. And we both hope that nobody asks about SRs not being solved within an expected time frame. And it was great – and fun. Thanks to your questions, I roughly counted about 150-180 people in the room.
When I did ask: Who is already on Oracle 19c? I was shocked – I’d say 75-80% of the hands went straight up in the air. Wow!!
Really WOW WOW WOW!!!
Just to put this into relation: I’ve had two longer trips to Asia this year, and the result looked very different When 25% of the hands went up when we asked, we were really happy.
Hence, congratulations to all of you who upgraded already to Oracle Database 19c. I haven’t seen a higher percentage of 19c customers anywhere else so far. And I see this as a compliment not only to our work but also to DOAG and it’s regional groups. You spread the word, you educate – and the German presales and support/consulting teams add value to this impressive number. I’m really proud on you.
You think it can’t get better?
Well, i did ask right afterwards: Who uses already Oracle Multitenant? And I couldn’t believe what I saw. About 50% of the hands went up again. That is something I haven’t seen anywhere else yet either. Another great sign how important knowledge sharing, constant learning and a fantastic agile tech community with conferences and meetings is.
Now you understand why I love the German, Austrian and Swiss customers – and everybody else who was there and raised her or his hand.
You are awesome!
Our talks at DOAG 2022
You’d think: Going to DOAG for us is an easy task? We just grab a few slides from our big deck, refresh them a bit – and here you’ll have the talk. But we’d like to challenge ourselves. So this time we’ve had an AutoUpgrade 2.0 talk where we’ve had some slides but need to bring them to a new format. And the Patch me if you can talk was basically brand new. When I presented the slides to Daniel for an internal review a week ago, it dawned me that I didn’t like the flow. But last Friday I’ve had some sort of inspiration – and with the support by Savatage, Porcupine Tree and Architects the slides just got created by itself in this weird version of Powerpoint on Mac 🙂 On the train ride to Nürnberg I gave them a last makeover before handing them off to Daniel. Was I surprised when I realized that he’d given them a final touch to the better before we went on stage.
Actually the best thing was that Andy Mendelsohn built us a bridge to our talk since he had his keynote right before us. He highlighted AutoUpgrade and explained the new MRPs (Monthly Recommended Patches). Which was the right intro for our talk directly afterwards. Thanks Andy!
And then we’ve had the “No Slides Zone” which is just pure fun since Daniel knows the stuff I don’t know or can’t remember, and vice versa. And I guess the fact that almost nobody left the room for 1.5 hours meant that you’ve enjoyed it as well.
Here are our slide decks for download:
- DOAG 2022 – AutoUpgrade 2.0
- DOAG 2022 – Patch me if you can
- DOAG 2022 – No Slides Zone … ah sorry, there are no slides – you need to come to the conference next time 🙂
Coda
Certainly I suffer already from conference blues. When I visited such an intense conference as DOAG with awesome customers, so many discussions, seeing many colleagues for the first time in 2 and more years – it feels hard when going back to my home office. Sun is shining, Bundesbahn managed to have 75 minutes delay on my way to Nürnberg, and 45 minutes on my way back for a supposed-to-be-1-hour train ride – but who cares anymore these days. It seems to be the new “normal“.
I hope you’ve had safe trips back as well, regardless from where you came from. It felt so good to meet with customers who became friends over the many years we work together.
I’ve heard rumors that DOAG 2023 will happen in November again – but since there are other events such as Oracle Cloud World in a few weeks where we may see each other the sooner or later.
Just a final pictures which spans 20 year team history of my previous presales team, the BU Database 🙂 I think we all aged pretty well 🙂
And a fun fact about really useful things you learn at user group conferences: I learned from Kamil Stawiarski that you can open beer bottles with a sheet of paper and explain TX – row level contention at the same time.. I would not have known and seen it live when I wouldn’t have been at DOAG 2022.
Special thanks to Matthias Mann from the DOAG team for being our host at the Theme Day, for the DOAG TV interview and all the support also during the panel discussion.
Hope to see you all soon again!
–Mike
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