Oracle OpenWorld Day 5 Highlights

Like most at OpenWorld, I started the day a tad later than usual after yesterday’s Appreciation Party. I decided to be a little adventurous with my first session and see a non-database related session on Application Integration Architecture as I have an interest in the issue. It was all actually quite interesting with discussions regarding what level of integration might be appropriate, whether it be purely at the data layer or at the process layer, if data needs to be integrated, should it be replicated locally somehow or referenced remotely and which method might be best in which circumstance. They also emphasised the importance of standards and how they should be applied and policed and how standards can help to resolve the issue and possible conflicts of adding increasing complexities when attempting to write reusable services. It was an hour well spent.

I next attended a really good session on Oracle Database 11g New Search Features and Future Roadmap. I learnt to my surprise that there are a quite a number of  new features in relation to Oracle Text in the recent 11.2.0.2 release. New features include Entity Extraction whereby Oracle will automatically find entities in text such as people, cities, phone numbers, etc. a new Name Search facility in which people names with different spelling can more easily be found (such as Stephen and Steven) and a new Resultset Interface capability in which details and data can be nicely summarised. Also mentioned are enhancements in the manner by which frequent and not so frequent accesses to text tokens can be stored and processed. Also had a really interesting look at what new things are being planned, such as automatic partitioning, automatic optimisations of indexes via the use of a staging index, section specific index options, two index levels with better management of common terms in memory, substring index options to name but a few. Looks like there are going to be considerable functional improvements to text indexes on their way soon.

Day 5 is sooooo much more quieter than it has been and lunch was a less hectic affair with far fewer people to hustle against. It’s been another beautiful day here, the weather almost as good as it is in Australia !!

I presented one of the first sessions to kick-off Oracle OpenWorld 2010 so I was determined to see the conference through and sit in on one of the last sessions as well. I decided to go and see fellow Oakie Mark Farharm present on whether it’s ever useful to physically order data. The answer is yes but it depends and he explained why it’s so and the scenarios when it might be useful and worth considering.

Finally, I headed down to the “It’s A Wrap” function for a few drinks and a bite to eat with a bunch of friends, listening to some pretty good music, including a nice little rendition of David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel”.

And so Oracle OpenWorld ends for another year. There were a number of big announcements this year, a number of excellent sessions, some catching up with old friends and the making of many new ones, with the odd beer and glass of wine consumed during the process. A huge thanks to everyone who attended my sessions and for all the positive feedback. Also a huge thanks to Lillian, Vikki, Justin and everyone on the OTN team for looking after all the Oracle ACEs so well. Looking forward to heading home now and getting back to Australia.

I’ve eaten so much and put on so much weight, that I’m beginning to resemble a sumo wrestler. Don’t believe me, well see this picture taken of me while I was walking around the exhibition hall …