IOUG Podcast 30-APR-2013 Database 12c Beta Revelations at Collaborate 13

For the week of April 30th, 2013:

An Interview with Bobby Curtis and James Lui:

• Database 12c Revelations at Collaborate
• A Little Insight into Oracle’s Beta Program

IOUG Podcast 30-APR-2013 Database 12c Beta Revelations at Collaborate 13

Subscribe to this Podcast (RSS) or iTunes

Transcript:

Hi, I’m James Lui,  a senior applications DBA working at Aramark Uniform Services. and I’m Bobby Curtis, a Solution Architect with BIAS Corporation, Oracle Platinum Partner.

[James] We just finished an Introduction to 12c New Features and Functionality. One of the reasons we wanted to bring this to the Users Group’s attention.is that out on the internet, we were Google-ing for the new Database 12c we wanted to find out, it’s not a general release right now; it’s not generally available.  But there are Oracle Beta test partners out there looking at it, whacking it and trying to make it work. But what we did find was a little disturbing.There’s a lot of stuff dating back to early last year (2012) that partners that are on these Betas are blogging about features that may or may not be in the product. They’re putting SQL code out there that is wrong. That came to our attention when we were talking with other Oracle Partners out here (at Collaborate). What do we do about this? So our position on this was to try to start elevating the invisibility of what is happening out there with regard to NDA Beta Partners, like Bobby and I, who are are subject to… You can’t talk about it, or you can’t disclose stuff that isn’t real.

The feature sets in the final release are subject to what Oracle wants to try to present as a solid product that works to end-user customers. Not something that the wheels are going to fall off.just because they tried it (they put some spinners on it) and it ends up falling off and it’s a bad idea.   The whole purpose for this idea is we don’t do GA on an unstable product. Let’s let experts hammer at this thing. See if it works, get an idea from a users group perspective (trying to represent as many people, as possible) what features work, what doesn’t work. and what needs to be fixed before the thing goes live.

[Bobby] That way the users understand what they’re really getting versus what the hearsay out there.. Because everything that’s been posted out there (on the blogs) violates the NDAs. and Oracle can pull things (features) out and nobody really knows it because they’re relying on older postings that were not authorized anyway.  So this session was to provide the users groups with something based upon here’s what we’ve seen, and here’s what we think is going to be in there, but it’s not guaranteed.

[James] Realistically we do know that forward information is good. Telling people that the documentation that will be provided is more massive than ever before. It’s going to give you direction as a DBA, developer or manager trying to make a decision to adopt this product. There is more to read than ever (before.) There’s more room for books to be written than ever. There’s definitely more room for webinars about this product. They’re (Oracle’s) thinking about at least 500+ new feature functionalities that are really exciting stuff. And we covered maybe…

[Bobby] Like, 25 of them — the tip of an iceberg on this product.

[James] But in terms of what that final product ends up being, when Oracle decides it’s ready for market, we had the confidence as users group representatives (ODTUG, IOUG, UKOUG, Australia OUG) when we hammered it to death, these features worked, with the caveat of saying “Fix this ” then we’re (users groups) happy.

That’s the idea behind this session. Telling people that going forward, you may need to go back to the drawing board or to school to find out how to use this product in the best way.

But the exciting part is here at Collaborate, IOUG was able to give those who attended our session a preview of the future in a very substantial technical way.

[Bobby] And so we thought it would be a good idea, so okay there’s a lot of talk about it, everybody’s asking when’s it coming out, what’s going on? So from a users group perspective, let’s give everyone not so much a peek into it, but to say here’s what’s coming from what we know of, from looking at the Betas.

But, again at the same time letting everyone know that just because we say something’s coming, Oracle could pull the plug (on that feature) at some point-in-time and say, “That’s not going to be added in this release. “ So basically, this was a way to give to the users groups, who have been saying, “We’ve been talking about it for six months. But what’s really in it?” And as we alluded to earlier, we’ve only touched the “tip of the iceberg” – we only did 25 of them (the new features). And we didn’t do a Top-10 or anything like that.  We just said, here are the 25 features we tested during Beta testing, and here’s what our thoughts are. So we think we gave the users groups a good base of understanding where it’s (Database 12c) coming from, and what can be potentially looked at, and what they could use.  And from the reaction we got from the crowd, was actually pretty good.

[James] And Bobby represents the partner, implementer, system integrator world of the consultants that are out there who are going to be challenged with actually upgrading (systems), or doing the installations. I represent the existing customer base of Oracle, we’re an Applications e-Business shop; we want to know what does that roadmap affect for us. What does 12c give us to save money basically as an organization? So between the two of us, we actually do cover a big part of that world. and we were very heartened by the (experiences) during the Beta testing (we were Phase 3, probably the last (Beta) before General Availability), we’re pretty happy with the product. Perhaps, shockingly good?

[Bobby] This is actually by far the best release they (Oracle) have come out with on a first release. Because they’ve listened to the users groups, and took a lot of the things that we wanted, put it into it (Database 12c.)

[James] And by being part of the Beta Program, the people behind the Beta Program brought the user groups in confidence, to say you people represent key members of the user community. Hit this thing until it breaks and tell us what it’s going to need for this product to go to General (Availability).. And that’s what we felt we did. We did things that were very unexpected

[Bobby] Any time you get a (Database) developer standing behind your shoulder… because that was one of the really impressive things behind the Beta testing. You had 9 testers, and Oracle put 50 of their people in the room with us. and when we broke it, they literally pulled the code open and looked at it and said, “Here’s why it’s broken.” And that in-turn gave Oracle the insight to say, “Okay what did you guys do?” versus “How did it break?” So that way they can go fix the code and can be more responsive to what users are going to do out in the marketplace.

[James]  And while it’s not a generally-accepted practice, nor a best practice idea, I as an e-Business Suite Customer ended up bringing in a live R12.1.3 version instance. Not certified. Not supposed to be certified. Certainly Oracle’s own (e-Business Suite) Development group behind Applications Technology does not certify you’re supposed to be doing (Database) 12c upgrades. But in the context of a Beta, for me this is the exciting way to do it. You take a sandbox instance, you take a copy of a live R12 instance and you try to do the upgrade. The only things that broke, was the stuff that Oracle told us would break, because they de-support those particular features.  That was the guarantee that makes it whole.

[Bobby] They listened and they fixed it. So that when GA comes out, you can take it to Production if you want.  I think that’s what a lot of people are going to be shocked about, because most organizations wait for Release 2, to be honest. But Release 1 of (Database) 12c, we think, from the user group perspective could be production-ready and be used.

[James] That’s better than most other software companies that try to be first to market with a new feature, and let the user community test it and find out where the bugs are. That was a different philosophy that we met (at Oracle). And we know the Beta 1 and Beta 2 release testings uncovered thousands and tens of thousands of problems that got fixed by the time we got our hands on it. The improvements that Oracle has actually made in that process  That’s a good step in the right direction, and we would hope every software vendor actually does that same thing.  Because IOUG being very agnostic about what the user community needs to make a business solution happen, having Oracle do that just makes their job easier.

See also:

Oracle Enterprise Manager Tips & Best Practices 2013

Advertisement

Alll About Database 12c At Collaborate 13 #C13DEN – IOUG Forum

The Background behind Oracle Database 12c Revealed at Collaborate 13 presented by Bobby Curtis (BIAS Corp – @curtisbl294) and me:

And then we explain the specifics about What You Need to Know about Database 12c, and Why being part of IOUG made this possible:

#C13DEN Collaborate 13 Urban Revival Night Party IOUG/OAUG/Quest

Denver Colorado Convention Center April 10, 2013 – Thank you to all the attendees, volunteers, sponsors and staff who made this another legendary week of Oracle education for everyone!  See you in 2014 – Collaborate 14 – Las Vegas, Nevada April 7-11, 2014 – Venetian Resort and Conference Center.  Taped for collaborate.ioug.org by me.

Starbucks Does Not Use Two-Phase Commit

Something from geek history blog-wise: http://www.enterpriseintegrationpatterns.com/ramblings/18_starbucks.html

Since it came up this week while discussing Database 12c:

“All of these strategies are different than a two-phase commit that relies on separate prepare and execute steps. In the Starbucks example, a two-phase commit would equate to waiting at the cashier with the receipt and the money on the table until the drink is finished. Then, the drink would be added to the mix. Finally the money, receipt and drink would change hands in one swoop. Neither the cashier nor the customer would be able to leave until the “transaction” is completed. Using such a two-phase-commit approach would certainly kill Starbucks’ business because the number of customers they can serve within a certain time interval would decrease dramatically. This is a good reminder that a two-phase-commit can make life a lot simpler but it can also hurt the free flow of messages (and therefore the scalability) because it has to maintain stateful transaction resources across the flow of multiple, asynchronous actions.”

— Gregor is a software architect with Google. He is a frequent speaker on asynchronous messaging and service-oriented architectures and co-authored Enterprise Integration Patterns (Addison-Wesley). His mission is to make integration and distributed system development easier by harvesting common patterns and best practices from many different technologies.
www.eaipatterns.com

#C13DEN: Session #579 – Introduction to Database 12c New Features and Functionality

http://coll13.mapyourshow.com/5_0/sessions/sessiondetails.cfm?ScheduledSessionID=18A0CFC5

(Now history…but we’re in-queue for #OOW13)
Collaborate asked ” What about Database 12c? ” @IOUG is pleased to deliver! In MHB4A 830A Th, Just before you hop on the plane/bus/car/train/buffalo (it’s Denver…) back home, get tuned in, turned on, updated, clarified, ask your what is it questions, bring clarity to the cloud, plug-in, charge-up and get what you travelled all the way here to find out the details about the database formerly-known-as-next-generation (psst…that means “12c”).

No,it’s not GA yet (General Availability). Yes, we are both knowledgable Beta participants under NDA. Yes – you need to know more than you do today based upon your experience with even 11gR2.  Bring your coffee, munchies and your questions.  And prepare for some answers.  Finally.

How?  Because Oracle teams with IOUG for a reason in this area – we know how to educate people, with the right way to do it – even for a product that isn’t here (quite yet.)

2013-April Shinnyo-en Buddhism Introduct

2013-April Shinnyo-en Buddhism Introductory Podcast – Sesshin Meditation Training http://ow.ly/2w0WLe

2013-April Shinnyo-en Buddhism Introductory Podcast – Sesshin Meditation Training

Subscribe to this Podcast (RSS) or iTunes

2013-April Shinnyo-en Buddhism Introductory Podcast – Sesshin Meditation Training

• Why Meditate?
• Why Guided Meditation?
• What’s the Difference between Guided Meditation and Sesshin Training?

At a workshop on leadership given by Henry Givray, president and CEO of Smith-Bucklin, he cites two qualities of great leaders being self-awareness, and self-management. Self-management (or self-control) comes through motivation to change, and developing discipline to alter behaviors. But what process do you follow to become more self-aware, that is, heightening awareness of your own strengths and limitations, knowing fully your values and ideals, or even knowing what you do and how you do it? Meditation, and many other closed-eye processes are a way bring focus to your own thoughts by shutting down the myriad of stimuli that bombard our senses every moment of every day.  Ever tried sitting down and thinking about one thing, and then thinking more about tangent elements of that one thing, and soon you are wondering why you were thinking about that one thing in the first place? Being able to calm down our expansive mental abilities to think and analyze many things at once takes some form of actual physical intervention, and meditation is one of the simplest and self-capable forms of performing this feat. You don’t have to soak in a sensory deprivation chamber, or alight atop a Himalayan mountain in order to achieve a state where you can focus deeply on something. The difference is similar to taking a brief glance in a mirror to check your appearance, or looking deeply at your own reflection in the mirror to see every aspect of your physicality, even what you may dislike seeing (and perhaps even being motivated to change.)

Sometimes, even the process of closing one’s eyes and attempting to pacify one’s thoughts doesn’t come easily. Too many daily distractions have piled-up creating worrisome subjects, or maybe the thought you want to focus upon isn’t easily visualized or even comprehended. You may even not know where to begin with really complicated situations. That’s when having something else provide the structure and attention focus for you helps a lot. Even your own voice and listening to your own verbalizations to yourself can help bring the extra framework of stability needed to train our mind’s excess capacity to think about many things at once, to calm the active and continuously curious senses back down to a state of focus and reflection. This is why many forms of meditation involve use of verbalized sounds or phrases, or mantras, which help achieve the same state of thinking.  Psychologically, when you task your mind to repeat an endless phrase, which doesn’t require much thought other than to make the same sounds over and over again, with closed-eyes, you have occupied your mouth, mind and body with a single task to accomplish, which through repetition, physically hones in your awareness and senses towards a common focus — even if that task is to say, “Ohmmmm…” over and over again (or in the case of those of us in the Oracle IT software world, we might use “select * from dual;”.)

So, having achieved that nice, “happy place” state, how do you go about re-focusing on that thing you wanted to ponder, whether it was self-reflection, or how to solve a problem? That’s where guided meditation comes to play. It takes a lot of practice to maintain that state of inner calm, and also be able to introduce something else to think about, without upsetting the tranquility by piling on subject after subject to think about – as we all have so many things we’d like to figure out. Having another person or even a recorded voice instill that verbalized change of subject is how we can assist ourselves to stay focused on our own calmness, while the outside world introduces the subject of study.  Listening to this podcast is a form of that kind of guidance, as you listen to each word and form images in your mind of what is being said. Guided meditation also facilitates that same process, whether in the form of a pre-recorded meditation audio track, playing Deepak Chopra’s Leela video game, or with another person providing the verbal support and guidance.

In Shinnyo-en, as in all forms of esoteric practice, self-reflection is one of the key forms of training to support our own development towards building a persistent world of harmony and joy. Shinnyo sesshin meditation training was developed by Master Shinjo Ito as a way to bridge the elements of the original Shingon form of sesshin, which involves complete isolation from the outside world and many rigorous hours of continued meditation practice, with the needs of the contemporary and practical world of today. This version of sesshin training has been arranged into differing levels of focus, ranging from simple self-awareness, to meditative problem-solving and crisis resolution. Depending on your own individual needs or objectives, you can choose to train in whichever level is most suitable for the particular area of focus you feel you need to work on as a priority. But the common element is the same – it is not that the words that the meditation guide gives you are the prescribed answers to your problems; it is about how you interpret those words, and what actions you take to actualize their meaning. The guide-person is a virtual verbal mirror for your own self-reflection. How you perceive what is said, is the key to understanding your own inner thoughts and what you do, and how you do it. And if you get the bigger picture, that’s also what the entire world is, and everyone around you – a mirror of your Self.

From this month’s Shinnyo Reflections newsletter, sesshin is one of the keys to creating a world based on friendship. The  Shinnyo-en community, together with the practitioners and temple staff as a whole, are working to create opportunities for more people to be able to receive structured sesshin. That structured setting practice goes beyond reflecting on the indications we receive. It involves thinking about our connectedness to others, putting ourselves in the place of others, and working together with others. In the process, some of our own deep-seated fears or worries will naturally evaporate—leading us to becoming more courageous overall. By acting on what inspires us and applying in daily life what we grasp through the meditative practice of sesshin, we can truly change our lives. And this starts from not being afraid to step forward because you really care for the wellbeing of others. This selflessness and letting go of attachment will surely help us to break free from the cycle of karmic suffering toward the joy of being spiritually liberated. Our efforts to act on our sesshin training experiences nurture us to overcome whatever hurdles we may face.

The Oracle Database 12c “Formerly-known-as-Next-Generation” at Collaborate 13

#C13DEN Session 671 – Monday 4/8 9:45A Mineral Hall Ballroom 3B (the room right next to my Introduction to Fusion Middleware- same Monday 9:45A, but MHB 3C) – These rooms are on the First Floor down in front of the main theatre.

Rich Niemiec speaks on Database 12c Features and Functionality in the way only Rich can do it (meaning 200+ pages of slide deck).

Oracle Magazine March 2013 – Database 12c Printed Publically

Here’s why we can call it “12c” – Oracle printed it for us to share in last month’s Oracle Magazine: