Tag Archives: Community

A week of PostgreSQL


One of the attractive things of my job is this… Just a bit more often than every now and then, you get the opportunity to get out and meet people to talk about Postgres. I don’t mean the kind of talk I do every day, which has more of a commercial touch to it. – Don’t get me wrong, that is very important too! – But I mean, really talk about PostgreSQL, be part of the community and help spread the understanding of what open source database technology can do for companies. Running implementations, either small or large, trivial or mission critical…

This past week was one of those weeks.

I got to travel through Germany together with Mr. Bruce Momjian himself. Bruce is the one of the most established and senior community leaders for Postgres. Bruce is also my colleague and I would like to think I may consider him my friend. My employer, EnterpriseDB, gives us the opportunity to do this. To be an integral part of the PostgreSQL community, contribute, help expand the fame of Postgres, no strings attached. Support the success of the 30 to 40,000 engineers creating this most advanced open source RDBMS.

The week started with travel, and I got to Frankfurt. Frankfurt will be the proving ground for the idea of a pop-up meet-up. Not an EDB-marketing event or somewhere where we sell EnterpriseDB services, but allow anyone just to discuss PostgreSQL.
We will be in a city, in a public place, answering questions, discussion things or just relax with some coffee. Purpose is to show what the PostgreSQL community is all about, to anyone interested!

The first day in Frankfurt, we spent at the 25hrs hotel. We had some very interesting discussions on:

  • Postgres vs. Oracle community
  • Changing role of DBA:
    • The demise of the Oracle DBA
    • RDBMS DBA not so much
  • Risk management
  • “Data scientist”
  • Significance of relational growing again

In the afternoon we took the Train to Munich, which was a quick and smooth experience. Munich would be the staging ground for a breakfast meeting, or a lunch… or just say hi.

Bruce and I spend the day discussing:

  • How to go from using Postgres as replacement of peripheral Oracle to Postgres as replacement for all Oracle
  • Using Postgres as polyglot data platform bringing new opportunities

After the meet-up we headed to Berlin training towards the final two events of this week.We spent Thursday teaching the EDB Postgres Bootcamp, having a lot of fun and absolutely not sticking to the program. With Bruce here, and very interesting questions from the participants, we were able to talk about the past and the future of Postgres and all the awesome stuff that is just around the corner.
Friday morning started with a brisk taxi-drive from Berlin to the Müggelsee Hotel. And, if you happen to talk to Bruce, you simply must ask him about this taxi-trip 😉

pgconf.de ended up being a superb event with a record breaking number of visitors and lost of interesting conversations. You will find loads of impressions here!

I got to meet a great number of the specialists that make up the Postgres community:
Andreas ‘Ads’ Scherbaum
Devrim Gündüz
Magnus Hagander
Emre Hasegeli
Oleksii Kliukin
Stefanie Stölting
Ilya Kosmodemiansky
Valentine Gogichashvili

I am already looking forward to the next Postgres events I get to attend… pgconf.de 2019 will in any case happen on the 10th of May in Leipzig.
It would be super cool to see you there, please submit your abstracts using the information from this page!


OUGN15, The “boat conference” revisited

Jan at shipsport
Reflections on OUGN

Sometimes things in life can change quickly! It is only two years ago that I came to Oslo for the first time to join the Scandinavian Oracle crew on a boat trip to Kiel.
At that time I had never actually participated in this kind of experience and I wasn’t into presenting either. Together with my good friend Philippe Fierens I discovered a whole new world back then. You could have read about these experiences in some blogpost, but this was lost in the move to my own site, sorry!

And this trip couldn’t have been more different though! With three presentations accepted the two days at sea will be a reunion with the friends I made over the last years, as well as a way to contribute to one of the most tight knit tech communities I know. And this will be in a scene that I remember vividly from being a newbie… And this is somewhat strange, believe me

After a quick and pleasant flight I touched down in Oslo, flying from Amsterdam with a decent sized crew of Dutch Oracle enthusiasts, including my good friends Patrick Barel and Alex Nuijten. Waiting in the Oslo airport for Luís Marques, I catches up with Gurcan Orhan, which was a great surprise.
Later that day we found ourselves in the Oslo harbor for the speakers dinner. You can imagine the collective amount of Oracle knowledge packed into that one restaurant!

frits
Enkitek’s Frits Hoogland on Ansible

After a somewhat restless night we arrived, on Thursday morning, at the ship Color Fantasy with the Heli Helskyaho-company, just in time for the keynotes. It was good to see Mark Rittman and James Morle made it on board too. Especially as James was up for the delivery of version 2.0 of his vibrant keynote! Next we proceeded to bring our luggage to our cabins and grab a spot of lunch on the exhibition floor down in the belly of the ship. The setup of the exhibition was quite nice and gave a good opportunity to mix and mingle.
The afternoon was spent on sessions, where I visited Frits Hoogland with the Ansible talk, and preparation for my own session at 18:00. This is the last run of this APEX presentation, as I have retired it after OUGN15. The slides will be archived here.
After finalizing the preparation for the third edition of the Standard Edition Round Table (aka “slide polishing”) with the #orclSERT team, comprising of Ann Sjökvist, Philippe and myself, it was time for the souree and for diner in the grand restaurant on board. It has been a good first day!

Diner
Dinner with the international crew on board the Color Fantasy.
Gin-tonic
Warm reception at Kiel port.

The second day of OUGN15 started with a multitude of sessions including the third edition of the Oracle Standard Edition Round Table, which was actually quite busy and interactive. We had some good discussions, and that at 09:00, so thank you, everybody.
Of course, as was declared a tradition, Björn Rost was present in the Kiel harbor. With the famous “Basil smash Gin & tonic” and sandwiches we were welcomed on German soil.
My afternoon comprised 3 sessions, starting with my own called “Okay, and now my database server crashed…” which was quite nicely received. Next Alex Nuijten on 12c new features for developer, topped off with Tim Gorman who taught us to be CSI people, in finding issues in the database.
After an enjoyable evening in the various bars and discotheques of the ship we retired the official part of the Oracle User Group Norway Vårseminar 2015, thanking the board and of course especial Øyvind Isene, for their hard work.

If you want to catch up further on the unconference communications surrounding this event, please do checkout the Twitter hashtag #OUGN15. This will also include a great set of snapshots and pictures taken along the way…

Oslo, until the next time!