Tag Archives: knowledge

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!


Kscope15, a celebration of tech…

Kscope15 promised to be a brand new experience in more than one way.

Kscope15LogoAs I start to write this report, I am flying from Düsseldorf airport to Atlanta. It will be the first time flying to the United States with a stopover, and because of Erik van Roon, I came prepared. With just carry-on luggage, I should end up at my final destination, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, together with my ‘stuff’. I am flying Delta Airlines this time, and for an airline that promises just a ‘lunch’ during the 9 hours flight, they do come up with a lot of food…

My colleagues of FOEX have already arrived at the event-venue and are setting up our booth.

On arrival at Fort Lauderdale airport, I am scheduled to meet-up with distinguished product manager for PL/SQL and EBR, Bryn Llewellyn. From there, we would travel to Hallandale Beach to check into our hotels. This plan was only hindered by sheer force of wind shear at Atlanta International, which delayed my flight.

The first day, the Sunday, started off with a boiling walk to the Diplomat hotel. Upon registration I was pleasantly surprised that FOEX had graciously upgraded my conference pass to a full pass, which is cool as I get to attend sessions! And the kind ladies of ODTUG had even attached an ACE Associate ribbon to my name-tag, of which I am kind of proud.

I had so many cool meet-ups and run-ins at Kscope. Just to name a few new friends in no particular order:

Of course I spent most of my time in the APEX and database development tracks. If you look at the momentum that APEX is generating, I think we can safely say that we are making a difference… We can say with confidence: #LetsWreckThisTogether!

The “together” bit was beautifully expressed by Joel Kallman as you could hear a pin drop when Carl Backstrom and Scott Spadafore of the APEX team were remembered…

But still there is a lot of work that has to be done to further spread the word on APEX. I guess I have had at least 4 conversations where I had the opportunity to talk about and explain APEX to people who were still oblivious. That is one of the most rewarding this to do.

Nikki beachThe week passed so quickly and most experiences are becoming great memories very quickly now. The countless meet ups with friend and heroes from the Oracle world, the white party at Nikki Beach and the after party at The Mansion and of course the Oracle content which was dished out with great quality.

Just on more thing… Travelling Über is the best! I have been doing this in San Francisco and used the service here to get back to the airport. Why would you take a taxi with this service around? Because of the way it works, the drivers I have met, have been much more friendly than regular ‘cabbies’. I would recommend this any day.

So, now I am heading home, hanging in the sky somewhere between Fort Lauderdale and Atlanta. Thinking back on Roel’s blog post on his first Kscope… will this have changed my life? Quite possibly, but on the other hand things could not get much more crazy than they have been over the last 6 to 12 months!!

If you are looking to read up on the business side of things, please check out the FOEX blog!

Please also don’t forget to check out the #Kscope15 hash tag on Twitter and remember, when you are at an Oracle conference, also use the #orclconf as additional hash tag. This will help to make it even easier to follow your favorite tech-community on-line!