UKOUG 2008 Bloggers Assistance.
It is that time of year: the UKOUG is on with the Organisation of the next Big Yearly Conference. And as this is the 25th edition, it may just be Extra Feisty.
The call for papers is out and can be found here: http://conference.ukoug.org/
As always, the blogosphere is asked to plug, to promote and to web-Link this event into the search-engine rankings (the request went out weeks ago, and I am probably the last, fashionably late, blogger to put in an entry... But hey: there might be drinkies again at the blogger-event).
To be honest: This one is Worth It!
It is one of the Largest and Best Organized non-Oracle-Oracle events (e.g. not organized by Oracle, but still about Oracle) on this side of the Atlantic. Another good one is the SIOUG in Slovenia[link]: surprisingly Large Event and in a very nice location (yes, I was there last year, and it was Great Fun).
Time to go over my project-notes from this year to see what I can bring to the party. I had several ideas in the last months, but none of them are very "nice". But then, that is what user-groups are for maybe: Calling a Spade a Spade ?
"Upgrade Nightmares"
Indeed, why do we do it each time? why do we take the bait and the FUD each time and go through these Painful Upgrades...
My Cost+work saving tip for today would be: If you are still on 9.2 or even 8.1.7.4, and are considering to upgrade (as you should) why not show real balls and wait for 11.2 to come along?
If you have to go through the pain of an upgrade, you might as well
go to the highest possible version and be done for at least the next 2 years...
"Is my Diaster (re)Covered?"
Well... yes, but... (Oracle will never say No..)
If and Only If you took all the right precautions, and after you have managed to DIY the recovery all by yourself, Then the jovial Oracle representative is ready to share in your success!
If you had failed, then that is exactly what would have happened:
"YOU and only you, the miserably non-manual-reading, non-certified,
non-budget-spending, non-patch-applying DBA, would have Failed".
It could not possibly be the fault of those expensive Oracle products, could it?
Actually, let this narrow-escape be a lesson to you:
In future, you will need to buy more (licensed options) of these products just to make sure you show your total determination to spend your whole budget on their products.
BTW: the long winding small print on all Oracle products (the screen with the "I agree" button)states the equivalent of:
"Any disaster will still be your responsability..."
Right.
Those titles should get me in the "good book" of someone (whoever pays for my UKOUG budget), but probably not in the book of Oracle... hmmm.
In short:
If you want to know what works and what does not work with Oracle Products and Tools, then come to the UKOUG conference. The information you can get there is about as good as it gets.
See You There!
