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Collaborate 09: Don’t miss these sessions

Dan — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:07:37 +0000

Collaborate 09 starts on Sunday, May 3 (a few days from now!) in Orlando. I’ve been offline for several weeks (more on that later), but will be returning to the world of computers and technology in full force in Orlando. I’ve had a few inquiries about whether or not I’ll be at Collaborate, so I thought I’d resurrect my blog with a post about where I’ll be and some of the highlights I see at Collaborate 09.

First, where I’ll be presenting:

Monday, 10:45-11:45am, #301, “Avoiding Common RAC Problems”
Tuesday, 9:45am-12pm, #332, “Installing RAC From The Ground Up”
Wednesday, 9:45-10:45am, #121, “Troubleshooting Oracle Clusterware”

I’m also currently the President of the Oracle RAC Special Interest Group (RAC SIG). The RAC SIG is hosting several great sessions (I’m moderating a couple of these panels) at Collaborate 09 as well:

Sunday, 6-7:30pm, IOUG/SIG Welcome Reception (each SIG will have representatives there–this is open to all IOUG attendees)
Monday, 8-9am, RAC SIG Orientation
Tuesday, 12:15-1:15pm, RAC SIG Birds of a Feather
Tuesday, 4:30-5:30pm, RAC SIG Expert Panel
Wednesday, 4:30-5:30pm, RAC SIG Customer Panel (not in online scheduler at the moment, check again later)
Thursday, 8:30am-12pm, RAC Attack (University Session – Additional fee required)

The RAC SIG has also assembled this list of RAC-related sessions at Collaborate 09 to help you plan your conference agenda.

Be sure to set up your personal agenda using the agenda builder and add these sessions to your agenda. I think that if you have these in your agenda and details (like date or room assignments) change, you’ll be notified via email (not sure, but I think that’s how it works).

Also, you can follow @IOUG on Twitter (follow me too if you’d like) and that will help you find where the action is during the event next week. It’s going to be a great event and I look forward to seeing you there!

ADV: RAC Attack Hands-on Event at Collaborate09

Dan — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:49:41 +0000

The RAC SIG, Oracle and IOUG are thrilled to present the hands-on event dubbed “RAC Attack!” at Collaborate09 in Orlando, FL. It is a half-day University Session in the IOUG Forum scheduled for the morning of Thursday, May 7th.

Each participant will have their own private RAC cluster to use. You’ll be able to install a new cluster, test session failover, perform backup and recovery and just about anything else you’d like to try (time permitting). The session will have lab outlines with very specific instructions that cater to beginners. Advanced users are welcome to test anything they like. If you try something that doesn’t work, we have mechanisms in place to help “reset” your cluster in 15 minutes and let you continue working and testing.

Here’s the official conference abstract for the session:

“Whether you’re new to or familiar with Real Application Clusters (RAC), you do not want to miss the IOUG RAC Attack! hands-on lab. The hands-on lab will cover: cluster installation prerequisites on Linux, installing Oracle clusterware, installing Oracle RDBMS, creating RAC database, failure testing and backup/recovery testing.

Also, you’ll have a chance to interact with some RAC experts from IOUG, Oracle and the RAC SIG, as they’ll be available to help you as you navigate the hands-on exercises. These volunteers are sharing their knowledge to help you be successful with your learning experience. This opportunity doesn’t come along often, so don’t miss a chance to pick the brains of our experts!”

There are still seats available for this event, but there is a limit, so don’t delay. It is an additional cost above the Collaborate09 conference registration, but I think you’ll find it to be packed with knowledge and experts to help you get the hands-on experience you need to grow and succeed with Oracle RAC. The session will be staffed with Oracle, IOUG and RAC SIG experts ready to help you and answer questions about RAC and clustering. Don’t miss out!

If you’ve already registered, you can add on the University Session by contacting IOUG. If you haven’t registered yet, there is still time left–sign up now!

RAC SIG Officers Announced

Dan — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 04:24:45 +0000

Thanks to everyone that took the time to vote in the recent RAC SIG elections. We had a very successful election with almost 600 members voting for the 6 open positions. The new board will be installed at Oracle Open World on Monday, September 22nd in Moscone South 306 preceding our RAC SIG Expert Panel session at 2:30 pm.

The new RAC SIG Officers are:

President – Dan Norris
Webseminar Chair – Sreekanth Chintala
US Events Chair – Kai Yu
International Chair – Murali Vallath
Librarian Chair – Ron Kranz
Website Chair – Steve Karam

Appointed positions:

Oracle Liaison – Erik Peterson
Secretary/Hosting – Sergio Del Rio

As Erik Peterson pointed out in his announcement to RAC SIG members, the new board is a mixture of past board members and volunteers as well as some new faces.

Thanks to everyone that voted for me and welcome to the new board members. I’m looking forward to working with the new board and continuing to make the RAC SIG the first stop in the search for RAC knowledge and activities.

The existing board had its last regular monthly meeting today and we thanked Rich Niemiec for his contributions to the board as he leaves the board, but will continue to contribute as a RAC SIG member and occasional webcast presenter (we hope!). We wish Rich good luck in all his future endeavors and look forward to seeing him at some of our future events as well!

RAC SIG Officer/Board Member Elections

Dan — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 02:58:17 +0000

All RAC SIG members should have received an announcement regarding the voting that’s now in progress for new RAC SIG board members/officers. There were several nominations received in July and early August and voting is open now to all RAC SIG members. Just login to the site and use the Elections tab to cast your votes. Make sure you vote for each office (nominations for each office are on separate pages).

I’m giving up my spot as the Events Chair and am running for the President position along with several other fine candidates. Please vote today!

In related news, I just posted the RAC SIG Events taking place at Oracle Open World 2008 on the front page of the site, so check those out (and add them to your schedule in the OOW Schedule Builder) if you’re planning to attend OOW this year!

IOUG RAC Attack! Register Now!

Dan — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:05:27 +0000

The Oracle RAC SIG and the IOUG are co-sponsoring the IOUG “RAC Attack” event and if you haven’t yet heard about it, you might want to check it out. The event runs for 2 days, August 4-5, in downtown Chicago and will bring together some excellent presenters as well as the opportunity for hands-on experiences via the hands-on labs that run throughout the event. See the RAC Attack web page for more details on the event.

As one of the RAC SIG board members, I’ve been involved with the planning and development of this event over the last 9 months and I think it’s going to be one of the best opportunities to get focused, high-quality education on RAC available today. Plus, you’ll get the chance to network with a group of people that are focused on RAC and it’s uses.

Of course, I’ll be there, so if you do make it to the event, please be sure to say hello. I’ll likely spend much of my time in the hands-on lab (when I’m not presenting my technical session) helping those that need it to build their cluster, test backup and recovery or exercise some new features.

Hope to see you there!

Collaborate 08, RAC SIG & other sessions of interest

Dan — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 20:01:00 +0000

Collaborate 08 is here and I’m in Denver already to prepare for the start of the conference. This year, I won’t be blogging a day-by-day accounting of my whereabouts and happenings. Instead, I’ll save up for a summary of what I saw, heard, and vibes I felt during the week.

If you’re still one of the many that hasn’t quite finalized your itinerary for the week, check out these events from the RAC SIG:

Sun, 13-Apr, 7:30pm, Hyatt Granite ABC: IOUG SIG Reception (this is all SIGs, not just RAC SIG)
Mon, 14-Apr, 10:30am, Korbel 1F: RAC SIG Customer Panel
Tue, 15-Apr, 12:15pm, Korbel 4C: RAC SIG Experts Panel
Wed, 16-Apr, 1:30pm, Korbel 4F: RAC SIG Birds of a Feather

Also check out all the great RAC-related sessions happening this week. For convenience, the RAC SIG has assembled a summary of all the Collaborate 08 sessions related to RAC on their website for download.

Of course, I also would love to see you in my own sessions this week. Here is my presentation list this week:

Mon, 14-Apr, 9:15am, Korbel 3B: SSL, Load Balancers, Rewrite, Redirect, and More Advanced Configuration (2-hour expert session co-presentation with Matt Topper)
Tue, 15-Apr, 3:30pm, Four Seasons 2/3: Building a RAC Test Environment On VMWare For Free (2-hour expert session)
Wed, 16-Apr, 8:30am, Korbel 3B: Oracle Adaptive Access Manager: What, Why, How
Thu, 17-Apr, 9:45am, Korbel 2A: To RAC or Not To RAC: What’s Best For HA? Panel debate session (I’m the moderator)

When I’m not at one of those sessions or a RAC SIG session, I may be attending other sessions and will also be spending some time at the Piocon Piobooth #1619 in the exhibit hall (I actually have a real job!). My Piocon team members are presenting quite a few interesting sessions as well, so if RAC and IdM aren’t your things, check out these sessions as well.

If you’re at the conference and want to meet up, tweet me using twitter.com (I’m dannorris).

RAC SIG Events at OOW

Dan — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 15:55:59 +0000

As the events chairperson for the RAC SIG, I wanted to make everyone aware of the events we have scheduled for next week at Oracle OpenWorld SF. Anyone is welcome to attend our sessions, though you’ll probably need a conference badge of some sort to get in (I recall that the room monitors are usually pretty sticky about letting people in without proper conference badges). Anyway, here are the events we have planned. You’ll also find them on the homepage of our website.

Sunday, 4pm, Moscone West 2002-L2: RAC SIG Birds of a Feather Discussion Session, S292952

Monday, 12:30pm, Moscone South 310: RAC SIG Customer Panel, S291621
Tuesday, 10:45am, Moscone South 310: Panel Discussion: Deploying Siebel, SAP, Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, and Hyperion on a Grid, S291659
Tuesday, 12:15pm, Moscone South 310: RAC SIG Expert Panel, S291665

Besides great content at these events, you’ll find many of the RAC SIG board members attending, hosting, moderating, and participating in these events. If you’re interested in becoming more involved with the group, please seek out one of us to discuss how you can help. Also, we’re always looking for potential presenters for our live webcast series, so we may be seeking you out to solicit your participation in that as well!

Either way, attending these sessions or not, I encourage you to sign up for an account on the RAC SIG website. This will enable you to access our recorded past webcasts (on demand playback at any time) and receive email reminders about upcoming events.

See you in SF! Be sure to confirm the room assignments and session times as they sometimes change in last-minute planning by OOW staff.