Tag Archives: User Groups & Conferences
Previewing the BI Forum 2013 Data Integration Masterclass
I guess it’s a British thing to not blow our own trumpet (does that translate the same over in the US?), but something I’m particularly proud about with the upcoming Rittman Mead BI Forum 2013 events is our Oracle Data Integration Masterclass, running on the Wednesday before each event properly starts, and put together by myself, Stewart Bryson and Michael Rainey. Although the main theme for the BI Forum is OBIEE, virtually every BI system that we all work with has a data warehouse of some sort underneath it, and most OBIEE professionals to one extent or another have to understand data warehousing principles, and how Oracle’s data integration tools work. So this year, we thought we’d take a deep-dive into Oracle Data Integrator and the wider Oracle Data Integration Suite, and in this preview positing I’ll be giving you a bit of a preview of what’s coming in the session – and places are still available for the US BI Forum event, and for the masterclass itself if you’ve only registered for just the main conference event.
The masterclass is made up of six sections, delivered by myself, Stewart and Michael, assumes a basic understanding of data warehousing and ETL tools but otherwise gets down into the detail of what we’ve found works well “in the field”. Stewart Bryson, Oracle ACE and Managing Director for Rittman Mead America, will open the session with an overview of ODI and the Oracle Data Integration Suite, taking a look at the product history and walking the audience through the major elements of the ODI product architecture. If you’ve ever wondered what agents do within ODI, why there are two repositories and where WebLogic comes into it, Stewart’s session will make everything clear before we get into the rest of the details.
Then, after coffee, Stewart will carry on and talk about what’s called the Oracle Information Management Reference Architecture, Oracle’s next-generation blueprint for data warehousing and information management that combines the best of Kimball and Inmon with new thinking around “big data” and “data discovery”. ODI and Oracle Data Integration Suite is the enabling technology for this new framework. At Rittman Mead, we use this framework for the majority of our DW customer engagements and we’ll be talking later on in the masterclass about how big data sources, for example, can be leveraged by ODI and brought into your BI environment in the same way as any other regular, relational datasource.
The third section of the masterclass sees Michael Rainey take over the stage and talk to us about ODI’s integration with Oracle GoldenGate, Oracle’s data integration product for real-time analysis and data loading. Michael has taken part in several ODI & GoldenGate customer engagements over in the States, and has worked with Stewart in producing a number of custom ODI knowledge modules to better make use of this powerful new data integration tool. If you’ve read through any of Michael’s blog posts on ODI and Golden Gate and are interested in hearing a bit more detail on how it all works, as well as some real-world practical tips and tricks, this will be an invaluable session for you.
So far I’ve got away with just making the tea, but straight-after Michael is my session, where I’ll be talking about ODI and its new integration with Hadoop, NoSQL and the wider “big data” technology area. I’ve been covering ODI and Hadoop in some blog posts over the past week, but there’s only so much that I can get into a blog post and this session will be the first airing of this new material, where I’ll be demoing all the main integration points and talking about what works well, and where the main value is, with this very interesting new feature.
Then it’s back to Stewart again, where he’ll be talking about creating highly-resilient ETL code that’s also resumable, using features such as ODI 11g’s load plans and the Oracle Database’s resumable space allocation feature. Stewart and I were particularly keen to put together this session as it brings together work Stewart did a few years ago on fault-tolerant ETL in the Oracle Database, with some blog posts I put together over the 2012 Christmas break around highly-resilient ETL with ODI11g. What this session does is explain the background to the ETL resilience features in the Oracle Database, and ODI’s use of WebLogic JEE agents, and demonstrates through some custom knowledge modules how they can be brought together for your project.
Finally, Michael concludes the masterclass with a look at a feature you’re probably vaguely aware of, intend to learn something about, but sounds a bit complex; Groovy scripting and the ODI SDK. In fact, like WLST scripting for OBIEE, learning Groovy and the SDK is the key to automating tedious tasks such as mass-importing and reverse-engineering tables and files, as well as making it possible to add functionality to ODI or integrate it with other standards-based products. In a session almost entirely made-up of live demos, Michael will take us through the basics of Groovy and the SDK, and show us a few examples of where this could add value to your data integration projects.
So there we have it – Brighton is now fully-booked up, but if you’ve already registered for the main event but want to come to the masterclass now too, you can log back into the registration site and update your booking to include the additional masterclass fee. Atlanta is running a week later and so still has a few main event passes left, and again if you’ve already registered for the main conference, use the link in your registration confirmation to go back in and add the masterclass to your booking. And – hopefully we’ll see you all in Brighton or Atlanta for the Rittman Mead BI Forum 2013 in the next two weeks!
Rittman Mead BI Forum Atlanta Special Guest: Alex Gorbachev
A few days back, I introduced our special guests for the Rittman Mead BI Forum in Atlanta, focusing first on Cary Millsap. Today I’d like to talk about our other special guest: Oracle ACE Director Alex Gorbachev. Alex was an inspiration for me back in the Oracle Database 10g and early 11g days when I was administering Oracle RAC for several data warehouse customers, and wondering whether RAC was the right platform for BI. Of course it was… and every time I read one of Alex’s blogs (he was quite a prolific blogger back then… we all were once upon a time) or saw him speak, I felt empowered to go take on Cache Fusion.
Alex joined Pythian in Canada as a DBA team lead in 2006. Just two years later, he moved to Australia to successfully startup Pythian Australia. In 2009, he returned to Canada and took up the mantle of Chief Technology Officer, a title he still holds today. He is a member of the distinguished OakTable Network (as is Cary Millsap… something I forgot to mention yesterday), and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG). Alex founded the Battle Against Any Guess Party, a movement promoting scientific troubleshooting techniques. During his time in Australia he also founded Sydney Oracle Meetup, a vibrant local community of passionate Oracle professionals.
Its fortuitous that Mark blogged yesterday on Hadoop… as this is exactly what Alex is speaking on at the BI Forum. His presentation is titled “Hadoop versus the Relational Data Warehouse.” He’ll discuss some of the technical design principles of Hadoop and the reasons for it’s rise in popularity. We’ll get to see the position that Hadoop currently occupies in the enterprise data center, it’s possible future trajectory, and how that trajectory compares with the more traditional relational data warehouse. For the BI developers in the crowd who have perhaps never seen Alex speak… you’re definitely in for a treat. He’s set to speak first thing Friday morning to kick off the last day of the Forum. If you know Alex, you’re obviously aware that he’s an excellent technologist, but you also likely know how much fun he is to be around, so it will be good to have him at the social meet-ups in and around the conference.
I’d really like to thank our friend and business partner Pythian for always supporting Rittman Mead and ensuring that Alex would speak at the Forum. And of course… I’d be remiss if I didn’t say: Love Your Data!
What’s Coming at the Rittman Mead BI Forum 2013, Atlanta, May 15th – 17th 2013
At the end of last week I talked about what we had planned for the BI Forum in Brighton, and today I want to talk about what we’ve got planned for the Rittman Mead BI Forum 2013 in Atlanta, running the week after at the Georgia Tech Hotel & Conference Center on May 15th – 17th 2013.
As with the Brighton BI Forum event, we’ve got a mix of partner, independent developer, customer and Oracle speakers, all covering topics centered around OBIEE and its supporting technologies. The central idea around the BI Forum is that its “the conference we’d want to go to”, with content aimed at developers who already know the basics, want to hear solid technical and implementation talk not marketing fluff, and want to meet their friends and peers in the industry to share stories and trade tips. We keep numbers strictly limited, run just a single track so that everyone gets to take part in the same sessions, and maximize the networking and social elements so that you get to meet everyone who attends, hopefully staying in touch well after the event closes.
This year our speakers and sessions in Atlanta include:
- Jeff McQuigg talking about OBIEE testing (and making the topic interesting), Christian Screen on OBIEE plug-ins, Tim Vlamis covering OBIEE forecasting and time-series analysis, Kevin McGinley looking at ODI and the BI Apps (and hoping it’s GA by then, otherwise he’ll sing us Bohemian Rhapsody in Klingon for an hour), and our own Adam Seed will take us beyond the demos with Endeca
- From Oracle, we’ll have Marty Gubar and Alan Lee talking about the new Admin Tool, and OBIEE’s support for Hadoop as a data source, Florian Schouten will talk about BI Apps futures, and Jack Berkowitz will take us through the latest in OBIEE presentation, mobility and interactivity
Jack will also deliver the opening Oracle keynote on the Wednesday evening, and before that earlier in the day will be our optional masterclass, this year being delivered by Stewart Bryson, Michael Rainey and myself and focusing on Oracle’s data integration technologies. And – to top things off, we’re joined by two special guests, Method R’s Cary Millsap, and Pythian’s Alex Gorbachev, two of our friends from the Oracle database world and who’ll talk to us about reponse-time based performance tuning, and what’s new in the worlds of Big Data and unstructured analytics.
Of course – it’s not all about learning and technology, and we make a special effort around the social events usually to the point where we spend all the proceeds on free bars and making sure everyone’s having a good time. There’ll be a debate on the Friday, TED-style 10-minute sessions on the Thursday, a competition to see who can speak longer than Paul Rodwick about Oracle BI without blinking, full delegate packs and t-shirts to take home, and we share all delegate contact details amongst the attendees so you can stay in touch after everything closes. Registration is open and there are still a few places left, so if you’re thinking of attending and don’t want to lose your place, register now before we sell out…!
Some Upcoming Events
It’s going to be a busy few weeks leading up to the BI Forum. First, Rittman Mead will be exhibiting at the UKOUG Engineered Systems Summit on Tuesday 16th April, this is a one day event in London for Exadata, Exalogic, SuperCluster and not least Exalytics. Mark will be presenting on Oracle Exalytics – Tips and Experiences from Rittman Mead , full agenda available here. Mark will then hoping over to Norway to speak at the Oracle Norway User Group event on High-Speed, In-Memory Big Data Analysis with Oracle Exalytics, maybe he’ll be previewing his work getting OBIEE 11.1.1.7 working with Hadoop.
The following week on Tuesday 23rd April I am speaking at an Oracle Business Analytics event, I am giving a presentation about our story so far with Exalytics, this event is at Oracle’s City Office in London. Later that week on Thursday 25th, as part of Big Data Week I’m speaking in the evening in Brighton about the evolution from Business Intelligence to Analytics and Big Data, full agenda here, please register here.
Looking forward the BI Forum 2013, Brighton UK
It’s around a month to go now until the Rittman Mead BI Forum runs in Brighton, UK, with the Atlanta event running the week after. Full details on both events are on the Rittman Mead BI Forum 2013 homepage, but I thought it’d be worth taking a look at the Brighton event in more detail, along with the speaker and session line-up.
Our first ever BI Forum ran at the Hilton Metropole in Brighton back in 2009, with around fifty attendees from around the world getting together talk about OBIEE, Essbase, ODI and the Oracle Database. Tony Heljula won the inaugural “Best Speaker” award, Venkat Janakiraman came over all the way from India (and joined us at Rittman Mead shortly afterwards, to become Managing Director for Rittman Mead India), Edward Roske slept through the days and was awake during the night, and we took the decision shortly afterwards to make it an annual event, moving down the road to the Hotel Seattle the following year where we’ve been ever since.
This year is the fifth anniversary of the BI Forum, and whilst we now run the event in Atlanta as well we’ve kept to the same basic principles; keep the attendee numbers restricted, assume a basic level of knowledge with the tools, maximise networking and keep the focus on OBIEE and its related technologies. This year our speaker line-up includes familiar faces and some new speakers from around the world, along with Oracle’s product management team and a guest speaker from outside our immediate industry:
- Uli Bethke, Tony Heljula, Michael Wilcke, Edelweiss Kammermann and Adam Seed from the developer/partner community will be talking about OBIEE performance tuning, ODI development best practices, going beyond the basics with Endeca, and getting started with BI-related technologies such as Oracle Business Activity Monitoring
- Oracle’s Philippe Lions, Adam Bloom, Alan Lee, Mike Durran and Nick Tuson will update everyone on what’s new with OBIEE post-11.1.1.7, including news on the replacement to the BI Administration Tool and the updated 11.1.1.7 version of SampleApp, as well as answering questions around OBIEE multi-tenancy, Exalytics and virtualisation
On the day before the main conference, myself, Stewart Bryson and Michael Rainey will be delivering a masterclass around Oracle’s data integration tools; in this optional one-day session we’ll be taking a closer look at the ODI product roadmap, integration with other tools such as GoldenGate, Hadoop and Enterprise Data Quality, and also sharing ODI development best practices around topics such as ETL high-availability and scripted deployment.
Finally – if all of this sounds a bit heavy going – the secret about the BI Forum is that we try to make it fun as well. On the night before the main event opens we hold a drinks reception followed by an Oracle keynote, and on both nights we host gala dinners with open bars and lots of opportunities to meet everyone at the event. The vast majority of people who come to one BI Forum event then come back every following year (if not, we come and get you anyway, Christian…), and if you’ve not been before, make sure you sign-up soon before all of the places go. Details of the event including links to the registration form are on the BI Forum 2013 homepage, and I’ll be back in a couple of days time to talk about what we’ve got planned for Atlanta this year.
