So another extraordinary, information filled day in San Antonio, with a bit of pathos thrown in for depth.
Started the day again with Morning Chi Gung. Another nice group of folks dropped by to try it out and a few hardy souls returned to try again. I think they are all getting the hang of it and enjoying it. We will do it again in the morning.
First session of the day from me was OBIEE Answers vs BI Publisher from Borkur Steingrimsson of Rittman-Mead.
Borkur did a great job of highlighting the pros and cons of each toolset and outlining some of the use cases for the two tools. While there is some overlap, there are definitely some best practices to follow to help decide which to use for what.
One tool does not fit all.
Next session was mine: Introduction to Data Vault Modeling for an Oracle BI Environment.
I had a good crowd (below) to pitch data vault modeling to. Talked about where it fits and how this modeling approach can be leveraged in OBIEE and with Oracle’s Exalytics platform. The audience was small but I think they got a lot out of the talk.
Lots of note taking going on!
Next another information packed session from Tom Kyte about the various options in the Oracle database for securing your data.
He talked about many things including Oracle Total Recall, Audit Vault, and Database Vault (not to be confused with Data Vault Modeling), and Oracle Advanced Security option. Yes most of these cost more money for licenses but you really do need to think about how you protect your data and from whom.
Tom gave us a lot to think about.
Next, my favorite, lunch! Sort of a cook out style lunch with hamburgers, slaw and the fix’ns just in the exhibit hall.
In the picture you have some of the BI crowd (Stewart and Kevin) chatting with the Optimizer Queen (Maria). Lunch at Kscope is where many questions get answered and problems solved.
After lunch we had the official KScope12 (or was it 2022?) General Session complete with “special” effects and time travel.
Edward did a “this is your life” style interview with ODTUG President Mike Riley. Along with some good-natured ribbing, we also got some serious announcements:
- Mike Riley stepped down as President
- Monty Latiolais was appointed the new President
- Edward got “fired” as conference chair
- Mike got named conference chair for 2013
- Our long time executive director Kathleen McCasland handed the reins over to Crystal Walton so she could focus more on managing the great meeting company she has built, YCC.
There were many awards given including a Lifetime Achievement award to Kathleen (bravo!) and one to Mike for all he has done as President. Oracle Contributor of the year went to Kris Rice; volunteer of the year to Karen Cannel; editors choice award to Peter Koletzke and Duncan Mills.
And the BIG announcement was that KScope13 will be in New Orleans. Registration is open at http://kscope13.com
But wait there is more… I attended more great sessions in the afternoon and evening including another session from Tom Kyte on SQL secrets.
And Steward Bryson’s riveting session on how to use OBIEE against a transactional schema. (I did have a hard time getting a good picture because he NEVER STOPPED MOVING!)
Yes, that is Stewart in a suit…
He has nailed the approach to making OBIEE treat just about any schema design like a dimensional model. Very cool, a bit tricky. Next year we may do a joint session about making a data vault model work in OBIEE without having to instantiate a star schema data mart first. Stay tuned…
To end the day (sort of), we had an excellent and inspiring keynote from Cary Millsap (@carymillsap).
He had lots of inspiring and insightful things to tell us based on his own life experiences as a father, husband, and business man. I can’t really do it justice so I will give you a few quotes from his slides:
Thinking clearly is more important than the right answer
To teach, test the code path, not just the memory
The goal of a parent: Kids who are interested in figuring out how to use what they are learning
Life is not linear (one of my favorites)
And the biggy:
Happiness is not a state. Happiness is a state change.
So do something BIG.
It really was a great talk.
And to finish out the day (for me anyway) I went to the BI Mad-Dashboard networking event. With Kevin McKinley as the host and Rittman-Mead providing the adult beverages, we had a good time networking and playing some interesting games.
There are actually even more networking events going on into the wee hours but that is it for me today (or I would not have gotten this blog post done).
But that is one of things that makes ODTUG and KScope so great is the opportunity to network and bond with colleagues old and new from around the globe in a relaxed setting.
More tomorrow…
Kent
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You will see this as a major theme at OOW2012 – “Integration Everywhere”. Lots of sessions related to apps and the cloud.
The Data Warrior 
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