The Call for Proposals for the 2010 MySQL User Conference and Expo ended about 6 hours ago. However, birds-of-a-feather sessions (BoFs) have a separate call for proposals. From the MySQL Conference page at http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2010/, select the “Program” menu item, then “Birds of a feather sessions”, and you will be directed to the proper page. Which, for easy clicking, is http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2010/public/cfp/90.
The call for proposals for Birds of a feather sessions closes at 11:59 pm PST on Thursday, February 18th, 2010. Sessions can be added during the conference, but if you submit and your BoF is accepted it will be printed in the schedule.
Note: If you submitted a BoF proposal in the regular call for proposals, it’s much much easier if you submit the proposal again through the BoF call for proposals.
This blog post will briefly explain the how each part of the proposal is used, then have a list of what not to do in your conference proposal, and end with a checklist of questions to go over your proposal before submitting. Click here if you want to skip to the checklist.
It’s been just over three months since the April 2009 MySQL Users Conference and Expo. It took a while for the files to be processed, and then uploaded to www.technocation.org, and then I found out that the online streaming was not working properly. So I started playing with things, re-encoding some videos, updating the software, but to no avail.
Just as I was about to give up I got notification that Technocation, Inc. was accepted into YouTube’s not-for-profit program, which allows movies larger than 10 minutes to be uploaded and viewed advertisement-free.
So then I had to upload the videos to YouTube and add descriptions.
So with no *further* delay, here are all the videos from the 2009 MySQL Conference and 2009 MySQL Camp:
The longer description – each video with title, presenter(s) and link: MySQL Camp:
Keynote: The State of Open Source Databases
Brian Aker (Sun Microsystems) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2V-hvD_icA
The Sunday before the MySQL User Conference is always full of trying to meet up with new or old friends, even if your flight lands after dinnertime. With that in mind, the very first event of the week is MySQL Camp’s “Games Day”.
From 12 noon until midnight on the Mezzanine of the Santa Clara Hyatt Hotel (adjoining the Santa Clara Convention Center), there will be an informal games day. The list of games that are definitely appearing are on the MySQL Forge at:
There is still one game I would like to see appear (Set), though there is plenty to keep folks busy — board games, a puzzle, decks of cards, even building toys. I’ll probably be knitting, so if you are the crafty sort and can bring your craft with you that’s encouraged too!
The goal of the Games Day is to be a place where you can drop by, meet folks, and have some fun. You do NOT need to be attending the conference! Just stop by when you have settled in. If you are looking for people to hang out with on Sunday, this is the place!
As folks are making their plans to go to the MySQL User Conference, I just wanted to remind folks of the schedule of MySQL Camp.
One feature I put together for MySQL Camp but anyone can use is a restaurant list for the hotel area. There’s very little within walking distance, but many people will be local or will rent a car, so finding someone to drive with should not be a problem. The restaurant list is on the MySQL Forge Wiki at http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/SantaClaraRestaurants — updates are welcome!
About MySQL Camp: MySQL Camp is completely free, just walk on in and enjoy the sessions. All sessions are in the Bayshore room off the Mezzanine, and there will be signs directing you to the MySQL Camp room. I describe it as being like “an additional room for the MySQL Conference, but it’s free.” It also has some of the more technical, hands-on talks that did not make it to the conference. Read the rest of this entry . . .
As many of us know, the 5th annual MySQL Conference and Expo is happening April 20-23rd, 2009 in Santa Clara, California. The theme is Innovation Everywhere, and this year the conference organizers have taken an innovative page from OSCon and decided to host a free “camp” during the conference.
As far as I know, MySQL Camp is the only free, non-commercial programming occurring. We already have a fantastic lineup of speakers and last week I was surprised with another bounty — MySQL Camp has been extended to Thursday!
While you are making your travel and lodging arrangements, remember that on Sunday April 19th on the mezzanine of the conference hotel there will be a Games Day from 12 noon – 12 midnight. Stop by, play a game (bring your own if you want), or just watch. Find a dinner buddy, meet up with old friends or just start meeting new people before the conference starts on Monday. If you want to find me, I will be the one who’s trying to knit and play a game at the same time.
Day 2 finished yesterday. It was quite a busy day, with some excellent sessions.
Battle of the Nodes: RAC Performance Myths — Riyaj Shamsudeen
A great presentation on popular RAC myths, with some great examples. Excellent visuals that made complex processes look simple. I really liked this one.
Getting the Most Out of AWR — Tim Gorman
A first-rate session attended by a lot of the conference. It went into detail on what scripts are available to extract AWR information without needing Grid Control or Database Control. For command-line lovers, it’s great.
The SAN is guilty… until proven otherwise — Gaja Krishna Vaidyanatha
A very important session for all DBAs, showing the end-to-end components involved in database I/O. There are so many more components that can cause problems between the database and the physical spindles. Concepts, case studies, plenty of information.
Understanding Oracle Execution Plans: How SQL is Really Executed – Tanel Poder
One of those eye-opening sessions, starting with how to read SQL Execution Plans, and moving to showing stack traces and mapping function calls, to Execution Plan steps. A must-see for everyone tuning SQL.
And that is it. As exhausting conferences are, I always wish for them to have been longer.
There were quite a few interesting presentations. Unfortunately, the very first I went to was canceled due to car trouble. I also found that several sessions of similar interest to me overlapped, so I had to choose my spots.
Advanced Oracle Troubleshooting
This presentation was particularly good. Tanel goes into detail on how to quickly asses a situation without going through a number of “health checks” and still be nowhere near solving the problem. His approach is to look directly at what a “hanging” session is waiting on, and to systematically determine the cause of the problem, with no time wasted.
Putting your database on a Diet: Oracle’s Data compression
A short overview of table compression. I found that that even though the presenter obviously had some experience with compression, there were hardly any examples nor anything mentioned about how to determine proper re-ordering to improve compression.
All About Oracle’s In-Memory Undo
An unusual topic—something that works so well that no one really talks about it. The presentation, however, was very short, and provided little new information. There was only one demonstrated test case. Although it went into detail about the difference between in-memory and standard undo, the other-than-obvious effects were omitted.
During lunch I took a picture that shows the entire RMOUG crowd:
Tomorrow is Day 2, and I will be posting about it here.
