Lenz Grimmer's blog

This year's conference season is coming to an end for me soon – I have three more events to go before I can enjoy the Christmas holidays:

On 2013-11-20, I'll be at the DOAG Konferenz in Nuremberg (Germany), where I will talk about the following topics (in German):

• 11:00-11:45: Paketmanagement auf Oracle Linux mit RPM und yum
• 16:00-16:45: Snapshots, Checksummen, RAID: eine Einführung in das Btrfs-Dateisystem

I've also submitted a proposal for an "Unconference" (or BOF) about Oracle Linux - this will take place on the same day, at 12:00-13:00.

From Nuremberg I will travel directly to Munich, where I will speak about Oracle Linux at a Private Cloud mit Oracle Linux und Oracle VM Seminar on Thursday, 2013-11-21. If you would like to learn more about how to set up and manage your private cloud infrastructure using Oracle Linux, Oracle VM and Oracle Enterprise Manager, this event gives you an opportunity to talk to customers who share their experiences and experts that can provide additional background information. This is a free event, registration via the event web site is required.

Early in December (2013-12-02/2013-12-03), I'll be attending the UKOUG Tech Conference in Manchester (UK) speaking about the following topic:

• 15:20-16:05 The Btrfs Linux file system - Overview

Here's a short recap of some past events I attended earlier this year:

On 2013-08-24/2013-08-25 I attended FrOSCon 8 in St. Augustin (Germany). Oracle was a silver sponsor and exhibitor — I was there to represent Oracle Linux at our booth. It was really nice to meet many people that I had not seen for quite a while. FrOSCon was well organized (as usual), the only bummer was that the weather did not cooperate and the social event could not take place outside.

2013-09-22/2013-09-25 - Oracle OpenWorld 2013 - San Francisco (US). In addition to attending numerous meetings with customers, I also contributed to the event with the following sessions:

• Hands-on Lab: Getting Started with Linux Containers on Oracle Linux
• Talk: Using Oracle Linux As Your Development Platform
• Talk: Oracle Linux Technical Deep Dive: Reliability, Availability, and Scalability

It's that time of the year again — the summer holidays are over and the conference season starts!

I'm very excited to be at Oracle Open World in San Francisco again, where I will pretty busy. On Saturday and Sunday I will attend MySQL Connect, primarily to man the Oracle Linux booth in the exhibition area. But I hope to catch some of the talks as well (I shared my favourite sessions with Keith Larson from the MySQL team in this interview). During Open World, I will help out manning the Oracle Linux demo pods in the exhibition grounds in Moscone South, where we will showcase Oracle Linux with Ksplice and related technologies. I also have a joint presentation with two of our customers about "Top Technical Tips for Automatic and Secure Oracle Linux Deployments" and I've prepared two hands-on lab sessions "Oracle Linux Storage Management with LVM and Device-Mapper" and "Oracle Linux Package Management: Configuring and Enabling Services". Both hands-on lab sessions will actually be run twice. The lab sessions were quite popular last year, I look forward to moderating these again.

In November, I'll be at the DOAG Conference in Nuremberg, to give a joint presentation with my colleague Manuel Hossfeld about "Oracle Linux - best practices and benefits" (in German). We also plan to request a slot for a BOF/Unconference about Linux, I'm curious about the feedback and discussions that will arise during these sessions.

If you happen to be around these conferences and would like to meet, please get in touch!

Last week we concluded our first Oracle Technology Network Sys Admin Day in Sacramento (CA). Well, it was actually the second Sys Admin Day, but the first one that had two parallel tracks of sessions about both Oracle Linux and Oracle Solaris.

I helped preparing for the event by creating the Linux lab handbook as well as the VirtualBox appliance of Oracle Linux 6.1 that was used for the exercises. Unfortunately I could not be there in person, but it would have been pointless for me to go on an intercontinental flight just for one day.

From the feedback we've received so far, the attendees really enjoyed the event and were positively surprised about the depth and quality of the practical hands-on lab sessions.

If you've missed the first one and happen to live somewhere in the Seattle area, you have another chance to attend OTN sysadmin day: we'll be hosting another one on Thursday, September 22nd at The Westin Seattle (1900 5th Ave., Seattle, WA 98101). Again, attendance is free, all you need to bring is your own laptop with VirtualBox installed. We'll provide the rest. Space is limited — you can review the agenda and register here!

In my last post, I provided a short review of what I have been working on in the past few months since I joined the Oracle Linux team. Now it's time for a summary of upcoming events! Looking forward, I already have a few more things lined up:

I'll attend and speak at the Oracle OpenWorld 2011 conference in San Francisco in October. I have a joint session with Chris Mason titled Overview: New Features in Oracle Linux 6 where we'll cover the latest developments. I have another joint presentation with my colleague Rob Young from the MySQL product management team titled Using MySQL with Other Oracle Products - this one will give an overview how MySQL has been integrated with the other products in the Oracle portfolio.

At OpenWorld, I'll also do some booth duty (find me at the Oracle Linux demo pods) and I'll also give a number of hands-on lab sessions:

• 30540 - Oracle Linux Package Management: Configuring and Enabling Services
• 30541 - Oracle Linux Storage Management with LVM and Device Mapper

By the way, a sneak preview of these hands-on labs will be available prior to OpenWorld as well: they are part of an upcoming series of the OTN sysadmin days, free one-day events that will provide practical workshops on both Oracle Solaris and Oracle Linux. We have three days scheduled so far - the first one of these will come up faily soon:

• September 8th: Sacramento (CA)
• September 22nd: Seattle (WA)
• January 18th: Salt Lake City (UT) (no eVite page available yet)

On November 15-17, I'll be at the DOAG 2011 Konferenz + Ausstellung in Nuremberg, Germany. I'll give two presentations (in German):

• Oracle Linux und Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel: Update und Ausblick
• Einführung in das OCFS2 Cluster-Dateisystem für Linux

And finally, I'll be giving a talk about "Oracle Linux and the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel: Status Update and Overview" at the UK Oracle User Group Conference 2011 in Birmingham (UK) on December 6.

If you happen to be at any of these events, please let me know if you'd like to meet!

fisl12 is likely the largest free and open source software event in Latin America. This year, it takes place in Porto Alegre, Brazil, from June 29th to July 2nd. Oracle is a gold sponsor of the event and I will attend it as a speaker. I feel honoured and excited to be there – for me it will be the first visit to the South American continent.

They already have over 3000 registered attendees, so this definitely is going to be a great conference. There is quite a number of well-known names on the speaker roster and I look forward to meeting a lot of familar faces there.

The agenda is still under development but quite impressive already – too bad I don't speak Portuguese...

I will be giving an introduction and status update to Oracle Linux and as our virtualization technologies Oracle VM and Oracle VM VirtualBox. Other Oracle speakers at fisl12 include:

• Davi Arnaut - MySQL Engineering
• Roger Brinkley - Java Evangelists and the Community Leader for the Mobile & Embedded Community
• John Ceccarelli - Middleware Engineering
• Anil Gaur - VP of Java Platform, Enterprise Edition, and GlassFish Server in the Fusion Middleware Group
• Arun Gupta - Java EE and GlassFish evangelist
• Luke Kowalski - VP in the corporate architecture group
• Henrique Leandro - MySQL Support Engineer
• Simon Ritter - Java Technology Evangelist
• Dave Stokes - MySQL Community Manager
• Dalibor Topic - Java F/OSS Ambassador

Linuxtag is likely one of the oldest and largest Linux/OSS events in Germany. I remember having been there to represent SuSE Linux while it still took place at the University of Kaiserslautern, using tables and chairs from the lecture rooms as exhibition stands (this must have been around 1998 or 1999). This year it will take place in Berlin again, and the session schedule looks very promising. I'll be there from Wednesday till Friday and I feel that I will have a hard time deciding which presentations I should attend...

I'll be speaking about What's new in MySQL 5.5 on Friday, 13th of May, at 15:00. If you haven't updated to MySQL 5.5 yet, stop by to hear what new features and improvements have been implemented in this version, which was released in December last year.

In addition to my presentation, there will be two more talks given by Oracle employees:

Wim Coekaerts, SVP of Linux and Virtualization Engineering at Oracle will give the first keynote on Wednesday 11th, 14:00. He'll be talking about Taking Linux into the Clouds — this is a very hot topic and I look forward to this session.

Right afterwards, Dalibor Topic will provide us with an OpenJDK Community Update. If you're a Java developer and you'd like to get the scoop of what's coming, this presentation is one you should not miss!

See you in Berlin!

• On Tuesday, May 03, 2011, 8:00am to 4:00 pm, there will be the OTN Developer Day for MySQL in the Oracle Santa Clara Agnews Campus Auditorium. It will cover application development with MySQL, performance tuning tips and managing MySQL environments.
• On Tuesday, May 17, 2011, 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, the OTN's first Sys Admin Day for Oracle Solaris will take place in the Hyatt Regency La Jolla at Aventine in San Diego, CA. Topics include ZFS, security and virtualization using Solaris zones.

Update: Leider muß mich meinen Vortrag am Mittwoch aus Gesundheitsgründen absagen — ich bitte die dadurch entstehenden Unannehmlichkeiten zu entschuldigen.

Die Mitglieder der Deutschen ORACLE-Anwendergruppe e.V. (DOAG) organisieren sich auf regionaler Ebene in Regionalgruppen, die in regelmäßigen Abständen auch regionale Treffen organisieren.

Die Regionalgruppe NRW hat für Mittwoch in einer Woche (27.2., ab 17:30) ein Treffen zum Thema Hochverfügbarkeit anberaumt, auf dem ich einen Überblick zum Thema MySQL-Hochverfügbarkeit geben werde. Vor meinem Vortrag gibt es noch eine Präsentation über "Rolling Upgrade einer Oracle 11g Datenbank" von Rainer Klomps.

Veranstaltungsort ist das Hotel Kasserolle in Siegburg, die Teilnahme an diesem Treffen ist kostenlos. Eine Anmeldung ist erforderlich.

It was ready for a while already, but now it's part of the official FOSDEM schedule as well: I am very pleased to announce the presentations and speakers of the MySQL & Friends Developer Room, which will take place this coming Saturday (5th of February) in Brussels, Belgium.

This year, our DevRoom will be located in room H.2213 (in the H Building), which has a capacity of up to 100 people and will be available to us from 13:00-19:00 o'clock. We have 12 sessions lined up, each will last 25 minutes (incl. Q&A). Without further ado, here's our schedule:

I would like to thank all speakers for their submissions and for the efforts they are willing to go through in order to make it to this event! If you happen to be at FOSDEM this year, please stop by and join us.

We also plan to head out for a meetup over dinner after the event. If you would like to attend, please register, so we can take you into account! (Thanks a lot for Kenny Gryp for organizing this meetup)

Just a quick reminder: the Oracle user groups of Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Russia are organizing a joint conference, the Harmony. It will take place on May 19th-20th in Helsinki, Finland. I've met the organizers at the IOUC summit that took place at the Oracle HQ this week and they would love to have some more MySQL content. So if you have an idea for a talk about a MySQL-related topic, please submit it! The call for papers closes on February, 1st!

My calendar is filling up with speaking engagements about MySQL at various events quickly. Here is a list of events for the coming months where I'll be present:

• On Wednesday, January 26th, I will be speaking about MySQL High Availability Solutions at the San Francisco MySQL Meetup. I feel honored for having been invited to speak there and I'm quite excited that venue is fully booked! I look forward to meeting so many MySQL users in one place.
• On Saturday, February 5th, I'll be attending and speaking at the MySQL & Friends Developer Room at FOSDEM 2011 in Brussels, Belgium. I helped organizing the DevRoom and preparing the schedule for this event. We have a great lineup of speakers and topics, and I will speak about MySQL 5.5 there. I've been to FOSDEM many times before and it's one of the OSS conferences in Europe that I really enjoy coming back for every year.
• On Thursday, March 24th I'll be in Weimar, Germany, attending the "GUUG-Frühjahrsfachgespräch 2011", a conference organized be the German Unix User Group (GUUG). The topic of my session is MySQL Replication Technologies - an Overview (in German). Erkan, well-known member of the German MySQL community will also be there to talk about "Toolbox MySQL", giving an introduction to the MySQL plugin API and technology.
• Finally on April 10th-14th I will be in Orlando, Florida to attend and speak at COLLABORATE 11. Organized by the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG), this is a fairly large conference covering a wide range of Oracle Applications and Technologies. This year, they have more than 50 sessions on MySQL, provided by both well-known speakers of the MySQL community as well as Oracle employees. The MySQL talks will be given in one track, which spans from Monday till Thursday. So at least one does not have to choose between several interesting MySQL topics at the same time

If you happen to be around at any of these events, please stop by!

I've also submitted a number of MySQL talks for LinuxTag, which will take place in Berlin, Germany on May 11th-14th. I hope that my proposals are being considered and I would like to encourage you to submit one, too! The call for papers is still open until January 25th and it would be great to have some more MySQL content in the program...

Oh, and don't forget to mark your calendars for MySQL Sunday at Oracle Openworld 2011 later this year (October 2nd-6th)! I unfortunately missed last year's event, but this is going to be the conference with the largest MySQL show, lots of news and updates, and plenty of opportunities for networking. You can already register for the event at a "Super Saver" discount until April, 1st here.

Just as a friendly reminder about what I wrote a month ago: we've already received a number of great talk submissions for the MySQL & Friends Developer Room at FOSDEM 2011, thanks to everyone who contributed so far! However, we still are looking for some more!

You can submit your proposal via this form. The deadline for turning in your talk is Sunday, 26th of December, 2010.

Just to recapitulate, the DevRoom (H.2213) will be available to us on Saturday 5th 2011, from 13:00 till 19:00. Each session will last 20 minutes plus 5 minutes of Q&A. See this year's schedule for inspiration — I think we had a great lineup of talks that addressed a good mixture of MySQL-related topics. I am looking forward to your ideas and suggestions! Thanks in advance for your support.

As part of the upcoming Oracle OpenWorld/Java One in São Paulo, Brazil next week (which will also include MySQL-related sessions), there will be a free MySQL Community event, which will take place on December 8th, from 13:00-18:00.

Here's the (translated and abbreviated) description from the events page:

Oracle invites you to attend the MySQL Community Forum! Don't miss an evening filled with technical sessions led by engineers and leaders of the MySQL open source community. You will have the opportunity to learn more about MySQL, Glassfish and what innovations to expect from MySQL 5.5.

This free forum is open for members of the MySQL and Open Source community interested in knowing how small and large companies use MySQL and how they take advantage of our solutions. Choose from five highly technical sessions with well-known speakers, covering topics such as: MySQL Cluster, High Availability, Replication Tools, MySQL and GlassFish. See how Ricardo Eletro.com are using MySQL to achieve high levels of performance. Meet old friends and share your technical questions with the engineers of MySQL and Open Source community leaders. See how the GlassFish, NetBeans and MySQL work in perfect harmony. See what's new in the world of MySQL.

I've been informed about two upcoming events/conferences that are organized by the independent Oracle user groups of the respective countries. If you're nearby, how about submitting a talk about a MySQL-related topic?

On March 29, 2011 the the Oracle Benelux User Group will have their yearly OBUG Benelux Connect 2011 conference, which will take place in Brussels, Belgium. You can submit your proposal until December 3rd, 2010 via this link.

On May 19th and 20th, 2011, the Oracle User Group Finland together with the Oracle User Groups of Estonia, Latvia and Russia will organize the EMEA Harmony 2011 Spring conference, which will take place in Helsinki, Finland. The Call for Papers has been opened — you can submit your speaking proposals until February 1st, 2011 via this submission form.

And while we're at it: the MySQL Developer room at FOSDEM 2011 in Brussels is still seeking for more talk proposals, too! Please consider submitting your suggested talk until Sunday, 26th of December, 2010