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I’ll be presenting at the upcoming July 2015 meeting of the Chicago Oracle Users Group (COUG). We’ll be meeting on July 23rd from 6PM – 8PM at a brand-new venue – the Seasons 52 restaurant in Schaumburg, IL. As usual, space is limited, so be sure to register soon to guarantee a seat.

My esteemed colleague Biju Thomas will be kicking off our meeting with a discussion of Oracle Database features entitled The Rest of the Database 12c Features for an 11g DBA. Then I’ll be presenting Just SQL Often Needed: Leveraging JSON Features in Oracle Database 12.1.0.2. This brand-new topic is a first foray into some of the unique ways to leverage data stored as JavaScript Object Notation – an increasingly popular data interchange format used by NoSQL databases as well as all sorts of devices that participate in the Internet of Things (IoT) – within Oracle 12cR1.

I’ll also be bringing some copies of my new Oracle Press book for our usual post-presentation raffle. Since I’ll be sticking around for some after-meeting comraderie, I’ll be happy to sign your prize. So don’t miss this meeting! I hope to see you there.

If you have colleagues in Japan who are within easy travel distance of Tokyo’s Akihabara district, please let them know that I will be there during the week of June 8, 2015 to speak at the 2015 DB Tech Showcase.

I’ll be presenting on June 10th on the new In-Memory features of Oracle Database 12.1.0.2, and then on June 11th I’ll be explaining how Oracle Database 12c’s new histograms can make a difference in better query performance.

This is my first-ever trip to Japan, so  I am honored and humbled by the opportunity to present to my Oracle colleagues half a world away. I am looking forward to a cultural immersion experience like none other. I hope to see you there to wish you konnichi-wa at my sessions!

If you are in the midst of migrating, transforming, or upgrading your existing database from Oracle 10g or 11g to Oracle 12c and you’re searching for exactly the right techniques to leverage during your project, please do check out our new book – it’s designed to help you think creatively about the method(s) you can leverage most effectively for your project.

I just received a few copies of our book – my very first Oracle Press publication  – and I must admit that there is nothing more humbling than seeing one’s name in print for the very first time. I want to thank my co-author Ed Whalen for his patience while I learned the ropes of publishing, and my hat is off to my colleagues – especially Hans Forbich, our valiant technical editor, and our Oracle Press editors Wendy Rinaldi and Janet Walden – for all their assistance over the past year. It has been a most interesting endeavor!

NOTE: Our book officially launches on June 5, 2015 but I wanted to give you all advance notice of its publication. You can decide to pre-order it here if you’d like to get an advance copy. It will be available in e-Book format as well.

If you’ve wanted to upgrade your knowledge on Oracle Database 12c to include some of the neatest new features of release 12.1.0.2, you’ve probably priced out the cost of the Oracle University five-day Database 12c New Features course and suffered extreme sticker shock … especially if it’s been a while since you took an OU class.

But if you’re just trying to get your head around some of the most beneficial features of 12c Database – especially the new In-Memory Column Store features! – I’m happy to announce an excellent introduction into these features and many others, including Attribute Clustering and Zone Mapping, advanced partitioning operations, partial partitioned indexes, automatic SQL tuning, and many more. Pearson is offering a sneak peak at my new six-part video series, Oracle 12c New Features Part 1 LiveLessons, via Safari Books Online.

And if you are already a Safari Books Online subscriber, you can get a free preview of the full course right now! Just use this link to dive into the introduction to the online course. (If you’re not already a Safari subscriber, you’ll only be able to view the first 30 seconds or so of each lesson.)

Please let me (and, of course, the folks at Pearson) know what you think! I’d be thrilled to hear your feedback.

Full disclosure: I have also taught Oracle University classes to over 2000 DBAs since 2005. The 12c New Features course is excellent, especially when you have had the benefit of me as your instructor (at least based on the grades you’ve given me over the years). If you are planning to take the 12c OCP Upgrade test, I highly recommend it, especially in concert with one of Oracle’s approved certification exam simulators.

I’ve posted a copy of my latest article that was posted just earlier this week in IOUG SELECT Journal to my Articles page. This article – the second in a series on the new In-Memory Column Store (IMCS) features of Oracle Database 12.1.0.2 – completes my investigations into some of the incredible power and flexibility of this new feature set. Consume freely, my colleagues!

Just a quick note to everyone at Hotsos Symposium 2015: My latest IOUG SELECT Journal article is now available on the Articles page of this blog. It contains most of the code samples that I used for my presentation earlier today at Hotsos. My most sincere thanks for all of you that came to see my presentation on Oracle Database 12.1.0.2’s new In-Memory features!

My latest article on Oracle Database 12c features has just been published in the 2015Q1 edition of IOUG SELECT Journal. Entitled A Go-Faster Button: In-Memory Column Store in Oracle 12.1.0.2, it dives relatively deeply into the features of Oracle 12.1.0.2’s In-Memory Column Store, including a discussion on the concepts behind those features and extensive source code for demonstrating its efficiency.

If you’re an IOUG member, you can view it immediately; I will be posting a PDF version of the article early next week on my blog’s Articles page. And while you are at it, check out IOUG SELECT Journal’s brand-new, all-electronic format! It makes it super-easy to read articles, look up listings, and browse other content on just about any mobile device, laptop, or e-device.

If you’re an Oracle DBA who’s just been tasked with upgrading your 9i, 10g, or 11g database to 12c, then you are in luck: Our new book, Oracle Database Upgrade, Migration & Transformation Tips & Techniques, is due out from Oracle Press in June 2015.

My co-author Ed Whalen and I have spent most of 2014 compiling best practices, techniques and tips about how to best migrate and transform data as well as upgrade Oracle databases. Our new book is packed with practical advice on planning your upgrade/migration/transformation project, and we’ve included dozens of examples and checklists on how to tackle your project with the best-in-breed Oracle utilities and techniques. We also discuss in depth the best techniques for migrating your databases to Exadata and how to leverage the latest tools in Oracle Database 12c – including multitenancy – to quickly clone and upgrade pluggable databases.

You can also pre-order our book at amazon.com. Just like all Oracle Press books, it will be available in e-book format as well.

The 2014 New Zealand Oracle User’s Group (NZOUG) conference finished up yesterday afternoon, and I wanted to thank my NZOUG hosts for a most wonderful time. I had the privilege to speak to, meet with, and hopefully inspire some of the top Oracle Database professionals in New Zealand and Australia over the past few days about Oracle 12c Database features.

The cordial reception I received from my fellow colleagues was second to none. I made many new Kiwi friends over the past few days, shared some great Oracle stories, and touched base with several Oracle ACEs and ACE Directors I rarely get a chance to see. A special thank-you goes out to Francisco Alfredo Munoz Alvarez, without whose involvement our annual APAC conferences would be nearly impossible to conduct. Thank you all for the opportunity to attend a fantastic user conference, and I look forward to seeing you all again at the next NZOUG conference in spring 2016!

I was privileged to attend Oracle OpenWorld 2014 last month in San Francisco, and I have to admit that it was one of the better OOWs in recent years. Even though my presentation on Oracle 12c Database features was scheduled for 08:00 on the very first day of the conference, I was excited to see so many eager faces at that time of the morning, and by 08:15 our room was almost filled to the rafters with folks hungry for knowledge about 12c Container and Pluggable Database features, RMAN enhancements, and new ways to migrate databases to 12c. We even had a chance to explore – albeit briefly! – how simple it is to implement In-Memory Column Store in release 12.1.0.2.

I also spent quite a bit of time hanging out at the IOUG user group pavilion to meet prospective members as well as my colleagues there. I’m getting really pumped about COLLABORATE15 next April in Las Vegas.

Larry Ellison’s keynotes were also filled with new revelations like Database As a Service (DBaaS) – the ability to provision Oracle Database technology on the Oracle Cloud under short-term licensing on a day-by-day basis – and a brand new all-flash storage system (FS-1).  Larry also reinforced that every application enabled within the Oracle Cloud includes immediate access to its mobile capabilities. It was also good to hear that application and database security is Oracle’s most important focus; as Larry paraphrased the old Ford Motor Company slogan, “Around here, security is Job #1.”

Perhaps the most intriguing revelation was that Oracle is working closely with chip manufacturers to build both security features and incredible query execution speed directly into the processors. Larry termed this “software in silicon,” and he demonstrate a sample query that ran completely within the processor core itself to return data at a blazing 120GB/second. And it was almost humbling to see Larry typing on a keyboard, live on stage, to demonstrate the latest DBaaS features. He even cracked wise that since he’d moved to the role of CTO, “I gotta do my demos by myself. I use to have help – now it’s gone. Almost no one works for me.”

I picked up a huge amount 0f new information about Oracle 12c, especially the latest features of release 12.1.0.2, and it confirmed my belief that 12.1.0.2 will be one of the strongest, most feature-packed releases in recent memory. I am already working on new presentations for next year’s COLLABORATE15 and Hotsos15 conferences, and I hope to see many of my fellow IOUG members at both venues.

Now if I can just figure out the best way to get a presentation slot that’s just a bit later than 8 AM on Sunday morning for OOW 2015 … 🙂