Presenting at the Red Database Symposium, The Hague

I've just finished up delivering my session for the Red Database Symposium today, my topic was Analytics and Data Warehousing using Oracle 11g and OBIEE. The first session at least was fairly hard work for me as this was all-new material, I went through the role of the Oracle 11g database in Oracle's new BI architecture and in particular looked at what the new Cube Organized Materialized could bring to SQL-based query tools and OBIEE. If you're interested, you can download the slides from our website.

Along with myself, Lucas Jellema (below left) and Tapio Lahdenmäki ran the other sessions, Lucas' on database development and Tapio's on indexing. I didn't get a chance to meet Tapio, but Lucas I know from previous events and it was good to catch up and share a few stories.

What was interesting for me with this session was introducing the concept of a "Future Oracle BI Architecture" including elements of OBIEE and the Oracle Database and the Hyperion toolset; my observation of some of Oracle's marketing is that it tends to talk about either OBIEE (and Hyperion) or the database, and doesn't really get across the fact that a sensible BI architecture includes elements of all of these, this is the theme I'm expanding on at the upcoming UKOUG BI & Performance Management Special Event in London, and it was good to try out some of the material here. I think the idea came across well, I'll probably refine it a bit and add a bit more explanation as to how we got to this approach in the talk next week.

Anyway, it was a good (but tiring day), luckily the delays yesterday weren't too bad given the storm, hopefully getting back today should be not too much trouble. Thanks to the Red Database guys for inviting me over, I'm looking forward to the next session in Munich later this year.