Gearing up for ODTUG
Currently, I'm flying toward Los Angeles for my connecting flight to Monterey, and with internet access (thanks Gogo) and nothing but time, I decided to have a look at the technical sessions list for ODTUG Kaleidoscope to see which sessions I plan on attending. This is an exciting Kaleidoscope for us at Rittman Mead, as it's the first one with an official Rittman Mead America in place. Additionally, we are sponsoring the lanyards (I didn't recognize the term at first either), and I am presenting the session What to Consider Before Selecting OWB. I am a huge fan of Warehouse Builder, and recommend it for all our clients, but it's not without it's nuances, and my intent is to let attendees know exactly what to expect when deploying it. Of course, Mark is presenting as well, but I'll say a little more about that in a few minutes.
Though Rittman Mead is positioned squarely in the BI/DW space, in some ways, I'm still a database guy at heart (I grew up as a DBA some years ago), and I am tempted to step out and see what the rest of the world is doing. Of course, it's tough to talk about the Oracle Database without mentioning Tom Kyte, but as his first session runs concurrently with mine, I won't give him too much publicity, as if he needs it. I am looking forward to his later session on SQL analytic functions because of their immense value in the BI space, obviously from the perspective of report generation, but also with what they bring to ETL development. If your ETL code isn't packed full of SQL analytics, then you still have the database in first gear.
APEX is really a hot topic this year (as it should be), and I may attend one of the two presentations by Scott Spendolini, especially Extreme Makeover: APEX Edition. Come on... it's a great title. Seriously, I've been giving a lot of thought to what part APEX may and should eventually play in the BI space, as more and more companies take advantage of it's extremely attractive price tag (hint: there isn't one) to try and build robust BI dashboard applications. Keep watching the blog... perhaps Rittman Mead will get a chance to do just that in the future.
Mostly, I'll have BI/DW on the mind. Obviously, I'm interested in Mark's presentations, as most of the BI-minded participants are, but I'm especially curious to see what he has up his sleeves for An Oracle BI EE Optimization Methodology. Sadly, as I'm scheduled to fly out on Wednesday due to client project requirements, I won't be able to attend his other presentation Creating Hybrid Essbase / Relational OBIEE Logical Models. As with all Rittman Mead presentations, it will be available on our website, so I'll just take a few spare minutes, download the presentation, and flip through the slides, imagining a distinct British accent as I read the content.
I'm still torn considering all the other BI options to choose from, so I'll likely see how I'm feeling as each new time-slot approaches. I'd enjoy reading your comments concerning which presentations you are looking forward to (please mention mine even if you don't mean it). And look for Mark and me throughout the conference; we'd love to chat with you about your own business intelligence implementations. Joe Leva may also be joining us there if his client obligations ease up enough for him to spring loose for a few days. You may have to look hard to spot us as all the attendees will be wearing Rittman Mead apparel by way of the lanyards.