Here are the slides for the presentation I gave at the UKOUG conference last week. There was some interest about this, and while it was rather late in the day I think that there might have been some light bulbs going off for those attending. There were a couple of questions about using Model Driven Architecture metadata (ie, UML to generate your application code) to integrate with the warehouse and OWB. Generated application code (Java) and Generated ETL code (OWB) are a good marraige so I’d I think there’s some interest.

Check out the slides to get the gist of the presentation, but basically what we’re talking about here is extending the OWB Metadata Repository (OMB) to include additional items. Above is pictured some example UDOs that I created that would be quite interesting. Integrating Business Objects, Crystal, Oracle Reports, Discoverer Metadata with OWB to get a true “end to end” picture of the data moving through your enterprise.

Mark Rittman posted a picture of me giving the presentation as well!

Comments, as always, are very welcome!

This blog is part of the OWB Paris Early Review series which reviews and comments on several new Paris features.

I’m quite impressed by the UK user group that puts on quite a large conference in Birmingham, UK (aka Brum). While I believe there are many more regional groups in the US, I don’t believe there are any that are in the same “league” as the UKOUG. There must be several thousand participants and over 250 different sessions to attend… VERY, VERY impressive!

Some presentations of interest were those on the CBO, RFID, materialized view query rewrite, XMlQuery in Oracle, Oracle 10g OLAP and Discoverer, HTMLDB New Features. The session on XMLPublisher was full by the time I arrived and I’m bummed to have missed it.

One thing I’ve really enjoyed is the chance to meet some people that I’ve only had the chance to chat with, virtually, on email. Peter Scott, Jeff Moss, Jon Mead, and Julian Ford. I am well aware that all these people “know their stuff” because of their various blogs, articles, and emails. Now I know that they are genuinely nice people; it’s just as easy to chat about local beers as it is about the ins and outs of the Oracle database. Nice to catch up with Mark Rittman as well who put together a dinner of the bloggers that was well attended (and paid for by UKOUG, thanks!)

I was a bit taken aback by some of the Paris information being put forth at the conference… I’m uncertain if the beta information is not disseminated to Oracle employees properly or if it’s just a desire to keep upbeat about an overdue product. All the same, information announced publicly at Open World was not even covered (Paris released in CY 2006, officially). It’s clear that there is great customer interest in Paris and I think it’s a great leap forward for OWB. Paris is a great product, have no doubt! Just needs to get “finished up” and out the door!

I put on a presentation about new Metadata features of OWB Paris… I think some people found it useful, but it also might have been a bit of a firehose at 5pm at the end of conference day. I had this experience at another User Group before and I hereby resolve to refrain from submitting any more ‘highly focused’ presentations. Conference attendees I think would benefit more from something much more widely applicable… All the same, I’ll post the slides when I return for those that ARE interested and either did or did not attend the conference.

Blew off the social event to have a wonderful meal at the “bank” with my fiance. Excellent!

Oracle is free, btw. As if this hasn’t been blog covered, much to the dismay of Mr. Thomas Kyte. 🙂

The latest “patch” (and you’ll see why this is in quotes shortly) to OWB 10g Release 1 has just been posted in Metalink (patch number 4703215).

It’s a slightly odd patch, seeing that it requires installation into a new Oracle home and the patch installation notes read more like a major upgrade. It’s a 528MB patch… That’s a full installation mind you! Paul Narth posted in the OTN forums that there is an in place repository upgrade so you can patch from 10x to 10.1.0.4 for the repositories.

Other than just a bunch of bug fixes, why patch to 10.1.0.4?

Two reasons:
• Paris is “wicked late” pushed out to Calendar Year 2006
• It will run on Oracle DB 10gR2 which 10.1.0.3 and prior DO NOT

I see there is a book on Streams from Rampant but I’ve heard mixed reviews of Rampant books… I will probably end up buying it (only $12 at Amazon right now) but wanted to ask if anyone has any book suggestions with great detail and examples on Oracle Streams… I’m sure I can sort through some of the OTN material and the manual, but I’d like another resource. Thanks for any recommendations readers have in this regard!

See some of you at UKOUG in just a few days!

Bayon Technologies, Inc. is sponsoring an informal web conference for OWB Paris Beta members. Open ONLY to beta program participants, it’s an opportunity for OWB’ers around the world to both share and learn about current “in the field” experiences with Paris.

I’m limiting it to 10 participants to ensure the “informal” nature of the meeting will remain effective (any bigger it would need a little more formality). I’ll offer up my experience with a couple of “gotchas” and some experiences with the new dimensional operators.

If you’re interested, please fill out the survey below so I can select a time and send out an email with the virtual conference details. I look foward to hearing about everyones experience with Paris! I’ll email out the details when I return from UKOUG (approximately Nov 7th).

OWB Paris Virtual User Group Meeting Signup