The Trip - Day 5

We were all pretty much tired of this incredible stay. 4 days packed with activities, (very) long evenings and (very) short nights. We took the plane to Memphis, TN and from there to Amsterdam.

Monday was the last day in the United States. After a long night for some of us, it was an early start, after which we were taken to the airport by -again- the limousines.

Looking back on the last days, I can only say that it was an unforgettable experience. Jam-packed, no time to be bored, lots of fun and also very educative... The only negative I can think of is the lack of sleep, but one can wonder if that might not be explained in a positive way...:-)

A special word of thanks goes out to the Oracle people, especially Yves van Looy:

Yves

Always in control, he has been especially busy to deliver us the time of our lives during this trip. Yves: THANK YOU VERY MUCH for everything you have done (and you know how much it was for some of us!)

For anyone out there wanting to join the Are You The Smartest contest next year: Be prepared to win! It is worth spending some hours for!

For now, it is goodbye to all of the winners! I had a great time with you!

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The Trip - Day 4

Today, we took an easy day. However, until about 14:00 we still had an activity: The helicopter flight to the Grand Canyon.
From the hotel we took a taxibus to the airport where the heli's were waiting for us.
After an instruction video, we all boarded the helicopters - 4 in total.

After some technical instructions by the pilot we were ready to take off...

The approximately 1 hour flight to the landing space in the Grand Canyon was breathtaking:

Hoover Dam

Canyon

Landing Space

We had little time to explore the site, because we were offered a lunch at the hut shown above.

Blazingly hot, but great fun anyway!

The -almost- complete group...

The afternoon wasn't programmed. I took off with two others to the Stratosphere (the large tower at the end (or is it the beginning?) of The Strip. I didn't take my camera. Photo's will follow as soon as I have them.
We had a great diner in te Venetian to "end" our trip. During the rest of the evening we wandered around a little and finally met again in a bar, but what happened there.... Well, the saying goes: What happened in Vegas, stays in Vegas, and for some it may very well be better that way.... ;-)
Tomorrow we'll make an end to this extraordinary trip. We will be flying back home.
My battery is almost empty. We'll finish for today, and I may come back to conclude...

The Trip - Day 3

Today it was time to leave San Francisco. We had a great time there, but it was time to move on: Las Vegas was the next stop on our trip.

After having been delayed for two hours, we took off to the City That Never Sleeps.

Completely different weather over there. A choking 36 Centigrade, humidity below 10%, got me a pair of irritated eyes, but what a city this is! It is hard, if not impossible to describe.

Two limousines were waiting for us at the airport, ready to take us to the Venetian.

After having settled in the hotel, we had to take off to the restaurant to have diner.

After that, we had an hour to walk around, because 10pm the Cirque du Soleil show "O" started. We had Front Row Seats, and like the city we're in, I am not going to even try to describe what an overwhelming experience this show is. Very, very spectacular, wet (our ticket showed "wet seat"...), over 90 minutes of great visual and physical effects. Take a look at the video here to get an impression (it is not by me, too dangerous hanging around with a camera on the front row...)



After the show we went back to the Venetian. We walked around on the second(!) floor where you can find some kind of "replica" of the Venetian style...

This is actually on the second floor inside the Venetian...

It is 1:30 am now, time to go to bed. Tomorrow we will have our last day of our stay in the US. Hope to meet you then!

The Trip - Day 2

We're not completely done yet for this day, but with diner being the only activity on the program, and an hour before we'll take off for the restaurant, it is the most appropriate time to update on this day. After all, what is there to tell about a fancy diner in a fancy restaurant?

This morning we took a visit to Oracle Headquarters in Redwood Shores.

We were welcomed with a breakfast in the Customer Visit Center, after which we were received three outstanding presentations from Scott Howley, VP of Fusion Middleware, Jeff Davies, Senior Principal Product Manager for SOA and Wim Coekaerts, Senior Vice President for Linux and Virtualization.

All of us

Scott briefed us on Fusion Middleware with a focus on Sun products. With the acquisition of Sun, Oracle's way of working has changed. The slogan is now "Complete, Open, Integrated". Topics of his reading covered the strategies on Java, Integrated Systems (Sun hardware), Exadata, Middleware, Development tools, Application Grid (Glassfish), SOA Suite (Sun Master Index), Portal and Content Management, Identity Management (Sun Directory, OpenDS, Sun Role Manager, Sun Identity Manager), Open Office and Systems Management strategy.

This presentation was followed by Jeff Davies, who told us about SOA for Small Companies. His presentation covered the typical challenges that small companies face, some common misconceptions, and SOA Solutions. He also presented 9 keys to success:

1. SOA is all about Architecture
2. Know the keys to business agility
3. Build abstraction into your enterprise
4. Categorize functionalities
5. Start with a simple taxonomy for governance
6. Know that tools are not architecture
7. Know how to draw SOA
8. Decompose Services
9. Service-enable batch processing

Jeff with his famous quote...

Last in line was Wim Coekaerts. Wim has a very intrigueing personality. Modest, almost shy, not like what you would expect of a Sr. VP. Wim told us about virtualization and high availability, not only with Oracle VM, but also with the Sun Hypervisor. His story was the most interesting to me, but that is mainly because I am especially interested in the infrastructure side of Oracle. The most interesting part of his presentation was about the future of virtualization with Oracle. However, I cannot go into detail about this, because I signed a NDA... but I can tell you that the current development is heading into a very interesting direction:

Sorry! Classified Information...:-)

After the three presentations, we were offered an executive lunch, which also was excellent.

Lunch time

After lunch we were taken on a campus tour, after which we got back to the hotel. The afternoon we visited Alcatraz. This was a very special experience. After all, it is still one of America's most appealing prisons.

Escape to Alcatraz...

And now, we will go to have diner. Another day packed with activity has passed. Tiring, but satisfying. See you tomorrow!

The Trip - Day 1

Today was a very long day... To be more precise, we got up this morning at 5:30, and the current time is 23:30, including the 9 hour time difference...

We started the journey in Antwerp, Belgium. We took the train to Schiphol (don't ask why we would travel to Antwerp first, to travel back to Schiphol... long story, and I am tired now...).

After a long flight, we arrived at San Francisco International Airport. Yves van Looy was already there, waiting for us at the arrivals. We were taken to the hotel to check in, and after that, we took off to the Hyatt Fisherman's Wharf hotel. After a warm welcome by a group of demonstrants (BOYCOTT THIS HOTEL!!!), the official program started:

The bike tour over the Golden Gate Bridge... The bridge in itself is not the problem here, rather the road to the bridge is rather challenging, with very steep ascends and decends. We finally made it to the bridge; it was a great experience to bike it! Especially after having sat down for over 10 hours at 38000 feet, the excercise was very welcome.

The Bridge

Photo Moment...

And after a very exciting descend after the bridge, we took the ferry back to San Francisco

With a beautifully setting sun...

After this great experience we took diner in the Hard Rock Cafe. Now, everyone is tired, and we're ready to go to sleep.

Tomorrow will be packed with activities, but that is another story for another day.

Off to bed now :-)

And The Winners Are...

Yesterday evening it was the Award's Night for the Oracle Are You The Smartest contest for 2010.
I received the e-mail with the results on May 21st already, so my personal result was already known to me:
I am one of the winners of the Are You The Smartest Awards for 2010.
We had a great event yesterday. It started off around 17:30 and we were welcomed by ... of Oracle Netherlands. After pointing out the importance of the AYTS program, and the fact that the Dutch winners would have to watch the first Soccer World Championship match of The Netherlands from San Francisco around 4:30am (whilst the left-behind would watch at a comfortable 13:30...), the winners were announced.

Here is a photo of all of the winners (1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes), together with Yves van Looy and Samara Lalmy of Oracle:

And here are the winners of the trip to the US:

BTW, the guy holding the trophy is me... :-)

Tonight the awards ceremony is being held in Belgium. Only after this ceremony has been completed, the complete list of winners can be published.

Next Thursday the trip will begin. This blog will cover the trip from day to day (hopefully...)

Now That The Contest Is Over...

... only one question remains: Who won?

Well, I suppose you would ask now, Who won WHAT?

January this year, Oracle Belgium and Oracle Netherlands kicked off the #th edition of their contest called "Are You The Smartest". This contest is about Oracle bringing their newest products to their partner consultants by means of a number of (technology oriented) sessions.
This year's topics were (apart from a technology overview):

• Layering your Enterprise Security
• Database 11g Release 2 New Features
• Enterprise 2.0 and more
• Large Databases, Partitioning, Exadata, OWB-ODI, Golden Gate
• Oracle Enterprise Manager from OS to Application
• Application Grid 11g with WLS, Coherence, Tuxedo, JRockit, Realtime, ...

Every topic was followed by an exam, to be taken right before the start of the next session. Half of the questions could be answered from the session content, the other half from anything else but the session.
In order to win the contest, the scores of the three best exams are taken and compared with the other contestants.

So, what is in it for the consultants:

• Great opportunity to extend your knowledge and perspective
• Fun during the evenings @ Oracle
• An opportunity to win the Grand Prize: An all-inclusive trip to the US, including a visit to Oracle Headquarters, Alcatraz, Las Vegas and a helicopter tour over the Grand Canyon
• Second prize: A €500,- Travel Cheque
• Third prize: A €250,- Travel Cheque

Two weeks ago, the last session has been examined.
Next Tuesday (June 8, Belgium) and Wednesday (June 9, The Netherlands), the winners will be announced.

Back to the question: Who won this year? This is to remain a mystery for a couple of days. Come back after June 9. I will reveal myself (and, if allowed, the other winners) after the ceremony. It is supposed to be classified until then :-)