The Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group (RMOUG) is one of the top local Oracle user groups in the country. Their training days are February 10 - 12, 2009 at the Colorado Convention Center. On February 10th there are all day University events where you can see some of the top presenters focus on a specific topic. Then on February 11 - 12, there are the 1-2 hour presentations delivered by some of the top presenters in the Oracle world.

In today's economic climate it is more important than ever to maximize your networking, improve your technical skills and understand strategic directions. For technical DBAs, Developers, Application Server Administrators, Analysts, etc. technical user conferences are one of the best ways to achieve these goals. I can't recommend highly enough to attend the RMOUG conference if you can.

This year I am taking a break from presenting at conferences due to the number of side projects I am working on. However, there is incredible value in these Oracle user conferences and I plan on attending as many as I can. I thought I would go ahead and publish the presentations I plan on attending. There is no rhyme or reason for this schedule. I try to balance listening to future directions, new tips, looking at upcoming speakers, or seeing what a specific presenter has to say on a topic.

I gave two presentations at RMOUG this year. I have retired from doing presentations at technical conferences but I had to pay a debt for crashing the RMOUG party last year. Doing a presentation was the price I had to pay. :) In all honesty, I really just wanted to help to contribute to the RMOUG because they are an excellent local Oracle user group and I wanted to help support them in any way possible. RMOUG gives out some of the coolest shirts, so I may try to come back next year to get one of the cool volunteer shirts they gave out to everyone.

My two presentations were on:
Understanding the MySQL Architecture for Oracle DBAs

• This is a fast paced presentation focused on showing Oracle DBAs and Developers key features and benefits of using MySQL and the LAMP stack for projects. Topics will focus on: best practices for configuring a MySQL database server, understanding key differences between Oracle and MySQL and OFA versus MOCA. Attendees will also be introduced to MySQL replication and Cluster configurations. This is an excellent bootstrap presentation for developers and DBAs that may be looking at using MySQL and the LAMP stack for future projects.

• Audience: Developers and DBAs

• Summary: A bootstrap presentation focused on showing Oracle DBAs and developers key features of MySQL and the LAMP stack.

Demystifying Middleware Technologies

• This presentation is designed to demystify popular Middleware technologies and explain how these technology components work together. Topics include: J2EE, Application Servers, Web Services, XML, Application Frameworks, WSDL, BPEL, SOA and business rule engines. Attendees will learn how each of these different Middleware components work together in application servers. This is an important presentation for developers and DBAs who would like to learn more about the middle-tier.

There is a podcast summary of the Demystifying Middleware Technologies presentation at web.mac.com/george.trujillo. Go to this site and then select Oracle Podcasts.

I really enjoyed giving both of these presentations. I always shoot from the hip when I give presentations and let my mood and the mood of the audience determine the focus of the presentation. The MySQL presentation got a lot of enthusiasm from the Oracle DBAs because whenever I discuss the MySQL database server, Oracle DBAs are always really surprised by how much it can do and why it is growing in popularity. So this presentation was very upbeat and high energy. The Middleware presentation was more of a fireside chat on what are important things to understand about middleware technology that is not in the documentation and in the books but you really need to understand.

I thank the attendees who laughed at my jokes even when they weren't funny. :)

RMOUG ended yesterday, it was an excellent conference. There were a lot of excellent presentations. Conference highlights for me include:

It just continues to boogle my mind that local companies do not send more people to conferences like RMOUG and the IOUG. With all the complexity of database and development environments it's amazing that companies will not send more employees to listen to the top industry leaders for a few hundred dollars. Oh well, it was a great conference for me.

The Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group (RMOUG) an alliance group with the IOUG every year puts on an outstanding conference in Denver, CO. This conference is one of the best returns on investment for training you can get anywhere in the world. This years agenda looks fantastic as always. When looking at the agenda, topics that stand out to me:

RMOUG as always brings together some of the top industry leaders and presenters in the United States. The agenda for this year's training days looks fantastic as always. The leaders of RMOUG understand how to put on a great conference. If in the Denver area try to attend, I believe this is one of the don't miss training opportunities of the year. RMOUG always makes you feel welcome and creates a create atmosphere.

The conference always starts with the speaker and volunteer reception. We hope to see you there.