Recap of yesterday’s Arizona Oracle User Group (AZORA) meeting

Yesterday was the first meeting of the newly restarted Arizona Oracle User Group, AZORA.  It was a good first meeting to kick off what I hope will turn into an active club.

We met in the Tempe Public Library in a large downstairs room with a projector screen and plenty of seating with tables so it was easy to take notes.  We also had snacks.  I got a Paradise Bakery chocolate chip cookie and bottled water so that put me in a good mood for the afternoon meeting. They also had some giveaways and so I picked up an Oracle pen and notebook to use to take notes during the talk.  They also gave away three or four Rich Niemiec books and some gift cards as prizes, but, as usual, I didn’t win anything.

The first talk was about “Big Data”.  I’m skeptical about any buzzword, including big data, but I enjoyed hearing from a technical person who was actually doing this type of work.  I would rather hear an honest perspective from someone in the midst of the battle than get a rosy picture from someone who is trying to sell me something.  Interestingly, the talk was about open source big data software and not about any Oracle product, so it gave me as an Oracle database specialist some insight into something completely outside my experience.

The second talk was about another buzzword – “The Cloud”.  The second talk was as helpful as the first because the speaker had exposure to people from a variety of companies that were actually doing cloud work.  This talk was more directly related to my Oracle database work because you can have Oracle databases and applications based on Oracle databases deployed in the cloud.

It was a good first meeting and I hope to attend and help support future meetings.  Hopefully we can spread the news about the club and get even more people involved and attending so it will be even more useful to all of us.  I appreciate those who put in the effort to kick off this first meeting.

– Bobby

About Bobby

I live in Chandler, Arizona with my wife and three daughters. I work for US Foods, the second largest food distribution company in the United States. I have worked in the Information Technology field since 1989. I have a passion for Oracle database performance tuning because I enjoy challenging technical problems that require an understanding of computer science. I enjoy communicating with people about my work.
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2 Responses to Recap of yesterday’s Arizona Oracle User Group (AZORA) meeting

  1. luis maciel says:

    Hi Bobby!
    It is very interesting to know about the Arizona Oracle Group. I’ve been attending some of the Chicago Oracle Group here in Illionois. I did apply for the Oracle DBA position in Tempe. Last monday while visiting Phoenix I had a conversation with Gail who told me about your blog. Very good job!

    Hopefully I will meet you soon.

    Luis Maciel

    • Bobby says:

      Luis,

      Thanks for your comment. I enjoyed being in a local user group when I was in Greenville, South Carolina but there has not been one active here in Phoenix since I moved here four years ago. I’m hopeful that this one will continue and I will have a chance to participate.

      I am glad you applied for our DBA job and I hope it works out for you to join us. It’s a good team.

      – Bobby

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