ODevC Yatra 2018: Hyderabad

We arrived in Hyderabad last night. My second visit ever (was here for the first time last year during  Sangam 17).

As we were heading to the hotel, Bjoern (@brost) posted this selfie from his car.

When I posted this in response, our car started vibrating and we heard the unmistakable sound of a flat tire.

Our driver pulled over to check and this is what we found.

The other car caught up with us while we waited roadside.

We were soon on our way after our driver replaced the flat tire with a spare.

Early the next morning, we headed to Tech Mahindra campus in Hi-Tech City, Hyderabad.

The conference was kicked off in this amazing conference room, the biggest we have been in on this tour.

Lucas Jellema (@lucasjellema) joined the ODevC Yatra speaker team from this city. 

The event was kicked off with a lamp lighting ceremony, where several speakers were invited to light each of the five wicks of this ceremonial lamp.

As always, AIOUG President, Sai Perumburu (@sai_perumburu) welcomed the attendees.

Next, the speakers introduced themselves and offered suggestions for attendees to maximize the value from this event.

Both my sessions "Oracle Cloud: Bridging the Skills Gap" and "Oracle Cloud: Preparing your Roadmap" were well attended. I liked the level of audience participation and their questions.

I was able to take advantage of the time I had between my sessions to attend sessions by other speakers.

Here's Sandesh Rao (@sandeshr) presenting "Oracle Autonomous Database: What Every DBA should know". Sandesh, Oracle's VP of Cloud Diagnosability and RAC Assurance, provided an excellent insight into Oracle Autonomous Database from a DBA's perspective.

Just before we headed to lunch, I addressed a few questions posed by this group of students who came to attend the event all the way from Warangal.

After lunch I attended the "Oracle Exadata Architecture and Internals Technical Deep Dive" session presented by Gurmeet Goindi (@ExadataPM).

Now Gurmeet rewards attendees who answer his questions by tossing them a candy/chocolate. As much as he tried, several fell short (actually fell near me and I had to pass them along). This led me to tweet: "While I can vouch for his Exadata expertise, can't say the same about his candy-tossing skills!".

Finally, before I headed to my second session, I was able to attend the "50 shades of Data - how, when and why Big, Relational, NoSQL, Elastic, Graph, Event" session by Lucas Jellema (@lucasjellema), which walked us through a myriad of other databases available to augment Oracle's database offerings.

Following the ODevC Yatra tradition, after all sessions ended, everyone participated in a quiz. Connor McDonald (@connor_mc_d) was once again the quiz master.

Every speaker was presented with a certificate of appreciation by Tech Mahindra.

Here's the team from Tech Mahindra and some of the volunteers who organized the event.

Before heading out, it was selfie time, with most of the attendees.

Some more questions followed, before we headed to the airport.

Our thanks to these members of the AIOUG Hyderabad Chapter who made this event possible.

We had time for a quick bite before boarding our flight.

Our flight to Pune was slightly delayed but we eventually started boarding.

Good bye Hyderabad, Pune here we come ...

ODevC Yatra 2018: Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad, the largest city in the state of Gujarat, is one of the two cities on this Yatra that I have not visited before (Pune being the other). It is the third stop during our ODevC Yatra 2018.

After we landed here yesterday afternoon,  Sandesh Rao (@sandeshr) and I briefly got separated from the rest of the speakers. That's me looking for them:

We caught up with them inside the airport. Important note: we have been very fortunate that all our bags are arriving safely at each destination. You can imagine the disruption caused if any bags go missing.

Our short drive from the airport to the hotel took us along the Sabarmati river, we saw a few historic buildings on the way.

Connor McDonald (@connor_mc_d), second from left, joined the tour from this city.

Everyone enjoyed the sumptuous Gujarati food:

Entertainment featured a local dancer, who skillfully balanced a stack of eight pots on her head!

And, even a puppet show! 

After a good night's rest, all of us headed to the ATIRA Campus of the Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA).

This is the first time AIOUG is organizing such an event in Ahmedabad and we were not sure how many would attend, but many did.

As always, AIOUG President Sai Penumuru (@sai_penemuru) welcome the attendees.

Here's the speaker line up for the Ahmedabad event:

Speaker introductions followed - my request to the attendees was to ask questions in each session so everyone can learn from the experts. The mantra for each event has been "learn five new things" and "make five new friends".

Bjoern Rost (@brost) attended my morning session "Oracle Cloud: Bridging the Skills Gap" and my afternoon session was "Oracle Cloud: Preparing your Roadmap"

All attendees were treated to a sumptuous lunch buffet that included Gujarati delicacies.

Here are some of the speakers catching up over lunch.

I really enjoyed attending Connor's session "DBA features to be aware of when upgrading to 12c/18c". He has a very unique style, making this technical topic fun and interesting.

Connor was also our new quiz master, conducting the quiz and keeping the attendees on their feet.

Then it was time for our signature selfie - here's the one with the Ahmedabad attendees.

Our thanks to they volunteers from the AIOUG Gujarat Chapter for all they effort put in to make this event a success!

One final group picture with the speakers and volunteers before heading out.

Here we are waiting for transportation to take us to the airport.

Sandesh Rao (@sandeshr) and Gurmeet Goindi (@ExadataPM) enjoying an auto ride to the airport.

Of all the dinner options available at the airport, Subway was the choice for most of us.

Our flight was delayed slightly and we were on our way to the next stop: Hyderabad

Can't believe we have already covered three cities, looking forward to the event in Hyderabad.

Next post: ODevC Yatra 2018: Hyderabad

ODevC Yatra 2018: Bengaluru

We arrived in Bengaluru late at night and was past midnight by the time we reached our hotel.

Speakers featured below (left to right): Sandesh Rao (@sandeshr), me (@bkhan), Chandan Tanwani (@tanwanichandan), Bjoern Rost (@brost), Kamran Agayev (@KamranAgayev), Pradeep Vattem (@PradeepVattem), Raj Rathee (@RajRathee) and Sai Penumuru (@sai_penumuru)

As we were heading to the venue this morning, news arrived that the other car, in which our speakers were traveling, was involved in a collision.

The car and the motorbike got some damage and fortunately no one was injured. As Sandesh put it, would have been far worse if the motorbike traveling at 60 km/h had hit the passenger door.

The event was held at Jain University, a prominent higher education institute in Jayanagar, Bengaluru. Established in 1990, it was conferred university status in 2009.

As AIOUG President Sai Penumuru (@sai_penumuru) kicked off the Bengaluru event, (given the morning's accident) he requested attendees to pray that all speakers are able to complete this Yatra without any incidents.

Once again, despite the fact that it was raining this morning, the event was very well attended.

My first session in the morning "Oracle Cloud: Bridging the Skills Gap" is turning out to be a hit with the attendees. There was good attendance for my afternoon session as well: "Oracle Cloud: Preparing your Roadmap".

A unique aspect of the Bengaluru event was a special "Robotics" track for kids.

Attendees brought their children and it was very well attended.

The kids built robots including cars and windmills. They were enthusiastic, involved and had a blast!

Some of the speakers were invited to hand over certificates to the kids. I noticed a few budding ACE Directors, especially the two kids who stepped on stage to summarize the day's accomplishments.

I missed mentioning this in my prior post - towards the end, we conduct a quiz for the attendees. There is a lot of excitement and action as everyone needs to stand up to participate.

If you are wondering why everyone is posing as above, this is how it works: for each multiple choice question, if the answer is (a) you need to place you hands on your head, if (b) you stand with arms folded and (c) hands on your hips or pockets.

After a series of questions, there is eventually just one person standing, who is the winner of that round. Then everyone stands up again for the next round and so on till five winners are selected. A truly unique way to conduct a quiz!

Here's the Bengaluru selfie with most of the attendees (some left before we could take it).

Our thanks to the amazing volunteers of the AIOUG Bengaluru Chapter who coordinated the event.

On the way back to our hotel, our car almost got involved in a collision! We heard a noise behind us and this is what we saw:

Fortunately, it was just a gentle tap - otherwise, as Sandesh Rao quipped: it would have been a different kind of "Lift & Shift"! Our driver confirmed there was not damage and we were soon on our way.

The next day, it was an uneventful drive as we headed to the airport.

I was able to catch up with some work during the long drive to the airport. As my fellow ACE Director, Bjoern Rost (@brost) captured it: "Oracle Cloud in Indian Traffic":

Our flight was on time and we were off to Ahmedabad after a quick bite:

So long Bengaluru, till we meet for Sangam 2018! Ahmedabad, here we come ...

Next post: ODevC Yatra 2018: Ahmedabad