After the usual hair-raising drive from the airport to the Intercontinental Hotel on Sunday, it was time to catch up with some old friends and colleagues. I was lucky enough to bump into an old mate; Tony Poole, who’s Director of Research & Development for Database Administration at BMC Software. We did a few contracts at various sites together but worked out (over a beer) that the last time we actually worked together was 30 years ago. He was accompanied by his charming daughter, Holly, and the last time I met her, she was in nappies and crawling. Mind you, I think the last time I saw Tony he was on his hands and knees too but that’s a different story.
Tony was kind of enough to be moderator for my session today on HTAP. I suffered a bit by being preceded (and followed, actually) by some very worthy speakers who were presenting on the same topic or, at least, topics in the same area. John Hornibrook from the IBM lab in Toronto did a great presentation on Monday, dealing with the enabling of secondary indexes in Column-organized tables and I was followed this afternoon by Mika Lindholm who was illustrating some real-world experiences with Columnar data that needed reload to get it back into usable shape. We also had a very amusing two-handed presentation this morning by Michael Tiefenbacher and Henrik Loeser on Recursive SQL: I’m a big fan of this feature in terms of generating volumes of test data and interrogating system catalogues but I hadn’t realized it could be used to provide a solution to tricky Sudoku problems. In a single SQL statement too!
Well, that’s Day 3 over; maybe time to go for a jog round the marina, where the rich & famous keep motor yachts large enough to land a Harrier on, or maybe just repair to the bar to discuss the days other proceeding with my colleagues. Its part of the appeal of IDUG I think; the formal, deep-dive technical presentations operate hand-in-glove with the casual networking and exchange of tips and information. If you’re coming along next year, I look forward to seeing you and, if you’re not yet signed up; give it a try!
