UKOUG
Call for paper for Oracle Scene-Winter 2012 Edition
The call for papers is now open for Oracle technical papers for publication in the UKOUG Oracle Scene magazine.
The submission date for completed papers is 24th August.
To get more information of paper guidelines and submission details go to,
http://www.ukoug.org/what-we-offer/oracle-scene/
The Winter edition will be published online and in print format around the end of October. This will be in time for the EPM & Hyperion, JDE and UKOUG 2012 conferences. So this is a chance to get your message across to these communities.
Did you get a presentation accepted for the UKOUG annual conference or were you disappointed ? Maybe you could consider writing a paper based on your presentation and submit it for consideration.
How about advertising in Oracle Scene. Over the past couple of editions we have had a significant increase in readership, with readership from countries around the world.
Over the past few years Oracle Scene has moved from being a regional User Group magazine to having a readership in 30+ countries around the world.
Why am I writing this post ? I’m a deputy editor of Oracle Scene 
UKOUG Conference-Submissions Deadline is 1st June
The call for presentations for Europe’s largest Oracle conference is currently open, but the deadline for submissions is approaching fast. The submission deadline is 1st June.
If you are interested in presenting there are a couple of things you need to do. The first step is that you need to register as a speaker. This just involves you registering your interest in being a speaker. The second step is to submit your presentation abstracts.
The conference will be in Birmingham between 3rd and 5th December. There are multiple streams including BI, Technology, Fusion, Middleware, Development, MySQL, Infrastructure, eBusiness Suite, Core Database, etc.
I gave my very first presentation at the annual UKOUG Conference a few years ago and I’ve presented a few times since. I would encourage everyone to give it a go. Pick a topic or topics that you have been working on over the past 12 months or more, or if you used a particular technique on a recent project, or you have discovered a particular work around, etc. submit a presentation on it.
I’ve submitted a few presentations, all of which are about data mining and the advanced analytics option in the Oracle Database. Two of these presentations will be co-presented with Antony Heljula, Peak Indicators. The presentations will be on including and using Oracle Data Mining models in OBIEE and on how we went about developing the Oracle Data Mining models for our project. Will they get accepted, I hope so, but the presentation selection is based on user voting. Everyone can get involved in the judging and voting of presentations.
Notifications of Acceptances 
or Rejections 
typically come out around the end of July or early August.
I’ve already booked by flight to Birmingham in December, so if my presentations get accepted or not, I’ll be there. It is a great conference.
Oracle Scene Call for Articles-Due 18th April
The Call for Articles is now open for the summer edition of Oracle Scene.
If you are interested in writing an article, now is the time to start working on writing it, as the deadline for submitting is 18th April.
Articles can be short (2 pages) or long 4 to 6 pages in MS Word.
All Oracle technical articles will be considered and can on one or more of the following areas:
- CRM market and megatrends eg. Cloud, mobile, CX (Customer Experience Management), self service, social
- Fusion CRM
- Siebel
- CRM on Demand
- Other Oracle CRM products
- e-commerce in Siebel
- Mobile CRM solutions
- RightNow
- Upgrading
- Project implementation
- Applications & Fusion Applications
- Fusion Middleware
- BI
- DBA
- APEX
- Server Technology
- Java
In particular I would like to see more short (1/4 or 1/2 page) articles on what happened at the various SIG events so far in 2012 and your plans for the rest of the year.
Have you written and published a book recently or at some stage over the summer. If so would you like to publicise it by writing a short article about it and my to give a sign copy away in a draw?
If you have any questions about writing an article for Oracle Scene drop me an email and we can discuss.
Check out the following web link for submission guidelines and how to submit your article.
http://www.ukoug.org/what-we-offer/oracle-scene/article-submissions/
New additions to my Oracle Magazine Collection
I put out a call a few months ago looking for help in completing my Oracle Magazine collection. I also had a letter in the Nov/Dec 2011 edition of Oracle Magazine looking for help.
The following people contacted me in December offering to send me some of my missing editions.
Lisa Dobson – Oracle DBA at Durham University and Vice President of UKOUG
Debra Lilley – President of UKOUG
Christian Antognini – Trivadis AG, Switzerland
Dan Vlamis – Vlamis Software Solutions, MO, USA
Many thanks for your donations.
It seems that people don’t keep their Oracle Magazines!
I’m now just missing a very small number of editions since 1992. Can anyone else help ?
Does anyone have any Oracle Magazines from before 1992 ?
The following table gives the current collection (printed editions). The grey boxes are the editions that I’m still missing, and keep an eye on my Oracle Magazine page for updates.
Article for Oracle Scene–Due 13th Jan
As we approach Christmas, many of us will be looking forward to a few days holidays/vacation. During this period we may start thinking about some techniques or methods that we discovered over the past 12 months or about things we need to find out more on, over the coming months.
One thing to consider is to write an article on these techniques or methods, for Oracle Scene. The next due date for submitting articles is 13th January.
http://www.ukoug.org/what-we-offer/oracle-scene/editorial-calendar/
For more details and ideas check out my webpage Oracle Scene
Make sure you check out the Article Guidelines and Submission Details
http://www.ukoug.org/what-we-offer/oracle-scene/article-submissions/
I hope to write an article based on the presentation I gave at the UKOUG Conference in Birmingham.
The most common question that I get asked is ‘how long should it be?’. The length of an article can be anything from half a page, up to 4 or 5 pages long.
Oracle Big Data Videos
Mark Townsend, Database Product Manager at Oracle gave a presentation on Big Data at the UKOUG conference and used the following videos to illustrate how a company can evolve their Big Data into useful and meaningful information.
Big Data – Gold Mine or just Stuff
Ireland table at Focus Pub tonight
Today (Monday 5th Dec) is the first day of the UKOUG Conference in Birmingham.
Tonight we have the Focus Pubs session starting at 8:45pm. This year we have a Ireland table for all of the Irish people at the conference to gather at and to meet.
I’ll be there so drop along and say hello.
Oracle Big Data & Analytics Sessions at UKOUG Conference
There are a number of BIG Data and Analytics presentations at the UKOUG Conference in Birmingham (4th Dec – 7th Dec).
I’ve worked my way through the agenda grids for each day of the conference and I’ve come up with the following list. If you are interested in BIG Data and Analytics these presentations are a must see
| Monday | 12:15-13:15 | Exadata Live – Graham Wood – Hall 7A |
| 5th Dec | ||
| Tuesday | 9:00-10:00 | Big Data-Are you ready – Mark Townsend – Hall 1 |
| 6th Dec | 10:10-10:55 | Who’s afraid of Analytic Functions – Alex Nuijten – Hall 5 |
| 11:15-12:15 | Analysing Your Data with Analytic Functions – Carl Dudley – Hall 9 | |
| 16:40-17:40 | Mobile Analytics using OBIEE 11g – Jon Mead – Exec Room 1 | |
| Wednesday | 9:00-10:00 | Oracle 11g Database Automatic Parallelism – Joel Goodman – Hall 9 |
| 7th Dec | 15:20-16:05 | How to Deploy your Oracle Data Miner in a Live Environment – me |
Call for Presentations : OUG Ireland Conference 2012
The call for presentations for the annual Oracle User Group Ireland conference has been posted in last few days.
The conference is planned for March 2012 and the venue will be picked over the next few weeks.
I’m on organising committee this year. It is hoped to have a number of parallel streams covering core Database Technology, BI (&EPM), Development (including Fusion).
If you are interested in presenting a short presentation of approx. 45 minutes (including time for questions), then you will need to submit your Topic and Abstract using the following link : www.oug.org/Irelandpapers
The conference is not limited to presenters from Ireland and it is hoped to get a number of well known Oracle experts and Oracle ACEs to come to Dublin for the day.
What kind of topics are of interest. Well pretty much anything Oracle. We have all come across something interesting in our jobs that we could share, be it using a particular technique, new features, sharing experiences, best practices, product demos, etc
I’ve already submitted a presentation on Oracle Data Miner.
There is a Twitter hash tag for the Oracle Conference #oug_ire2012. So add this to your Twitter tool to follow developments and announcements about the conference.
If you have any question about the conference drop me a email.
My UKOUG Conference 2011 Schedule
The UKOUG conference will be in a couple of weeks. I have my flights and hotel booked, and I’ve just finished selecting my agenda of presentations. I really enjoy this conference as it serves many purposes including, finding new directions Oracle is taking, new product features, some upskilling/training, confirming that the approaches that I have been using on projects are valid, getting lots of hints and tips, etc.
One thing that I always try to do and I strongly everyone (in particular first timers) to do is to go to 1 session everyday that is on a topic or product that you know (nearly) nothing about. You might discover that you know more than you think or you may learn something new that can be feed into some project on your return or over the next 12 months.
My agenda for the conference currently looks Very busy and in between these session, there is the exhibition hall, meetings with old and new friends, meetings with product/business unit managers, asking people to write articles for Oracle Scene, checking out possible presenters to come to Ireland for our conference in March 2012, etc. Then there is my presentation on the Wednesday afternoon.
Sunday
I’ll miss most of the Oak Table event on the Sunday but I hope to make it in time for
16:40-17:30 : Performance & High Availability Panel Session
Monday
9:20-9:50 : Keynote by Mark Sunday, Oracle (H1)
10:00-10:45 : The Future of BI & Oracle roadmap, Mike Durran, Oracle (H5)
11:05-12:05 : Implementing Interactive Maps with OBIEE 11g, Antony Heljula, Peak Indicators (H10A)
12:15-13:15 : OBI 11g Analysis & Reporting New Features, Mark Rittman (8A)
14:30-15:15 : Master Data Management – What is it & how to make it work – Robert Barnett, Hub Solutions Designs (H10A)
16:20-17:35 : Dummies Guide to Oracle ADF, Grant Ronald, Oracle, (Media Suite)
16:35-18:30 : The DB Time Performance Method, Graham Wood, Oracle (H8A)
17:45-18:30 : Performance & Stability with Oracle 11g SQL Plan Management, Doug Burns (H1)
17:45-18:30 : Experiences in Virtualization, Michael Doherty (H10A)
19:45-20:45 : Exhibition Welcome Drinks
20:45-Late : Focus Pubs
Tuesday
9:00-11:00 : Next Generation BI Architectures Masterclass, Andrew Bond, Oracle (H10B)
10:10-10:55 : Who’s afraid of Analytic Functions, Alex Nuijten, Maxima (H5)
11:15-12:15 : Analysing Your Data with Analytic Functions, Carl Dudley, (H9)
11:25-13:25 : Using a Physical Standby to Minimize Downtime for DB Release or Server Change, Michael Abbey, Pythian (Media Suite)
14:40-15:25 : How note to make the headlines, Mark Clewett, Hitachi (H10A)
14:40-15:25 : APEX Back to Basics, Paul Broughton, APEX Evangelists (H9)
15:35-16:20 : Can People be identified in the database, Pete Finnigan (H1)
16:40-18:35 : OTN Hands-on Workshop, Todd Trichler, Oracle (H8A)
17:50-18:35 : SQL Developer Data Modeler as a replacement for Oracle Designer, Paul Bainbridge, Fujitsu, (H8B)
18:45-19:45 : Keynote : Future of Enterprise Software and Oracle, Ray Wang, Constellation Research (H1)
20:00-Late : Evening Social & Networking
Wednesday
9:00-10:00 : Oracle 11g Database: Automatic Parallelism, Joel Goodman, Oracle (H9)
9:00-10:00 : Big Data: Learn how to predict the future, Keith Laker, Oracle (H8B)
10:10-10:55 : All about indexes – What to index, when and how, Mark Bobak, ProQuest (H5)
11:20-12:30 : Using Application Express to Build Highly Accessible Products, Anthony Rayner, Oracle (H8A)
12:30-13:30 : Practical uses for APEX Dictionary, John Scott, APEX Evangelists (H8A)
15:20-16:05 : How to deploy you Oracle Data Miner 11g R2 Workflows in a Live Environment – Me (H7B)
16:15-17:00 : Next Generation Data Warehousing, Kulvinder Hari, Oracle (H8A)
16:15-17:00 : Beyond RTFM and WTF Message Moments. Introducing a new standard: Oracle Fusion Applications User Assistance, Ultan O’Broin (Executive Room 7)
I know I have some overlapping sessions, but I will decide on the date which of these I will attend.
As you an see I will be following the BI stream mainly, with a few sessions on the Database and Development streams too.
This year there is a smart phone app help us organise our agenda, meetings, etc, The only downside is that the app does not import the agenda that I created on the website. So I have to do it again. Maybe for next year they will have an import agenda feature.
ODM 11.2–Data Mining PL/SQL Packages
The Oracle 11.2 database contains 3 PL/SQL packages that allow you to perform all (well almost all) of your data mining functions.
So instead of using the Oracle Data Miner tool you can write some PL/SQL code that will you to do the same things.
Before you can start using these PL/SQL packages you need to ensure that the schema that you are going to use has been setup with the following:
- Create a schema or use and existing one
- Grant the schema all the data mining privileges: see my earlier posting on how to setup an Oracle schema for data mining – Click here and YouTube video
- Grant all necessary privileges to the data that you will be using for data mining
The first PL/SQL package that you will use is the DBMS_DATA_MINING_TRANSFORM. This PL/SQL package allows you to transform the data to make it suitable for data mining. There are a number of functions in this package that allows you to transform the data, but depending on the data you may need to write your own code to perform the transformations. When you apply your data model to the test or the apply data sets, ODM will automatically take the transformation functions defined using this package and apply them to the new data sets.
The second PL/SQL package is DBMS_DATA_MINING. This is the main data mining PL/SQL package. It contains functions to allow you to:
- To create a Model
- Describe the Model
- Exploring and importing of Models
- Computing costs and text metrics for classification Models
- Applying the Model to new data
- Administration of Models, like dropping, renaming, etc
The next (and last) PL/SQL package is DBMS_PREDICTIVE_ANALYTICS.The routines included in this package allows you to prepare data, build a model, score a model and return results of model scoring. The routines include EXPLAIN which ranks attributes in order of influence in explaining a target column. PREDICT which predicts the value of a target attribute based on values in the input. PROFILE which generates rules that describe the cases from the input data.
Over the coming weeks I will have separate blog posts on each of these PL/SQL packages. These will cover the functions that are part of each packages and will include some examples of using the package and functions.
ODM API Demos in PL/SQL (& Java)
If you have been using Oracle Data Miner to develop your data mining workflows and models, at some point you will want to move away from the tool and start using the ODM APIs.
Oracle Data Mining provides a PL/SQL API and a Java API for creating supervised and unsupervised data mining models. The two APIs are fully interoperable, so that a model can be created with one API and then modified or applied using the other API.
I will cover the Java APIs in a later post, so watch out for that.
To help you get started with using the APIs there are a number of demo PL/SQL programs available. These were available as part of the the pre-11.2g version of the tool. But they don’t seem to packaged up with the 11.2 (SQL Developer 3) application.
The following table gives a list of the PL/SQL demo programs that are available. Although these were part of the pre-11.2g tool, they still seem to work on your 11.2g database.
You can download a zip of these files from here.
The sample PL/SQL programs illustrate each of the algorithms supported by Oracle Data Mining. They include examples of data transformations appropriate for each algorithm.
I will be exploring the main APIs, how to set them up, the parameters, etc., over the next few weeks, so check back for these posts.
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