Some random thoughts on OOW17

Oracle Open World 2017 has come and gone already, but it left behind some really interesting points worth revisiting.

The conference spans so much, but I want to focus mainly on the topics related to my own expertise (Integration, Java, Application Development). So let's cut to the chase and take a look at the highlights:

• Focus is on Developers - the Java & Open Source movements seem stronger than ever, with JavaOne recovering a leading role this year and OracleCode summoning enthusiastic crowds on its first appearance at Open World. Also, Oracle has visibly placed a lot of importance on programs such as the Developer Community space, Developer Champion award, etc.
• Oracle PaaS has finally broken through - with increased maturity in most of the services, plenty of customer success stories and some nice improvements to the licensing model, PaaS adoption has become increasingly viable. This is an especially important moment for integration-focused partners, as in my opinion those who are able to better cope with the paradigm shift will be able to take full advantage of the growing market.
• Modern Architectures are at the Center of Innovation - Hybrid, Distributed, Serverless, Reactive, API-Driven are all architectural qualities associated with innovative systems and solutions. I attended a good number of excellent sessions on these kind of topics, whereas concepts such as SOA, BPM,  etc. have gone from being household names in years past to practically disappearing from the conference's agenda (this doesn't mean that such technologies can be pronounced dead already, but they definitely have ceased to be pillars of a so called "modern architecture"). I was also glad to see some of my peers incorporating OMESA (http://omesa.io) into their presentations; I still think this open project has lots of potential, but we definitely need to go back to the drawing table and grow it with these recent trends in mind.
• Embracing New Technologies is Cool - This year we had lots of sessions and quite some chatter about diverse tools and technologies such as Blockchain, Chatbots, Cloud-Native Microservices, Kubernetes, Kafka, Spark, just to name a few. Although we might not want to go jumping into every bandwagon, it's always interesting to consider and learn new things. Thus, I'm glad Oracle's encouraging it by providing a forum in this kind of event.

So,  Oracle has delivered as always one of the most relevant, memorable & eventful conferences of the year. This is definitely an interesting time to be a software engineer

Thanks for reading!

ODC Appreciation Day : Deploying a Project to OACCS from Oracle DevCS

Hello dear friends from the Oracle Developer Community. Today is ODC Appreciation Day 2017 and so I'm gonna share this little piece about one of my favourite product features: deploying applications to OACCS from Oracle DevCS 

This is actually a very simple capability, which I got to test again as recently as last week during OOW2017. But as trivial as it may seem, the fact that it's works seamlessly speaks volumes about the integrated nature and efficiency of Oracle's Cloud Development Platform.

So, if your Cloud services are correctly configured, it is as easy as to create a deployment profile for any of your applications and selecting "Application Container Cloud" as your deployment target:

Then the next time your deployment job runs, the selected build will be automatically deployed to OACCS according to the profile you configured.

It's Cloud + DevOps at its best, making life easier for both Developers & Administrators.

Well, this was quite a short post but enough to say #ThanksODC while highlighting a cool product feature.

Thanks for reading!!

A Quick Recap of Oracle PaaS Community Forum 2017

I've been attending this conference 3 years in a row now, and strongly believe that if you're part of the Oracle Middleware / PaaS partner community, it's the one you really don't want to miss throughout the year.

The focused content, networking opportunities and VIP access to the top Oracle PMs & Architects obviously make coming to this event a great investment, but this year we also got the Community Day with lots of best practices presented by Oracle ACEs and the first OMESA workshop, which I will go back to in a second.

As always, huge props are in order to the unwavering excellence of Jürgen and his team when it comes to organizing and hosting the forum. Location has always been fantastic, but this year for me it was awesome to travel away from the cold and into a sunny resort. I also got to play this year's first rounds of outdoor tennis during the weekend, even hitting some balls with a couple of peers.

This time around I couldn't stay for the workshops the last two days, but anyhow, I have two key takeaways from my personal experience at the conference this year:

1. OMESA (Open Modern Enterprise Software Architecture) can and should become the next big thing. Even though the content is still a work in progress, and the workshop at Split came as a first experiment, you could just feel the knowledge, experience and talent oozing out of the conference room where we sat to discuss the guidelines to this project. With Luis Weir as a driving force and a strong core of lead Architects from all over the place, this group has all the tools to exercise constructive thought leadership and deliver meaningful assets to the IT community. 
2. Oracle PaaS is truly finding ways to deliver. Although we're all supporters, many of us have also been overly critic in the last year; however, the maturity they were able to showcase at this event together with the actual numbers to back it up was really commendable and uplifting. Moreover, in this edition we were finally able to hear several success stories from the partners themselves, some of which have gone to great lengths (AMIS, Opitz, e-Proseed, Avanttic, etc.) to influence the market and position PaaS solutions among their customers.

Split + PaaSForum, what a great and inspiring way to start the year. Until the next time!!

Some Thoughts on OUGN Spring Seminar 2017

This was my second year aboard the Color Line ferry for the OUGN Spring Seminar. Happily, it was also the conference's 10th year anniversary, so all the speakers and attendees were in for a special treat this time around.

I must say that in my opinion this is one of the most special Oracle conferences out there, obviously due of the venue, but also because of the consistently excellent technical level of both presenters and attendees, which together with the intimate setting always end up producing excellent discussions, passionate conversations and a very high quality learning experience overall.

I was selected to deliver two presentations at this event: DevOps for Oracle FMW with the orawls modules & Advanced Cloud Design Patterns, and it was a blast to do it alongside my good friends Ronald and Simon respectively.

My company, Sysco, had as always a huge presence at the event, being one of the main sponsors, bringing a lot of people in and providing several speakers for many of the tracks.

This edition's big takeaway for me was the presence of a brilliant and highly-driven crop of young multi-national speakers, most of them presenting at OUGN for the first time. This guys and girls, coming from such distinct places as Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, Holland, Norway, Croatia, Spain, etc.,  (and many of them travelling with own funds), are bringing a lot of excitement and value into the Oracle Community with fresh topics and disruptive ideas about the newest technological developments and trends. They are also quickly becoming household names, which means that people are actually signing up to conferences to hear what they have to say. So hopefully we'll see many faces from this new generation joining the ACED ranks in the near future.

Thanks for reading!!