Postcards from Anaheim: Information On Demand 2006

by Jean Georges Perrin

Friday, October 20, 2006

I still have time for two sessions before I need to jump on the SuperShuttle to LAX.

I started with Explain Explained. Ok, this sounds like a dummy title, but, as an application developer, knowing how the engine explains its optimization path is fairly useful.

Alexander Koerner gave us a precise explanation of how IDS competes with open source databases like PostgreSQL and MySQL. Strangely enough, looking at all the technical aspects, financial data, and legal constraints, I can't understand why MySQL is so popular. PostgreSQL seems nicer to use, although, TCO-wise, I'd go IDS Express.

Time to rush to the shuttle and get to a 12-hour flight back home. My conference agenda? Next conference will be in Washington, DC--the family gathering as I call it. Ambuj Goyal and Arvind Krishna will have keynote sessions there, and I will have a new and updated Java talk.

May 2007 is IDUG North America, in San Jose, CA. I have only been once to the Bay Area and I really look forward to getting back to this part of the world. I should probably get a one-way ticket. Oh, I have a few talks there as well: Java, more Java, advanced Java, PHP, and XML in the engines (note the S).

Fall 2007, IOD 2007 in fabulous Las Vegas, NV! I miss Vegas. IBM did a few conferences in a row a few years back, but I miss CSI's original city.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

The IIUG Board has its second half-day meeting and a crucial one, as one of the agenda items is the election of the president for the 2007 term.

No picture today. Silence. Black-out.

The afternoon was filled with plenty of sessions, meetings, and probably too much coffee.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Many sessions during the day, many interesting items, far too tired to detail all of them! Come to the conference next year.

The IIUG had a nice slot for meeting users, at the same time as a Q&A session with IBM's Informix marketing team. As we are ladies & gentlemen, we shared our sessions with the marketing team. After a small state-of-the-union by President Litel, IBM's Cindy Fung, Andrea Reid, and Gary Proctor hosted a very interactive session. Questions have evolved from the "is Informix disappearing" to more pragmatic issues of quality, availability, support, price, and so on.

Debbie Landers invited the IIUG Board to the Premium Support party. The Premium support guys are doing a fantastic job: I find the way they proactively search for integration problems a real help for managers seeking optimal performance and availability. Sure, as they have access to all levels of internal support and access to R&D, they (somehow) compete with some service companies.

Tuesday, October 17th 2006

Some people misunderstood me in one of my previous "postcards". It might be because English is not my native language (French rules!). One of the things that really surprised me here is the variety of people. It was not that obvious in previous conferences I went to. I have met people from India, Taiwan, Portugal, France, Pakistan, and many more countries. I've met people that live in the US, lived in the US and went back home, plan to live in the US, and people who changed nationality. This global melting pot is a fantastic opportunity for all of us.

I come from a region which changed citizenship four times in less than a century, and this was not in the middle ages, it was between 1870 and 1945. Ever since we started trading between European countries, we stopped fighting each other. This is probably one of the nicest effects of globalization.

I will certainly not be contradicted by my German neighbors, including Alexander Koerner, one of IBM's best speakers in Europe. I wanted to attend his presentation on Hibernate with Informix, but it was rescheduled and I went to a Hand's on Lab on XQuery and XPath. I want a machine like they have for the labs! Thinkpad T60p, Centrino Dual Core, 2Gb of RAM. Fast bombs!

Venkatesh Gopal did a great job explaining how you can build Services around IDS, using various languages & technologies. It is one entry point in SOA. I should have a look at REST and you should have a look at WORF.

The evening was spent at Disney's California Adventure—huge roller coasters! It was Gary's first time on a roller coaster, and he got addicted! It's a great time, fantastic time, fantastic feelings there.

The show at the beginning, the party in a theme park...this reminds us of all the great Informix events in the past. Databases—sorry, data servers ... sorry information servers—are fun!

Monday, Oct. 16th 2006

What a show! This was an incredible show, very funny, very entertaining, and very enjoyable. Wayne Brady is a well-known TV entertainer, and a master of the art of improvisation. He made fun of all of us with our techy vocabulary like XML, disaster recovery, EDM bowl, and many more. Like all popular TV shows, it was cut by advertising; IBM advertising, as you'd guess.

Ambuj Goyal announced the very first Information Server, called, naturally the IBM Information Server, the twin brother of the Application Server. Ambuj insisted, in front of over 5,000 people the role of IBM IDS (Informix Dynamic Server).

Michael Borman explained us his BAT idea: Business, Asset & Technology. He showed us a bat, a pretty huge one, like the growing speed of data.

They have a unique sound, a unique feeling, a unique style. Jim Haney, CIO and Vice President of Harley Davidson explained how a company selling 50,000 bikes in 1986, grew to over 320,000 bikes. Now, their challenge is to implement more flexible processes.

The show was great; the information distilled there was as well.

Let's meet the Impire / Cairos people, who are embedding radio tag chips in soccer ball to track statistical information. They deliver these information to major media companies in Germany and Yahoo!.

EPCIS is a currently "in progress" solution from IBM focusing on simplifying and enhancing logistic processing based on RFID. The flow of information coming from RFID sensors is huge, a "box" can be scanned eight times, only one or two times using bar codes. RFID is easy to use, so you use it more.

Some Cheetah features became public during the Arvind Krishna keynote. A very high focus on security will be included in the new version of IDS: encryption of replication, disk, and backups. IDS will also enhance its support for geographical data to be the database of choice to be integrated in location-based applications. But there are more to come.

SAP renewed their commitment to IBM in their strategic alliance. SAP uses DB2 for its operations and 570 development servers. Cardinal Health, a Chicago-based company, choose this solution for the level of integration of the IBM & SAP teams.

Univar is finding IBM as a great one-stop shop and removed Oracle.

The nice thing is that IBM, though Arvind, explains nicely where each server goes and what it is designed for. IMS, IDS, DB2 and all the others are being enhanced, and are the bricks of your architecture.

Dinner was a working dinner with IIUG's web master team. I missed the Gladys Knight show, but you'll see the benefit in a few months on your favorite community Web site.

Sunday, Oct. 15th 2006

Breakfast. Of course, I missed the "right" arrow and went directly into the Business Partner session and breakfast. Not much Informix: I got into the wrong room. While there, and trying to be polite (Frenchies usually are), I stayed to hear what Ambuj had to say to Business Partners, after all, why not become one, once. In substance, he said, "Let's make money together."

Predictions estimate the Information Management market was $32 billion in 2005, growing to an impressive $44 billion in 2009, with new markets, new opportunities; specifically as there is a usual 1 to 1 ratio for selling hardware and a ratio from 2 to 5 selling services.

Ok, now, Ambuj puzzled me. He spoke about DB2 Viper. I understood Wiper. So now, I understand why DB2 is big in the banking industry. Hey, I am not making fun of him (more of me actually), we are all foreigners here. It's been a while and I have not seen a Native American.

In 1996, there was a tipping point in the Web development. All required features, such as session handling and JVM, were combined to create what we all use now: Web Application Servers.

Ten years later, in 2006, there is a new tipping point in Information Management: aggregation of data replication, security, federation, SOA, ETL, and connectivity. This is what I announced here two weeks ago: the Information Server.

Informix was mentioned by Ambuj Goyal and Arvind Krishna, IBM Vice President, Database Servers. Both said that now is the time to get (back) on the Informix bandwagon.

Ok, I found my way to the IDS Customer Advisory Council. NDA starts. Lots of exciting things for Cheetah are coming. I'd probably need to create one of those aliases and publish all that under the alias' name in an IIUG / Informix Forum, hmmm. What a stupid idea.

Three of out of 5 partner awards were awarded to Informix partners, including historic German partner Bytec (http://www.bytec.de) and ISV Misys Healthcare (http://www.misyshealthcare.com).

The conference showcase opening was just great. It has been a while since I've seen something like that. Even in the last days of Informix Corp., there wasn't such an impressive showcase (the last Informix conference was in Orlando in October 2000). Sure, the products are different: content management, business intelligence, SOA, compliance validation, some development tools. Food was great as well (remember my addiction to American junk food).

It's already my second day in the US, and I've spent quite some dollars (another addiction), and the jet lag is gone (beer helps).

Saturday, Oct. 14th 2006

Early morning, landing at Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport, from Strasbourg.

Just in front of us, a huge 747 silently and slowly heading to its gate. We are following her in the dawn of day... I have traveled so much, seen so many airports, but that's still very impressive. What a project, what an accomplishment of more than thirty years ago.... Imagine doing that now, without computers, printers, the Internet. When you see this pretty monster, you can't imagine that the A380 is delayed by software incompatibility, but that's another story.

Speaking of software, I am heading towards Los Angeles, to attend the premier of Information on Demand. Impressive conference, fruit of Ambuj Goyal, the General Manager of Information Management.

Just landed at LAX. Wonderful weather, contrasting with the cloudy, foggy and cold weather of a couple hours ago. Wait, if it's 1 PM here, it's 22 PM back home.

After a long, long, very long drive with the SuperShuttle (the Clarion is almost the last hotel of the ride), I finally reached the hotel. Shower. Head to Hilton where the Informix Customer Advisory Council was held. NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) starts.

NDA stops. I am exhausted. I will find fast food somewhere. Like Jacques [Chirac], I love American junk food. Did you know there is a Lego shop in the middle of Downtown Disney? (Disney is a prestigious Informix customer; I could not resist going shopping there).