Lightning talks at Percona Live Data Performance Conference

The main schedule for the Percona Live Data Performance Conference is available. Almost everything has been defined. There are tutorials and plenty of sessions waiting for conference attendees.

One thing that is still undefined is the session of lightning talks. The call for participation for these mini sessions of 5 minutes each is still open. If you plan to attend Percona Live, this is your chance to get your 5 minutes of celebrity: you can submit a proposal up to February 7th, 2016. There is a lot that can be said in 5 minutes. If you have an interesting topic to highlight, a pet project to show off, a neat trick to recommend, a happy or painful experience to share, a lightning talk is the right place to apply.

There are also open slots for Birds Of A Feather (BoF) sessions. These are not lectures, but rather meetings of users who share the same interest. If you want to apply for one of these sessions, don't propose a topic where you address the audience, but propose a theme for a discussion among peers. BoF sessions are often the place where new ideas are born, helped by the free discussion among passionate users. If you have an open source project and want to ask for feedback, or if you want help defining the road map for an already successful project, a BoF is what you need. Also for this kind of sessions, the deadline is February 7th.

And remember: the conference is not limited to MySQL. Every data related topic (such as nosql, big data, database engines, data storage technologies) could trigger an interesting talk.

Open Database Camp 2011 opens today!

The Open Database Camp 2011 opens today with the Welcome Party, starting today at 7pm CEST. The party (with good Italian food and drinks) is open to all the ones who have registered in the Attendees list. By car you have to reach Pula, take Via Nora (Nora Street), than Via Sant'Efisio (Sant'Efisio Street), until the end, directly to the party location. Organisers will also make a bus available on Friday 6 May, leaving from Pula Hotels (Nora Club Hotel - Villa Madau - Baia Di Nora - Is Molas - Marin Hotel - Is Morus Hotel) around 18:30 and reaching Nora. From Nora back to Pula Hotels a bus will leave around 21:00 and 22:00.

The conference itself will start on Saturday, May 7th, at 9am. Travel arrangements to reach the venue are listed in the conference wiki (wiki: Travel).
There will be a bus collecting participants from the hotels at 8:30am and the same bus from the conference venue (Sardegna Ricerche) back to the hotel in the evening.

Sessions

Open Database camp is an Un-conference. As with the previous editions, the schedule will be decided on the spot, on Saturday. You can list your intended sessions and your wishes in the Sessions page.

Logistics

You will need an ID for your wifi access. (Sorry, it's a law requirement)^(*). If you want your username and password, you should collect it at the reception as soon as possible.

Customized meetings

There will be room for 1:1 meetings between attendees, if you like to do so. You will find a board with the names of all attendees and their affiliation, and you can easily schedule a meeting with them.

^(*) The law has expired but after having put the fear of the state into every internet provider, the lawmakers have not said how the new regulations should be applied. Regretfully, we have still to live with the old rules.

Introducing the Flying Clusters, and more than MySQL replication

My Colleague Linas Virbalas has just crossed the boundary between real and virtual and has started a blog, titled Flying Clusters. Linas is a gifted developer who is taking care of the special projects. One of such projects is replication between MySQL and PostgreSQL, which works quite well.

Another project, which has just started, is about providing PostgreSQL with Advanced Logical Replication using Tungsten replicator. As you probably know, recent versions of PostgreSQL can do physical replication, which has its pros and cons. With this project, PostgreSQL users can also have the choice of using logical replication. Not only that: since Tungsten Replicator already supports MySQL, cross-DBMS replication clusters are not far away.
We are also more ambitious, and we are exploring ways of replicating to NoSQL entities. We will start with MongoDB at a dedicated SQL to NoSQL Replication Hackathon, where we will attempt the creation of n applier for MongoDB during the Open Database Camp conference.

Open Database camp 2011 - Travel logistics, and don't forget the party

The Open Database Camp 2011 is near. In 9 days, the welcome party starts, and then the conference itself gets going. If you are coming earlier than Friday, May 6th, you can either use public transportation or book a private seat with a volunteer in the car pooling page. Please help the organizers: post your arrival and departure dates and times, so we may be able to help you even outside the official conference days. About the conference itself, as everyone should know, it's a un-conference, where the talks will be decided on the spot. But you can book ideas and topics in the sessions page. Since we will have many participants from Italy, there will be dedicated sessions in Italian in addition to the ones in English, which is the official language of the conference.

Open Database Camp - Accommodation and Sponsoring

The Open Database Camp 2011 is shaping up nicely. The logistics is being defined and local and international volunteers are showing up for help. (Thanks, folks!) If you want to start booking, there is a list of hotels in the Accommodation page. And don't forget to sign up in the Attendees list. Local travel information will be released as soon as we finish cranking up the plan. Open Database camp is free, but we still have expenses to get the job done. We need both official sponsors and personal donations. No minimum amount required. You can donate painlessly online through the nonprofit organization Technocation. (Thanks!) Please see the Sponsors page for more info.

Announcing the Open Database Camp - Sardinia, May 2011

I have been traveling to many conferences in the last 10 years, and many times I have been asked to organize an event in my native land, Sardinia. After delaying the inevitable for long time, here I can announce it. The Open Database Camp 2011 will take place in Sardinia, hosted by the Sardinia Technology Park, a local scientific and business institution with international links. Mark your calendars: the Open Database Camp will be held in Sardinia on May 6-7-8, 2011. I have already confirmed the venue, and I will have full cooperation from Sardegna Ricerche about the conference logistics. I will meet the organizers on January 27th to get in touch with nearby hotels and restaurants and negotiate rates. The place is a beautiful and modern compound, built in the middle of a forest. About 40 Km from Cagliari and its airport. There is a public bus service to reach the venue, and there will be an integrative bus during the conference. The place is a few kilometers from the sea resort of Pula, near the archeological beauty of Nora.

If you want to start booking your flights, look for connections to Cagliari Elmas.

There are cheap direct flights from several European airports with EasyJet, Ryanair, TUIFly, Air Berlin, and probably a few more.
For example, you can fly to Cagliari from Paris, Frankfurt, Berlin, Cologne, Munich, Stuttgart, London, Edinburgh, Brussels, Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia, Venice, Rome, Milan, Turin, Basel, Geneva, Krakow, and probably more by the time you come.
If you book now, you should be able to get a good price.

The weather in Sardinia is mild. May is almost summertime. If you live in cold places like the North of the USA, Canada, Scandinavia, May in Sardinia is definitely warmer.
More logistics information will come.

Why Open Database Camp, and not Open SQL Camp like before?
The Open SQL Camp tradition has evolved since its inception in 2008. It has now become a gathering of database professionals and enthusiasts, not necessarily identifiable with the SQL constraint.
So, the conference welcomes everyone who deals with open databases, regardless of the languages used to interface them.

Stay tuned for more info. In the meantime, you can discuss this matter in the opensqlcamp Google Group.