This is my first conference as a board member, and going to a presentation for every slot is not possible. I did go to Doug Burns presentation on SQL Plan Management in 11g though I had actually seen it at OOW 2011, probably because I like Doug's presentation style. This preso does not go into very much detail on SPM, but takes us on a travel through the subject and leave it to us to actually get some experience on it. It does look interesting, and the only thing that keeps me from getting much experience on it is that the current customer is lagging behind on the upgrades to 11g; the few we have on 11g are small and have not presented any problems with plan instability.Maria Colgan's presentation on how to collect statistics was a big hit. A colleague stated this was perhaps the best presentation he had been to ever. Very entertaining presentation and packed with useful take aways. Yes, I did go to the same presentation at OOW 2011 as if I'm unwilling to expose my brains to something new. But in fact I learned something new, and I still have something to try out, for example next time I encounter a database that uses partitioning, sigh.
The RAC Attack team set up in the public area and a couple of enthusiasts insisted to complete the lab from Day 0. The intention was not only to have a lab on board, but also a place where people could come and go, and ask questions on RAC in particular and about life in general. Think it worked well, but obviously the hands-on lab was competing with the sessions, and most concluded that lab was something they could try at home later.
The feedback we got after Day 1 was great, but I'll save that to the wrap-up.
