OraClever: June 2010

In the past half year Oracle BeNeLux organized a contest, called Are You The Smartest. This is a contest for Oracle Partners, and covered 7 evening sessions.
The idea behind this contest is to get Oracle Partner consultants up to speed with new products and strategies on the technology level. Seven evenings packed with information on the following topics:

Oracle Technology Overview
Layering your Enterprise Security
Database 11g r2 New Features
Enterprise 2.0 and moreLarge Databases, Partitioning, Exadata, OWB-ODI, Golden GateOracle
Enterprise Manager from OS to Application
Application Grid 11g with WLS, Coherence, Tuxedo, JRockit, RealTime, ...

Every topic was followed by an exam, to be taken right before the next session.
These were no easy exams, I can tell you. 20 questions in half an hour. Half of the questions were taken directly from the session content, the other half from other documentation and information on the web. Scoring is quite particular: every correct answer is a point, every wrong answer is a negative... So in theory, a negative score can be achieved... Hence, study was necessary.

My company (Inter Access B.V.) subscribed with approximately 25 consultants, so we were a "big" partner. One of us was to be rewarded the grand prize: An All-inclusive trip to San Francisco and Las Vegas, including a visit to Oracle Headquarters in Redwood Shores.

Three weeks ago, I received the good news: I am one of the winners of the grand prize! Yesterday evening I was awarded the prize, and next week I will be flying to San Francisco for the trip.

For a complete coverage of the trip, please visit http://ayts2010.blogspot.com/. Stay Tuned!