As I battle to get my suitcase back from my Austin trip from over a week ago, (yes, United is still trying to locate it!) I’m preparing to head out to Denver next week to attend RMOUG Training Days 2025. I had missed submitting a talk, but when I discovered they were turning into a free event, I was curious to see how it transitions and my boss said I should go, so looking forward to seeing some great topics from some wonderful speakers! Meanwhile, I’m busy working on a number of demands for Redgate around Oracle, MongoDB and AI,…
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Few things frustrate travelers more than lost baggage, and United Airlines certainly tested my patience last week. There were plenty of chances for them to shine in customer service, but their online platform and mobile app ended up being prime examples of what not to do—for both customers and their own service representatives. Background I was flying back to Portland from Austin on Friday, during record cold temperatures across the Southwest. Overhead storage in the cabin was packed with travelers’ winter gear—despite requests to wait until all passengers had boarded—which left me, one of the first in group #3, without…
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2024 was a pretty busy year for me. It was one marked with change as I shifted the beginning of the year into my role at Silk as Director of Data and AI. We began focusing heavily on my abilities to navigate the technology landscape and identify what was required as a company at Silk to make the most of it. As I had time, I was heavily involved at DZone writing content on a slew of topics, which I really enjoyed. I think the biggest surprise was that you realize with a small pivot, tech is often handled the…
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For many DBAs, the thought of running Oracle on a Windows OS induces a collective cringe. Even for someone like me, with a career spanning both Microsoft and Oracle technologies, it’s a combination I typically avoid. However, there are scenarios—driven by licensing, software requirements, or other factors—where deploying Oracle on Windows becomes the logical choice. I recently encountered such a scenario while assisting a team I enjoy working with at Redgate. The task was to refresh and streamline our demo virtual machine (VM) image, which included Oracle running on Windows. Here was my planned approach: Export any data that needed…
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When building products that interact with multiple database platforms, the complexity can be both a challenge and an opportunity. For Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), observing design decisions made without sufficient knowledge of underlying database architecture can be particularly frustrating. These moments highlight the critical need for architectural foresight and platform-specific expertise to avoid pitfalls that compromise scalability, performance, and maintainability. I’ve been managing multiple platforms for a couple decades and in recent years, building products that support the most popular enterprise and open-source databases today. I’m keenly aware of lacking documentation, either due to limited resources or hopes of directing…
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December 2024 is upon us and I’m unsure how it’s already here! I have my last event that I need to travel for and I only need to head up to Seattle to present! I have done some fun testing with PostgreSQL with HammerDB, both in my previous role of Director of Data and AI at Silk and since with other work. I’ve been fascinated with the story that’s developed and have built out a session to present on recommended practices using HammerDB with PostgreSQL and to review my findings. I’ll be in Seattle on Thursday evening sharing this session…
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I’m passionate about making technology easier to understand, a mission I’ve pursued on my blog since 2008. However, I’ve faced challenges when educating newer Oracle users about the differences between single-instance (older architecture) and multitenant (newer architecture) models, as well as how these two architectures are connected. For those of us with extensive Oracle experience, these concepts may feel straightforward. This is especially true for professionals who work across multiple platforms, as Oracle was relatively late to adopt multitenancy. For instance, SQL Server has embraced this model since its earlier versions—going back to my experience with SQL Server 6.0—making it…
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Now that I’ve been at Redgate as the newest Advocate, along with my engineering duties, let’s talk about the annual event so many of us attend each year in the Microsoft data community- PASS Data Community Summit. My schedule is shaping up to be a busy one and I want to make sure that folks know where I’ll be through the week. SQL Saturday Oregon/SW Washington My week starts the weekend before, where I will be doing the keynote at SQL Saturday Oregon/SW Washington. The keynote will be on “Why Can’t AI Do the Dishes Already?” and will follow a…
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I’ve been getting that question a lot lately. When I left Microsoft 16 months ago, there was more than one betting pool on which cloud I would go to next, knowing my history and short attention span, but maybe I’m softening in my old age. I surprised a few when I went to one of the partners that I’d worked with for almost four years while at Microsoft, Silk and over a period of a few months, became their Director of Data and AI. It was a good opportunity for me, as they understood I needed a lot to keep…
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I’ve just returned from Data Saturday Oslo and Data Saturday Dallas, and tomorrow I’m off to Oracle Cloud World. Both Data Saturday events were amazing, even with the little hiccup of my lost luggage in Oslo. The experience was made even better by the incredible gluten-free options provided by my gracious hosts—special thanks to Johan for that! At the Dallas event, in addition to presenting on the benefits of leveraging instant extracts with Azure Fabric, I led a session on thriving with ADHD. The room filled up quickly, and while some may have been surprised by the large turnout, I…
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“Kellyn, how is it you always find the bullies/narcissists if there are just a few bad apples?” I was asked this question this last weekend at an event, and I’ve often wondered what it is about me that drives some individuals, particularly workplace bullies and narcissists, to implode shortly after working with me. It’s a great question, so let’s dive into it— We often think of bad apples as rare, but it’s really about percentages, personalities, and work culture. Encountering a bully, or even a narcissist, is something I expect at least once every one to two years. How I…
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In the midst of us needing to do more with less every day, many of us are incorporating clones to simplify data refreshes to non-production database environments. Working harder is just not an option when we can use newer technology to get more by doing less. Knowing Your Environment Doing less effectively requires some planning for Oracle and a few questions to be asked: Will you need to deploy to a new host/VM target as part of a clone? Will an image with Oracle be used for the new Host/VM target or will you need to build out the Oracle…
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I’m doing a mid-year review and want to get better about blogging again. I did an initial AlloyDB Omni post this last week and it reminds me about the session I’ll be doing at PASS Community Summit with Steve Karam with PostgreSQL with PGVector! I know, you’re all really confused now- The SQL Server folks are thinking, “I thought she was Oracle??” The Oracle people are thinking I’m just not loyal because I keep working with other database platforms…:) One of the great things about this event is that it’s welcoming to so many technologies and database platforms. I’ve been…
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There’s a large influx of PostgreSQL databases coming into the market. It only makes sense to use this robust open-source database for any new project and to migrate those which can to an open-source solution, saving thousands, if not millions of dollars in database licensing costs. Most of these deployments are as PaaS (Platform as a Service) databases with cloud vendors. To maintain the ability to scale to meet the needs of so many customers, cloud vendors, in general, limit and throttle individual resources. Logically, if you’re able to determine what individual resources will require, it’s much easier to control…
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After six months of collaboration, deep intensive script writing, slide content and video recordings, the Complete Guide to Oracle 23ai is available on LinkedIn Learning! You can access the course directly here. If you’re new to Oracle, this course will teach you all the basics and as a seasoned professional, it will take you through the new, advanced features connected to this fantastic release!
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The short summer break is over, and conference treadmill is about to get underway again. I have a few things already on the calendar! July 27th – SQL Saturday Baton Rouge! Migrating High IO SQL Server Workloads to Azure for the Win August 31st- Data Saturday Oslo- Navigating and Thriving in the Age of AI Sept. 7th- Data Saturday Dallas– I’ll be doing two sessions- Relational Database Instant Extracts to Fabric and Turning ADHD into “Awesome Dynamic Highly Dependable” It’s also been announced that Nov. 2nd I’ll be the keynote speaker for SQL Saturday SW Washington and Oregon again this…
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I was thrilled to see the new Oracle 23ai Free come out on Thursday, so I marched over on Friday and downloaded the newest docker image to continue becoming comfortable with the newest version’s features. When I tried to connect via SQLPlus as SYSDBA, I received an EXTPROC error. It pointed clearly to the listener.ora file, which I discovered a path listed still to ora23c for the extproc, corrected it, started the Listener, but to no avail- an ORA-12547 error, realizing I had a make file issue on the binaries for Oracle. I contacted Geral Venzl, who was very gracious…
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I’ve been intensely preparing the LinkedIn Learning Oracle 23c courses, set to film later this month. Despite my responsibilities as Director of Data and AI at Silk, I’m finalizing my Women in Tech presentation for SQL Saturday Jacksonville. The theme is Star Wars, so I used ChatGPT to generate a Princess Leia-inspired image and here’s what was returned: I grimaced, as my red flags went up. Why does she have wisps of hair across her face that’s out of place, yet her white dress is spotless? Does the open V at the chest serve as a target? Does the plate…