This is a guest blog by Oracle ACE Director Rita Nuñez
The LAOUC Community Tour 2023 (#LatamTour2023) was organized by Oracle User Groups from Latin American countries. This year we had the great joy of being able to host the tour again, as the first face-to-face tour since 2019. The tour covered ten Latin American countries: Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico, Guatemala, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay, from July 28th until August 16th.
I had the honor of being able to join the events from nine out of the ten organizing countries – the only one I could not attend was Paraguay, because it followed the sessions from Argentina, where I am part of the Board of Directors and had organizational commitments.
The presentations were delivered by many Oracle ACEs, and also we counted on Oracle Java Champions, an Oracle VP, Oracle Product Managers, an Oracle Developer Evangelist, an Oracle Consultant, an Oracle Pre-Sales representative, local speakers, and Oracle partners. With some variations in term of speakers and topics, the events covered important topics such as Oracle Database, OCI GoldenGate, Automation, Containers, Terraform, APEX, Java, Machine Learning, AI and Autonomous Datawarehouse, OCI, and Cloud Native.
Sean Scott (Oracle ACE Director) was the absolute star and covered the complete tour, checking ten out of ten countries! They I, Rita Nuñez (Oracle ACE Director) followed closely with nine of the ten countries, and we were followed by Edelweiss Kammermann (Oracle ACE Director), Nelson Calero (Oracle ACE Director), Gustavo Gonzalez (Oracle ACE Director), Rolando Carrasco (Oracle ACE Director), Ronald Vargas Quesada (Oracle ACE Director), Basheer Khan (Oracle ACE Director), Michel Schildmeijer (Oracle ACE Director), Mirela Ardelean (Oracle ACE Pro), Eddie Molina (Oracle ACE Pro), Roy Salazar (Oracle ACE Pro), Tércio Costa (Oracle ACE Pro), Rodrigo Mesquita (Oracle ACE Pro), Gilson Martins (Oracle ACE Associate), Lino Schildenfeld (Oracle ACE Pro), Franky Weber Faust (Oracle ACE Pro), Maicon Carneiro (Oracle ACE Pro), Paulo Augusto Künzel (Oracle ACE Associate), Mario Barduchi (Oracle ACE Associate), Victor Orozco (Oracle ACE Pro), Cesar Hernandez (Oracle ACE Pro), Emmanuel Guzman Rojas (Oracle ACE Associate), Sandesh Rao (Oracle VP), Francisco Muñoz Alvarez (Oracle Product Manager), Rodrigo Jorge (Oracle Product Manager), Monica Godoy (Oracle Product Manager), Jayson Hanes (Oracle Product Manager), Pablo Simoes (Oracle Developer Evangelist), Andres Almiray (Oracle Product Manager, Java Champion).
During the tour, I delivered three different presentations and a Full Stack DRP laboratory with Francisco Alvarez Muñoz, Distinguished Product Manager Oracle.
- One of the presentations was about Replicating Oracle Database with GG, where I explained the new microservices architecture, and how to use it on-premise, OCI GG, MarketPlace and OCI FREE GG. I had an audience that already knew about GG Classic, but not the new Architecture and that was surprised by how easy it was to configure from the web console and saw a lot if interest from them, including developers.
- Another presentation I delivered was on Multitenant, about all its advantages and how to take advantage of the FREE option in 19c with up to 3 PDBs, and as I had detected from my consultancies in Argentina and in Latin America, there are still many installations without migrating to 19c and those that have migrated. They do not use Multitenant so they were very interested in learning how to manage this new architecture.
- My third presentation was on the methods of Migrating Databases to the Cloud, and I explained to them about ZDM, which they did not know existed.
- In the laboratory in which I participated, the students were already DBA specialists and they were super interested and doing the practices, they even extended the lab time to be able to continue doing tests after the end of the schedule.
I also had the opportunity to participate in many of the sessions the Oracle ACEs hosted:
- Nelson Calero’s presentations about Automation and the utilities that he uses to do it.
- Sean Scott’s presentation about Containers and how to use Terraform.
- Rodrigo Jorge’s presentation about Data Pump.
- Francisco Alvarez Muñoz’s Keynote on Oracle’s vision of the Future of Databases.
In general there was a large audience, people were super excited to be able to return to in-person events. In Panama, Guatemala and Uruguay, speaking with my audience, several told me that it was not the first time they attended my presentations, which made me very happy.
Someone in Uruguay told me that he had seen my presentation the previous year at the Virtual Event we did. Particularly in Argentina, I know the market specialists very well and those who came in general to the event this year and in particular to my presentation are many who have already participated in previous events.
Now let me tell you a bit more about my experience, day by day:
Colombia – July 28
The tour began on July 28 in Cali, Colombia. It was hosted in parallel in three universities during the morning, and there were also attendees who connected live. The opening and closing were broadcasted live from one of the universities to the other two. It was a great thrill to start the tour, meet friends like Edelweiss and Nelson, both of them Oracle ACE Directors from Uruguay, and meet in person the other speakers and organizers. At noon, the OUG organized a lunch for all the speakers in a typical Hacienda of that area of Colombia and there we could meet all the speakers. It was very nice to be able to enjoy a relaxing moment together.
From Colombia I traveled to San Jose, Costa Rica. After the Friday spent in Cali, and the Saturday spent travelling, on Sunday I enjoyed a day off and took advantage of a tour during the day to Tortuga Island. Costa Rica has many super interesting places to visit! In 2019 I went on a tour of a volcano, so this time I chose a day on the beach.
Costa Rica – July 31
The second conference took place on Monday, July 31, and it was organized in a University, in six rooms in parallel! It had a high attendance from clients and students. At noon, during lunch we enjoyed watching a typical Costa Rican dance show. At the close of the event all speakers joined a panel, which was transmitted live to all students, then we enjoyed a lovely dinner with typical delicious food.
Panama – August 2
On Tuesday I left towards Panama. In the afternoon I spent some time with Roy Salazar, Rodrigo Jorge, and Sean Scott, taking a walk through Casco Viejo and then we had dinner with several speakers and the organizers of the event. On August 2, the Panama event took place at the City of Knowledge, where a lot of customers also attended. The Oracle Panama User Group gave the speakers a really nice personalized thermal mug souvenir. In the evening, they also hosted a dinner in a place with a show of typical dances. Some of the speakers who were in Panama for first time went to see the Panama Canal after presenting their talks.
Mexico – August 4
On Thursday I left for Mexico, Guadalajara. The conference took place on Friday, August 4th, and the chosen venue was the Oracle MDC. It was so exciting to be in the same place where part of the core Oracle Database, OCI, GoldenGate, Autonomous, etc. is developed! The classrooms were really large, the talks were given in four classrooms in parallel and there was a lot of attendance, with the plus of talking directly with the Machine Learning Development Team at MDC! Starting here and until the end of tour Sandesh Rao also joined us and took lots of selfies! I spent the next day on a lovely tour with Sean Scott and Francisco Muñoz Alvarez, where we briefly visited two magical towns: Tequila and Tlaquepaque, very beautiful indeed.
Guatemala – August 7
On Sunday I left for Guatemala, and after I arrived I went looking for Anibal Garcia (organizer). We then went to lunch in Ciudad Cayala, which is beautiful. On Monday, August 7 the event took place at a university, a beautiful place, with high attendance. Cesar Hernandez did live interviews for the Oracle User Group.
Chile – August 9
I left for Chile shortly after the event, and with several stopovers I arrived at my next location the next day (Tuesday) in the afternoon. Cesar Saez (organizer) was nice to wait for me and later that evening we enjoyed a dinner with the speakers. During the next day, Wednesday, August 9 the event took place in three rooms in parallel, ending with a speakers panel. Next day I went for a walk with Andres Almiray to Cerro San Cristobal, from where you can enjoy a lovely view of all of Santiago.
Brazil – August 12
On August 11, I left for Brazil, and after I arrived I joined Mirela, Lino, Basheer, and Gustavo who were walking through São Paulo. We went to the MAC and strolled through the Park. Then I went out with Mirela for dinner and discovered we were staying in the same hotel. On Saturday, August 12th the Brazil event took place. There was a lot of attendance, four parallel rooms full of people, even with participants who had no more seats and sat on the floor or stood up, so as not to miss the talks. In the evening the organizers took us to dinner in a Churrascaria, and dinner was delicious.
Uruguay – August 14
On Sunday 13, I had the trip to Uruguay. After arriving we met for dinner with the organizers Edelweiss and Nelson, and some of the speakers. On Monday, August 14, the event took place in Montevideo, at the ORT University. The Oracle Uruguay User Group gave us several typical sweets and a glass by a famous artist as souvenirs. The same day we traveled to Argentina.
Argentina – August 15
On August 15, Buenos Aires became the host of the tour, and the event took place at the Oracle office in Argentina. In the opening we had a keynote from Cristina Lorenzo, Oracle General Manager of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia. The event enjoyed a high attendance, we were joined by many customers that are members of AROUG and who come yearly to our events. We offered the speakers a Messi T-shirt from our soccer team from Argentina (as Argentina was awarded as World Cup champion in December 2022). That night we invited the speakers to dinner and then to a Tango show in Buenos Aires. Monica Godoy, Product Manager APEX asked me to offer on her behalf the APEX Challenge Coin to Rolando Guiñazu.
Paraguay – August 16
The next day was the last event from the tour took place in Paraguay – and although I could not attend, I can tell you that it was also a success both in term of presence and content!
I really enjoyed participating in the tour and I think it’s a great experience because I can give talks on topics I enjoy, I can spend time with the participants, I get a chance to see my fellow speakers and organizers from other countries and create new ties. Since it is very common as a speaker to meet other speakers on the same flights, transfers to hotels, and in many moments such as lunches, dinners and tours during free moments – it’s really great being part of the ACE community and being able to spend time with ACEs from all over the world!
