Getting Ready for BIWA / Spatial / NoCOUG Summit Jan 27-29, 2015

See you soon!

Thank to all those who regsitered for BIWA / Spatial / NoCOUG Summit 2015! We look forwarding to seeing you next Tuesday at the Oracle Conference Center at 350 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA.  This post contains some important information that will help you get the most out of the conference.

Bring a Computer to Participate in Hands on Labs 

If you are interested in participating in the Hands On Labs at BIWA Summit 2015, you will need to bring a laptop. The lab sessions will be run with Remote Desktop for most of the labs or VNC. Most Windows operating systems have a remote desktop client pre-installed that will work. The VNC Viewer client is free and open source and we will have it on thumb drives for those classes. If you are using a Macintosh, Linux, or an iPad or other tablet, there are many different clients available for both Remote Desktop and VNC. For those hardy souls that want to try this on a mobile device, depending on the lab, you may be able to do it, but arrive early to try it out before you count on it.  We recommend you have at least a 1024x768 screen.

Hands On Labs are on a first-come-first-serve basis. IP addresses to the Cloud-based VMs will be provided to attendees as they enter the Lab.

Agenda Updated

We have updated the agenda posted on the Agenda tab at www.biwasummit.org. Items of note include:

• Many featured speakers in the auditorium
• Breakfast each day (meals sponsored by HERE)
• Tuesday lunch with our popular lightning rounds
• Tuesday reception sponsored by Oracle
• Wednesday “birds of a feather” lunch, with topic-specific tables for informal discussions
• Wednesday social hour sponsored by Deloitte

Tracks Color-coded

The agenda has been color-coded by track. As you register, we will have stickers that match the colors of each track. Place those stickers on your badge to indicate topics of interest to you so you can find people at the conference with similar interests. For example, if you are especially interested in Spatial topics, look for badges with yellow stickers. So you can plan what stickers you place on your badge and what table you sit at Wednesday lunch, here are the tracks:

• Business Intelligence
• Data Warehousing
• Big Data
• Advanced Analytics
• Spatial
• Cloud
• Engineered Systems
• EPM
• Internet of Things
• General (no sticker for this track, but tables will designated General)

Local Transportation Information

For those staying at the Sofitel, there is a free shuttle from SFO that runs every hour from 6am until 11am.  Call the Sofitel at 650-598-9000 to request airport shuttle pickup after collecting your luggage from the baggage claim. You can also take the shuttle to Oracle, with shuttles leaving at 7:45, 8:15, and8:45. You can also take the shuttle back to the Sofitel at the end of the day, but the shuttle leaves at 5:30 and surely you would not want to miss out on our receptions each night!

For those staying at the Hyatt House, there is a shuttle that runs within a 5-mile radius (for example to Oracle) during the hours of 8am to 5pm, but you should reserve this in advance. The shuttle driver can also do personal shopping for you if you book this in advance.

You can generally park in any of the garages on the Oracle campus or the surface lot right by the conference center.

We Look Forward to Seeing You

We look forward to seeing you Tuesday morning at 7:45 for registration and breakfast. The program begins at 8:30. With joining forces with the Spatial SIG and the Northern California Oracle User Group (NoCOUG), we will have several hundred name badges to give out, so please be patient and arrive early.

Dan Vlamis and Shyam Nath, BIWA Summit 2015 Conference co-chairs