Fusion Middleware Sunday at UKOUG [Recap]

I just came back from the United Kingdom after attending the UKOUG 2012 conference. One event in particular stood out which I'd like to share. New this year is the Middleware Sunday, a 5 hour event open to a limited audience, and kicked off a day before the actual conference itself. I won't go through the agenda, because you can find it here.

But Middleware Sunday was intended for intermediate to advanced WebLogic Server administrators. Session topics covered WLST, Node Manager, WebLogic JMX, and JVM tuning by known experts in the field that included Simon Haslam, Jacco Landlust, Frank Munz, and René van Wijk. Excellent content and knowledge sharing by all presenters and ultimately very educational. I had to pass on the hands-on session (due to jet lag) which involved hooking up attendee laptops to one huge mega-cluster. I've heard that the exercise had mixed success, but an overall valuable effort.

I've attended somewhat similar events and workshops at other conferences (including OpenWorld) but never have I seen it pulled of as successfully as this one.

Here's why.

1. It was focused on a single product set, and wasn't too ambitious in trying to cover too much.

2. The four presentations covered core, relevant areas surrounding the product.

3. The presenters are leaders in their field, and even experienced administrators benefited.

4. The open format sessions encouraged two-way dialogue, which was the intent.

5. Nobody (including the organizers) knew how the hands-on mega-cluster would turn out, but that was the whole intent of the exercise.

Many thanks to Simon, Jacco, and Jürgen Kress for organizing this. I look forward to more of these in the future!