Is it that time again already? The flood of memories from the MariaDB 2018 conference, which was a blur, hit me today. I did not really get to attend much of the MariaDB 2018 Conference even though I was there and none of it had to do with MariaDB.

Things started off exciting and great. I was chosen to speak at the 2018 conference on our successful migration from Oracle to MariaDB in the financial sector and was very fired up about that. Then disk failure issues started off the series of unfortunate events that ended up making the conference exciting, but in an unexpected way. It started not long after we arrived in New York.

I ended up getting approximately 3 – 5 hours of sleep for the entire conference due to hardware failures, triage sessions, and late night resolution events. We flew in on Sunday afternoon and I was scheduled to speak on Tuesday morning. The magnanimous amount of coffee that I subsisted on during those few days could be easily equated to a normal consumption level for me over a month, possibly two.

To be quite honest, my attendance of actual conference sessions was virtually limited to my speaking session and a panel that our CEO participated on. The rest of the time I was either digging into problems or drinking lots of coffee. The way my brain works I cannot get up in the middle of the night, do some work, and then go back to sleep. It just does not work for me. If I stay up too late, or get too tired, then sleeping essentially becomes a lost cause. I am certain that I am not the only person wired this way.

I have no idea how I made it through my speaking session as brain dead and tired as I truly was. I started tossing back coffee first thing after about 1.5 hours of sleep, but it just did not seem to be working. I started off fairly rough at first, however after a bit the coffee finally kicked in, the brain woke up, and ultimately my interpretation of the event was that I ended pretty strong. It was undoubtedly an experience.

That speaking session was the vehicle for my new book, Migrating to MariaDB, and I am certainly glad that I weathered the storm to claw my way through that speaking engagement. On the topic of Migrating to MariaDB, the book is in production as I compose this blog and I can’t wait to get a copy in my hands just to affirm that it is real. I had never considered doing something like that, however I am glad the opportunity presented itself as it served to open me up to other endeavors and ideas.

The 2018 conference, from what I was able to see of it, was a well organized and really great event with a lot of speakers from industry with great topics. I am excitedly looking forward to attending the 2019 conference as I am hearing it will be even better!

MariaDB has really stepped up the game. I cannot say enough great things about the product and the people. If you are in the database game the MariaDB OpenWorks Conference for 2019 will be the place to be. Hope to see you there!

MariaDB OpenWorks February 25 – 27, 2019 in New York!