Why I like User Conferences - like MariaDB OpenWorks

As the son of a software engineer/executive, I’ve attended user conferences since before I knew what the products did. There is nothing like the promise and enthusiasm of a well-executed user conference. And MariaDB’s OpenWorks will surpass expectations for your learning potential. I’m honestly excited for May 9th and 10th in New York or virtually and urge you all to attend.

Well done user groups thrill me. Why? The experience of watching users network and learn from one another fosters brainstorming and facilitates innovation. Making professional connections over lunch or between sessions, as you get coffee, is necessary to solve business problems, rethink an approach.? OpenWorks offers a unique learning experience with experts from MariaDB customers, product teams, and partners. Those of you who use MariaDB Enterprise Server, SkySQL, ColumnStore or Xpand daily know best how to achieve something substantive with databases. Sharing these moments is a priceless benefit to conference attendance.

Those “aha” moments are tremendous. Especially in person. And watch as you quickly make connections that transcend business relationships.

If you’re attending OpenWorks, you will absolutely have the opportunity to learn, network, and implement suggestions from our fifty sessions in your daily life. In person attendees will be able to ask the experts from our product and support teams…and one another.??

Our partners will also attend in force with cloud resources from Amazon Web Services, Google, Qlik, and SADA available.

In-person users will also be able to uplevel their skills through our testing and certification stations as well as technical workshops. That’s more than just a badge for your LinkedIn profile - it’s a way to bolster your skills and recognition of them within your organization. Powerful stuff indeed.

Some of the partner sessions that excite me include:?

Empowering Business & the Anywhere Database: MariaDB’s Migration to GCP - Did you know MariaDB’s Director of IT Bryan Alsdorf migrated our internal systems to GCP? Here’s a chance to hear about how he rallied our internal stakeholders while championing the very technology that we built SkySQL on. He’s speaking alongside SADA’s? (our GCP migration, sales and services partner) Associate CTO for Data & Analytics Brian Suk. They have an easy rapport that will provide ample time for audience Q&A and learning.

MindsDB - our machine learning partner - will stand up ML models directly from SkySQL. MindsDB brings the vast world of AI to MariaDB users by augmenting the SQL language so that users can quickly train, and use models as if they were database tables.

Ingesting data from disparate and diverse sources into SkySQL has never been easier thanks to Qlik’s Data Integration.Together we deliver business-ready data at a fraction of the cost of legacy databases. Adam Mayer and Ben Grieser will show you how cloud data integration, change-data-capture (CDC), analytics data pipeline development, and data lineage/cataloging - makes your data so much more powerful, scalable, secure and auditable in Xpand running in SkySQL. Your organization will become a more data-centric and data-driven business thanks to this session.

Want to make your cloud implementation more efficient? Google Cloud Platform and MariaDB have partnered to use Kubernetes to better manage microservices orchestrations. This helps you schedule and automate the deployment, management and scaling of SkySQL.? This session on May 9th at 2:15 will show you how we’ve automated many of the DevOps processes that were previously handled manually thus simplifying the work of software developers and accelerating provisioning and ongoing monitoring and management of the SkySQL Cloud Database service.

These partnerships and sessions will enhance your knowledge and give you money and time saving tips to make you more efficient. If you need more justification to attend OpenWorks, email me at [email protected].

Today and everyday, I’m really proud of the team putting content together for OpenWorks. The agenda and speakers are solid. Our global customer-base is coming together in New York and virtually on May 9th and 10th to share and learn. Samsung SDS, Supercat, Certified Power and Dompé farmaceutici S.p.A. are a few of the customers with impressive implementations and a truly unique vantage point on the power of MariaDB to transform organizations.

As a teen, my dad’s company’s user conference meant early access to EPCOT and a day off from school. OpenWorks means a trip to New York to see the promise of our partnerships with technology providers and customers in action - and perhaps a great slice of Broadway, pizza or pastrami sandwich on the side. I hope to see you on May 9th and 10th in New York.