Author: Rajesh Rajasekharan

First Batch CY 2013

Having done a number of Live Virtual Classes (a.k.a LVC) on Oracle Key Manager, it was quite a unique experience to have got a chance to do the first classroom training on the same in Bangalore during the first week of New Year 2013. Glad to have made many new friends during the very first week of a New Year 🙂

I invite you to read an excellent white paper on the product here (Opens a PDF). And if you are interested in knowing more on the OU training program around the product, click here (Opens a PDF).

New Year Wishes 2013 – In Advance

In a couple of days, I’ll make another attempt to be good, stay good. Sounds familiar? Also familiar maybe this space on the Web, where I scribble away my thoughts for you to read, roughly this time of the year, every year. Can’t thank you enough to spare me some time at a juncture when in all likelihood you may be quite busy preparing to see off CY 2012 and merrily welcome New Year 2013. Whatever may be your mode of celebration, here’s wishing you a joyous experience.

Personally, I don’t expect to see drastic changes to any attributes of my lifestyle, just because a cycle of twelve months is coming to a conclusion in two days time and a new one arriving. And I don’t believe in waiting to flip over one dozen page of a calendar before jotting down a list of life changing items to be performed, and then stare at it later with a sigh of disappointment for not having made a sustained effort to achieve it and to strike each one out as ‘Job done’. Neither do I believe that the spacing of inevitable events in different phases of life, some of which we may like and some we dislike, has any business with the twelve month cycles. Agreed, some things in life will change for sure: like the daily dairy that I maintain. It’ll carry a fresh smell and every single entry in there, I hope, shall carry a positive intent. It’s foolish of me, though, to even imagine that I’ll only have happy episodes to scribe in there. New year or not, pattern of events in life shall remain much the same, with possibly no escape from the dualities of existence. Pray, we develop enough inner strength to accept all events in life with great composure.

In retrospection, I’m thankful for all good things happened in the last twelve months, glad to have met many a wonderful people, fortunate to have learned a number of useful lessons, sorry to have made some mistakes, happy to have moved on, regret to have lost few connections and grateful for all opportunities. I wish the coming twelve months brings me in company of many new faces, while I’ll make all efforts to make sure the familiar ones stay closer to my heart.

Lastly, the blah-blah above was not the real intention of writing this note, but to make sure I don’t miss an occasion as this to show up and express my deep felt gratitude to YOU for being there for me and helping me stay positive, one way or the other. Thank you!

Here’s wishing you and your family a very happy and prosperous Year 2013!

Early Christmas Celebrations

Nostalgia is what I feel when Christmas approaches. Perhaps, because I’ve had my primary education in a convent School or maybe coz I still linger on many many sweet memories of Christmas celebrations with my near and dear from the past. Thankfully, I’m in a profession that brings me in company of some wonderful humans, who some times extend a great deal of generosity by offering to Celebrate festivals in advance and so you see my training participants who turned up for a OU program on Solaris cutting a sweet Christmas plum cake much ahead of X’mas. Thank you is all I can say to ’em.

And here’s the class photo:

Wishing every one a very Merry Christmas in advance!

It’s Raining Solaris Training

That the popularity of Solaris 11 is only growing is clear from how regular the training sessions have been around this product. It’s such an excitement to be going around sharing knowledge on Solaris, more so to explore the nitty gritty of many new and evolving features. Trust me, it’s only getting better!

In the process, just like in the past I stumbled on several individuals, each teaching me a lesson or two. I’m grateful. And if I’ve managed to get over the laziness to come back to the web logs with a collection of class photos from the last couple of months, it’s because of a sense of gratitude to all ’em in the picture below.


Solaris 11 Network Administration Pilot Teach in Bangalore.


Sun Identity Manager (n.k.a Oracle Waveset IDM) Deployment Fundamentals Training. I’m missing from the snap because these delegates sat well over 10,000 Kms away from where I taught this class from, but were kind enough to help me associate a face with the voice by sending me a group photograph. If you want to attend one such OU program cutting down the travel, try OU’s Live Virtual Class (a.k.a LVC) .


Transition to Solaris 11 in Mumbai.


Solaris 11 Advanced Administration Session in Bangalore.


Transition to Solaris 11 in Mumbai.


Attending Gary Riseborough’s Exadata Training at Singapore.


Solaris 11 Advanced Administration Session in Bangalore.

If only the participants of each LVC session belonged to the same location, there would’ve been additional three group photographs occupying this space!

Thank you everyone for many many memorable moments.

Last Fortnight…

In the last fortnight, I had an opportunity to meet up with some very energetic folks, who actively participated in a couple of OU programs on Solaris 11 and MySQL. I thank them for their participation and hope all of ’em had a good learning experience showing up for Oracle University programs.

As always, I’m publishing below a moment from each of the aforesaid programs.


MySQL DBA session in Bangalore.
It’s unfair if I don’t express my heartfelt thanks to each of ’em for a serious teach back session through out the training program and I wish to do so by publishing moments from each one’s teach back assignment:

Below is a class photograph from Solaris 11 Administration Session in Bangalore.

From The OU Classrooms…

No excuses for not doing this systematically, and I’m trying my best to break this bad habit of bulk uploads of class photographs and do it regularly instead. But for the time being, please forgive my laziness and live by my mass introduction of all fun loving, yet talented folks whom I met in the OU classrooms during the last three months or so through these picture essay that follow. It’s unfortunate, I don’t get to do this for my Live Virtual Classes for obvious reason,but let me take a moment to thank them all as well for choosing OU programs on various products. Thanks again to each one for memorable moments in the OU classrooms:


Pillar Axiom MaxRep session at Bangkok. For detailed information on the OU course on Pillar Axiom Max Rep, access this page.


Pillar Axiom SAN Administration Session at Bangkok. Know more about the product here. Details on the Pillar Axiom training program from Oracle University can be found here.


Oracle Solaris ZFS Administration & Oracle Solaris Containers session at Hyderabad. Read more about ZFS here. Gain information on Solaris Containers by going here. Oracle University courses on Solaris 10 and its features can be viewed at this page.


Oracle Solaris Cluster program at Hyderabad. Here’s the OU landing page for the training programs on Oracle Solaris Cluster.


Oracle Solaris 11 Administration Session at Bangalore. If you are interested to get trained on Solaris 11, get more details at this webpage.


Sun Identity Manager Deployment Fundamentals session at Bangalore. The product is n.k.a Oracle Waveset IDM. Click here to get detailed description on this fabulous hands on training program.


With Don Kawahigashi at Taipei for Pillar Axiom Storage training.

Configuring Multiple Instances of MySQL in Solaris 11

Recently someone asked me for steps to configure multiple instances of MySQL database in an Operating Platform. Coz of my familiarity with Solaris OE, I prepared some notes on configuring multiple instances of MySQL database on Solaris 11. Maybe it’s useful for some:

If you want to run Solaris Operating System (or any other OS of your choice) as a virtualized instance in desktop, consider using Virtual Box.
To download Solaris Operating System, click here.

Once you have your Solaris Operating System (Version 11) up and running and have Internet connectivity to gain access to the Image Packaging System (IPS), please follow the steps as mentioned below to install MySQL and configure multiple instances:

1. Install MySQL Database in Solaris 11
$ sudo pkg install mysql-51
2. Verify if the mysql is installed:
$ svcs -a | grep mysql
Note: Service FMRI will look similar to the one here: svc:/application/database/mysql:version_51
3. Prepare data file system for MySQL Instance 1
zfs create rpool/mysql
zfs create rpool/mysql/data
zfs set mountpoint=/mysql/data rpool/mysql/data
4. Prepare data file system for MySQL Instance 2
zfs create rpool/mysql/data2
zfs set mountpoint=/mysql/data rpool/mysql/data2
5. Change the mysql/datadir of the MySQL Service (SMF) to point to /mysql/data
$ svcprop mysql:version_51 | grep mysql/data
$ svccfg -s mysql:version_51 setprop mysql/data=/mysql/data
6. Create a new instance of MySQL 5.1
(a) Copy the manifest of the default instance to temporary directory:
$ sudo cp /lib/svc/manifest/application/database/mysql_51.xml /var/tmp/mysql_51_2.xml
(b) Make appropriate modifications on the XML file
$ sudo vi /var/tmp/mysql_51_2.xml
-> Change the “instance name” section to a new value “version_51_2”
-> Change the value of property name “data” to point to the ZFS file system “/mysql/data2”
7. Import the manifest to the SMF repository:
$ sudo svccfg import /var/tmp/mysql_51_2.xml
8. Before starting the service, copy the file /etc/mysql/my.cnf to the data directories /mysql/data & /mysql/data2.
$ sudo cp /etc/mysql/my.cnf /mysql/data/
$ sudo cp /etc/mysql/my.cnf /mysql/data2/
9. Make modifications to the my.cnf in each of the data directories as required:
$ sudo vi /mysql/data/my.cnf
Under the [client] section
port=3306
socket=/tmp/mysql.sock
—-
—-
Under the [mysqld] section
port=3306
socket=/tmp/mysql.sock
datadir=/mysql/data
—–
—–
server-id=1
$ sudo vi /mysql/data2/my.cnf
Under the [client] section
port=3307
socket=/tmp/mysql2.sock
—–
—–
Under the [mysqld] section
port=3307
socket=/tmp/mysql2.sock
datadir=/mysql/data2
—–
—–
server-id=2
10. Make appropriate modification to the startup script of MySQL (managed by SMF) to point to the appropriate my.cnf for each instance:
$ sudo vi /lib/svc/method/mysql_51
Note: Search for all occurences of mysqld_safe command and modify it to include the –defaults-file option. An example entry would look as follows:
${MySQLBIN}/mysqld_safe –defaults-file=${MYSQLDATA}/my.cnf –user=mysql –datadir=${MYSQLDATA} –pid=file=${PIDFILE}
11. Start the service:
$ sudo svcadm enable mysql:version_51_2
$ sudo svcadm enable mysql:version_51
12. Verify that the two services are running by using:
$ svcs mysql
13. Verify the processes:
$ ps -ef | grep mysqld
14. Connect to each mysqld instance and verify:
$ mysql –defaults-file=/mysql/data/my.cnf -u root -p
$ mysql –defaults-file=/mysql/data2/my.cnf -u root -p

Some references for Solaris 11 newbies
Taking your first steps with Solaris 11
Introducing the basics of Image Packaging System
Service Management Facility How To Guide

For a detailed list of official educational modules available on Solaris 11, please visit here
For MySQL courses from Oracle University access this page.

Year 2012 So Far…

It’s hard to seek excuses for not showing up in here for regular updates. I’m not venturing into it hence. Year 2012 has been very engaging, both professionally and personally, and I wish to present before you some wonderful people whom I met in the OU classrooms while delivering training programs on various Oracle technologies. While I went through a number of Oracle products in the last few months, two of ’em were more regular than others: Solaris 11 and MySQL. Not to forget the First Global Teach Live Virtual Class on Java ME.


Oracle Solaris 11 Training in Bangalore


Oracle Solaris 11 Training in Delhi


Oracle Solaris 11 Training in Hyderabad


Oracle VM for SPARC Training at OU Hong Kong


Oracle VM for SPARC Training at Bangalore


Oracle Solaris 11 Training in Bangalore


Oracle Solaris 10 Training in Bangalore


Oracle Solaris 11 Training in Delhi


MySQL training Programs at Kochi, Kerala.


Attending Ofir Leitner’s Pilot teach on Java ME


Oracle Solaris 11 Training in Bangalore

Sad, I don’t have photographs of some smart people whom I came across in my live virtual classes on various Oracle technologies:(

New Year Wishes – Year 2012

Dear friend,

Ha, finally it’s concluding. Pardon me for starting this one on a very personal note. I’ve been wanting to spend a day harking back on some big changes in my life, both professional and personal. And I think there isn’t a better day than today to do so, when the whole world would bring down the curtain on a twelve month long period and welcome the arrival of another dozen months, filled with immense potential to fulfill all resolutions that’d open up today. I am not a big fan of New Year Celebrations, coz just like you, I know it’s only a calendar on the wall that gets replaced. All other things in life, almost, seems to stay the same. But this time around I was in need of a checkpoint to reflect and digest on some wondrous events in life that unfolded in the last several months. And so I am happy that an eventful Year 2011 is finally giving way to its successor.

I have had the taste of joy and sorrow, successes and failures, gains and losses, and many other dualities of existence in the year that’s passing by. Tell me if you know someone who had a different pattern in their life. It’d be foolish of me to expect the coming year to offer me only roses all the way, but I would certainly wish to have a life filled with many positive moments in the New Year that’s marching in. I wish and hope the same for you as well.

In the Year 2011 that’s to become history in a few hours from now, if I’ve hit the Losada Line most part of the year, that’s solely because of some wonderful human relationships. I don’t believe I’ve any better asset than the people who have connected with me through one channel or the other. And so the main reason to show up, just like every year on this day, is to express my deep felt gratitude to you for being there for me and for helping me stay positive, one way or the other. Thank you .

Also, I wish you good luck with the list of resolutions that you’ve prepared for yourself in the coming year and pray you don’t fall prey to the events that’d fall on January 16 2012, Monday.

Wishing you a good Year 2012 ahead…

Solaris Administration Sessions

I’ve been lazy to show up on this site to update on what I’ve been up in the last couple of months. I wish to get over that before Year 2011 give way to 2012. So let me make it curt: I’ve been learning and teaching mostly Solaris.

Published below are the photographs of people whom I met up in the process of discussing Solaris, the most recent batch at the top and the oldest at the end:


Solaris 10 Administration Session @ Delhi

Transition to Solaris 11 Session in Bangalore

Solaris 11 Administration Session in Bangalore

Transition to Solaris 11 Session in Bangalore

Transition to Solaris 11 – Batch III

With just under a fortnight left for the official launch of Oracle Solaris 11, the elite club of OU trained Solaris 11 professionals has grown by a few additional numbers.

I’ve no doubt that their experience on transitioning to Solaris 11 have been enriching. So don’t wait anymore, come join the Solaris 11 Club!

Well, if you aren’t convinced on hearing this from an insignificant soul like me, I recommend you go here and register for the Oracle Solaris Launch webcast on November 09 2011, Wednesday (9:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. ET) and hear it straight from the people who matter. Again, don’t miss this historic event. Register NOW!.

Friends from Yahoo who showed up for an OU program around MySQL.



If there are people out there, who’d wish to know what OU has in offer for professionals well versed in MySQL Database Administration, please refer to the MySQL Performance Tuning and MySQL Cluster course description and schedule.

And for those interested to validate their skill on MySQL DBA, I recommend MySQL DBA Certification exam. Believe me, taming sakila is an experience in itself.

First Global Teach on Transition to Solaris 11 in Bangalore

I’m a movie buff. I love watching paid preview shows of high profile movies. In doing so, there is something more than just satisfying my bloated ego. Perhaps, it’s the pleasure of being a part of that small circle of audience who get to hear a great piece of story first. And so I don’t blame those folks who spend a whole night in a queue to pick up the first delivery of an Apple product and I don’t blame those children standing in a mile long human chain to grab the first prints of a Harry Potter book. They all seem to belong to a league so different.

Do you want to know how it feels to belong such a prestige club? Someone in the picture can tell you that, coz they just managed to get a hands on exposure – the first of its kind globally- to what is expected to be the World’s best Unix OS to be released. Don’t read that line again, you heard it right: the OS is not out yet!

So if you’d love to find you in a club so special and not wait for the fancy release date of 11/11/’11 to get a feel of the best Unix flavour, come join a 2070 minute long training program from Oracle University.

In the meantime, download Solaris 11 going here and have a quick look at the complete set of documentation on Solaris 11 right here.

Two Virtualization Sessions

My last two programs in this part of the world have been around two very powerful and useful virtualization solution from Oracle. Published below are photographs from each of the session, the most recent on the top:


OU program on Oracle VDI in Bangalore.


OU session on Oracle VM Server for SPARC in Noida.

Read a comment on Oracle VDI OU course on this blog. Documentation on Oracle VM Server for SPARC is here and for the Oracle VDI information, check this out.

IDM Session in Pune

At the beautiful campus of a Client in Pune, we concluded a five day discussion on Identity Manager.

It is commendable that even after an energy sapping five day program from OU, folks still didn’t turn down my request to perform teach back on the concluding day of the program. Thanks and good work.




I happened to stumble on this You Tube video on Installing Identity Manager 8.1, which I think is quite a useful one. Complete documentation on Sun Identity Manager 8.1 (n.k.a Oracle Waveset IDM) is available here.

Thanks also to all my good old friends who managed to find some time to catch up with my at Pune.

ODSEE Session in Bangalore

Met up with a dozen familiar faces again the bygone week for a discussion on ODSEE Maintenance and Operations. Thanks again to each of ’em for turning up for an Oracle University Course.

For those interested in knowing ways to get binaries of Directory Server Enterprise Edition, please visit this blog.. Directory Server EE documentation are all available here. Click here to register for a webcast on Introduction to Unified Directory 11g on July 21 2011.

Solaris Cluster 3.2 Cluster Advanced Administration Session in Bangalore

This evening, I concluded an engaging five day session on Solaris Cluster 3.2 Advanced Administration. Thanks to each one in the photo below for showing up for an OU course on Solaris Cluster 3.2 Advanced Administration.

For complete set of documentation on Solaris Cluster 3.2, click here. Details on Solaris Cluster 3.2 certification is here. Good weekend, all. 🙂

Oracle VM for SPARC Training in Bangalore

Not long ago, Oracle announced the latest version of of Oracle VM Server for SPARC. For press release around the same, click right here. This new version now supports “live migration” details of which are neatly published on this blog.

Just around the same time, I was delivering a training program on Oracle VM for SPARC at Bangalore and in the photo below you’d see my new friends:

For complete set of documentation on Oracle VM for SPARC, go here.

May Engagements

This isn’t exactly the way I want to be publishing my blogs, like a monthly newsletter briefing on my engagements in a month. For now though, I request my suffering readers to live by it, but I promise to be more regular than this on my blogging activities. Starting from the more recent assignment to the oldest one, please find a photo essay one below the other:


Access Manager Training at Bangalore.


Oracle Directory Server EE Training at Greater Noida.


SAM QFS Training at Hyderabad.

Finally, let me leave you with some photographs from the JavaOne conference held at Hyderabad in May this year.



Catching Up…

That I’ve been lazy is a monumental understatement. I show up now to quickly post an update on what I’ve been doing over the past couple of months. Well, I have been traveling and traveling a lot. While I had an opportunity to travel across the state of Gujarat, delivering various seminars on Java/JavaFX at locations like Anand, Bhuj, Jamnagar, I, unfortunately, don’t have any photographic images from the trip. What I have is, as always, batch photographs from training programs, and here it is one after the other from the most recent to the oldest:

Administering Lustre Based Cluster @ Chennai during the third week of April 2011.

Solaris Cluster 3.2 u3 Administration Session @ Delhi during the last week for March 2011.

Solaris Cluster 3.2 u3 Administration Session @ Mumbai during the mid week of March 2011.

Sun Identity Manager Deployment Fundaments II program @ Hyderabad. (Look closely and you’ll see one participant attending the program using video conferencing)

I’m leaving this space, hoping to post updates promptly and regularly.

A Month at Hyderabad

Remember writing this New Year Wishes to my friends and associates, and already one month has passed in Year 2011. Time flies! And when a month is spent in company of some good human beings, the concept of time seems so meaningless. A Shreya Ghoshal Concert and an absorbing light & sound show at Golkonda Fort was an extra topping to go with four weeks of Solaris Cluster, Sun Fire Midrange and High End Server and M-Series Server teaching sessions while at Hyderabad, the whole of January 2011. Thanks to each of the thirteen training participants for giving me a good engaging start to the Year 2011.

Thanks also to them for not turning down my request to share their ‘top ten take-back’ from the whole program.

Systems Training, Hyderabad 01/02/11 8:01 AM

New Year Wishes – Year 2011

In just a few hours time, one beautiful desktop calendar that served me for the past twelve months would find its way to trash. Thankfully, my memories wouldn’t go accompanying it.

For those who know me for over a year now perhaps know I show up on this ‘special day’ every year, where ever I’m, to remind you that you’re in my thoughts and that I’m so grateful for your significant influence on my makeup. I call this a ‘special day’ not because any of us expect the world to be any different, when Sun rises tomorrow, but because at least some consider this to be a day to draw the curtain down on a year long episode of life and start a new one, a better one, with greater vigour. Like every year, let time tell us if we were smart enough to keep our resolutions realistic. But I do hope that we develop and maintain the will to achieve all noble goals we have in our mind for the Year 2011.

With some hours left in Year 2010, maybe, it isn’t futile to quickly look back at it, cherish all great moments once again, try and absorb the events that invoked negative emotions in us and forgive ourselves for all mistakes made and figure out corrective measures to fix it. With a hope that we all turn mature enough to accept all events in life with equanimity and make necessary changes in life, if,when and wherever required, to keep ourselves reasonably happy at least most part of the year, let’s get ready to welcome the Year 2011.

On a personal note, I’m grateful to have been able to maintain positive relationship with most of the people whom I knew before the beginning of Year 2010 and more so for being able to connect with some more wonderful human beings in the year that’s passing by, and for the great lessons of life they made me pick up from them. Thank you! Sorry, if I didn’t live up to the expectations of some. Next year, I hope to reduce the degree of separation with the world citizens even further.

Before I leave you to let you enjoy the New Year Celebrations in your own way, I want to thank you again for all your support and wish you and yours a New Year full of purpose and meaning.

Celebrate the arrival of Year 2011.

Lustre File System & N1 Grid Engine Sessions in Dubai

That the Egyptian One Pound Coin carries the figure of Pharaoh Tutankhamun is something that I learned from one of the folks in the picture below. Not just that, the story of Sphinx is quite clearer to me than ever before, thanks to these fellows from Egypt. It felt great to interact with them, learn a lot about the geography of Egypt, its culture, and was also interesting to know of the grand library that they all work for. Well, my commitment to them was to conduct a teach on Lustre and Grid Engine. In a venue at Dubai whether my discussion was useful for them is for them to comment, but I found it a good learning experience to be with them for a week and learn some interesting things. Thanks to each one of them for showing up for a course on Lustre and on N1 Grid Engine and for their wonderful company.

Oracle Solaris 11 Express 2010.11

By now, I hope all of you are aware of the announcement around Oracle Solaris 11 Express 10.11. If not, read the press release here. Check out what’s new in Solaris 11 Express by downloading the ‘What’s new’ PDF file from this link. Another PDF available here talks about what’s new in Oracle Solaris 11 Express for System Administrators and one another file downloadable from this location helps Applications Developers know what’s new in Oracle Solaris 11 Express.

For several videos on Solaris 11 Express, check out this page.

Well, if you are one of those, who doesn’t have patience to go through the resources as mentioned above, but want to get started straight away, download Oracle Solaris 11 Express from here.

And do remember to join a webcast on Dec 07 2010 around the New Oracle Solaris 11 Express. Click here to register.

Four Engaging Days of Session On Directory Server

Feels so satisfied to have gone through an engaging four day session on Directory Server. Thanks to each of ’em in the photo below for pushing themselves to stay late on most of the evenings, including the concluding day to perform a neat ‘teach back’ session.

Special thanks to Ashish Adyanthaya for taking up the responsibility of capturing the ‘teach back’ session (most of it).





Click here for the download location of Directory Server and other related Identity Management products.

Access Manager Session in Bangalore

Below is the batch photograph taken on the concluding day of a five day session on Sun Java System Access Manager at Bangalore, which began on 27 August 2010. Thanks again to David Goldsmith for the wonderful course that he developed around this product, my job was rather easy and we had good fun and great learning (I hope so).

On the last day of the program, on my request, we had a thorough revision of the whole program, in the form of a good solid ‘teach back’ from each of the participant. May be, that was the highlight of the whole session and I thank each of them for putting in so much of effort to help me feel satisfied and proud.



For those who are looking for details about evolved version of the above product, I suggest going here.

Solaris Cluster 3.2 11/09 Training at Bangalore

It was quite some time since I took up a training program on HA platform for Solaris. Last week, I happened to take it up again in Bangalore. In spite of a gap, I could go through one of my favourite courses on Solaris Cluster rather easily. Thanks to all in the picture below for dropping in to our classroom session for a five day program on Solaris Cluster 3.2 11/09 release. I enjoyed every bit of it and I hope they all had their share of fun and some serious learning during the program that concluded on first Saturday of August 2010. Wishing them good luck for their assignments ahead.

For a quick look at the interesting new features of Solaris Cluster 3.2 11/09, this blog is a good one. Also to remind all interested parties of a Certification Program that exists on Solaris Cluster 3.2 for which the details are right here.

OpenSSO Deployment Essentials Session at Hyderabad

I’ve spoken here how engaging is to go through this program on OpenSSO. It was no different when I met up with the folks in the snap below at Hyderabad.

As usual, I didn’t spare them from having to go through a teach back session on the concluding day of the program. They all did a great job in presenting the Access Management concepts in under two hours time.


IDM 4485

IDM 4485 course has stringent pre-requisites. That’s one reason why the batch concluded last week had less number of participants attending it. Well, the course doesn’t happen very often, but when it happens, I get to meet some friends with some really solid knowledge in Sun Java System Identity Manager. Some of ’em, you would see in the snap below:

A Weekend Batch on Solaris Cluster 3.2

It’s another weekend; long one this time. So before I get into a lazy mood, I thought I would show up and publish the batch photograph taken during a Solaris Cluster 3.2 training at Bangalore, last weekend. It was quite an engaging three days session on High Availability for the folks whom you see in the snap.

Thank you folks, for dropping in; more so for kinds words as this.

Tech Days 2010 – Concluding Day

The concluding day (Day 02) of this years edition of Tech Days had two keynotes: one by Georges Saab, Vice President, Fusion Middleware, Oracle who spoke at length about several components and then Nandini Ramini took stage to take us through the evolution of Java Technology, ending it with some exciting demonstrations on JavaFX. By the way, if you want to subscribe for access to four good expert-led presentations on JavaFX, click right here.

Like every year, this year also we had a fifteen minute session (~) on ‘Strange & Unusual Talent’ (earlier known as ‘Java Jacket Giveaway’) for which nine delegates got on to the stage to display their talent and win back a really cool Java Leather Jacket. This time around a Flautist and a ‘dancer’ managed to win the support of thousands of Tech Days delegates (winner is decided based on the intensity of applause by the audience) to carry away a Java leather jacket each.





I’m certain, thousands of Tech Days 2010 delegates had great two days of learning and of course some fun.

Tech Days 2010 – Day01

“Change is the only changeless thing in this Universe.” Though the venue of Sun Tech Days remained unchanged over the last four years in India, one big change in this years edition is evident on a glance at the delegate badge. Well, if you didn’t understand what I said, have a look at my badge:


As you walk into the HICC convention center at Hyderabad, where the Tech Days 2010 is hosted, you will greeted by folks sitting in different stalls including a Technology Book stall that offers a 25 % discount on all books, a stall for Education where enquiries around Training & Certification are handled and also a stall dedicated for StarOffice/OpenOffice.Org. If it’s too hard for to visualize, the following pictures might just help.






On a stage that reflected only bright red colour from one end to the other, Ravichandra Kulur displayed his extraordinary skill in playing the Flute quite effortlessly. It was mind blowing.

It was followed by a demonstration around a new feature in VirtualBox called teleporting and then about a really cool drawing tool developed using JavaFX.


Krishan Dhawan, Managing Director of Oracle India addressed the crowd after this.

As James Gosling walked on to the stage, thousands of Tech Days Delegates gathered in there gave him a very warm reception. He covered quite a few things in his keynote, starting with the staggering statistics about 10 billion-ish Java Enabled Devices, a number more than the human population on earth(!), jdk 7, Java EE 6, Glassfish v3, Netbeans 6.8, Java Card 3, JavaFX.

Among several interesting things that James Gosling spoke on day 01 of Tech Days 2010 at Hyderabad, a few things that stand out in his keynote is his reference to Java being used in all Universities across the globe as part of undergraduate courses and how students could just “Learn (it) Once and Work Anywhere,” his mentioning of blogs by Mark Reinholds and John Rose to pick up new knowledge on Java technology, his excitement about the auto deployment feature of Glassfish v3 that enables a developer to modify his/her code on the fly without wasting any time and finally about his thoughts on multi-threaded programming and its significance a few years into the future (say 2030), where one might see processors that may have more than 5000 cores(!!!), courtesy Moore’s law.

What interested me personally was the software that James was using to run through his presentation. Though he was using an Apple laptop, I was sure he was neither using a keynote or an OpenOffice.Org. He revealed to us at one point of time during his presentation that he was using an application that he developed using JavaFX to run through his slides!!! That was kind of cool. I am inspired and I am going to spend some time reading and developing on JavaFX. I encourage all of you to do so, coz it is damn cool.

Several break out sessions (a.k.a tracks) on different technologies occurred at different locations within the venue and it all appeared to be well-received by the delegates. And after all that, we had some entertainment session in the late evening, something that’s unchanged on the Tech Days agenda for several years now.

A good day 01 at Tech Days 2010 .:)

On a Foggy Week In Delhi

On a week when Delhi recorded the worst fog in the last seven years, I was going through a Directory Server training for the folks in the picture below; my third consecutive training on Sun Directory Server.

While I wouldn’t forget the remarkable experience of being driven in a car through dense fog with near zero visibility and yet managing to reach the destination on time, on all days of my stay at Delhi, I think the memories of my sessions with the folks on the picture above would remain clearer. It was fun, to say the least.Finally, before I left them, I wanted them to experience the joy of teaching…

Thank you folks for some great memories; more so for the wonderful gift.

New Year Wishes – Year 2010

To my ever tolerant audience, to my friends and relatives, available round the clock for valuable support and guidance, and to all those who are very close to my heart, here is a special note, exactly a day before yet another sunrise in our life that’d see us replace one more calendar with a brand new one, quite symbolic to our mind’s act of replacing unfullfilled dreams and promises with new ones and to give it all a fresh beginning. Though the Nature does nothing spectacular on the day of New Year, every year, I’d wager we continue to consider the New Year to be that one special occasion when new exciting goals are set and some strong resolutions made. How far would we stretch ourselves to make our resolutions count and to achieve our goal is something that only time will tell. Nonetheless, we have every right to hope for a grand beginning to a new episode in this short journey called life. And with a mind brimming with such positive thoughts about a promising future, it is but natural for us to celebrate the moment when another New Year would march gently into our life.

Before we bid farewell to this year and welcome the New Year, it isn’t inappropriate to spare some moments to reflect on the surprises – some pleasant, some shocking- that life had in store for us in the year that’s passing by. Such sessions of reflection would only bring into light a common pattern in our lives: some moments of glory, some of utter misery, some exciting ones, some very depressing, some that invokes happiness and some grievous and sick. One would imagine that all such elements of emotion shall continue to show up in everyone’s life and that all of us, at least on the day before another New Year in our life, spend a few minutes figuring out means that’d help us raise ourselves to a different plane enabling us to digest all ups and downs in life with equanimity, and not just hope for a New Year full of only favourable events.

Like I have written elsewhere, every time I fall into a retrospective mood, what comes to my mind instantly are memories of time spent with some good human beings and their influence in my makeup: be it my loving relatives, affectionate friends, extremely professional colleagues or cherished training participants. So on the last day of an eventful Year 2009, the least I should do to satisfy my conscience is to spend some time remembering them all, expressing my deep felt gratitude and affection. I thank God for connecting me with so many wonderful people and giving me opportunities after opportunities to learn so many valuable lessons in life. I’m hopeful, the Year 2010 would bring me many more such great ‘teachers’.

Here’s wishing all a very happy, peaceful and prosperous New Year 2010.

This Day, That Year

Exactly two years back, on this date, I expressed my excitement about the arrival of Season of Joy on this very same blogs and boy, haven’t several things changed dramatically since then! The most significant – at least in my professional life – is perhaps this, that approximately two years ago Sun announced its intent to acquire the World’s most popular OpenSource database company and now it is the World’s largest Enterprise Database Company who turns the buyer. And even with those wild changes happening around, pushing everything else to the background and making it all look insignificant, I haven’t really failed to notice some interesting patterns in my professional life. Though it may sound rather silly to the public, I felt tickled on discovering that in the Year 2008 on the date of 17th December, I walked into an organization in Bangalore (which is now a part of IBM) to conduct a four day training program on Directory Server EE Analysis & Planning, and two years forward to it, on the same date I found myself in Chennai facing another set of enthusiastic audience from an organization (which is now a part of HP) and delivered a four day program on Directory Server EE Maintenance & Operations. I know such patterns may make no difference in life, but then the discovery of it generates enough excitement to immediately mention it in a private journal or to push it to the blogosphere, just the way I am doing now. Well one another pattern is: Sun Directory Server EE solution was stronger then, it is stronger now and it will only get better.

And to the folks in the photograph below, who attended the DSEE training at Chennai, my sincere thanks for choosing Sun and more so for offering a wonderful gift.

Life will go on. And from among the very many wild variations in the series of events in life, I would continue to observe and note those little ones that will fall in some interesting pattern.

‘Kolkata Marathon’ – Phase I

Two days from now, the city of Kolkata is hosting a walkathon, supposedly the first of its kind in the city. Though I’m in kolkata now, I have made no plans whatsoever to walk along with the whole of Kolkata in the walkathon as mentioned above. As such, I am already in a marathon, started exactly five days back, at a leading IT Consulting company in this part of India. In case if it isn’t clear, let me use plainer language and say, I am doing a continuous ten days training program at a client location here in Kolkata. And this evening, the first part of ‘my marathon’ came to a conclusion. Tomorrow, I’m starting its second phase, spanning over to the next five days.

The program participants were generous to step out of their premise, declared as a ‘No Photograpy Zone’, to pose for a batch photograph. And the least I should do in return is to publish it here:

OpenSSO Enterprise 8 Deployment Training at Bangalore

A couple of days forward to the announcement about the availability of OpenSSO Express 8, I met up with the folks in the photograph below at our Learning Center in Bangalore for a five day session on OpenSSO deployment. Thanks to David Goldsmith for developing a near perfect OpenSSO Deployment Labs, employing the powerful features of Solaris 10 OS like Solaris Containers and ZFS, giving the audience of this program an experience close to a real time OpenSSO deployment.

Since the course used a number of software components like Glassfish, WebServer, ‘OpenDS’, Directory Server EE and of course OpenSSO, I requested all participants to help me do a quick review of the entire course on the last day by doing a teach back. Thanks to each of them for doing a good job reviewing the topics well, helping each other gain considerably good clarity on the overall contents of the course.


For me, the bygone week was nothing less than immensely satisfying.