Hi everyone,

The conference was fantastic, there were about 120 attendees from
around the world  including a pretty big delegation from CA from
various departments around the  states coming in to learn about Ingres
installation and administration of Ingres.  It is obvious that CA is
heavily committed to Ingres and OpenROAD. Some attendees came in for
one or two day training only.

The speakers were very interesting. The exhibitors did a great job
with many applications and services which use or support ingres and
related products. There were 4 days of non-stop sessions around 90
hours in 4 tracks. I just could not be in all four tracks at the same
time.  The keynote speakers were impressive:

* Dr Michael Stonebraker - the founder of ingres gave a very
interesting talk about  its history and also described some of the
projects he was currently working with.

* Emma McGrattan spoke about Ingres R3 and OpenROAD R5 - new features,
support  options and the sudden increase in interest in participation
in Ingres Open source .

* Tony Gaughan spoke about the open source project and why it is so
important to CA's future.

The conference was attended by some of the biggest names in the Ingres
user community and development groups.  In the hotel bar one evening I
discovered I was sitting at a table with a handful of experts covering
over 200 years of ingres experience. I was in awe - I'd never heard
about delayed constraint checking before that evening - I think I
finally get it. These guys have a great sense of  humour - very
entertaining.

The OpenROAD sessions were interesting covering OpenROAD eClient, Web
deployment, OpenROAD R5 and futures, Introduction to OpenROAD and
Interfaces to OpenROAD.  Be sure to download copies of the
presentations from www.theingresconference.com.  I discovered there
were many people who had never heard of OpenROAD before - they were
pretty impressed by what we have been doing with the product.
Attendance lower at the OR sessions compared to the Ingres sessions -
but I think we will get a better turn out next time based on the
number of enquiries I received.

It was very interesting to speak to the developers and designers of
Ingres and  OpenROAD. They were all very friendly and easy to talk to.
I even got a peek at some of new features which are in the early
prototype stages.

I ran around with my camera taking lots of pictures and a bit of video
footage.  The images will be posted at the ingres conference website
shortly. I also handed out a few goodies from the Australian Ingres
users group - there was a rush on the Aussie chocolates and - boy the
vegemite disappeared quickly. I only got 66% in the Ingres Trivia
quiz. I'll have to go and have another look at  the manual. If anyone
is interested have a look at www.theingresconference.com.

The food was excellent. The Marriott hotel catering did a great job.
The organisers from DMT and CA are to be congratulated for a well run
event.

I definitely plan on attending the next one. Who knows, it might even
be hosted down under.

Paul White
President Victorian Ingres Users Group
OpenROAD Users Mail List Admin