SanjayM's 2c

Oracle MySQL participated at the Open Source India at the NIMHANS convention center on 11-13 Nov 2013 (http://osidays.com/osidays/).

This is the third year we participated and yours truly had the pleasure to deliver the keynote about MySQL. Was also invited to participate in a panel discussion on the importance of certification.

OSI has become the meeting place for all open source professionals at Bangalore. It was a pleasure to meet with old friends who are passionate about open source.

There were a number of interesting talks. Many open source companies had their booths at the exhibition center and all seemed to be buzzing with activity.

We were informally informed that there were about 800 attendees on Day 1.

We received many positive comments about the panel discussion on the importance of certification. The discussion concluded that though certification is an important tool for self improvement, it needs to be pursued for the learning potential and not just as a rubber stamp of achievement.
Kudos to Divyanshu for great moderation.

Though there were not many talks that I could attend on day one; the one that stood out, was the journey of Atul Ltd towards the adoption of open source and how Balaranjith their GM IT has taken Atul on the path of open source. He was justifiably proud of the 1.5 terabyte database he plans to host on MySQL and the open source learning established in his team which is based hundreds of kilometers from any large town.

We were a little disappointed that the database day was on the last day of the conference. Fortunately for us, the attendance did not flag till the last day. The quality of professionals that attended the conference was just the right blend of professionals using open source technologies, startups, enthusiasts and a sprinkling of students who understood and care about open source.

The MySQL sessions started with more than 100 attendees for the first 2 sessions. Even the last talk on Fabric and Multi source replication managed to retain about 20 enthusiasts right till the 6.15 PM when it ended.

The marketing team seemed satisfied with the quality and quantum of responses at the booth.

Congratulations to EFY India for another successful conference. And thanks for being such gratious and efficient hosts.

The organizers have promised the slides from the sessions to be available at their website soon so if you missed the conference do get the slides from the OSI website when they are available. There was also a camera recording for all sessions so maybe a recording will also be available.