"No collector" approach to monitor GraalVM Native Image applications

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Java

Friday, May 30, 2025 10:00 - 10:45 CEST

This session will demonstrate how to collect signals from GraalVM Native Image applications with OpenTelemetry in a "no collector" approach, providing valuable insights for those seeking to optimise their data collection processes. Furthermore, I will share insights and benefits on the technical aspects, based on my experience of supporting several customers in real-world scenarios.
GraalVM Native Image is an excellent technology for reducing the time taken to start up, the potential for attack and the amount of memory required by Java applications, offering significant benefits to customers. From an observability standpoint, however, the typical monitoring agent is not the optimal choice for native image applications, as they do not require a standard JVM to run.
To address this challenge, the "no collector" approach is emerging as the preferred solution for Java-based microservices, including GraalVM Native Image. This approach is gradually being supported by various observability solutions and development frameworks.
Attendees will gain the knowledge to effectively use the no-collector approach for monitoring GraalVM Native Image applications.

About Akihiro Nishikawa

Aki loves A JVM/GraalVM and JVM based open-source technologies, and also a board member of JJUG (Japan Java Users Group). As a Cloud Solution Architect in Microsoft, he has been helping customers solve their technical challenges with his expertise in application development (containers, PaaS, DevOps, and so on) and application integration (iPaaS such as system/business process orchestration, API management, and EDI).

A Deep Dive View to the Performance of Views

MakeIT 2025 Development

Thursday, May 29, 2025 11:00 - 11:45 CEST

"Don't use views in Oracle! They are terribly slow and cause a lot of performance issues." - That was the recommendation of a former colleague when I started working with Oracle databases in 1994. It wasn't just due to my colleague's (and my!) ignorance that he gave me this advice. Back then, with Oracle version 7, there were still many limitations and problems with views.

Fortunately, those days are gone. With Oracle versions 8i to 23ai, many improvements, transformations and new features were added to the Oracle optimizer. Thanks to “Predicate Pushing”, “Complex View Merging” and “Join Elimination”, many typical performance problems with views are now solved automatically. Subsumptions of views - the newest extension in 23ai - allows even to combine multiple views into one.

However, it is still important to understand how views work and how the Optimizer deals with them. With the appropriate knowledge, it is now much easier to develop efficient views.

About Dani Schnider

Dani Schnider is an Oracle ACE Director and works as Principal Oracle & DWH Consultant for Callista, a Swiss IT service provider for consulting and engineering. He has been working in database consulting for over 20 years, from 1999 to 2022 for Trivadis in Switzerland. Dani works with Oracle databases since 1994, since 1997 mainly in data warehouse projects.

A DWH in the Oracle Cloud: From the bucket to the dashboard

MakeIT 2025 Database development Analytics

Friday, May 30, 2025 16:00 - 16:45 CEST

At university, exams are often done electronically. This generates a lot of data that can be analyzed. The information obtained in this way helps lecturers to improve the quality of exam questions and recognize which material was not understood and should be taught differently. Students can be shown how they performed in detail and in which tasks they were above or below the class average. Unfortunately, the evaluation options in electronic examination environments are usually limited. For this reason, we at the fhnw Brugg/Windisch University of Applied Sciences have developed a DWH pilot that obtains data from the Moodle electronic examination environment and processes it in such a way that analyses can be carried out more easily. The data from Moodle is written to a bucket in the OCI (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure). The loading process then reads the data from there and loads it into the core. The data model in the core is structured as a data vault so that it can be easily expanded. Students have built a dashboard with which lecturers can easily obtain analyses in graphical form. A REST interface was built for this purpose. Based on this first pilot of a dashboard we then designed and implemented a Mart. To visualize the data, we use APEX. So we have the dashboard in the same cloud as the data.
The presentation will show how the DWH is modelled and how it is technically implemented from bucket to dashboard.

About Andrea Kennel

Dr Andrea Kennel studied computer science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) and added a PhD in computer science. In her more than 25 years of professional experience, she has always combined practice and teaching. Since 2014, Andrea is a lecturer a lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences Brugg/Windisch (www.fhnw.ch), where she is responsible for database lectures in computer science and data science. She also supervises bachelor theses and project teams that implement customer projects. In addition, she runs her own company, which she founded in 2005 (www.infokennel.ch). In this function she worked and still works mainly in Oracle DWH projects as Lead Data Architect and as developer or project manager. She regularly gives presentations at conferences and writes articles.

A Practical Guide to Approaching Software Development

MakeIT 2025 Agile Methodologies Culture & Collaboration

Thursday, May 29, 2025 14:00 - 14:45 CEST

Managing a software development project can be challenging. Agile often falls short of its lofty promises, yet reverting to the Waterfall model doesn’t seem like a viable option. Ask an expert what to do, and the answer will likely be: 'It depends.' But on what?

Time to reflect on the lessons learned from all approaches that have shaped the industry. Building on these insights, we'll explore viable options for combining and blending approaches to suit your context. Along the way we'll discuss critical aspects such as cost-efficiency, vocal points, delivery cycles and change policies.

No matter your role in the development lifecycle, this session is for you.

About Bas Meeuwissen

I have a wide range of interests, and this diversity is reflected in my professional career. In 2010, my journey began as a low-code developer, while also maintaining my proficiency in traditional programming. This dual-track approach has provided me with a comprehensive understanding of software development. Throughout my career, I have achieved the role of a lead software architect. Today, I leverage my extensive experience to assist companies and write about the intersection of low-code and high-code development.

AI Tools for Jakarta EE

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 AI Developer Productivity IDE & Tools Serverside Java AI

Friday, May 30, 2025 14:00 - 14:45 CEST

Discover how AI-powered tools are reshaping Jakarta EE development by optimizing the entire development lifecycle.

Traditionally, developers have relied on archetypes, project generators, and visual designers to kickstart projects. But what happens when we add an AI language model to the mix? The result is an intelligent project generator that scaffolds domain-relevant Jakarta EE applications with both backend and frontend functionalities ready to go.

Join us to witness how AI-powered tools are transforming enterprise application development through real-world, cutting-edge demonstrations. Discover how AI-powered tools enhance productivity and streamline workflows in Apache NetBeans IDE and beyond, from creating a simple hello-world program to developing full-stack applications.

About Gaurav Gupta

Gaurav Gupta is a Senior Software Engineer at Payara and the author of Jeddict, an innovative, open-source, AI-powered Jakarta EE application development platform. In addition to his work at Payara, Gaurav actively contributes to the Apache NetBeans IDE and the Eclipse GlassFish server, bringing his extensive expertise and dedication to advancing these key open-source tools.

AI-Powered Form Wizards: Chat, Click, Done

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 AI UI & UX Quarkus Java

Friday, May 30, 2025 11:00 - 11:45 CEST

Forms are everywhere—tax declarations, job applications, or even signing up for a new service. Although some forms are simple, many include ambiguous fields, complicated logic, or subpar design, which frustrates users and makes them more likely to make mistakes. Completing paperwork shouldn't be like solving a puzzle. What if consumers could just chat with an AI that walks them through each step instead of having to struggle?

In this session, I'll discuss my experience developing an AI-powered form-filling helper with LangChain4j, Quarkus and other useful Java libraries. We'll go over the challenges faced and how to overcome them, such as transforming text into form data with validations, assisting users based on their input, and the role of RAG in all of that. This talk will use examples to demonstrate how AI can assist users in their daily interactions with your software.

After this session, you will have the ideas and techniques to create more intelligent and user-friendly forms. Learn how to make forms enjoyable rather than tedious by using AI to assist your users, reduce errors, and eliminate aggravation.

About Loïc Magnette

Loïc Magnette is a seasoned software developer with a strong background in consulting. Currently a senior developer at Oniryx, he specializes in Java and Angular, delivering innovative solutions and sharing his knowledge as a speaker. As a co-organizer of the Belgian Java User Group (BeJUG), he fosters connections within the developer community. Outside of tech, Loïc’s passion for wildlife inspires his work and creativity.

Analytics in 2025: new challenges, on many levels, in unexpected ways

MakeIT 2025 Analytics

Friday, May 30, 2025 10:00 - 10:45 CEST

Analytics today is different than BI 10 years ago, and even more than reporting 20+ years ago. Modern trends impact everything: from the hardware to the software, from the people to the job roles.
Some still believe the work is the same as before, with Business Intelligence: queries on simple data warehouses, retrieving the needed information, and limited freedom for users to do something else. Or even worse, some still believe it is like reporting: a set of static queries executed on a schedule to dump a large amount of data into files.
Things changed! A lot! Nowadays, it's all about Advanced Analytics, Augmented Analytics, self-service, ML and even AI.
What does it mean for your environment? Your servers will be hammered with very different workloads than what happened before. Your job and the roles of the people involved evolved into something else, requiring you to be aware of the changes because your daily job is also changing. You will receive different questions from users, and they will often not speak your language at all, because they aren't aware of what their simple "click" on a screen did generate behind the scenes.
What are the current trends? What do analytical platforms offer to users these days? What different load should you expect on your environments? How is your job impacted by these changes in users' needs?
A quick overview of what an analytical platform is like today, highlighting the new challenges you must face, and the new responsibilities.

About Gianni Ceresa

A Data enthusiast more widely interested in BA/DW/EPM solutions with a special focus on Oracle products and solutions. Oracle ACE Director, owner of DATAlysis LLC, a consulting company in Switzerland, he has more than 15 years of experience in multiple project roles like architect, analyst, team lead and developer, bridging together the business and the technical side of the BA world. His other activities include training delivery, R&D, blogging and supporting the Oracle community on the forums and by presenting at multiple events.

APEX and Spatial: Finding the most delicious Apple Pie

MakeIT 2025 APEX

Thursday, May 29, 2025 11:00 - 11:45 CEST

I love Apple Pie, especially when it's a little bit warm and there are big chunks of apple and a nice cinnamon flavour.. yum!
But where did we stop last time for applepie? Was it any good? Should we go to this place again or should we avoid it?
Where is the closest restaurant which serves the best apple pie?
All these - very important - questions can be answered with an APEX app.
The Oracle database has a lot of built-in Spatial functionality, like finding nearby locations or calculating distances. With APEX it is very easy to incorporate Maps into your applications and find your current location. This session introduces you to both so you can take advantage of Spatial functionality in your own APEX applications.

About Alex Nuijten

Alex Nuijten is a director at allAPEX, a company specializing in Oracle database development with PL/SQL and Oracle Application Express (APEX). Besides his consultancy work, he conducts training classes, mainly in APEX, SQL and PL/SQL. Alex has been a speaker at numerous international conferences, such as ODTUG, Oracle Open World, UKOUG, IOUG, OUGF, BGOUG, OGH APEX World and OBUG. For his presentations, Alex received several Best Speaker awards. Alex has written many articles in Oracle-related magazines, and he regularly writes about Oracle Application Express and Oracle database development on his blog "Notes on Oracle" (nuijten.blogspot.com). Alex is co-author of the book “Oracle APEX Best Practices” (Packt Publishers), “Real World SQL and PL/SQL” (Oracle Press) and "Modern Oracle Database Programming (Apress). Because of his contributions to the Oracle community, Alex was awarded the Oracle ACE Director award in August 2010.

APEX APIs and how to make them even better

MakeIT 2025 APEX

Thursday, May 29, 2025 15:00 - 15:45 CEST

Let’s be clear – APEX APIs are truly magnificent. They provide developers with powerful tools to simplify development tasks. But… even then… there is always some room for improvements. In this session I would like to showcase and explain how I extended APEX APIs and implemented additional functionalities like direct DML on APEX collections, APEX translations export or APEX_ZIP integration in SQL. No plugins, no JavaScript… just plain and simple SQL and PL/SQL.

About Zoran Tica

Database Designer, Business Analyst and Software Developer with 35+ years of experience. Oracle ACE Pro. Skilled in Database design, SQL and PL/SQL, APEX, Forms/Reports/Designer. Author of various APIs and utilities such as QR code generator, D.O.M.E, Word generator, SVG generator, which are available freely on GIT. Conference speaker at various conferences such as Apex Alpe Adria or regional Oracle User Groups (Slovenia, Austria, Croatia). Oracle certified professional for Advanced PL/SQL, APEX, Forms and Java SE developer.

APEX integration with Spotify, Discogs, Jira, LinkedIn, etcetera – all at once!

MakeIT 2025 APEX Application development

Thursday, May 29, 2025 17:45 - 18:30 CEST

REST services that involve user related data, like those of the platforms in the title, require the use of the OAuth Authorization Code flow. Here the user is led from the calling (in our case APEX) application to an authentication page provided by the platform, from which he is led back to the original (APEX) application. APEX does provide this mechanism, but only for the Social Sign-in, and as we can only sign in once, we can access only one of those APIs in this way. So if we want to access multiple REST APIs we have to invent our own mechanism. Fortunately this is possible using the tools APEX provides us. In this presentation I will show how such a mechanism could work, and I will demo an APEX application that combines the data from two of those REST APIs.

About André van der Put

André van der Put has been working with Oracle technology since 1997. The last 15 years his main focus is on Application Express. Currently he is employed by Open-Fine, where he builds and maintains APEX applications for several clients. He has presented several times at various conferences.

APEX, ORDS and JRDV - The Three Amigos

MakeIT 2025 APEX

Friday, May 30, 2025 09:00 - 09:45 CEST

Oracle Database 23c introduced JRDV: JSON -Relational Duality Views. This ground-breaking functionality give you the flexibiilty of JSON documents as well as all the advantages of the relational model.

A customer uses one centralised APEX Monitoring application to keep an eye on multiple satellite installations of APEX applications for different customers. Runtime data of these APEX applications are sent from the satellites to the Monitoring application using PL/SQL functions to code and decode the data and ORDS as the bridge in between.

Taking this real life project as a starting point we will demonstrate how the use of JSON-Relation Duality Views can have a huge impact on the complexity - and therefore maintainability - of the codebase.

About Alex Nuijten

Alex Nuijten is a director at allAPEX, a company specializing in Oracle database development with PL/SQL and Oracle Application Express (APEX). Besides his consultancy work, he conducts training classes, mainly in APEX, SQL and PL/SQL. Alex has been a speaker at numerous international conferences, such as ODTUG, Oracle Open World, UKOUG, IOUG, OUGF, BGOUG, OGH APEX World and OBUG. For his presentations, Alex received several Best Speaker awards. Alex has written many articles in Oracle-related magazines, and he regularly writes about Oracle Application Express and Oracle database development on his blog "Notes on Oracle" (nuijten.blogspot.com). Alex is co-author of the book “Oracle APEX Best Practices” (Packt Publishers), “Real World SQL and PL/SQL” (Oracle Press) and "Modern Oracle Database Programming (Apress). Because of his contributions to the Oracle community, Alex was awarded the Oracle ACE Director award in August 2010.

About Roel Hartman

Roel started a long time ago using Oracle RDBMS 5, Oracle Forms 2.3, RPT/RPF and Oracle*Case 4.5. Since over 10 years he focuses mainly on Oracle Application Express. Roel has been a speaker on UKOUG, OOW, Collaborate, ODTUG's Kscope and a number of local Oracle User Groups. Within ODTUG he acted as the APEX Content Lead for the Kscope14 and KScope15 conferences and currently is a member of the Board of Directors. He keeps an (APEX-related) blog on https://roelhartman.blogspot.com. In June 2009 Roel received an Oracle ACE award and in August 2010 he's appointed as Oracle ACE Director. Roel is a co-writer of the "Expert Oracle Application Express" and "Oracle Application Express for Mobile Web Applications" books. Roel is Director at APEX Consulting in The Netherlands.

API = Some REST and HTTP, right? RIGHT?!

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Java

Thursday, May 29, 2025 15:00 - 15:45 CEST

What does it mean building REST-full APIs? What do you need to think about while building and maintaining those? How do we expose data (hypermedia), handle errors, version the API, provide contracts, etc.? Join us for this interactive session using Jakarta EE and Microprofile. Finally, what are alternatives to REST-full-ish APIs, like GraphQL or standards like gRPC?

About Rustam Mehmandarov

Passionate computer scientist. Java Champion and Google Developers Expert for Cloud. Public speaker. Ex-leader of JavaZone and Norwegian JUG – javaBin.

Application Continuity with Oracle Database 23ai

MakeIT 2025 Oracle Database

Thursday, May 29, 2025 10:00 - 10:45 CEST

Hear about the latest Oracle Database 23ai enhancements to help you develop highly available applications faster, connect your applications more reliably, and make failover smoother during unforeseen outages and planned maintenance operations. Based on various customer use case examples, this session discusses optimized configurations for commercial and custom applications on various coding platforms, like Python, PHP, and Java, including drivers such as JDBC and ODP.NET, using technologies like Application Continuity and common application servers/connection pools such as WebLogic, JBoss, Oracle Universal Connection Pool, and HikariCP.

About Philippe Fierens

PM at Oracle in the MAA team, Philippe takes care of Fleet Patching and Provisioning, Exadata Fleet Update, and Exadata MAA. Before joining Oracle, Philippe was at DBA for more than 20 years, from which 7 years he worked on engineered systems ( Super Cluster and Exadata ) for various customers. In his free time, he is often seen on his gravel bike, bike packing, or doing hikes in the mountains with his 2 daughters, wife, and his dog.

Are you a Purist or a Pragmatist

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Architecture Application development

Thursday, May 29, 2025 10:00 - 10:45 CEST

When it comes to microservice architecture and data consistency, are you a purist or a pragmatist? The microservice purist takes the position 1) that every microservice needs its own database, 2) that distributed transactions are an anti-pattern, and 3) that data only needs to be eventually consistent. On the other hand a data consistency purist takes the position 1) that data consistency is paramount, 2) that isolation is mandatory, and 3) that data must be globally consistent. Neither is right or wrong and real applications require pragmatic trade-offs between these positions. The pragmatist looks at the context of any requirement to determine what trade-offs may need to be made. Should you trade-off data consistency for performance? Should you accept some temporal coupling to achieve better data consistency? This session will examine the purist positions and propose some pragmatic trade-offs to consider when designing a microservice based application.

About Brijesh Deo

Brijesh Deo is the Director of MicroTx product development in the database organization at Oracle. He is passionate about distributed systems and cloud technologies and specializes in Kubernetes, Microservices, and Java. Brijesh has a rich industry experience of more than two decades, having worked with Motorola, Dell SonicWALL, and Juniper Networks. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from National Institute of Technology, India.

About Todd Little

Todd Little is chief architect for transaction processing products at Oracle, including the Oracle Tuxedo product family, Oracle Blockchain Platform, and Oracle Transaction Manager for Microservices (MicroTx). Todd is responsible for defining the technical strategy and direction for these products, and his main areas of focus are security, privacy, confidentiality, performance, and scalability. He has received 44 patents related to software development and spoken at such conferences as SXSW, Hyperledger Global Forum, Voice of Blockchain, World Crypto Conference, and most BEA World and Oracle World - Cloud World conferences.

Automate Data Guard

MakeIT 2025 Oracle Database

Thursday, May 29, 2025 15:00 - 15:45 CEST

Automation, automation, automation everywhere. Can we and how can we automate Data Guard?

Everybody is talking about automation and all this fancy stuff.

But how does it look like, what tools do we have to automate database operation and where are the limits for each way? I will show you how you can create a Data Guard configuration from scratch in an automated fashion. The focus is on how to configure and setup an environment with as few ssh connections as possible. What tools do we have?

About Julian Frey

Julian Frey is founder of CITE GmbH. During his more than 10 years of consulting he has gained a lot of experience in many areas, especially in the areas of HA, Engineered Systems and Monitoring. He is a frequent speaker and founder of the Oracle Beer Bern Meetup Group. Julian is a member of the Oracle ACE Program as an Oracle ACE Pro.

Automated monitoring of Data Guard Fast-Start failover

MakeIT 2025 Oracle Database

Thursday, May 29, 2025 16:55 - 17:40 CEST

In this presentation we look at different metrics and data sources that are essential for making sure that databases in Data Guard Fast-start Failover configuration are healthy and able to take on the traffic from the client applications in case of problems. We will look where to get the data to answer questions every DBA that has to manage Data Guard FSFO is interested in - how to detect if there is a lag, is the observer connected, is the standby applying, have there been any important exceptions on the databases, what system metrics to keep an eye on - with the end goal of automation and alerting in mind.

About Ilmar Kerm

Ilmar has worked with Oracle Databases since 2005, starting out with Oracle 9i. Last 15 years he has been working with one of the largest online gambling providers in Europe, Kindred/Unibet, as a Senior Database administrator, where he manages both busy transactional databases and large data warehouse daily. Previously he has been both in DBA and developer roles in medical and IT consulting industries. Ilmar has presented in Oracle User Group conferences in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Estonia, Israel, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, India, Ireland, Poland, UK and US.

Avtomatizacija postopkov mednarodne izmenjave dokumentov EESSI

MakeIT 2025 Development

Thursday, May 29, 2025 14:00 - 14:45 CEST

V Zavodu preko sistema EESSI dnevno prejemamo veliko število dokumentov iz različnih institucij držav EU.
Dokumenti so lahko zelo formalizirani in nekateri zelo splošni. Splošni dokumenti vsebujejo širok nabor zahtev v različnih jezikih (poljubno besedilo). Za vsak tako prejeti dokument moramo pripraviti odgovor in ga poslati nazaj instituciji. Z avtomatizacijo postopkov smo se osredotočili na dokument P8000 - "Zahteva za dodatne informacije", katerih splošnih dokumentov je največ. Letno jih prejmemo več kot 10.000 v kratkih časovnih intervalih. Pred avtomatizacijo so vsak primer posebej reševali referenti.
V predstavitvi bomo prikazali, kako rešujemo samodejno prepoznavanje vsebine prejetih dokumentov in pripravo avtomatskih odgovorov. Pri pripravi rešitve smo implementirali različne variante z in brez uporabe umetne inteligence. Predstavljen bo tudi rezultat primerjave uporabe različnih variant.

About Domen Dolar

Domen Dolar je vodja aplikativnega razvoja na Zavodu za pokojninsko in invalidsko zavarovanje Slovenije. Ima veliko izkušenj pri razvoju in vzdrževanju kompleksnih poslovnih programskih rešitev v različnih tehnologijah (preko 20let). Njegove naloge se v največji meri nanašajo na razvoj programske opreme, pri čemer skrbi za metodologijo razvoja, njene implementacije v razvojna orodja (posebno razvojno virtualno okolje) in vse, kar vpliva na to. Kot mentor, vodja večjih razvojnih (eZPIZ, EESSI idr.) in manjših projektov (DevOps, SDG ...), ključni načrtovalec in implementator skrbi za optimizacijo razvoja v vseh postopkih, vključno s tistimi, ki vplivajo na sistemske službe. Raziskovanje in razvoj programske opreme ga še vedno močno zanima in redno preizkuša in testira nove platforme in orodja. Z programiranje se ukvarja, odkar je dobil prvi računalnik. Prvo predavanje še na takratnem SIOUG pa je imel že v letu 2000 kot študent v laboratoriju za informatiko Fakultete za računalništvo in informatiko. Pred prihodom na ZPIZ pa je več kot 10 let delal v gospodarstvu.

About Jon Petek

Programer, razvijalec javanskih aplikacij

Block Corruptions and how to handle them

MakeIT 2025 Oracle Database

Friday, May 30, 2025 09:00 - 09:45 CEST

This presentation provides insights into the development of both physical and logical block corruption inside and outside the Oracle database and what measures can be taken to prevent it from happening in the first place.

However, if it does happen, it will be shown how to deal with block corruption and - if possible - how to fix it.

The following options will be looked at in more detail in the presentation.

- DB Block Checking and Check Summing
- RMAN Validate Database and Block Recovery
- DBMS_REPAIR
- Lost Write Protection
- Data Pump Checkum

About Christian Gohmann

Christian Gohmann is currently working as Data Eng, Mgmt & Governance Associate Manager and Instructor at Accenture in Dusseldorf, Germany. His main focus lies in helping customers in the areas of architecture planning, implementation, and migration - with a specialization in high availability solutions, like Data Guard and Oracle RAC. Since 2006, Christian Gohmann has been working with Oracle and the Oracle Database and worked on various projects for customers in German-speaking areas. Besides his consultancy activities, he is the main developer and the responsible person for db*BACKUP - a product distributed by Accenture, which is responsible for the intelligent backup and recovery of an Oracle database. In his spare time, he shares his knowledge on his blog https://www.christian-gohmann.de and spends as much time as possible with his dog Taran, and for his hobbies climbing/bouldering, hiking, and watching movies.

Blockbuster! A simple guide to Oracle block internals, and hacking them!

MakeIT 2025 Oracle Database

Friday, May 30, 2025 10:00 - 10:45 CEST

Do you understand how an Oracle block is put together? The more you understand about how the database works, the better you will be able to do your job. What if you have a major problem with your database and there’s a block-level problem - maybe something is corrupt. What can you do? What if you need to manually edit a block for other “reasons”, or you just want to understand the block structure a bit better. Come have a discussion about it. Let see what we can do to fix such problems. Lets see how rico2 (or bbed) works and what you can and cannot easily change within a block.

About Neil Chandler

Neil has been working in IT since 1988 when he coded Assembler and Cobol on IBM Mainframes against both hierarchical (NoSQL-ish) and relational databases. He started using Oracle software in 1991. Neil is an Oracle ACE Director and a founding member of the MASH Program. He likes to drink strong smooth Italian coffee, good beer and better whisky, depending upon the time of day.

Boost Oracle Analytics with Generative AI and Human Intelligence

MakeIT 2025 AI

Friday, May 30, 2025 09:00 - 09:45 CEST

So, you've made a significant investment in Oracle Analytics and implemented the ultimate semantic model for your business. Yet, your users are still grappling with logical SQL and trying to get that crucial calculation included in their reports? This session explores the application of Generative AI, and human intelligence within Oracle Analytics, enabling users to ask questions about their business in plain language and receive precise, (meta)data-driven answers.

About Federico Venturin

Federico Venturin is an Oracle ACE Associate and a seasoned Oracle Analytics enthusiast with over 13 years of experience. He has been speaking at major Oracle conferences (OUG Ireland, UKOUG, RMOUG, ODTUG Kscope), sharing insights and best practices. He maintains a technical blog with regular articles about Oracle Analytics, and actively contributes to Oracle community forums, providing solutions and guidance. Outside of work, Federico likes to play videogames, travel all around the world and taste local food.

Bridging the Gap: Full-Stack Development Without the Headaches

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Java

Thursday, May 29, 2025 11:00 - 11:45 CEST

Working on web projects often means dealing with two separate environments—one for the backend and another for the frontend—each with its own ecosystem. Developers frequently run into issues when dealing with the ecosystem of their counterpart, creating a needless wall between front-end and back-end developers. You have to use unfamiliar tools, follow API changes, create mocks, and have a hard time creating e2e tests. Overall, this makes development unnecessarily frustrating and a time-consuming process.

In this session, I'll discuss your approach to these typical problems and show you how Quarkus makes full-stack development easier. Without having to deal about typical npm or front end setup issues, Quarkus allows you to develop applications with dependable Java back-end services and javascript front ends. You can concentrate on more important things, like building your app!

Using a Java backend powered by Quarkus and a javascript front end, we will learn how to build a full-stack application.

About Loïc Magnette

Loïc Magnette is a seasoned software developer with a strong background in consulting. Currently a senior developer at Oniryx, he specializes in Java and Angular, delivering innovative solutions and sharing his knowledge as a speaker. As a co-organizer of the Belgian Java User Group (BeJUG), he fosters connections within the developer community. Outside of tech, Loïc’s passion for wildlife inspires his work and creativity.

Bringing Your APEX Apps Back in Shape

MakeIT 2025 None APEX

Thursday, May 29, 2025 10:00 - 10:45 CEST

In this session, I will share practical insights from a project focused on improving the maintainability, security, and consistency of Oracle APEX applications. We also covered the migration to the Universal Theme, ensuring a modern, unified approach to application design. By analyzing existing applications, we identified key areas for improvement and implemented best practices that ensured long-term stability, security, and consistent performance.

The analysis also helped manage the entire project more effectively, enabling us to define the scope, assign work, and track progress throughout the process. The talk will explore both technical approaches and how a combination of open-source and commercial tools can support reviewing application structures and implementing best practices, ultimately creating secure, consistent, and scalable solutions.

This session is ideal for developers looking to enhance their APEX applications and create robust, maintainable, and high-performing solutions, while also gaining insights into managing complex projects like this.

About Aleš Kravos

Aleš has 15 years of experience working with Oracle and is passionate about APEX from 2009. He is an experienced and certified IT project manager but his love for APEX has encouraged him to make a carreer change. He is currently working at The RIGHT THING Solutions from Slovenia as an Oracle APEX consultant and COO.

Building Intelligent Apps with RAG Chatbots in Oracle APEX: Architecture, Integration, and Use-cases

MakeIT 2025 APEX

Friday, May 30, 2025 10:00 - 10:45 CEST

Transform how users interact with your applications by harnessing the power of RAG chatbots in Oracle APEX. Imagine creating conversational interfaces that are not only intelligent and context-aware but also capable of delivering precise, real-time answers by seamlessly combining external knowledge sources with the unmatched capabilities of large language models.
This presentation showcases two innovative approaches to integrating Oracle APEX with Oracle’s advanced AI technologies. First, you learn how to integrate Oracle APEX with OCI Generative AI RAG agents, allowing developers to enhance applications with intelligent, context-aware interactions. Next, you will explore how to build RAG chatbots within Oracle APEX that leverage natural language processing and vector search to retrieve meaningful insights from unstructured data stored in the Oracle Database. You’ll walk away with actionable techniques to build smarter, faster, and more responsive applications—elevating user experiences without the complexity of heavy coding. Don’t miss this opportunity to redefine conversational AI with Oracle APEX and take your applications to the next level!

About Roopesh Thokala

Roopesh Thokala, a Senior Product Manager at Oracle APEX. He is responsible for Product Management activities for APEX, including APEX on Autonomous Databases and APEX Services, with a primary focus on the JAPAC Region. He excels in customer evangelism and takes pride in promptly resolving customer issues. Prior to his role in the APEX Team, Roopesh served as an APEX Developer, Solution Engineer, and Solution Architect. He also actively supports various Oracle APEX user groups across the JAPAC region.

Caching Unleashed: Revolutionizing Java Performance

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Architecture Container Microservices Performance

Wednesday, May 28, 2025 09:30 - 13:00 CEST

Are slow database queries and performance bottlenecks in your Java applications challenging? Discover how caching can transform your application's speed and responsiveness.

In this session, we'll delve into the world of caching, exploring its benefits, challenges, and best practices. Learn why traditional databases often fall short when it comes to performance, and how caching can provide a powerful solution.
We'll discuss various caching strategies, including distributed caches, in-memory caches, and hybrid approaches. Explore the trade-offs between performance, scalability, and complexity.

Discover the latest advancements in caching technology, including innovative solutions that can help you optimize your Java applications. Don't miss this opportunity to learn how caching can take your Java development to the next level.

About Markus Kett

Markus and his teams have been working on IDE tools for Java and database development, as well as various open-source projects for 20 years. Markus is CEO and co-founder of MicroStream, the company behind the Eclipse open-source projects EclipseStore, Eclipse Serializer, and RapidClipse IDE. He is also the editor-in-chief for the free JAVAPRO magazine in Germany and the founder and co-organizer of the Java community conference series JCON. He is an independent editor for several magazines, and a speaker at numerous international developer conferences, user groups, and meetups.

Caching Unleashed: Supercharge Your Database Application

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Performance Java

Friday, May 30, 2025 09:00 - 09:45 CEST

Are you struggling with the performance limitations of traditional databases and Hibernate in your Java applications? Are you tired of unnecessarily complex database concepts to which you must diligently adapt your application? Discover how innovative caching strategies can transform your applications into high-performance, real-time powerhouses. In this session, we'll explore the advantages of caching over traditional databases and delve into effective caching strategies. Learn how to optimize performance, eliminate ORM latency, boost response times, handle massive workloads and peak traffic with ease, simplify development, and minimize data storage costs in the cloud. Revolutionize your Java applications with cutting-edge caching strategies.

About Markus Kett

Markus and his teams have been working on IDE tools for Java and database development, as well as various open-source projects for 20 years. Markus is CEO and co-founder of MicroStream, the company behind the Eclipse open-source projects EclipseStore, Eclipse Serializer, and RapidClipse IDE. He is also the editor-in-chief for the free JAVAPRO magazine in Germany and the founder and co-organizer of the Java community conference series JCON. He is an independent editor for several magazines, and a speaker at numerous international developer conferences, user groups, and meetups.

Can the modern Frankenstein pass the Turing test?

MakeIT 2025 AI

Thursday, May 29, 2025 11:00 - 11:45 CEST

RAGs, GenAI, LLMs etc are all the rage, but are they any good at answering Database or SQL problems? Would you like to talk to Jonathan, Tim or other Oracle Experts without actually talking to them? We’ll build and use RAG & LLM using different sources, and explore if it is as good as the Real Thing.

In recent times ChatGPT seems to have replaced StackOverflow and Google as sources for answering your Oracle Database questions. ChatGPT is what you can use when you don’t have Jonathan Lewis, Tim Hall or other “well-known experts” at your desk ready to answer your questions.
But ChatGPT has proven to be untrustworthy with it giving incorrect answers based on mixed topics and different technologies. It seems to make up answers that sound plausible, and when you try to use it, you realise how good/rubbish it really is.
What if you could create a solution to include real knowledge from real experts, and chat with it? A bit like talking to them in person. All it takes is an Oracle Database with the new Vector Search feature, and some Cloud AI Services and you are ready to ask your questions. Join us in this journey in building your own JonathanGPT, OracleBaseGPT, or both, and many more all together into your own customer Oracle Database ChatGPT-like solution!

About Gianni Ceresa

A Data enthusiast more widely interested in BA/DW/EPM solutions with a special focus on Oracle products and solutions. Oracle ACE Director, owner of DATAlysis LLC, a consulting company in Switzerland, he has more than 15 years of experience in multiple project roles like architect, analyst, team lead and developer, bridging together the business and the technical side of the BA world. His other activities include training delivery, R&D, blogging and supporting the Oracle community on the forums and by presenting at multiple events.

Cloud-native Java on Kubernetes with Spring Boot

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Cloud Native Cloud

Wednesday, May 28, 2025 09:30 - 13:00 CEST

Elevate your Spring Boot Java applications to Kubernetes! This workshop is your hand-on guide to mastering Java deployments in the cloud-native world.

We'll explore optimization techniques to boost Java performance in Kubernetes, covering containerization best practices and runtime optimizations.

Discover powerful tools like JIB, CDS, GraalVM, and CRaC that streamline container builds, improve startup times, and enhance deployments. Navigate performance trade-offs, balancing startup time, memory usage, and application performance.

By the end, you'll be fluent in cloud-native Java optimization, ready to deploy to Kubernetes with confidence. Whether you're a cloud novice or looking to refine your skills, this session offers immediately applicable insights.

Join us to transform your Java applications into lean, cloud-conquering machines. It's time to give your code the cloud-native upgrade it deserves and take your Java deployments to new heights in the Kubernetes ecosystem!

About Yuriy Bezsonov

With over 25 years in the tech, Yuriy has progressed from a software developer to an engineering manager and now AWS Senior Solutions Architect, working across the telco, finance, and software development industries. As a Senior Solutions Architect at AWS, he assists partners and customers in developing cloud solutions, focusing on container technologies, application modernization, SaaS, developer experience, and GenAI. Yuriy holds 15 AWS certifications and 5 Kubernetes certifications, and he is a recipient of the AWS Golden Jacket and the CNCF Kubestronaut Blue Jacket.

Creating a CI/CD pipeline using SQLcl project

MakeIT 2025 Development

Thursday, May 29, 2025 15:00 - 15:45 CEST

"SQLcl project" is first spotted in SQLcl in October 2024. The goal of this new feature is to make development and deployment of database applications, including APEX, easier.
In this session we will dive into the nuts and bolt of "SQLcl project" and will discover if it delivers what it promises.

About Roel Hartman

Roel started a long time ago using Oracle RDBMS 5, Oracle Forms 2.3, RPT/RPF and Oracle*Case 4.5. Since over 10 years he focuses mainly on Oracle Application Express. Roel has been a speaker on UKOUG, OOW, Collaborate, ODTUG's Kscope and a number of local Oracle User Groups. Within ODTUG he acted as the APEX Content Lead for the Kscope14 and KScope15 conferences and currently is a member of the Board of Directors. He keeps an (APEX-related) blog on https://roelhartman.blogspot.com. In June 2009 Roel received an Oracle ACE award and in August 2010 he's appointed as Oracle ACE Director. Roel is a co-writer of the "Expert Oracle Application Express" and "Oracle Application Express for Mobile Web Applications" books. Roel is Director at APEX Consulting in The Netherlands.

Creating Idempotent REST APIs

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Cloud Native

Friday, May 30, 2025 16:00 - 16:45 CEST

One of the issues developers need to deal with in creating REST APIs is how to provide resiliency without sacrificing consistency. The fundamental problem is how to ensure a microservice providing a REST API is executed exactly once, instead of at least once as most retry mechanism provide. Simply retrying a REST API without coordination with the REST API will likely cause the API to be executed multiple times. This talk describes a library that can be used to ensure that a microservice offering a REST API is only executed once, even in the face of failures and retries.

About Brijesh Deo

Brijesh Deo is the Director of MicroTx product development in the database organization at Oracle. He is passionate about distributed systems and cloud technologies and specializes in Kubernetes, Microservices, and Java. Brijesh has a rich industry experience of more than two decades, having worked with Motorola, Dell SonicWALL, and Juniper Networks. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from National Institute of Technology, India.

About Todd Little

Todd Little is chief architect for transaction processing products at Oracle, including the Oracle Tuxedo product family, Oracle Blockchain Platform, and Oracle Transaction Manager for Microservices (MicroTx). Todd is responsible for defining the technical strategy and direction for these products, and his main areas of focus are security, privacy, confidentiality, performance, and scalability. He has received 44 patents related to software development and spoken at such conferences as SXSW, Hyperledger Global Forum, Voice of Blockchain, World Crypto Conference, and most BEA World and Oracle World - Cloud World conferences.

Data Guard in the PDB World

MakeIT 2025 Oracle Database

Thursday, May 29, 2025 16:00 - 16:45 CEST

Data Guard is one of the best solutions for protecting your production database and minimizing downtime during planned maintenance windows. It also assists with larger tasks such as rolling upgrades. In the non-multitenant world, everything was straightforward and well-defined. However, with the new Oracle architecture, this solution also needs to evolve. This discussion will primarily concentrate on the existing functionalities available up until Oracle version 21c and will cover best practices for running highly available databases with minimal risk.

About Marcin Przepiorowski

My name is Marcin Przepiorowski. I’m working with Oracle technology stack since 2001. I’m interested in three areas - automation, high availability (DataGuard, RAC, etc) and performance monitoring and troubleshooting. For last 10 years I’m involved in OUG community and blogger community. I presented on UKOUG, German DOAG, Polish OUG, Irish and BGOUG conferences. I’m a proud member of OakTable and Sym42.

Data Pump Masterclass

MakeIT 2025 Oracle Database

Wednesday, May 28, 2025 09:30 - 13:00 CEST

Oracle Data Pump is a sophisticated tool that enables high-speed movement of data. Data Pump is often used for migrations, but due to the versatility of the tool, you can use it for many other things.

This workshop covers the basics of Data Pump, so everyone can join. We quickly move on to advanced topics and best practices that allow you to use the full potential of Data Pump. Examples of topics covered in the workshop:
* Remapping and filtering
* Different job modes
* Transformation
* Using the PL/SQL API
* Tracing and troubleshooting Data Pump

Part of the workshop is doing exercises in a lab environment using Oracle LiveLabs.

Become a Data Pump hero in no time.

About Daniel Overby Hansen

Daniel is a Distinguished Product Manager at Oracle. He is part of Database Upgrade, Patching & Utilities and thus works with the entire portfolio of the team. Before joining Oracle, Daniel had a long career as operational database administrator and database developer at a global provider of financial services. Daniel’s motto is that databases are fun but when he is not messing with databases, he takes care of his family in Denmark and enjoys the outdoor life with farming, running, and hiking.

Data-Driven Generative AI: From Concept to Code (with Databases!)

MakeIT 2025 AI

Thursday, May 29, 2025 16:55 - 17:40 CEST

Want to build Generative AI apps that truly understand your users? It all starts with the right data. In this session, we'll dive deep into how well-structured databases become the essential fuel for effective GenAI implementation. We'll explore techniques for integrating your proprietary data with GenAI models, significantly boosting precision and contextual awareness, and enabling you to create more innovative and personalized applications. See how to integrate your data with GenAI using databases such as PostgreSQL and Oracle. Get hands-on with a revealing demo as we step through the building of a vectorised dataset and application that showcases the transformative benefits of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) in similarity search scenarios, including integration with other products such as Google Maps. Join us for this hands-on session and leave with the knowledge and tools to build your own data-driven Generative AI applications.

About Kiran Tailor

My name is Kiran Tailor. At Google, I work in the field of architecture and bring innovative approaches to migrating database and application workloads to Cloud. Focused solely on migration and transformation best practices, POCs, building innovative roadmaps for clients wishing to move too GCP. I am Google Certified Professional (GCP) and Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) and GenAI Ambassador I am an Ex Oracle Ace Director, with over 20 years of experience working with data from the administration of enterprise databases to designing data architectures for enterprise and analytical solutions.

Demystifying Dependency Injection

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Java

Thursday, May 29, 2025 10:00 - 10:45 CEST

Dependency Injection (DI) is an important concept in Software development that helps create cleaner, easier-to-maintain code. In this talk, we’ll explain the basics of DI, how it works, and why it’s useful. DI helps reduce the tight connections between parts of your application by letting frameworks like Spring manage how objects are created and linked together. You’ve probably used DI through annotations like @Autowired, @Inject, or similar. We’ll show you how these annotations work in practice and how they can make your code more flexible and easier to test. Whether you're new to DI or want a clearer understanding, this session will provide the knowledge you need to improve your code.

About Jens Knipper

Jens is a senior software engineer working for OpenValue in Düsseldorf. He likes working in different environments, architectures and technologies. The insights he gathers are things he likes to share in through talks or blog posts.

Demystifying Java Virtual Threads - lessons learned from using them in GlassFish

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Java

Thursday, May 29, 2025 12:00 - 12:45 CEST

Do you want to understand how Java Virtual Threads really work and whether the myths you heard about are true or not? Join me to find out.

In this session, we'll delve into how Java Virtual Threads work, dispelling myths and offering practical guidance on leveraging them effectively. Drawing from my experience with GlassFish and Grizzly, we'll discuss when and how to harness virtual threads to optimize performance and resource utilization in your applications. Along the way, we'll highlight common pitfalls to avoid.

We’ll debunk a few myths about virtual threads and explain why you shouldn’t be afraid to use them. Furthermore, we'll tackle the question of whether virtual threads pose a competition to reactive programming in Java or whether they can fit well together.

Join me as we unravel the mysteries of Java Virtual Threads and learn that you can start using virtual threads right now with peace in your mind.

About Ondro Mihályi

Ondro is a software developer and consultant specializing in combining standard and proven tools to solve new and challenging problems. He's been developing in Java for over 10 years. He’s worked for clients like Payara, LottoLand, Uniqa and others. He has co-founded OmniFish, which provides enterprise support for Eclipse GlassFish and expert Jakarta EE services. He’s passionate about helping his clients and the wider Java community with their projects based on Jakarta EE and similar technologies. As an experienced Java developer and instructor, he's helped companies build and educate their development teams and improve their development processes. He's a core member of several opensource projects and Jakarta EE specification projects. He’s a frequent conference speaker, leader of the Czech JUG, and a Java Champion.

Design Patterns in PL/SQL and SQL

MakeIT 2025 Development

Friday, May 30, 2025 15:00 - 15:45 CEST

A software design pattern is defined in Wikipedia as "a general, reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem within a given context".

In this session we'll see design patterns for various common problems in SQL and PL/SQL, like how to implement some data model requirements, how to write SQL queries for specific types of questions, and how to use PL/SQL for solving some challenging tasks.

About Oren Nakdimon

Oren Nakdimon is an Oracle ACE Director with 30+ years of extensive and continuous experience with Oracle-based systems, as a developer, DBA, manager and instructor. Oren gained lots of knowledge about databases in general, and Oracle in particular, and likes sharing it - by blogging, tweeting, presenting in local and international conferences, and more. He is the VP of Databases at Moovit, where he has been working since 2012. Oren has recently won the "UKOUG Best Tech International Speaker of the Year (2022) Award" and the "Top Speaker Award for the Core & Database track" at Kscope22.

Dobre prakse uporabe Oracle Analytics

MakeIT 2025 Analytics

Friday, May 30, 2025 12:00 - 12:45 CEST

Posljem naknadno
Uporaba Oracle Analytics v praksi in izkusnje uporabnikov

About Mojca Gros

Posljem kasneje, cimprej

Does ChatGPT write more intelligent SQL queries than a human?

MakeIT 2025 AI Developer Productivity Database development AI

Thursday, May 29, 2025 15:00 - 15:45 CEST

Andrea has already played around with ChatGPT and is convinced that she can write SQL queries faster with it. Dani is convinced that human intelligence is still better and faster when it comes to creating SQL queries. We'll see who is right in which scenario.

Who codes faster?
ChatGPT is supposed to be a great help when coding. In our presentation, we want to try out how far this also applies to SQL using concrete examples. Andrea will work with ChatGPT. She will show how to prompt ChatGPT to get helpful answers and how to ask further questions if an answer is not sufficient. We will see how this code can be easily customized to our own data. Andrea has to write a bit more when prompting, but she has to type less SQL code. Dani writes his SQL directly in the database. He doesn't have to explain the task to ChatGPT, but he has to write the code himself.
We will see who is faster in which concrete example.

Who writes better code?
How well does ChatGPT understand the problems described? Are the solutions right even for more complex problems? We will see how much knowledge and understanding of SQL is necessary even with AI, in which cases the support of AI is helpful, and why HI (human intelligence) is still important even in the age of ChatGPT.

About Andrea Kennel

Dr Andrea Kennel studied computer science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) and added a PhD in computer science. In her more than 25 years of professional experience, she has always combined practice and teaching. Since 2014, Andrea is a lecturer a lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences Brugg/Windisch (www.fhnw.ch), where she is responsible for database lectures in computer science and data science. She also supervises bachelor theses and project teams that implement customer projects. In addition, she runs her own company, which she founded in 2005 (www.infokennel.ch). In this function she worked and still works mainly in Oracle DWH projects as Lead Data Architect and as developer or project manager. She regularly gives presentations at conferences and writes articles.

About Dani Schnider

Dani Schnider is an Oracle ACE Director and works as Principal Oracle & DWH Consultant for Callista, a Swiss IT service provider for consulting and engineering. He has been working in database consulting for over 20 years, from 1999 to 2022 for Trivadis in Switzerland. Dani works with Oracle databases since 1994, since 1997 mainly in data warehouse projects.

End-to-End Testing on Kubernetes with Ephemeral Environments

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Cloud Native DevOps

Friday, May 30, 2025 14:00 - 14:45 CEST

Software delivery in a cloud-native world often means juggling many moving parts: microservices, infrastructure, and frequent code changes. How do you build confidence in every code commit when these pieces come together only in production—or, worse, not until late in the release process? In this session, we’ll explore how to provision short-lived, dedicated testing clusters or namespaces for each feature branch (or pull request) and run comprehensive end-to-end tests automatically - and do all this efficiently.

About Mihael Škarabot

Mihael is an accomplished engineer with a broad skill set spanning software architecture, development, DevOps, and cloud operations. He specializes in designing and delivering cloud-based solutions at scale, with a particular passion for SaaS. Mihael’s expertise lies in empowering teams to build and operate globally distributed applications, leveraging cloud-native and DevOps best practices to achieve rapid, reliable, and cost-effective outcomes.

Enhancing IT Operations with AI Agents and OCI Generative AI

MakeIT 2025 AI

Friday, May 30, 2025 15:00 - 15:45 CEST

In the domain of IT Operations, managing incidents and actively monitoring systems (and logs) are two tasks that demand significant effort from IT Operations teams.
Generative AI (GenAI), with its advanced automation capabilities, is being adopted in several industries, including IT. AI Agents represent one of the most advanced applications of GenAI, thanks to their decision-making capabilities and the ability to interact autonomously with external services and tools
In this talk, we will explore the power of AI agents, starting from the basic concepts, usage scenarios, and how to build a basic agent, using Oracle Generative AI, to assist IT teams during their monitoring and maintenance activities.

About Giovanni Rosa, PhD

Giovanni is currently an AI Engineer conducting research and development applying Machine Learning and GenAI in the domains of Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) and IT Operations. He recently achieved his PhD at University of Molise, co-authoring more than 20 research articles in the domain of Software Engineering and applied AI, and presenting the achieved results to various international conferences.

Faster than caching: client-side caching

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Architecture Serverside Java Java Big / Fast / Smart / In-Memory Data Application development

Thursday, May 29, 2025 16:55 - 17:40 CEST

Due to its client-server model, databases speed and performance are network-bound. Every operation requires round-trip communication over the network, which can significantly affect overall performance, especially in high-throughput systems or scenarios where network latency is a concern. One effective way to reduce this network overhead—and thereby improve application performance—is to implement client-side caching, also called near cache. This talk presents the concept of client-side caching, its benefits and tradeoffs, and how it can be implemented in a real-world scenario, using the Redis Java library Jedis.

About Luigi Fugaro

Luigi Fugaro's journey into the realm of computer science began in the vibrant world of video games, starting with the Vic 20 and Atari ST1040. This early exposure ignited a fascination with the inner workings of games, particularly the allure of manipulating game code to unlock endless lives and energy. This initial intrigue was the catalyst for Luigi's foray into programming, marking the start of a rich and diverse professional path. Throughout his distinguished career, Luigi has demonstrated a remarkable versatility, mastering an array of programming languages from the structured precision of Fortran to the modern fluency of Java, Go, Delphi, Visual Basic, and Python. His relationship with JavaScript is a bit more nuanced, viewing it as borderline in the programming language spectrum. Though he doesn’t classify HTML as a programming language per se, Luigi holds a deep respect for its capabilities and applications. As his career progressed, Luigi ventured beyond the boundaries of coding, exploring the increasingly critical domains of observability, monitoring, and data management. A pivotal chapter in his career unfolded at Red Hat and Redis, where he realized the critical role of application performance for clients, further enriching his professional expertise. Now, Luigi remains as enthusiastic and driven as ever, constantly seeking new knowledge and challenges.

From Clutter to Clusters: Vector Embeddings for Log File Analysis

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 AI DevOps Observability DevOps

Thursday, May 29, 2025 16:00 - 16:45 CEST

Using vector embeddings for Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) is frequently demonstrated these days. However, embeddings have a broader range of applications, including the ability to group similar items together. Log files, with their wealth of information, are an ideal candidate for this approach. By clustering log entries, we can uncover common issues as well as rare conditions within complex systems.

This talk will begin with traditional techniques using term vectors and then delve into how modern vector embedding models can enhance log file analysis. We will explore how to build such a processing pipeline, which is often a fun way to start understanding the problems of the system you're dealing with.

About Patrik Duditš

Patrik spent most of his career developing web applications on top of Java EE. The passion for this tech stack lead him to work full-time on cloud runtimes and MicroProfile and Jakarta EE specifications at Payara. His most favorite problems to tackle are distributed systems, monitoring, race conditions but single stack frontend development as well.

Function Calls in SQL - Black Box for the Optimizer?

MakeIT 2025 Development

Thursday, May 29, 2025 16:00 - 16:45 CEST

Functions in SQL are a useful and popular feature that is often used. However, little attention is often paid to performance aspects. A function call or an expression in a WHERE condition is a challenge for the query optimizer that often leads to unsuitable execution plans and bad response times. For PL/SQL functions called from SQL, the situation is even more complex. If used incorrectly, they can lead to massive performance degradation.
In this presentation, I will show different possibilities to support the optimizer in function calls to generate better execution plans. Furthermore, I will explain how PL/SQL functions can be used optimally in SQL queries and which performance killers must be avoided. Of course, all this will be demonstrated with live examples and stories from the field.

About Dani Schnider

Dani Schnider is an Oracle ACE Director and works as Principal Oracle & DWH Consultant for Callista, a Swiss IT service provider for consulting and engineering. He has been working in database consulting for over 20 years, from 1999 to 2022 for Trivadis in Switzerland. Dani works with Oracle databases since 1994, since 1997 mainly in data warehouse projects.

Future of the future: creating an AI product beyond hype

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 AI CI / CD Developer Productivity DevOps AI

Friday, May 30, 2025 12:00 - 12:45 CEST

When a company creates one of a bunch of AI products, what should distinguish it from competitors? We know the initial AI hype is behind us, the real things are happening now and now everyone is asking: what`s next?

We ramped it up in an aggressively narrow timeframe, with a vision to provide the highest-quality experience for our users. At the moment, many questions are open about its future development.


Join me to examine the landscape of AI products in the DevSecOps world and the trajectory of future expansion. We are delighted to share our experience on top of the product with more than 30 million users.
1. Why do we jump into the unknown area with LLM and AI development?
2. What is the approach that will become a success story for AI product development - yes you guess, it is an iterative approach
3. How to leverage dogfooding - and what is dogfooding - Tip: it is not about the dog or the food
4. When to pivot your development without regret - yes, it is because of FinOps, but not only that
5. How to measure your success - people often forget to measure what they are doing and are they will reach the goal

I promise - no fluff, no buzzwords. Solely a first-face story from the GitLab Data Team member, created from sweet and pain from the world leader of DevSecOps platform creator, remote work champion and one of the most transparent company in history.

About Radovan Bacovic

Radovan Bacovic is a Staff Data Engineer at GitLab, living, enjoying and coding in Novi Sad, Serbia. Part of the Data gigants ambassador program: Snowflake Squad and dbt spotlight members. An experienced data engineer and “wanna-be” is the best bad conference speaker. Forever eager to discover new data technologies in the fast-changing environment. He armoured himself with a profound application development background in large international companies around the globe. Strongly advocated for the open-source community and open-core approach. Without any doubt - a fervent data geek delighted to share his long mileage and experience with a broader audience. He was trapped in the Data world for 20 years. Passionate Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner.

Go With The Flow. APEX Workflow

MakeIT 2025 APEX

Friday, May 30, 2025 11:00 - 11:45 CEST

Introduced in version 23.2, APEX Workflow is a powerful feature that enables the seamless transition of documents, information, records, or tasks between participants according to predefined procedural rules. Through its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, developers can design workflows that include various states and transitions, manage tasks, and utilize workflow variables and parameters to streamline operations.

Join me to this presentation to explore the full potential of Oracle APEX Workflow. We'll learn about the capabilities of the Workflow Designer, the Workflow Console, and the Workflow Dashboard. We will demonstrate how to create and manage workflows, handle approval and action tasks, and utilize workflow substitution string for dynamic process adjustments.We’ll also examine the related APIs, understanding their use cases and best practices for integration.

This presentation is addressed not only to developers and technical architects but also to decision-makers and project managers looking for effective solutions to streamline operations and enhance organizational efficiency.
Whether you’re looking for technical insights or strategic guidance, this presentation will provide you with the knowledge to leverage Oracle APEX Workflow as a powerful tool for driving innovation and transformation.

About Mirela Ardelean

Mirela Ardelean started developing in PL/SQL and Oracle Forms back in 2000 and she is currently working as an APEX and PL/SQL developer for a consultancy company. She is co-founder and Vice-President of Romanian Oracle User Group, president of EOUC e.V., meetup organizer, speaker at conferences (KSCOPE, APEX World, APEX Connect, DOAG, UKOUG, HROUG), part of the team who initiate the Mentor and Speaker Hub Program (mashprogram.wordpress.com), editor-in-chief for ORAWORLD (oraworld.org). Mirela is an Oracle ACE Pro, being the first person from Romania accepted in Oracle ACE Program.

Going to the movies with Oracle Database 23ai and APEX

MakeIT 2025 APEX Database development AI

Thursday, May 29, 2025 16:55 - 17:40 CEST

Oracle Database 23ai is labeled as the first release primarily aimed at the developer. The release includes many new and updated features that makes developing applications using Oracle database easier and faster. But what does that mean for the APEX Developer? How can they benefit from the use of AI Vector Search? What can you do with Property Graphs?
This session will show you how you can use the APEX AI integration, AI Vector Search, RAG and Property Graphs to find out "Who is 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon"!

About Roel Hartman

Roel started a long time ago using Oracle RDBMS 5, Oracle Forms 2.3, RPT/RPF and Oracle*Case 4.5. Since over 10 years he focuses mainly on Oracle Application Express. Roel has been a speaker on UKOUG, OOW, Collaborate, ODTUG's Kscope and a number of local Oracle User Groups. Within ODTUG he acted as the APEX Content Lead for the Kscope14 and KScope15 conferences and currently is a member of the Board of Directors. He keeps an (APEX-related) blog on https://roelhartman.blogspot.com. In June 2009 Roel received an Oracle ACE award and in August 2010 he's appointed as Oracle ACE Director. Roel is a co-writer of the "Expert Oracle Application Express" and "Oracle Application Express for Mobile Web Applications" books. Roel is Director at APEX Consulting in The Netherlands.

How the Premier League Celebrates Player Milestones with Oracle Analytics

MakeIT 2025 Analytics

Friday, May 30, 2025 09:00 - 09:45 CEST

To celebrate a player's career milestones, the Premier League provides fans with analytics for all the shots, goals, penalties, and more. These milestones celebrate players who have reached 50, 100, and even 150 career goals. In this session, learn about how the Premier League uses Oracle Analytics to create interactive dashboards that illustrate a player's achievements and allow fans to explore the data.
https://www.premierleague.com/stats/milestones
https://blogs.oracle.com/analytics/post/embedding-analytics-for-the-win

About Mike Durran

Mike is a product manager for Oracle Analytics, he specialises in how developers can take advantage of analytics in their applications, blogging about this at: https://insight2action.medium.com/. Mike has been at Oracle since '96 and has a PhD in computational chemistry. Outside of work, Mike is interested in photography, creating electronic music and playing bass.

How to make your Java applications cloud-native and run on Kubernetes with GraalVM, CDS, and CRaC

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Cloud Native Cloud

Friday, May 30, 2025 15:00 - 15:45 CEST

Elevate your Java applications to Kubernetes stardom! This session is your guide to mastering Java deployments in the cloud-native world.

We'll explore optimization techniques to boost Java performance in Kubernetes, covering containerization best practices and runtime optimizations.

Discover powerful tools like JIB, CDS, GraalVM, and CRaC that streamline container builds, improve startup times, and enhance compilations. We'll help you navigate performance trade-offs, balancing startup time, memory usage, and application performance.

By the end, you'll be fluent in cloud-native Java optimization, ready to deploy to Kubernetes with confidence. Whether you're a cloud novice or looking to refine your skills, this session offers immediately applicable insights.

Join us to transform your Java applications into lean, cloud-conquering machines. It's time to give your code the cloud-native upgrade it deserves and take your Java deployments to new heights in the Kubernetes ecosystem!

About Yuriy Bezsonov

With over 25 years in the tech, Yuriy has progressed from a software developer to an engineering manager and now AWS Senior Solutions Architect, working across the telco, finance, and software development industries. As a Senior Solutions Architect at AWS, he assists partners and customers in developing cloud solutions, focusing on container technologies, application modernization, SaaS, developer experience, and GenAI. Yuriy holds 15 AWS certifications and 5 Kubernetes certifications, and he is a recipient of the AWS Golden Jacket and the CNCF Kubestronaut Blue Jacket.

How to use the Oracle REST API as a DBA!

MakeIT 2025 Oracle Database

Friday, May 30, 2025 14:00 - 14:45 CEST

With the release 19.2 of Oracle REST Data Services Oracle introduced functionalities for DBAs to operate a database via a REST API.
This ability is highly requested in environments where anything should be automated.
It enables automation processes to directly communicate with the database without interaction with the server.
The automation of PDB creation, Database Exports and many more is much easier with this REST API.
Julian will introduce the audience into the REST API and show how to use it by example.
Further on the output of the REST API is readable in an automated way.

About Julian Frey

Julian Frey is founder of CITE GmbH. During his more than 10 years of consulting he has gained a lot of experience in many areas, especially in the areas of HA, Engineered Systems and Monitoring. He is a frequent speaker and founder of the Oracle Beer Bern Meetup Group. Julian is a member of the Oracle ACE Program as an Oracle ACE Pro.

How Unit Testing Saved My Career

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Architecture Core Java / Java SE Developer Productivity IDE & Tools Testing & Quality Java Testing & Quality

Friday, May 30, 2025 11:00 - 11:45 CEST

When I first started programming and the code didn't behave as I expected it to, I was struggling to understand why, leading to a lot of frustration. It was only after I discovered unit testing that things began to click. Testing not only helped me validate my work but also taught me how to write clearer, more structured code. However, as I gained more experience, I encountered projects where testing became a source of frustration. Overly complex unit and integration tests often made it difficult to understand what was truly being tested. When these tests failed, it was impossible to find out whether the issue was related to the code or the test setup itself, making me lose trust in the tests.

In this talk, we will explore how to make use of the power of testing without falling into the trap of over-complication. Using JUnit and Mockito, I will demonstrate how to write tests that are clear, purposeful, and truly aligned with what you want to validate. We will also discuss how writing testable code naturally leads to cleaner, more maintainable, and more readable code—code that not only passes tests but is also easier to understand and work with.

By the end of this session, you will see how testing can be your best friend in simplifying the development process and improving code quality. Whether you are new to testing or have struggled with complex tests, this talk will help you build a testing strategy that you can trust and rely on.

About Annelore Egger

being able to work in teams and find it very important to share knowledge. By combining our knowledge and learning from each other we can achieve much higher goals.

IntelliJ IDEA Tips & Tricks

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 IDE & Tools Java

Friday, May 30, 2025 15:00 - 15:45 CEST

IntelliJ IDEA is packed with useful features that enhance developer productivity and simplify working with code. This session will take you through the cool features of IntelliJ IDEA: refactorings, shortcuts, fast navigation, a variety of code completion options, live templates, configuration options, language injection, the debugger (which is a gem on its own), and other productivity features that the IDE provides.

We will also look at the latest additions to IntelliJ IDEA, such as improvements for Spring and JPA support and, of course, the AI assistant, which brings advancements in Machine Learning closer to developer tooling.

About Anton Arhipov

Anton is a Developer Advocate in the Kotlin team at JetBrains. With a professional background in server-side development, Anton has been building tools for developers for more than ten years. Recognized as a Java Champion since 2014, he often speaks at software conferences and contributes to the Kotlin YouTube channel.

JAS-MIN: visualize and analyze STATSPACK and AWR reports (with just a touch of generative AI).

MakeIT 2025 Oracle Database

Friday, May 30, 2025 12:00 - 12:45 CEST

Not having Diagnostic Pack sucks. But event if you have it, it is not that obvious that you will be able to visualize properly the data and perform a meaningful analyze. That's why I created JAS-MIN and in this session we will use this simple RUST-based tool to analyze the real life example of a fu***d up system. I will show you how to understand a database load profile and how to choose a proper snapshots for in-depth analyzes. I will show you also how to use basic generative AI tools to analyze STATSPACK and AWR data securely if you are not into doing it manually in Python or other offline tools. Of course everything will be in a live demo session!

About Gianni Ceresa

A Data enthusiast more widely interested in BA/DW/EPM solutions with a special focus on Oracle products and solutions. Oracle ACE Director, owner of DATAlysis LLC, a consulting company in Switzerland, he has more than 15 years of experience in multiple project roles like architect, analyst, team lead and developer, bridging together the business and the technical side of the BA world. His other activities include training delivery, R&D, blogging and supporting the Oracle community on the forums and by presenting at multiple events.

About Kamil Stawiarski

Oracle Database Whisperer, performance maker and story teller. Oracle Certified Master, Oracle ACE Director and member of OakTable. Co-owner of the ORA-600 [Database Whisperers sp. z o. o. sp. k.] company and blogger (blog.ora-600.pl). Founder of Pint with Oracle User Group (poug.org) and SYM42. Personally a big fan of Terry Pratchett: "Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom."

Java Nostalgia and Fun Facts: 30 Years of Innovation

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Community Core Java / Java SE Serverside Java Java

Thursday, May 29, 2025 14:00 - 14:45 CEST

This presentation celebrates Java's 30-year journey by delving into its rich history, iconic symbols, and fascinating technical evolution. We'll explore the origins of Java, the story of Duke and the story behind the famous coffee cup logo. Discover key milestones, major releases, and pivotal innovations. Featuring entertaining Java trivia, quizzes, and interactive activities, this session is designed to keep participants engaged and learning about Java's legacy.

About Mihaela Gheorghe-Roman

Mihaela is a Software Architect at Systematic, Romania. Ph.D in artificial neural network algorithms, Assistant Professor at the University of Cybernetics and Informatics in Bucharest, she is a dedicated lead developer and architect who enjoys sharing her knowledge. In her professional career, spanning over 13+ years, she worked for telecom and defence domains with a focus on Java, Spring Boot, C, C#, Scala and Angular. Apart from her passion for programming, she loves parrots, she is enthusiastic about traveling the world and doing a lot of sports, from running at marathons, martial arts and to different aerobic trainings.

Kotlin vs Java - where are we today?

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Java

Thursday, May 29, 2025 16:55 - 17:40 CEST

Kotlin was launched with a plethora of features that lacked in Java. That’s more than a decade ago, so where are we now? Join us as we compare what Kotlin has with what modern Java provides.

We’ll walk through features like data classes, expression functions, extension functions, pattern matching, nullability, string templates and many more.

After attending this talk, you’ll know what distinguished Kotlin from state of the art Java. Maybe it’s less than you think?

About Mads Opheim

Developer who wants to make people awesome in a safe environment. Test-driven development, Domain-driven design and Modern agile. Working at Computas, currently on an assignment for the Norwegian Welfare Administration. Oracle ACE Associate.

Machine Learning and Oracle Analytics Workshop

MakeIT 2025 Analytics

Wednesday, May 28, 2025 14:30 - 18:05 CEST

Machine Learning and Oracle Analytics Workshop is a workshop focusing on developing and deploying machine learning models with Oracle Analytics.

Oracle Analytics has broad spectrum of possibilities how to develop and deploy machine learning models in Oracle Analytics. Besides built-in algorithms Oracle Analytics can register and use machine learning models that are deployed using Oracle Machine Learning Services, Data Science, AI Serivces (Vision, Language, Document Understanding).

In this workshop we will review, demonstrate and test most of these.

About Žiga Vaupot

Žiga Vaupot is working in IT industry for 30+ years. He worked for Qubix Slovenia since 2011. After Qubix was acquired by Version 1, Žiga continues in the role of Country Manager. Even though Žiga's current role requires quite a lot of time, he is still active in his “original" business analytics consultancy role in which he has been active on various projects from the UK, Europe (primarily CEE region), US and Japan. In these project he was primarily involved with implemention of Oracle Analytics based solutions. Before joining Qubix Žiga was CIO of the largest Slovenian publishing company, Mladinska knjiga. He has also spent 10 years in Oracle Slovenia and CEE region performing in several roles from technology and application pre-sales, sales and marketing. Žiga's focus today still lies with Oracle (cloud) based technology and infrastructure. His expertise is in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure including Analytics, Autonomous Database, Machine Learning, Data Science, and other Data Lakehouse services. As a member of the SIOUG board, he is also an active member of the group in organising various events including annual MakeIT conference. Žiga has MBA degree of Faculty of Economics, and BSC degree from Faculty of Computer Sciences and Informatics, both University of Ljubljana. He also holds several Oracle expertise certificates, ie. Oracle Cloud Platform Enterprise Analytics 2023 Certified Specialist. Žiga is Oracle ACE Pro since 2020.

Making predictions in real-time streams

MakeIT 2025 AI

Friday, May 30, 2025 10:00 - 10:45 CEST

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) GoldenGate is a managed service providing a real-time data mesh platform, which uses replication to keep data highly available, and enabling real-time analysis. Customers can design, execute, and monitor their data replication and stream data processing solutions without the need to allocate or manage compute environments.

In this presentation, we are focusing on Stream Analytics functionality, demonstrating how we can implement machine learning model (ie. anomaly detection) as data stream flows into pipelines in real-time,

About Žiga Vaupot

Žiga Vaupot is working in IT industry for 30+ years. He worked for Qubix Slovenia since 2011. After Qubix was acquired by Version 1, Žiga continues in the role of Country Manager. Even though Žiga's current role requires quite a lot of time, he is still active in his “original" business analytics consultancy role in which he has been active on various projects from the UK, Europe (primarily CEE region), US and Japan. In these project he was primarily involved with implemention of Oracle Analytics based solutions. Before joining Qubix Žiga was CIO of the largest Slovenian publishing company, Mladinska knjiga. He has also spent 10 years in Oracle Slovenia and CEE region performing in several roles from technology and application pre-sales, sales and marketing. Žiga's focus today still lies with Oracle (cloud) based technology and infrastructure. His expertise is in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure including Analytics, Autonomous Database, Machine Learning, Data Science, and other Data Lakehouse services. As a member of the SIOUG board, he is also an active member of the group in organising various events including annual MakeIT conference. Žiga has MBA degree of Faculty of Economics, and BSC degree from Faculty of Computer Sciences and Informatics, both University of Ljubljana. He also holds several Oracle expertise certificates, ie. Oracle Cloud Platform Enterprise Analytics 2023 Certified Specialist. Žiga is Oracle ACE Pro since 2020.

Mastering Table Merging in Oracle: Pitfalls, Performance, and Practical Insights

MakeIT 2025 Development

Thursday, May 29, 2025 10:00 - 10:45 CEST

Updating one table with data from another is a common task for database developers, yet it is fraught with pitfalls. From accidental data overwrites to inefficient queries, there are countless ways things can go wrong. With various methods at your disposal—such as PL/SQL-based approaches, UPDATE with correlated subqueries, updates using SELECT (views), MERGE, and the newly introduced UPDATE with JOIN in Oracle 23ai—choosing the right technique is critical. This session explores the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. Is performance the only differentiator? What about readability and maintainability? And could these methods even yield different results under certain conditions?

About Andrej Pashchenko

Andrej Pashchenko started his IT career in the early 1990s and has been working with Oracle Database since 1999 - the last 15 years as a consultant. He supports customer projects with a focus on data warehousing, data modeling, ETL and SQL performance. Andrej is sharing his knowledge and experience from customer projects on his blog, talking on various conferences and as a class instructor of Oracle New Features course.

Migrating Analytic and Reporting Capability in Oracle Cloud

MakeIT 2025 Analytics

Friday, May 30, 2025 11:00 - 11:45 CEST

The Oracle BI TechStack had out of support Components and it needed upgrading to rationalize license spend and increase the usability and user adoption . This session would cover below key topics

- Upgrade and Rationalise Technical Components
- Decommissions OAC Classic Dashboards
- Migrates content to new OAC Data Visualiser Workbooks to supported infrastructure
- Usage of ADW database

About Dhananjay Papde

-- Senior Technology Management professional with extensive experience in Architecting, Upgrading, Migrating on-prem and Cloud Applications -- Robust experience of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Oracle EBS, Oracle Fusion HCM, OAC, BI Apps, Integration Cloud, Enterprise Manager -- Won Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation Award 2011 at Oracle Open World -- Author of book of "Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Administration Cookbook" -- Speaker at Oracle Open World, UKOUG Technology and Application Conferences

Migrating the Beast

MakeIT 2025 Oracle Database

Friday, May 30, 2025 16:00 - 16:45 CEST

In this corner: "The Beast"! A 180-terabyte database that uses every data type imaginable, with an application load generating 15 terabytes of redo per day and five standby databases spread across multiple data centers. In the opposing corner: the M5 Cross Endian Platform Migration scripts using Full Transportable Data Pump Export/Import and RMAN Incremental Backups. The challenge: Migrate "The Beast" from SPARC SuperCluster to Oracle Exadata with far less than 12 hours of downtime. Can it be done? Learn how the new, advanced, super-fast cross-platform migration scripts take advantage of the latest RMAN advances to automate this complex process and hear directly from the customer how they succeeded with this herculean task.

About Daniel Overby Hansen

Daniel is a Distinguished Product Manager at Oracle. He is part of Database Upgrade, Patching & Utilities and thus works with the entire portfolio of the team. Before joining Oracle, Daniel had a long career as operational database administrator and database developer at a global provider of financial services. Daniel’s motto is that databases are fun but when he is not messing with databases, he takes care of his family in Denmark and enjoys the outdoor life with farming, running, and hiking.

Modernizing Java EE 8 Applications: A Hands-on Journey to Cloud-Native Excellence

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Cloud Native Cloud

Wednesday, May 28, 2025 14:30 - 18:05 CEST

While Java EE 8 isn't ready for retirement just yet, the mounting technical debt and the siren call of modern cloud-native solutions are beckoning developers towards greener pastures.

In this hands-on workshop, we'll be on a journey to modernize Java applications, providing practical, step-by-step instructions that'll make your code feel young again. You'll learn the art of seamlessly upgrading from Java EE 8 to Java 21 and Jakarta EE using Generative AI - it's like giving your app an energy drink!

We'll then venture into replatforming with containerization using application servers, like WildFly, and Kubernetes.

The grand finale? An introduction to refactoring strategies with Quarkus - to teach your old Java app some impressive new cloud-native tricks.

Join us for this transforming experience and position yourself at the cutting edge of Java application modernization!

About Yuriy Bezsonov

With over 25 years in the tech, Yuriy has progressed from a software developer to an engineering manager and now AWS Senior Solutions Architect, working across the telco, finance, and software development industries. As a Senior Solutions Architect at AWS, he assists partners and customers in developing cloud solutions, focusing on container technologies, application modernization, SaaS, developer experience, and GenAI. Yuriy holds 15 AWS certifications and 5 Kubernetes certifications, and he is a recipient of the AWS Golden Jacket and the CNCF Kubestronaut Blue Jacket.

Modularna rešitev za učinkovito upravljanje podatkov in umetne inteligence - Industrija 4.0

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 AI Architecture

Thursday, May 29, 2025 11:00 - 11:45 CEST

Četrta industrijska revolucija prinaša s seboj temeljite spremembe v proizvodnji, ki jih poganja digitalizacija. Proizvodna podjetja se soočajo z izzivom, kako izkoristiti ogromne količine podatkov, ki nastajajo v proizvodnih procesih. Istočasno pa želijo izboljšati odločanja vezana na boljše učinkovitejše delovanje strojev, saj predvsem zasledujejo stroškovno optimizacijo proizvodnje izdelka na enoto (npr. kos). Uvedba umetne inteligence (AI) obljublja prav tisti del optimizacije proizvodnje, kjer so predpostavljeni maksimalni učinki iz naslova možne zaustavitve proizvodnje in napak na izdelku. Vendar pa je razvoj in implementacija AI rešitev pogosto počasen in zahteven proces. Prav tako je za proizvodna podjetja težko izračunati in upravičiti ROI(Return on Investment) še posebej, ko so na začetku uvedbe umetne inteligence, ki se lahko pokaže za zelo drago rešitev, čeprav se zavedajo njenega potenciala.

Predstavitev se bo osredotočila kako sestaviti modularno platformo kot ključno rešitev za pospešitev digitalne preobrazbe proizvodnje.

- Zbiranje, shranjevanje in obdelavo velikih količin podatkov
- Enostavno integracijo različnih sistemov in podatkovnih virov
- Razvoj in implementacijo prilagojenih AI rešitev
- Vizualizacijo podatkov in ustvarjanje digitalnih dvojčkov
- Zagotovitev varnosti in zasebnosti podatkov
- konkretni primeri iz prakse

About David Šenica

David Šenica is a Senior Data Scientist and Software Engineer at Medius, specializing in machine learning (ML) and software engineering. He has a strong focus on handling missing and imbalanced data and developing robust and scalable ML solutions. David holds a B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics, where his final thesis focused on creating a machine learning-based throttling system to prevent web applications from overloading. Since joining Medius in 2017 as a full-stack developer, David quickly transitioned to ML engineering. He has played a pivotal role in developing and deploying Medius's ML models, including those for fraud detection and system failure prediction.

About Marko Polak

Marko Polak is Chief Data Architect and Project Lead at Medius d.o.o., bringing over 15 years of expertise in data architecture, development, and project leadership. Marko’s career began as a warehouse developer and designer, specializing in Oracle Warehouse Builder. He later transitioned into roles focused on Java and PL/SQL development, as well as relational database modeling for a variety of high-impact projects. His experience spans diverse industries, including telecommunications, lottery systems, government, and infrastructure. In 2015, Marko advanced into the realm of Big Data, leading the design of a cutting-edge system for streaming, storing, and visualizing large datasets. This system, built on the Cloudera platform, incorporated custom-built components to deliver robust performance and scalability. Currently, Marko serves as Chief Data Architect and Project Lead at Medius d.o.o., where he drives the strategic development of data platforms and AI solutions. He is also the Product Owner of the GamayunAI platform—a comprehensive solution for large-scale data acquisition, processing, storage, and machine learning model development and inference.

Napredne strategije za kibernetsko varnost v Oracle Cloud

MakeIT 2025 Cloud

Thursday, May 29, 2025 17:45 - 18:30 CEST

Danes se podjetja se vse bolj odločajo za hibridna IT okolja, torej kombinacijo lokalnih podatkovnih centrov in oblačnih storitev. S tem imajo možnost čim bolj izkoristiti vse prednosti oblačnih storitev in hkrati ohraniti nadzor ter zanesljivost lokalnih podatkovnih centrov. S stališča kibernetske varnosti taka hibridna okolja predstavljajo mnoge izzive predvsem, kar se tiče upravljanje identitet in dostopov, mrežne varnosti, nadzora in upravljanja, povečana izpostavljenost grožnjam ter na splošno zagotavljanje vsaj enakega nivoja kibernetske varnosti kot v lokalnih podatkovnih centrih.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure ima že v osnovi na voljo mnoge mehanizme za zagotavljanje kibernetske varnosti. Del predavanja se bo osredotočil na pregled teh rešitev in dobrih praks za njihovo pravilno konfiguracijo in uporabo. Drugi del prezentacije se osredotoča na implementacijo v Oracle Cloud Infrastructure tistih rešitev, ki so danes nujne za zagotavljanje učinkovite kibernetske varnosti. To so predvsem rešitve kot so NG FireWall, EDR, XDR, SIEM, WAF, PAM in ostale. Za te najbolj pogoste rešitve bomo pregledali dobre prakse in načine implementacije v Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, tako s tehničnega kot tudi s stališča ustreznega licenciranja.

About Primož Bedrač

Primož Bedrač že več kot dvajset let deluje na različnih področjih informacijske tehnologije. Svojo poklicno pot je začel kot sistemski administrator, nadaljeval kot tehnični svetovalec za prodajo in napredoval do vodje prodajnega oddelka. Njegova področja delovanja so bila raznolika, predvsem pa domači in mednarodni projekti na področju arhitekture IT-sistemov, zagotavljanja neprekinjenega poslovanja, zagotavljanje kibernetske varnosti in sistemov za shranjevanje podatkov. Izkušnje je pridobil v največjih domačih IT-podjetjih ter pri tehnoloških velikanih, kot sta Oracle in Dell EMC. Trenutno je zaposlen pri distributerju Oracle opreme, TD Synnex, kot Oracle Technical Sales Consultant za regijo Adriatic.

OCI Generative AI storitve

MakeIT 2025 AI

Thursday, May 29, 2025 10:00 - 10:45 CEST

Na predavanju si bomo ogledali različne Generative AI storitve, ki jih omogoča Oracle OCI oblak. Na prvem mestu je "Generative AI" storitev, ki temelji na LLama 3.1 in 3.2 LLM ali Cohere R/R+ modelih. Ti modeli omogočajo klepet, sumarizacijo in vektorizacijo (Embeddings) teksta (in slik, LLama 3.2). Aplikacijo, ki uporablja te modele, recimo RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), je potrebno narediti, aplikacija lahko teče lokalno ali v oblaku in uporablja lokalne dokumente, ki so podlaga za RAG. Z RAG "pomagamo" LLM-ju , da generira relevantno vsebino, ki temelji na naših dokumentih. Naslednja storitev je "Generative AI Agents", kjer je RAG cevovod deloma že narejen kot storitev, potrebujemo Object Storage ali Open Search oziroma Oracle 23ai vektorsko bazo, kjer imamo shranjene vektorje narejene iz naših dokumentov. Največjo fleksibilnost pa omogoča OCI Datascience Quick Actions, kjer nam storitev pomaga, da iz Hugging Face prenesemo "Foundation"LLM model, v okviru Datascience najamemo GPU in izvedemo Fine tuning modela z našimi lastnimi podatki.

About Robert Korosec

Robert Korošec has 30 years of experience in IT. He had started with Oracle 7.2, Oracle Forms 4.5 and Java 1.1 and since 1999 he works in Oracle as technical consultant for Oracle Database and Oracle Exadata systems. Last few years he works as Oracle Cloud consultant, focusing on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and Cloud services, Oracle Autonomous Database, Data Warehouse, Bigdata data systems and Machine Learning.

Oracle PL/SQL in intralogistics

MakeIT 2025 PL/SQL Development

Thursday, May 29, 2025 11:00 - 11:45 CEST

Ever wondered how materials seamlessly flow within warehouses or production plants? This session will explore the architecture of intralogistics solutions, covering development phases such as design, coding, automated testing, manual testing on simulation systems, and on-site implementation (commissioning). We'll also discuss the Customer Acceptance Test (CAT) and the ramp-up phase, integrating the system into daily operations.

Discover how Oracle PL/SQL addresses complex business logic challenges through modular solutions, enabling swift adaptations to client needs. We'll showcase a real-world scenario where a client requested a fundamental module change late in the project, and how our approach mitigated risks to system stability - a critical factor in intralogistics.

Don't miss this opportunity to gain insights into enhancing efficiency within your IT infrastructure. Join Tadej's session to learn practical strategies for applying Oracle PL/SQL in intralogistics.

About Tadej Remic

Tadej has over 25 years of experience in IT, beginning with development in Pascal and Visual Basic, where he gained his initial expertise in design and programming. He later transitioned to database technologies, focusing on Oracle SQL and PL/SQL, which opened new dimensions in developing business solutions. Throughout his career, Tadej has contributed to projects across various domains - including accounting, commerce, geodesy, banking, and intralogistics - enhancing his understanding of client business needs and enabling him to craft appropriate software solutions. Over the years, he has advanced to the role of software architect and is currently employed at Endava as a Design Lead. For the past seven years, Tadej has specialized in intralogistics, concentrating on architecting and designing solutions for warehouse process automation tailored to individual clients. His responsibilities also include technical leadership and guiding development teams through all project phases.

Oracle Transactions - more than meets the eye

MakeIT 2025 Oracle Database

Thursday, May 29, 2025 12:00 - 12:45 CEST

insert, update, write to disk, commit. That’s it, right? Well, yes and no. Well, no. Oracle is complex (you might have noticed) and it has a lot of mechanisms to ensure data integrity when you make changes. I hope I can explain what’s going on, so you can understand just how much work Oracle is doing to ensure the data you are reading and writing is correct, and showing how Oracle avoids doing work unless it really has to. I’m sorry, but this will involve showing you some block internals.

About Neil Chandler

Neil has been working in IT since 1988 when he coded Assembler and Cobol on IBM Mainframes against both hierarchical (NoSQL-ish) and relational databases. He started using Oracle software in 1991. Neil is an Oracle ACE Director and a founding member of the MASH Program. He likes to drink strong smooth Italian coffee, good beer and better whisky, depending upon the time of day.

Parameterized Views in Oracle - Why and How?

MakeIT 2025 Oracle Database

Thursday, May 29, 2025 17:45 - 18:30 CEST

There is no concept of parameterizable views in SQL. And yet questions about it arise quite regularly in developer forums. There seem to be good reasons for this. What are they? In this presentation, we will deal with this question and look at various workarounds. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using them? A particular focus is on the use of SQL macros, which are available from Oracle 19c onwards. How close can we get to the desired construct so that in use the handling is as similar as possible to real views and little of the workaround is noticeable?

About Andrej Pashchenko

Andrej Pashchenko started his IT career in the early 1990s and has been working with Oracle Database since 1999 - the last 15 years as a consultant. He supports customer projects with a focus on data warehousing, data modeling, ETL and SQL performance. Andrej is sharing his knowledge and experience from customer projects on his blog, talking on various conferences and as a class instructor of Oracle New Features course.

Performance Grand Prix – Who Will Win the Race?

MakeIT 2025 Development

Friday, May 30, 2025 16:00 - 16:45 CEST

Every day, we race for better performance – optimizing SQL queries, searching for tricks and methods to retrieve and modify data in the most efficient way possible.
But have you ever wondered why some techniques are faster? Are they always better? And – most importantly – how much can you really gain from using them? Join us for the exceptional Performance Grand Prix, where various SQL techniques will compete for the title of efficiency champion!
At the starting line, you'll find a mix of classic and refined approaches. Your task? Guess which one will cross the finish line first. Participate in interactive quizzes, place your bets on the winner, and discover whether your chosen technique earned the trophy. Will an index scan outpace a full table scan? Or will an underdog surprise everyone?
Don’t miss this chance – hop into the driver’s seat and join the race for knowledge and performance!

About Monika Lewandowska

Monika is an experienced Oracle architect, designer, and developer. She has started her journey with Oracle in the last century with Oracle DB 7, continues to this day. She emphasizes the solution's simplicity, code quality, best practices, and above all - system performance. She is an Oracle Ace and willingly shares her experience. She loves fast motorcycles and databases!

Play Framework is Back and Better than Ever: How It Will Rock Your Web Development World

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Java

Friday, May 30, 2025 14:00 - 14:45 CEST

Since 2009, the Play Framework has made it easy to build web applications with Java or Scala (and soon Kotlin).
Since version 2, released in 2012, Play has evolved into a highly developer-friendly, proven-in-production, solid, fast, and scalable JVM framework, loved by many companies around the world. However, it is still unknown to many Java developers. This talk shines a light on one of the hidden champions in the Java world.

At the end of 2021, Lightbend, the company that sponsored and led the development of the Play Framework for almost a decade, handed over the project to the community. Since then, the Play Framework has successfully used Open Collective to gather funds to pay contributors and cover other project expenses in the most transparent way possible. This allows us to support a full-time, community-sponsored Open Source Maintainer.

Hundreds of backers and a few premium sponsors, like The Guardian and Depop, have placed high trust in Play, its community, and its maintainers.
In fact, half of our premium sponsors use Play with pure Java.

We have native Gradle support in beta, an LTS coming in 2025, and planned support for Kotlin as well.

In this talk, we go through the evolution of Play and show you how it will improve your web development experience.

About Matthias Kurz

Play Framework lover since 2010, contributor since 2014, maintainer since 2021

Preparing DWH Data at Generali insurance company – A Practical Example

MakeIT 2025 Oracle Database

Thursday, May 29, 2025 12:00 - 12:45 CEST

We will illustrate a practical example of how we implemented the process of preparing production data for data warehousing at Generali insurance company. With presented approach, we can obtain the data of all registered tables on any chosen day in history. In addition to discussing the technical aspects of the implementation, we will show how we ensured data consistency and integrity. This solution has been successfully operational for several years.

About Boris Oblak

Boris Oblak je kot direktor razvoja v podjetju Abakus plus d.o.o. od leta 1992 zadolžen za razvoj informacijskih rešitev. Diplomiral je leta 1987 na Fakulteti za strojništvo v Mariboru. Začetki dela z Oracle bazo segajo še v verzijo 5, prve aplikacija pa je razvijal z verzijo Oracle 6 še v DOS okolju. Vzporedno je razvijal aplikacije na operacijskem sistemu VMS. Z bazo Oracle 7 je delal na operacijskih sistemih OpenVMS in SCO unix. S sodelavcem sta leta 1996 uspešno prenesla bazo Oracle 7.1.5 na operacijski sistem linux, še preden je Oracle ta operacijski sistem podprl. Z verzijo baze Oracle 8 je Oracle operacijski sistem linux tudi uradno podprl. Takrat se je preusmeril na ta operacijski sistem in se bolj posvetil administraciji in optimizaciji baz podatkov. Leta 1999 je sodeloval pri razvoju logističnega informacijskega sistema, pri optimizaciji iskanja artiklov v skladiščih, v podjetju Sava-trade d.d. Leta 2000 je sodeloval pri izgradnji informacijskega sistema za letališča (Flight Information System – FIS) v podjetju Aerodrom Ljubljana d.d., kjer nadaljuje z delom na razvoju. Leta 2003 je sodeloval pri razvoju distribucije in prodaje edicij, točneje pri izdelavi algoritma za učinkovito razdeljevanje revij in časopisov po prodajnih mestih v podjetju Delo prodaja d.d. Zadolžen je za varovanje in restavriranje podatkov (RMAN, DataGuard).

About Miha Petrič

I am a Data Warehouse Specialist at Generali Insurance Company, located in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In my role, I utilize Oracle to efficiently load data from source systems into the Data Warehouse (DWH) and prepare it for end-users. I hold a Master of Science degree in Financial Mathematics from the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Ljubljana.

Project APEX - using SQL-CL Project to deploy database and apex applications

MakeIT 2025 APEX

Thursday, May 29, 2025 16:00 - 16:45 CEST

In the fast-paced realm of application development, staying agile and efficient is essential, especially when managing complex Oracle Database projects. Enter the SQLCL Project command - an invaluable asset in the toolkit of Oracle APEX developers. This command redefines database deployment by packaging SQL and PL/SQL scripts into a structured, version-controlled format that supports collaborative workflows and continuous integration. With the SQLCL Project command, teams can standardise and automate key stages of Oracle APEX deployments, ensuring consistent and error-free rollouts across environments.

This presentation will guide you through the core benefits of the SQLCL Project command, showing how it enables seamless synchronisation between code and database schema, simplifies project dependencies, and enhances traceability for rapid development cycles. By the end, you'll see why this command is more than just a deployment tool—it's a bridge to efficient, scalable, and sustainable database management in Oracle APEX environments.

About Richard Martens

Richard Martens has been involved in information technology for more than 20 years. He started as a web developer using the Oracle database as no more than data storage. Richard has been responsible for major European multilingual websites and has been working with the Oracle database since 2000. During those years, he developed himself using a multitude of technologies and specialized in PL/SQL and Oracle APEX. Richard has been working primarily with PLSQL and APEX since 2005. With APEX, he combines the things he loves most: the Oracle database and web technologies.

Prometheus: a practical workshop

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 DevOps Observability

Wednesday, May 28, 2025 14:30 - 18:05 CEST

One of the three pillars of observability is metrics, and the preeminent platform for metric collection is still Prometheus. Although it's been with us for a long time, many developers are still struggling to leverage metrics properly: the combination of an ever-shifting ecosystem and an unfamiliar paradigm can be daunting. In this workshop you will gain a grounded understanding of what a metric observability stack looks like through hands-on experience.

You will be furnished with a full-fledged lab environment, including an example back-end service and the entire metric stack at your finger tips. Through explanations and exercises, you will come out the other end understanding not just how to leverage Prometheus and Grafana to reason about your software, but also how parts of the ecosystem interact and complement each other - knowledge you can likely apply immediately in your day-job!

About Tomer Gabel

A programming junkie and computer history aficionado, Tomer's been an avid software professional for almost two decades, during which he's built any number of (predominantly back-end) systems, cofounded two major Israeli user groups (Java.IL and Underscore), organized an annual Scala conference (Scalapeño) and is a recurring speaker at software conferences. Plying his trade as a gun-for-hire at Substrate, he secretly still hopes to realize his childhood dream of becoming a lion tamer.

Rediscovering Apollo 11: Using Java + Vector Search to Explore the trip to the moon!

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 AI Java AI

Thursday, May 29, 2025 12:00 - 12:45 CEST

What happens when you combine the Apollo program’s historical data with modern AI tools? You get a way to interact with one of humanity’s greatest adventures like never before! In this session, I’ll show you how I used AI to explore Apollo mission data—aligning transcripts, telemetry, and images to uncover hidden connections and insights.

We’ll dive into how Semantic Search helps make sense of unstructured text, why embeddings are the key to searching for intent instead of keywords, and how AI tools can enrich even the most complex datasets. Don’t know what embeddings or vector databases are? Don’t worry—I’ll break it all down and show you how it works.

Come for the Moon missions, stay for the AI magic, and leave ready to create your own data-driven adventures!

About Raphael De Lio

Raphael De Lio is a passionate software engineer who loves to think about solutions and ways to improve anything he touches. With over seven years of experience across multiple roles, industries, and countries, he brings a rich perspective to solving technical challenges and connecting with developer communities. Born in Brazil, Raphael lived in Portugal for six years before moving to the Netherlands in 2022. His main role was a Software Engineer, with expertise in Java, Kotlin, and scalable systems. He also served as the organizer and host of the Dutch Kotlin User Group, building a community for Kotlin enthusiasts in Amsterdam. Currently, he serves as a Developer Advocate at Redis, where he combines his love for coding with his enthusiasm for empowering others through education, advocacy, and community engagement.

Searching for a database recovery superstar!

MakeIT 2025 Oracle Database

Thursday, May 29, 2025 14:00 - 14:45 CEST

Recovering databases from any kind of loss is an essential task for any DBA. Over the years Oracle has introduced many methods to recover damaged data, this session reviews these options and the possibilities to move away from the traditional backup setup in the ever increasing database size world. We will explore different failure scenarios, what Oracle options could be used to recovery from the failure. Up to the ultimate recovery challenge, the need to recover database from alternate storage and how to prepare for this scenario. As database sizes increase, is there still a place for traditional backup tools like Oracle RMAN or can we replace them in order to keep the total price of backups down and make them more useful?

About Ilmar Kerm

Ilmar has worked with Oracle Databases since 2005, starting out with Oracle 9i. Last 15 years he has been working with one of the largest online gambling providers in Europe, Kindred/Unibet, as a Senior Database administrator, where he manages both busy transactional databases and large data warehouse daily. Previously he has been both in DBA and developer roles in medical and IT consulting industries. Ilmar has presented in Oracle User Group conferences in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Estonia, Israel, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, India, Ireland, Poland, UK and US.

Securing apps with joy, with new features in Jakarta EE 11

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Java

Friday, May 30, 2025 16:00 - 16:45 CEST

With Jakarta Security 4.0 in Jakarta EE 11, securing Java applications has become simpler and more flexible. Whether you’re working on cloud-native systems or microservices, this release provides tools that make providing various authentication mechanisms straightforward and intuitive.

In this session, you’ll learn an easy way how to secure different parts of your application using distinct methods or give users options like logging in with a username and password, OpenID providers such as Google or Facebook, or other approaches.

We’ll also explore OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0 integration, showing how Jakarta Security 4.0 delivers an easy-to-use framework for securing APIs, microservices, and web applications. Through practical examples and live demos, you’ll see how to use these features to create secure and user-friendly applications effortlessly.

About Ondro Mihályi

Ondro is a software developer and consultant specializing in combining standard and proven tools to solve new and challenging problems. He's been developing in Java for over 10 years. He’s worked for clients like Payara, LottoLand, Uniqa and others. He has co-founded OmniFish, which provides enterprise support for Eclipse GlassFish and expert Jakarta EE services. He’s passionate about helping his clients and the wider Java community with their projects based on Jakarta EE and similar technologies. As an experienced Java developer and instructor, he's helped companies build and educate their development teams and improve their development processes. He's a core member of several opensource projects and Jakarta EE specification projects. He’s a frequent conference speaker, leader of the Czech JUG, and a Java Champion.

Securing ORDS REST services with JSON Web Tokens (JWT)

MakeIT 2025 APEX

Thursday, May 29, 2025 14:00 - 14:45 CEST

ORDS REST services that return specific user related data need more authentication than just a client_id and client_secret. It must be ensured that a user only has access to his own data, and not the data of any other user. So in the REST service call we must determine the identity of the calling user, in a secure way. A good means to do this is by making use of JSON Web Tokens (JWT). In this session we will explain how JSON Web Tokens are put together, and how we can take advantage of the JWT features in the latest versions of ORDS. Also the use of JWT in APEX is discussed.

About André van der Put

André van der Put has been working with Oracle technology since 1997. The last 15 years his main focus is on Application Express. Currently he is employed by Open-Fine, where he builds and maintains APEX applications for several clients. He has presented several times at various conferences.

Serverless Java hacks: Think different and leave old habits behind

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Serverless Java

Thursday, May 29, 2025 16:00 - 16:45 CEST

In this presentation, we will delve into the details of developing serverless applications in Java, emphasizing the need for a paradigm shift in coding practices and architectural considerations. I will explain key aspects of serverless Java, including source code structuring, framework choices (many of them based on Jakarta EE), deployment strategies tailored for serverless environments, and runtime optimizations with GraalVM native compilation and tools like CRaC and AWS Snapstart.

Serverless applications require precise attention to startup speed optimizations and efficient resource initialization. We will discuss strategies for resource management, advocating for lean connection and thread pools. Additionally, we will examine the importance of external configuration, statelessness, and the efficient storage of state data in external services or databases within the context of serverless architectures.

As part of our technical exploration, I will highlight the advantages of using specialized client libraries optimized for startup speed, in contrast to traditional libraries designed for high throughput. By the end of this session, you will gain a deep understanding of the technical nuances involved in serverless Java development, equipping you with the tools and insights needed to optimize performance and seamlessly adapt to serverless computing environments.

About Ondro Mihályi

Ondro is a software developer and consultant specializing in combining standard and proven tools to solve new and challenging problems. He's been developing in Java for over 10 years. He’s worked for clients like Payara, LottoLand, Uniqa and others. He has co-founded OmniFish, which provides enterprise support for Eclipse GlassFish and expert Jakarta EE services. He’s passionate about helping his clients and the wider Java community with their projects based on Jakarta EE and similar technologies. As an experienced Java developer and instructor, he's helped companies build and educate their development teams and improve their development processes. He's a core member of several opensource projects and Jakarta EE specification projects. He’s a frequent conference speaker, leader of the Czech JUG, and a Java Champion.

Slaying Sacred Cows: Deconstructing Dependency Injection

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Java

Friday, May 30, 2025 11:00 - 11:45 CEST

This talk revisits dependency injection, and attempts to answer a single question honestly, or at least while pointing out and acknowledging the biases at play: "is dependency injection a good thing?"

Dependency injection has fast established itself as a major design pattern in modern software. No longer the province of server-side and enterprise software, it is now a fundamental component of frameworks from Spring Boot to Angular.js.

With such widespread success, the time is ripe to take a fresh look at dependency injection if we are to understand it better. After all, DI is instrumental in building large systems that are loosely coupled, and it cleanly separates your tests from implementation... or does it?

About Tomer Gabel

A programming junkie and computer history aficionado, Tomer's been an avid software professional for almost two decades, during which he's built any number of (predominantly back-end) systems, cofounded two major Israeli user groups (Java.IL and Underscore), organized an annual Scala conference (Scalapeño) and is a recurring speaker at software conferences. Plying his trade as a gun-for-hire at Substrate, he secretly still hopes to realize his childhood dream of becoming a lion tamer.

SQL*Net Encryption & Authentication

MakeIT 2025 Oracle Database

Friday, May 30, 2025 11:00 - 11:45 CEST

We’ll explore Oracle Native Network Encryption and Transport Layer Security (TLS) settings in Oracle Database, starting with encryption basics and configuration examples for both servers and clients.

Next, we’ll dive into TLS setup, discussing client and server authentication using certificates. We’ll also cover the setup and management of Oracle Wallets required for secure communication.

At this point we’ll already know how to authenticate database clients with certificates, so now we’ll also provide a brief example on how we can authenticate them with Kerberos.

Finally, we’ll present best practices on when and how to use such configurations and what other Oracle Database features, such as proxy users, can be used in conjunction with everything described so far.

This session is relevant for any edition of Oracle Database, including Standard Edition.

About Urh Srečnik

Urh Srečnik is a DBA and a developer at Abakus Plus d.o.o. (http://www.abakus.si/), where he is responsible for pro-active maintenance of many Oracle Databases and develops Abakus's solution for monitoring Oracle Database performance: APPM (https://appm.abakus.si). This solution is also available as a Free Edition. Also author of open-source DDLFS filesystem (https://github.com/usrecnik/ddlfs). Oracle Database Administrator Certified Professional & Oracle Certified Professional Java SE Programmer.

Test Data Generation, Subsetting and Anonymization

MakeIT 2025 Oracle Database

Friday, May 30, 2025 15:00 - 15:45 CEST

In most cases, developers need production-related data to test their applications. This ranges from a subset of the available data to complete extraction of the production database into a development or test database.

To fulfill the company's security requirements, this data usually has to be anonymized.

This presentation presents possible ways of generating (synthetic) test data with the help of external sources or AI. In addition, the efficient cloning of production databases and data anonymization will be discussed.


In this presentation, I will talk about features like Data Masking and Subsetting, Data Redaction, and the usage of the AI features of Oracle Autonomous databases.

For the DBAs, I will show different efficient ways to move data between prod and non-prod.

In the end, both sites, developers, and DBAs, know the requirements of each data and how to realize them.

About Christian Gohmann

Christian Gohmann is currently working as Data Eng, Mgmt & Governance Associate Manager and Instructor at Accenture in Dusseldorf, Germany. His main focus lies in helping customers in the areas of architecture planning, implementation, and migration - with a specialization in high availability solutions, like Data Guard and Oracle RAC. Since 2006, Christian Gohmann has been working with Oracle and the Oracle Database and worked on various projects for customers in German-speaking areas. Besides his consultancy activities, he is the main developer and the responsible person for db*BACKUP - a product distributed by Accenture, which is responsible for the intelligent backup and recovery of an Oracle database. In his spare time, he shares his knowledge on his blog https://www.christian-gohmann.de and spends as much time as possible with his dog Taran, and for his hobbies climbing/bouldering, hiking, and watching movies.

Testiranje sprememb

MakeIT 2025 Development

Friday, May 30, 2025 14:00 - 14:45 CEST

Ali se v praksi Oracle baze nadgrajujejo vsake 3 mesece, kot je varnostno priporočilo ? Seveda ne, kaj pa če se v višji verziji prikrade kakšna regresija, in bodo nastali problemi v produkciji. In še, kdo pa ima čas ukvarjati se z testiranjem sprememb.
No, Oracle je že pred več kot 15 leti naredil orodje Real Application Testing, ki omogoča testiranje sprememb. Žal se to orodje le redko uporablja, deloma zaradi zahtevnosti celotnega procesa, deloma zaradi zahtevane dodatne licence za RAT orodje.
Kako bi moralo izgledati testiraje sprememb pri nadgradnji Oracle baze, si lahko ogledamo na Oracle Autonomous bazi, kjer Oracle Autonomous predhodno zajame SQL workload, naredi se kloniranje baze na višjo verzijo, ponovi SQL workload na višji verziji in poiščejo se potencialne regresije.
Kaj pa non-Autonomous baze ? Dobra novica je, da je RAT orodje vključeno v vse Oracle OCI EE baze, tudi v Oracle Base DB in ExaCC bazah. Za on-premise baze pa je možna uporaba RAT licenčnega orodja ali brezplačni zajem SQL v okviru Tuning Set in kasnejšo uporabo Tuning Set v SPA orodju, ki se izvaja na Oracle OCI bazi (Base DB ali ExaCC).

About Robert Korosec

Robert Korošec has 30 years of experience in IT. He had started with Oracle 7.2, Oracle Forms 4.5 and Java 1.1 and since 1999 he works in Oracle as technical consultant for Oracle Database and Oracle Exadata systems. Last few years he works as Oracle Cloud consultant, focusing on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and Cloud services, Oracle Autonomous Database, Data Warehouse, Bigdata data systems and Machine Learning.

The environments inside your containers

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Developer Productivity DevOps CI / CD DevOps Security

Friday, May 30, 2025 12:00 - 12:45 CEST

The Dockerfile is widely used to create container images, but it's fraught
with problems like a lack of reproducibility, gaps in security, and sub-optimal dependency management. These problems lead to large image sizes, unpredictable build processes, and a lot of management challenges.

In this talk we will address these problems and show how Flox can change the standard way we build container images to make it more secure and simpler.

Through practical examples we will look at how companies use Flox to empower their developers to create efficient, reliable, and secure container images. And why stop there, when Flox provides a way to improve your whole SDLC!

This presentation will be useful for both advanced container users and new ones, since at Flox we focus heavily on providing the best DX while not compromising security.

About Rok Garbas

Rok is an Engineer at Flox. Wherever he worked, he put users first, either as a Release Engineer at Mozilla or as a consultant at Tweag. UX/DX became the language to "talk" to the users. Knowing that communicating the ideas is as important as having the technical skill is what makes Rok stand out. Understanding users and knowing how to talk to them is what brings a smile to Rok's face every day.

The Microservices Survival Guide: Tools and Principles for Scaling to 500+ Services

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Cloud Native Observability

Thursday, May 29, 2025 16:00 - 16:45 CEST

In a small startup, shipping features quickly is the priority, and tooling often takes a backseat. But as you grow, these early decisions can hold you back. You might end up with a massive monolith because creating new services takes too much effort, or face exploding complexity if you embrace microservices without the right tooling.

But there’s a better way: with upfront investment in your platform, you can scale to hundreds of microservices while staying focused on delivering business value — not getting bogged down in tedious migrations, untangling service dependencies, or struggling to navigate ownership and accountability across teams.

In this talk, we’ll cover:
1. Rapid, Frictionless Service Creation: How to get to a point where creating and deploying a new service — complete with observability, service discovery, client libraries, health checks, and configuration — takes less than an hour.
2. Internal Libraries and Wrappers: Why standardizing caching, service discovery, client builders, and more is key to scaling.
3. Platform Control Benefits: Tools and insights you can unlock, like real-time request flows, dependency visualizations, automated version bumps, unified onboarding, and out-of-the-box tracing.

Drawing from real-world experience at a company with 500+ Java microservices, this talk will prepare you for the challenges of scaling your systems and provide actionable ideas to improve your developer experience at any stage of growth.

About Aljaz Blazej

My fascination with computers started early on, leading me to develop many full-featured mobile games and applications during my high school days. Afterwards, I began my computer science studies in Ljubljana, where I filled my free time with hackathons and hobby tech projects, as well as joining Zemanta (now Teads) as a backend engineer. I helped support the company's systems during rapid growth as the load on our services increased over 100x in the span of just a few years. Soon after completing my master's studies, I became the tech lead and manager of one of the Java backend teams. Throughout my career, I also found happiness in working with the community by holding multiple talks and workshops at different events, organizing summer schools, helping in hackathons as well as organizing free individual tutoring of programming for students (with over 50 sessions).

Unlocking a World of Opportunity with Oracle Analytics Maps

MakeIT 2025 Analytics

Friday, May 30, 2025 14:00 - 14:45 CEST

Maps provide a natural, intuitive, and spatial understanding of data, making them more effective than other visualizations for location-based data. In this session, we will showcase how to create visually impactful and fully interactive maps from scratch using Oracle Analytics and Oracle Spatial Studio. We will explore the anatomy of a map, demonstrate how to customize each component, and highlight new features—including support for geometry data types—that enhance your ability to unlock deeper insights from your geographic data.

About Federico Venturin

Federico Venturin is an Oracle ACE Associate and a seasoned Oracle Analytics enthusiast with over 13 years of experience. He has been speaking at major Oracle conferences (OUG Ireland, UKOUG, RMOUG, ODTUG Kscope), sharing insights and best practices. He maintains a technical blog with regular articles about Oracle Analytics, and actively contributes to Oracle community forums, providing solutions and guidance. Outside of work, Federico likes to play videogames, travel all around the world and taste local food.

Unveiling the Hidden Gems of Oracle APEX 25.1

MakeIT 2025 APEX

Friday, May 30, 2025 12:00 - 12:45 CEST

Oracle APEX 25.1 introduces a suite of enhancements aimed at empowering developers and enriching the application-building experience. While the spotlight often falls on marquee features, this session unveils the lesser-known innovations that redefine efficiency and creativity in APEX development. From subtle yet powerful updates in the development environment to improvements in performance tuning and RESTful integration, we’ll explore features that streamline workflows and enhance application scalability.

This session is perfect for APEX developers eager to deepen their expertise, discover nuanced capabilities, and prepare for the future of low-code development with Oracle APEX. Whether you’re optimising for rapid prototyping or enterprise-grade deployment, this talk highlights the features that will make your journey smoother in APEX 25.1.

About Richard Martens

Richard Martens has been involved in information technology for more than 20 years. He started as a web developer using the Oracle database as no more than data storage. Richard has been responsible for major European multilingual websites and has been working with the Oracle database since 2000. During those years, he developed himself using a multitude of technologies and specialized in PL/SQL and Oracle APEX. Richard has been working primarily with PLSQL and APEX since 2005. With APEX, he combines the things he loves most: the Oracle database and web technologies.

What shapes prices in Airbnb? - OCI Data Science in Action

MakeIT 2025 AI

Thursday, May 29, 2025 14:00 - 14:45 CEST

In today's IT world, there are many related terms everywhere you look with machine learning and artificial intelligence.

It seems sometimes very complicated and scary. But is it really so? Oracle provides a set of tools in its cloud to carry out the entire process

machine learning process. The session aims to show fans the technology from Oracle to what conclusions can be drawn based on a relatively small set of data from Airbnb. We will learn the basic tools available in OCI Data Science and take a look at some Python code.

About Tomasz Ziss

I am Oracle Certified Master and Cloud Architect in all Public Clouds (Azure, AWS, GCP, Oracle Cloud) I'm also a DevOps and Machine Learning fan. I started my adventure in IT several years ago. First I have worked as a Java and .Net programmer. Later I've decided to be an Oracle DBA and since then I am continuing my journey in the Oracle world. I've added Cloud Architecture and Data Science and Data Engineering into my skill sets. My main areas of specialization are: I. Performance Tuning II. High Available environments III. Automation During my career I am responsible for technical task related to the Oracle database world. Very often I participate in critical projects.

What's new in Oracle Fleet Patching and Provisioning 23ai

MakeIT 2025 Oracle Database

Friday, May 30, 2025 15:00 - 15:45 CEST

With Oracle Database 23ai, out-of-place patching is the standard way of patching your Oracle Database estate.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have an out-of-the-box, highly customizable tool that handles patching, upgrading, and provisioning operations from A to Z?  
Look no further. Fleet Patching and Provisioning (FPP) handles all these aspects in the maintenance cycle, adhering to the latest Maximum Availability Architecture (MAA) best practices and supporting the latest Oracle Database 23ai HA features.
FPP can handle every aspect of the Oracle Database lifecycle and supports Single instances, Real Application Clusters, and the complete Exadata stack. Learn all about its new features and how easy it is to get started.

About Philippe Fierens

PM at Oracle in the MAA team, Philippe takes care of Fleet Patching and Provisioning, Exadata Fleet Update, and Exadata MAA. Before joining Oracle, Philippe was at DBA for more than 20 years, from which 7 years he worked on engineered systems ( Super Cluster and Exadata ) for various customers. In his free time, he is often seen on his gravel bike, bike packing, or doing hikes in the mountains with his 2 daughters, wife, and his dog.

When "low code" becomes "low level code". A.K.A. Dtrace and GDB for beginners.

MakeIT 2025 Oracle Database

Thursday, May 29, 2025 16:55 - 17:40 CEST

Have you ever wondered how those low-level experts actually know what kcbklbc means and what it does? In this session we are going to get our hands dirty by digging deep in low-level sh**. If you want to start your adventure with GDB, Dtrace or eBPF - this is a session for you. I will show in on a live system how to setup your environment, how to identify a function that you are looking for and how to perform some basic Assembler analyzes. Maybe we'll try to hack something together... ;) Bring your laptop and let's have some low-level fun!

About Kamil Stawiarski

Oracle Database Whisperer, performance maker and story teller. Oracle Certified Master, Oracle ACE Director and member of OakTable. Co-owner of the ORA-600 [Database Whisperers sp. z o. o. sp. k.] company and blogger (blog.ora-600.pl). Founder of Pint with Oracle User Group (poug.org) and SYM42. Personally a big fan of Terry Pratchett: "Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom."

Why Embed Oracle Analytics into APEX?

MakeIT 2025 APEX

Thursday, May 29, 2025 12:00 - 12:45 CEST

Inspired by a conversation with an APEX expert in 2019, I've spent the time since attempting to answer to that question! The result is a number of methods to embed Oracle Analytics into your APEX applications, with some architetural best practices resulting from these investigations. This session will seek to answer this question, and provide the details of the various methods to add analytics insights to APEX.

About Mike Durran

Mike is a product manager for Oracle Analytics, he specialises in how developers can take advantage of analytics in their applications, blogging about this at: https://insight2action.medium.com/. Mike has been at Oracle since '96 and has a PhD in computational chemistry. Outside of work, Mike is interested in photography, creating electronic music and playing bass.

WORKSHOP: From Data to Actionable Insights: Building a Bluesky bot powered by SpringAI

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 AI Java

Wednesday, May 28, 2025 09:30 - 13:00 CEST

Streams are a powerful way to collect and analyze data at high speed, enabling developers to uncover meaningful insights and take immediate actions. But working with streams and transforming raw data into actionable information can be challenging, especially when performance and scalability are critical.

In this workshop, we’ll tackle these challenges by building a Bluesky bot that processes data from Bluesky’s stream of posts into actionable insights using Redis, Spring AI, and Redis OM Spring—a powerful combination for modern, data-driven applications.

AGENDA
During this workshop, you will work with practical examples and hands-on exercises to learn how to:
- Collect data into streams using Redis Streams.
- Leverage probabilistic data structures like - Bloom Filters, TopK, and Count-Min Sketch for efficient data summarization.

Use a Vector Database to:
- Implement Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to enhance your LLM queries with a personalized knowledge base.
- Reduce costs and improve performance using semantic caching for minimizing unnecessary LLM calls.
- Perform vector similarity search with Redis OM Spring to classify and analyze data effectively.

And finally:
- Query your data efficiently for actionable insights.
- Ensure scalability and reliability.

This is an interactive workshop. We will be learning while iterating over real challenges. Don’t forget your laptop!

About Brian Sam-Bodden

Brian Sam-Bodden is a Senior Applied AI Engineer at Redis as well as an author, instructor, speaker, developer advocate and open source contributor and Java Champion who has spent over twenty years crafting software systems. He holds dual bachelor’s degrees from Ohio Wesleyan University in computer science and physics. Brian is a frequent speaker at user groups and conferences nationally and abroad and is the author of “Beginning POJOs: Spring, Hibernate, JBoss and Tapestry”, co-author of the “Enterprise Java Development on a Budget: Leveraging Java Open Source Technologies” and a contributor to O'Reilly's “97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know”.

About Raphael De Lio

Raphael De Lio is a passionate software engineer who loves to think about solutions and ways to improve anything he touches. With over seven years of experience across multiple roles, industries, and countries, he brings a rich perspective to solving technical challenges and connecting with developer communities. Born in Brazil, Raphael lived in Portugal for six years before moving to the Netherlands in 2022. His main role was a Software Engineer, with expertise in Java, Kotlin, and scalable systems. He also served as the organizer and host of the Dutch Kotlin User Group, building a community for Kotlin enthusiasts in Amsterdam. Currently, he serves as a Developer Advocate at Redis, where he combines his love for coding with his enthusiasm for empowering others through education, advocacy, and community engagement.

You've Got The JWT, Now What?

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Architecture Microservices Security Security Application development

Thursday, May 29, 2025 12:00 - 12:45 CEST

JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) are a fundamental component of nearly every modern application that involves users and APIs. These simple yet powerful tokens effectively protect user, workload, and machine identities while delivering a seamless developer experience.

For many developers, using JWTs is straightforward, so they often don’t take the time to fully understand how they work or the advanced capabilities they offer for authentication and authorization.

In this talk, I’ll cover the basics of how JWTs work and then dive into advanced workflows that leverage their capabilities to enhance application security and user experience.

About Gabriel L. Manor

Gabriel is an engineering executive with extensive experience in security and developer platforms. Over the years, I have worked as a technical leader and principal engineer at large corporations such as Cisco and Palo Alto Networks and a few startups. For the last couple of years, Gabriel has mainly focused on fine-grained authorization. As the VP of developer relations at Permit.io, he advocates for and creates content around security and permissions, guiding engineers in this journey. In my spare time, I'm an avid writer, kitchen enthusiast, and adventurous traveler.

Your Cloud-Native Toolbox for Java

JCON OpenBlend Slovenia 2025 Cloud Native

Friday, May 30, 2025 12:00 - 12:45 CEST

What does it mean to have cloud-native Java applications? What do you need to think about to be a good Cloud citizen?

It is not about the platform you run it on or the library/framework you want to use. It is about how you build scalable, observable, resilient applications while keeping in mind the application architecture, containers, builds, testing, automation, and standards.

Join us in exploring different tools for creating cloud-native Java apps. We will go through the whole life-cycle of an application – from the first lines of code to a fully operational and containerized application.

About Rustam Mehmandarov

Passionate computer scientist. Java Champion and Google Developers Expert for Cloud. Public speaker. Ex-leader of JavaZone and Norwegian JUG – javaBin.