Sunday, August 8, 2010

The Last Day!

On the whole it was a fun and exposure trip especially for someone like me who has never ever visited Malaysia!
On the last day of the conference we attempted for the second time to get the certificate.
Though I did not get any certificate, I was so happy that Benjamin got it!
Seriously, at least someone in the team get one!

Despite the fact that I failed the test, I find myself knowing more about what Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is.
Such as encapsulation, loose coupling and also re-usability are some of the few features of SOA.
Mr Teo taught us what is important points to take note of while preparing for the paper and what we should do.
I read up on my own about SOA from Wikipedia and develop interest in learning more of the products that was featured in the lectures we attended!

I had never regretted signing up for the trip. I am really grateful for having the chance to be exposed to the outside world, getting a feeling of what a professional conference will be like.
Besides all the fun I had, learning and hearing the experience from the professionals are valuable assets for me.

Before I end, I really would like to thanks Mr Teo for taking care of us especially on the bus when I had motion sickness. Thank you!

Saturday, August 7, 2010

IBM conf to an end.

Is a joy to be able to finally touchdown on Singapore. Though it is very late, but at least we are back. IBM has finally come to an end. Looking through the notes, it is indeed a fruitful experience as we learned not only IBM products but also the reason why these products were birthed. Software programming and analyzing surely look fun and interesting. It will once again be a time of homework and projects but that is life. Every banquet comes to an end. Hope what we gained (I.e. technical terms and software analysis) will be an asset to Singapore Poly. As we continue to engage the class in sharing sessions over lunch, lets hope we can make a difference to those not able to participate.

Herman

IBM Finale

On the night of the third day, our lecturer Mr Teo gave us a fast lecture on SOA. He basically gave us a crash course on the important facts and the gist of SOA so that we can at least know some basic of SOA before we actually go and retake the SOA fundamentals test. The basic lecture he gave all of us made me have a brief understanding of SOA and how it works. Even though it was a crash-course, I feel that it is very beneficial as I can actually learn about SOA in a short period of time and even understand them.

In the morning, I bodingly went to take another test on SOA fundamentals. I was very satisfied with my performance as I had improved my score by 18%, however, I still did not make it to the certification. Taking the IBM test is really a wonderful experience, I could actually feel the amount of knowledge that a person must know in order to pass the test. It is not easy to take an IBM test certification and I have learnt a lesson that I must not go and try to attempt another IBM test without proper/basic knowledge on the products and systems.

The various lectures I attended for the rest of the day were more on the product-based lectures where they tell us more on the special features of their new products. From this lectures, I learnt that the new versions of the products and their previous version, how they are improved and what are the main areas that they improved on. I feel that this is quite useful as I now know what to focus on if I want to improve an existing product. The speakers also taught on how to use the new products. Although I do not really need to use these products in the near future, I feel that it is still a good thing that I learn, so that I can at least have a little experience and basic knowledge on the product.

Time to go home, I was disappointed that we had to leave already even before the whole conference is officially closed and that I had to miss the last lecture which was a sharing session with the experts which I was interested in. Although it was a short three day conference, I had benefited from this conference. Not only did I learn new technology and software, but also some basic skills like problem dissecting and others.

I really want to go to another conference like this.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Reflections/ 3rd Day conference

After studying, we decided to take up the test once again in the morning. After breakfast, we headed to the "examination hall" to register. The test was a little easier after Mr Teo gave us some just-in-time lecture but I still failed in the end. Though I did improve. After the test, we attended another lecture on omnibus before having our lunch. Later on, we finally had to return to Singapore. On the bus, I was practically sleeping the whole time as I was really tired from studying the previous night.

Overall, I felt that this trip was a good experience. Although I had difficulty trying to catch up, I still found the experience good as I get to experience learning from IBM's people and also the way these conferences are conducted. I would definitely attend another conference like this if I had the chance.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Last Day

After studying for the entire night, we went to sleep at 3am+. We decided to take the certification test for Service oriented architecture(SOA) in the morning because we feel that there will be little people wanting to take the test in the morning. The queue for the test turned out to be so long that some of us fell asleep while waiting. For the test, I got lucky and managed to pass the test. I was soooooo happppyyyy~~~

After the test, we decided to go for a workshop about the new features of Omnibus. The speaker told us the new features in the product and also explained in detail sometimes. I found the lecture very boring as I have no previous knowledge about Omnibus.

Before the bus ride, we actually wanted to talk and play some games on the bus. However, the late sleeping time and early waking up time caused me to sleep on the bus for almost the whole duration.

Overall, I feel that the whole experience was very meaningful and I had definately learnt something new there.

Leonard's Reflections 5/8

This is the third and final day of the IBM Software Technical Conference. After failing my first attempt at the SOA certificate, I started sourcing for more information on SOA and also asked my lecturer, Mr Teo Shin Jen, to give me some advice.

I took the test at 9am and thanks to the JIT (Just in Time) tutorial by Mr Teo and some websites about SOA, I improved my score by 2 percent! Even though it was not a huge improvement, it was an improvement nonetheless. None of the previous paper’s questions were repeated either.

After the test, I went for a lecture about the new features of Omnibus 7.3.0. The technical terms used during the lecture were very complicated and I had a hard time understanding the topic. After lunch, I went for a lecture about Cognos 8.0 and SOA. I learned a lot during the lecture, like the architecture of Cognos 8.0, the advantages it provides to businesses and how it works to provide the services to the business companies.

We had to leave early on this day as our bus leaves at 6pm so regretfully, I could not attend any more lectures. I have really enjoyed this conference as I could learn a lot of things about IBM and their products, which I might be using in future jobs. This was a very enriching experience and I hope to be able to attend more conferences in the future.

This is Leonard and it has been enjoyable writing my experiences in this blog.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Leonard's Reflections 4/8

This is Day 2 of the IBM Technical Software Conference. I attended more lectures about Tivoli : Deploying a Service Desk Quickly and Network Configuration and Change Management and Compliance Management.

I learned about topics like Quick Deployment, ITIL Processes, Tivoli Service Request Memory (TSRM), Tivoli Foundations Software Appliances (TFSM), Policy Based Compliance Management (PBCM) and Tivoli Netcool Configuration Manager (TNCM) during the lectures.

After trying out the lectures, I became confident and decided to try out one of my attempts at the IBM certification. I chose to attempt the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) test, the passing mark was 66% and there were 54 questions in the paper. Even though I only scored 25 questions right in the test, it has inspired me to work harder in the future lectures to pass my second attempt at the test.

My final lecture for the day was Birds of Feather with Architects. It was a free asking session about Websphere Application Server (WAS) with five IBM experts and the audience at the lecture asked many useful questions and the experts responded with very enlightening information. Personally, I feel that I have learned more from this session than from some of the lectures. One of the questions the audience asked was an Infinite Thread problem where he wanted to terminate his program without restarting his WAS. The source of the problem was found to be a Hung Thread, since the enquirer’s WAS was standalone, he could not avoid restarting his WAS. Only if the WAS was in a cluster then he could terminate the program without restarting the WAS as other nodes will be able to run the thread. The lecturer even made a joke about the “Ostrich method” as a way to solve the problem : Bury your head in the ground and pretend nothing happened.

That is the end of day 2 and another interesting day of learning. Tomorrow will be the last day of the conference before the return to Singapore!