Budapest Tales - Recapping an Unforgettable Fortnight at #ofmForum

Budapest is a pearl of a city. Flanking the Blue Danube from either side, it is all bridges and landscapes and landmarks. The "Paris of Eastern Europe" may strike you at first as a town belonging to a distant past, yet it is so trendy and avant-garde once you get to know it.

And it was a perfect venue for this year's Oracle Fusion Middleware Partner Community Forum. The 20th edition of the conference brought together technicians from all over the world, and whilst most of them are natives of EMEA countries, there was a also a strong US contingent of Oracle employees, as well as a surprising party of Latin American professionals.

The first two days of the event were held at majestic Boscolo hotel, with a stacked program consisting of briefings, breakout presentations, use cases, live demos and networking lapses. Having never been to an OFM Forum before, what really startled me was the generalized quality and relevance of the presentations. Even Oracle itself seems to recognize this gathering as a huge opportunity, bringing some of its top guns loaded with red-hot information to discuss with the community members. I've been in Beta Programs, CABs and Councils before, but this is just a different atmosphere.

Networking at #ofmForum is also something else, as I got to meet and talk with people I admire and respect so much, such as Lucas Jellema, Luis Weir, etc., and of course Jürgen Kress, our conference chair, who does such an exceptional job leading the community and really goes out of his way to ensure these events are not only succesful, but also extremely pleasant and memorable for everyone involved. This guy combines german precision with heart and passion, which is such a powerful mix; with his help we have managed to get so much exposure, so we're truly grateful for that.

Timing was also perfect for me in this occasion, since I was able to spend lots of time with Luis, whom I will be helping produce his second book on the topic of SOA / API Management Strategy. Thanks buddy for giving this huge opportunity to Rolando Carrasco and yours truly. Besides discussing the book, we had a lot of fun talking about technology, tweeting our brains out, sightseeing and doing lots of cool stuff in the city. One more thing I can say about Luis is that he is such a challenging guy, so driven, so hungry for knowledge and answers; I really enjoyed watching him give the Oracle guys a run for their money at the conference and the  workshops.

The people who like me, signed up for the SOA track, spent the last couple of days at the Oracle office doing hands-on work and giving feedback for groundbreaking products like ICS and Stream Explorer. I will be writing much more about these tools on days to come so stay tuned. A great thing about the change of location, was that we got to walk back to the center of the city just along the Danube river, with a setting sun, a multicolored sky and a mind at ease after a full day of hard and fulfilling work.

So, the big topics which made my short list for this week are: API Management, Cloud Integration, Mobility, Adaptive Case Management, Rich UIs and IoT; also considered were Ruin Bars, Goulash Soup, Thermal Baths and Palinka. As soon as I arrive home, but after suitable rest, I will start looking into my notes for each of this subjects (the first ones) and putting them together into specific posts.

Thanks once more for your kind attention, comments and questions are welcome as always; until next time!!