Trip report: Tech Planet 2012

I’ve had many dealings with SK Planet, in South Korea, so when they asked me to speak at their inaugural Tech Planet, I jumped at the opportunity. I was already pre-given a topic titled “NewSQL”, so I talked about the evolution of SQL -> Big Data -> NoSQL -> NewSQL, all thanks to papers written by Google research, and then focused on how MySQL & MariaDB is gaining many new interfaces: mariasql, HandlerSocket, dynamic columns, memcached InnoDB plugin, node.js with NDBCLUSTER, CassandraSE, LevelDB, Galera Cluster and more. This is a topic I will talk more about later.

The event was great. It started with a speaker’s dinner in where the CTO of SK Planet & multiple VP’s dined with the speakers. We had a private room at the InterContinental COEX, and started with smoked salmon, Russian crab meat & cream cheese. This was followed on quickly by crab meat soup. The main course was beef tenderloin, mero fish & steamed black rice, asparagus and black garlic. We ended with a cranberry tian with raspberry sauce. This was filled with lots of Equus red wine. 

The next day, we had the day of the event itself and it was huge. There were probably over 800 attendees, and SkySQL had a booth maintained by the Korean partners: OSS Korea, PrixMedia, and Oh New Innovation. This was followed by lunch with the CEO of SK Planet with great conversation & food. Started with tuna & avocado, to clear the palate, some lemon sorbet, and a great main consisting of beef tenderloin & king prawn with red wine sauce. We had much to chat about, and as lunch came to a close, it was time for me to give my talk.

It was well attended, there were some good questions, and there are naturally some good action items. I’m glad that the whole ecosystem provided me multiple opportunities to talk about amazing work being done. The press covered the Tech Planet event. I managed to snag an interview as well. More photos of the event at my techplanet2012 tag on Flickr.

All in, an exciting space to be in now. Thank you so much for SK Planet for the invite, and I look forward to being around in 2013.