"In an age where information is power, the All India Oracle Users Group promises to be "the platform" for the quintessential adoption, collection and dissemination of relevant information, related to Oracle technologies in the Indian sub-continent. Many of its peers around the world serve tens of thousands of members in their local Oracle communities to not only keep abreast on upcoming technological initiatives such as Oracle Fusion, but also to get deep and varying perspectives of existing technologies such as Application Development, SOA, Database Administration, System Architecture & Design, Real Application Clusters, Performance Management, ERP and much more."

Gaja Krishna Vaidyanatha      January 14 2008
Consultant, DBPerfMan
Co-author: Oracle Performance Tuning 101
Co-author: Oracle Insights: Tales of the Oak Table

If you use Oracle software, then you should become part of the Oracle Users Group in your area. You will meet your peers and other Oracle professionals who do similar things for other companies. At the technical meetings and conferences arranged by your Users Group you will have the opportunity to learn from the practical experience of others in the field and have access to experienced and recognized Oracle professionals. In several informal meetings with others you can discuss your nagging problems to seek solutions or reaffirm yours. Your Users Group also provides you the opportunity to voice your ideas, concerns, complaints to Oracle Corporation as well as participation in Oracle Beta program to get your hands on forthcoming new releases of Oracle software.

Kirthikumar Deshpande            November 29 2007
Sr. Database Administrator 
Co-author: Oracle Performance Tuning 101
Co-author: Oracle Wait Interface: A Practical Guide to Performance Diagnostics & Tuning

Users Groups provide both information sharing and the opportunity to network with your peers. Learning from the practical experiences of others at a user group meeting or conference saves an enormous amount of time and resources, and pays back much more than what was spent on membership and conference fees. I distinctly remember the tip on using pipelined export that I learnt about during a user conference that saved 35 hours in downtime during an upgrade! User groups also provide the opportunity to present at conferences and write articles for technical publications - this goes a long way in building both your confidence and your CV!

John Kanagaraj       November 5 2007
Principal Consultant
Executive Editor of IOUG's SELECT Journal
Co-author:  Oracle Database 10g Insider Solution