Oracle Corp. is holding its yearly blowout conference, Oracle OpenWorld, in San Francisco, California, beginning next week. Sure to be among keynote topics are the evolution of the database in the cloud world, how Oracle is competing with database startups, and more. This year, attendees will have a chance to personally meet the database king himself, the one and only Larry — you guessed it — the Bear.

That’s correct — Larry the Bear (@actifioBEAST, pictured, middle) will be at OpenWorld, hobnobbing with the crowd and talking all things database. Also known as the Database Beast, Larry the Bear is the mascot for enterprise cloud data management company Actifio Inc.

“He’s excited about OracleOpen World,” said Brian Reagan (pictured, left), chief marketing officer of Actifio. “He couldn’t be more excited about being on theCUBE. Among the many things that Larry is eager to do [at OpenWorld] is to find out from others just what type of database beast they have in their data center.”

Reagan and Larry the Bear spoke with Stu Miniman (@stu, pictured, right), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, at theCUBE’s studio in Boston, Massachusetts. (* Disclosure below.)

Meet, greet and score some swag

Some things readers may or may not know about Larry: He’s originally from Chicago; he’s a huge fan of both the Bears and the Cubs; since joining Actifio and relocating to Boston, he’s started rooting for the Bruins; he believes the database is the stickiest application in the data center.

“Larry believes that … the only thing stickier is probably a big vat of honey,” Reagan said.

Larry invites all those attending OpenWorld next week to come to the Actifio booth — it’s number 3105 — to chat.

“We and Larry are eager to hear what people are dealing with out there in the database community and understand how Actifio can really help them solve their biggest oracle challenges,” Reagan said. “In fact, for those who mention theCUBE and his appearance on theCUBE, we’ve got a special giveaway for them.”

Eat your heart out, Ellison.

Watch the entire video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s CUBE Conversations. (* Disclosure: Actifio Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Actifio nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE