Oracle OpenWorld 2011 was a resounding success with more than 45,000 attendees, including more sponsors and exhibitors than prior years in attendance. Oracle and partner executives focused in their keynotes on the latest technologies for today and the future. International subject matter experts shared their insights in thousands of technical sessions, demos, hands-on labs, and exhibitions.

Park Lane IT was represented at the event by our CEO and ODTUG Vice President, Bambi Price.

Highlights from OpenWorld 2011:

Oracle Fusion Applications currently available are:

• Customer Relationship Management

• Financial Management

• Human Capital Management

• Procurement

• Project Portfolio Management

• Supply Chain Management

• Governance, Risk, and Compliance

According to Oracle, Fusion Apps are available on premise, public cloud, private cloud and a hybrid public/private cloud

Oracle Exalytics Business Intelligence Machine

Oracle unveiled the Oracle Exalytics Business Intelligence Machine, the industry’s first in-memory hardware and software system engineered to run analytics faster than ever, provide real-time speed-of-thought visual analysis, and enable new types of analytic applications.

Oracle Exalytics enables organizations to make decisions faster in the context of rapidly shifting business conditions while broadening user adoption of business intelligence (BI) though the introduction of interactive visualization capabilities that make every user an analyst.

Organizations will be able to extend their BI initiatives beyond reporting and dashboards to modelling, planning, forecasting, and predictive analytics. Planning applications can be scaled across the enterprise with faster, more accurate planning cycles.

This new system combines Oracle’s Business Intelligence Foundation with enhanced visualization capabilities and performance optimizations, an optimized version of the industry-leading Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database with analytic extensions, and a highly scalable Oracle server designed specifically for in-memory business intelligence.

According to Oracle, Exalytics incorporates an in-memory database, a design principle that will put it in direct competition with SAP’s HANA in-memory computing platform. In-memory databases place information to be processed in RAM, instead of reading it off disks, providing a performance boost.

The Exalytics machine includes 40 processor cores and 1TB of DRAM, but can hold five to 10TB of data in memory thanks to compression, Ellison said.

It runs a software stack that includes parallelized versions of Oracle’s TimesTen in-memory database, BI (business intelligence) stack and Essbase OLAP (online analytical processing) server, Ellison revealed.

The system handles user queries “at the speed of thought” through a new interactive user interface, which will be demonstrated on Monday, Ellison said. The UI runs the same on PCs and the Apple iPad. “It really is quite spectacular.”

An adaptive in-memory cache decides which information should be stored in memory based on the ongoing workload, he said. “If people keep asking the same questions over and over again, we keep the answers in memory so we don’t have to compute them again.” The cache is self-tuning, he added.

Big Data Appliance

This product was on display outside the OpenWorld keynote hall and according to the description card, will involve the Hadoop open-source framework for large-scale data processing as well as NoSQL database from Oracle.

Oracle unveiled the Big Data Appliance, the newest addition to its line of products that combine software and hardware, during the OpenWorld conference in San Francisco yesterday.

“Big data” is an industry buzzword that refers generally to the massive amounts of information generated by websites, sensors and other sources apart from traditional enterprise applications.

The new appliance includes a distribution of the open source Hadoop programming framework, Oracle Data Integrator Application Adapter for Hadoop, Oracle Loader for Hadoop, a distribution of the R open-source statistical analysis software, and the Oracle NoSQL database.

“There’s a lot of data, and a lot of it has very low business value. There’s only a few nuggets that people want to find,” Andy Mendelsohn, senior vice president of database server technologies, told press and analysts. Hadoop and other tools can distill that data down to something useful, and it can then be loaded into a data warehouse, particularly one powered by Oracle’s Exadata appliance, for further analysis, he said.

NoSQL refers to a growing set of database technologies that can be defined by what they omit, such as “SQL, joins, strong analytic alternatives to those, and some forms of database integrity,” analyst Curt Monash said recently. “If you leave all four out, and you have a strong scale-out story, you’re in the NoSQL mainstream.”

Based on Berkeley DB

The Oracle NoSQL database is a “distributed, highly scalable, key-value database” that is “easy to install, configure and manage, supports a broad set of workloads and delivers enterprise-class reliability backed by enterprise-class Oracle support,” according to an Oracle statement.

It is based on Oracle’s Berkeley DB product. “Berkeley DB is probably the most popular key-value store out there on the web,” but it uses a single index, Mendelsohn said. For the NoSQL database, Oracle “turned it from a single index to a distributed implementation, where you could have maybe 100 indexes,” he said.

Mendelsohn said that like Berkeley DB, the NoSQL database will be available in both open-source and commercial versions. The latter will probably gain premium features over time.

Meanwhile, Oracle recognises that administrators and developers may not be familiar with programming models like Hadoop, Mendelsohn said.

“Hadoop as it currently stands is a very niche technology,” according to Mendelson. “Everybody’s talking about it, but who in our enterprise installed base can use something like this?”

That’s why tools like the data-integrator adapter and loader for Hadoop are so important, since they help bridge that skills gap, he said.

“Have we done enough with Hadoop tooling? I don’t think we’re there yet, but we’ve made some good steps,” Mendelsohn added.

Proprietary packages for R distribution

Oracle’s R distribution is integrated with its 11g database, allowing R applications to tap data within those systems, Oracle said. A standard distribution of R will be used, but Oracle also plans to release some proprietary packages for it, Mendelsohn said.

Oracle also plans to offer all of the software products in stand-alone form as well as with the appliance, according to a statement.

Pricing and a release date for the Big Data Appliance weren’t available, although it will compete with products such as Aster Data, Netezza and Greenplum.

Forrester analyst James Kobielus said it’s not Oracle’s first ‘Big Data’ appliance, if big data is defined as “the three Vs,” he said. “Volume (petabytes of stored analytic data), velocity (real-time data capture, transformation, loading, analysis, and query), and variety (handle diverse structured, semi-structured data).”

Massively parallel processing

“Exadata is all of that, and Exadata is already optimised for mixed workloads of in-database analytics and massively parallel processing (MPP) with a rich library of advanced analytics algorithms and models,” he said.

One important consideration is how many of Hadoop’s many sub-projects will be part of Oracle’s distribution, Kobielus said.

MapReduce and Pig are core of Hadoop modeling and development, with Mahout libraries increasingly being adopted for machine learning,” he said. “HDFS and HBase are at the core of Hadoop batch and real-time data storage and management, with some uptake of Cassandra for distributed real-time analytics and transactional computing. If Oracle’s Hadoop appliance doesn’t incorporate most of these, plus Zookeeper and Hadoop Common tools, then it cannot be regarded as a full enterprise-ready Hadoop platform.”

Mendelsohn declined to enumerate every Hadoop component Oracle plans to include in the distribution.

However, “what the people in the Hadoop community expect is going to be there,” he said. “We’re not going to pull out something because it competes with Oracle. It will be a complete distribution.”

It’s likely that Oracle will end up acquiring specialised Hadoop vendors to beef up its array of tools, Kobielus said.

Oracle OEM12c

 This was released during OpenWorld and Park Lane IT have now implemented it at IDP.

• Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control is the only cloud management console for Oracle that allows cloud stakeholders to create rich business services consisting of any combination of infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) – including database as a service (DBaaS) and middleware as a service (MWaaS) – and software as a service (SaaS).
• Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control provides wizard-driven, role-based capabilities for all stakeholders involved in planning, deploying, managing and consuming an enterprise cloud.
• Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c supports enterprise architects, cloud administrators, application developers and administrators, DBAs, line of business users and governance and finance personnel. Key capabilities include:
• Cloud planning tools: allow architects and cloud administrators to model their cloud environment in order to maximize the utilization of resources. A key capability – the capacity and consolidation planner – allows for easier cloud on-boarding through recommendations and automated workflows.
• Automatic set-up of shared pools and system resources: enables cloud administrators to pool together IT resources and define rules, privileges, and policies that govern how resources are consumed; and helps ensure ease of management and quality of service.
  • Built-in self-service: allows transparent access to cloud resources for line of business users and application developers. Consumers can use the self-service portal to order services from a central catalog, manage and monitor the requested services, and receive chargeback information.
  • Comprehensive metering and chargeback: enables finance personnel, IT managers and service providers to measure usage and charge for services. Several chargeback mechanisms are provided. Pre-built integrations with Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management offer comprehensive billing capabilities.
  • Unique cloud capabilities deliver industry-first advantages through integrations with two key Oracle products:
  • Oracle VM 3.0: enables administrators to automatically plan and provision cloud environments incorporating VMs, resource pools and zones.
  • Oracle Virtual Assembly Builder: helps application developers model and package complex, multi-tier applications for self-service consumption.
  • Unlike competitive solutions, Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c encompasses cloud management across physical and virtual environments for x86 as well as SPARC architectures.

Java

Enterprise developers are definitely waiting to see when Java EE 7 will finally ship. The community is definitely waiting to see how some of the cloud support ideas in EE 7 are going to be leveraged.

Other popular topics; HTML5 and JavaFX. JavaFX 2.0, the next release of the platform, was released. Version 2.0 features APIs for using such Java features as generics and multi-threading, as well as hardware-accelerated graphics.

Additionally, Oracle discussed Java SE advancements, implementation of non-Java languages targeting the Java Virtual Machine, modularisation of the platform, and cloud and mobile opportunities.

The speaker sessions and the opportunity to network with Oracle partners and developers were well received by the attending delegates.

The weather was perfect and Sydney’s Convention Centre provided a fantastic venue for the conference.

Interesting highlights/recollections from our team from the time spent at the conference:

“The Australian Oracle User Group conference was held earlier this month at the Darling Harbour Convention Centre in Sydney.  For me, this was a particularly special event as it was my first Oracle User Group conference.  I also got to catch up with many friends and colleagues, some of whom I haven’t seen for a while.

Throughout it all, I spent the majority of the days attending various presentations. Here are some of the highlights from the sessions I attended:

Key Note Address:

Oracle’s Cloud Computing Strategy offered insights into the thoughts and intentions of Oracle in supporting the direction all of our customers are embracing in one form or another.  Whether it comes off or not will be interesting but it is certainly ambitious in its scope.

Mark Drake gave an excellent presentation on XML DB and its power.  Until the presentation, I had not considered using the features already embedded in the database in system design considerations.  Mark however, opened my eyes to some of the ways in which it could aid development while adding significant power to applications.  Very well done.

My hero, yes I know…sad, Tom Kyte put in an extraordinary session on pl/sql and how to use it to achieve high performance code. In true ‘fan-boy’ fashion, I attended Tom’s second presentation which highlighted the correct way to approach sql development and troubleshooting.  His banter and anecdotes around the “Ask Tom” website were illuminating and for some of those of us that ask ‘stoopid’ questions… a little chastening. In typical rapid fire succession, Tom raced through a number of techniques using ‘real-world’ examples and few he’d prepared earlier to demonstrate his points. 

Graham Wood in his “ASHes of DB Time”, gave a great presentation on the use of Active Session History.  Listening to Graham, I reconfirmed my mantra that there is *always* something new to learn about the Oracle database.  Graham’s additional insights into the historical development and progress of the database was great in showing us how far the product has come and what may be on the horizon.

and Marcelle Kratochvil argued that case particularly well.  As an expert in the field of image management, she gave some extraordinary affirmations to the concept of data storage.

All in all, a great conference and left me wondering why I hadn’t made the effort previously!”

“Using UPK in the upgrade process by Beth Renstrom was interesting and useful and left me with a drive to find out a whole lot more on the benefits and value of the upgrade process.”

The Oracle Development Tools User Group’s (ODTUG) annual conference Kscope was a huge success attracting a huge gathering of Oracle Experts at one location. It was held this year from June 26 to June 30 2011 in Long Beach, CA.

Joey Asher (Author of Even a Geek Can Speak and president of Speechworks) was the Keynote Speaker covering, “How to Look and Sound Like a Leader”. It set the tone for a truly engaging and memorable 5 days in the Oracle sphere.

The major topic areas were:

• Application Express
• BI and Oracle EPM
• Database Development
• Fusion Middleware

In ODTUG VP Bambi Price’s words:

“KScope11 lived up to and in fact exceeded all my expectations. All my technical requirements were covered from symposiums to individual sessions. The fun side of the conference was the best I have yet experienced. The commitment to the community service day was impressive and ODTUG received many thanks for our generosity. The Queen Mary adventure was unbelievable and a fitting event for such a well organised conference.

Thank you to all who attended for making KScope11 such a success!”

Find out more at the ODTUG channel on Youtube! http://tinyurl.com/3u84px7

Not one to rest on their laurels, the organizing committee has already set their sights on delivering an exceptional experience to attendees in 2012. Kscope 12 abstract submissions are now open. Commence your plans, get writing and don’t miss out! http://tinyurl.com/3sdjyol

Social Media – the latest change agent is being used in various ways:

1. To reach out to people internally (employees) as well as externally (clients, partners etc).
2. To develop a community of practice to promote our business strategies, unique solutions and build awareness about our organization’s brand.
3. To organize this community into off-line as well as online efforts to effect change in the industry.

However, explicit guidelines need to be formulated for the proper use of social media tools and applications in order to gain maximum benefit. At the same time, the guidelines must address an ethical code of conduct for employees, appropriate use of computing resources (Not posting offensive material on content sharing websites, revealing confidential company information or publishing defamatory remarks about colleagues or clients on blogs/forums) and the dissemination of current, accurate, relevant and complete information to potential and existing clients and other entities.

IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines makes for an interesting read @ http://www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/guidelines.html

The most popular Social Networking tool used by several organizations and global corporate user groups is Twitter. In a recent article, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo provided some startling and groundbreaking statistics:

-          Twitter users average a billion tweets every five days

-          The Twitter website has 400 million monthly uniques, and mobile usage is growing 40 percent every quarter.

-          Users tweet the equivalent of 8,163 copies of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace

By the time we get our head around these figures, several new applications are growing at a rapid pace (in terms of the number of users) with one objective – to aid in the creation and growth of a social media strategy roadmap for an organization.

Cloud computing is the new buzzword. A myriad of news reports and articles have been published on the advantages of this new hosting service promising immeasurable benefits to enterprises opting for it. This is even more significant in the wake of the natural disasters which have disrupted organizational operations worldwide in the recent months.

How can we define Cloud Computing?

According to (Jaeger et al. 2008) it is a, “Computing platform residing in a large data centre with the ability to provide necessary computing resources to organizations.”

It can also be described as an “on-demand service” or the option for organizations to “rent” required services and pay for efficient use of resources.

Information Technology service providers are scrambling to host resources remotely and provide access to enterprises over the Internet. Generally speaking, there are 3 components of cloud computing services: (Julisch & Hall, 2010)

• Software as a Service (SaaS): This is application software that is hosted by third parties and provided as a service over the Internet. Examples include Google Docs and Salesforce.com.
• Platform as a Service (PaaS): These are platforms consisting of development tools and a runtime environment. Clients use the development tools to program their own applications against the Application Programming Interface (API) of the runtime environment. Subsequently, the applications are deployed to the runtime environment where they are executed. Examples of PaaS include Microsoft Azure, Force.com, and Google Apps.
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): These are low level computing resources such as virtual machines or storage which are provided on-demand over the Internet. Example is Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).

Cloud Computing, however, is not without its risks. Maintaining the security and privacy of organizational information is of paramount importance. The recent identity theft of Sony’s user data is a classic example. Approximately, 100 million users’ information was compromised when its Cloud based password storage and management vendor LastPass’ servers were hacked (Forbes, 2011)

Additionally, organizations are still hesitant in making use of Cloud Services for running mission critical applications and systems due to issues of performace (i.e. outages) and data integration.

Undoubtedly, cloud computing is here to stay. But it needs to be selected for the right reasons (Cloud solutions at Harvard medical School have reduced infrastructure IT costs, as well as the time spent completing new projects) with IT vendors encouraged to develop stringent controls and/or Service Level Agreements thus maintaining the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information and systems.

1. Jaeger et al 2008, Cloud Computing and Information Policy: Computing in a Policy Cloud? Journal of Information Technology and Politics, Vol. 5(3)
2. Julisch K. & Hall, M. 2010, Security and Control in the Cloud, Information Security Journal: A Global Perspective, 19:299-309

Our core product focus is as follows:

• User Productivity Kit – an intuitive technical testing tool which enables enterprises to capture, maintain and disseminate critical organisational knowledge. UPK provides flexibility with single, synchronised authoring sessions on system process documents, training manuals, simulations and presentations. UPK redefines the process of staff training and product induction. The personalised ‘see it’, ‘try it’, ‘test it’, ‘do it’ training method allows individuals to learn at their own pace while providing secure testing environment through helpful prompts and guides though out simulations.
• Oracle Application Testing Suite Testing Accelerator for Web Services – an accelerated functional testing tool. ATS allows users to test the quality and performance of their service-oriented architecture based applications directly at the web service interface level. ATS provides an intuitive Web-based console to configure and run load tests and share real-time results with distributed users. Such functionality enables organisations to gather critical infrastructure performance metrics to identify bottlenecks under load.
• Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Standard Edition One – a complete and integrated Business Intelligence solution developed specifically for midsized organisations and working groups. OBISE1 allows organisations to create highly formatted reporting and integrated dashboards via an easy-to-install package designed to run on a single server. This powerful bundle of tools includes: Business Intelligence Server, Interactive dashboards, BI Answers, BI Publisher, Oracle Database Standard Edition One, and Oracle Warehouse Builder.
• Excel4Apps – specialising in an Excel based Oracle Reporting Tool. GL Wand is for use by Finance departments using Oracle 11i or R12. This tool enables effective reporting, shorter month ends and quicker refreshes.

We hope you will drop by to say hello and visit us at our booth!

www.insync11.com.au

Park Lane’s involvement at Insync 11 is synonymous with the conference’s current theme “Innovate, Educate & Connect”.

Park Lane’s involvement with Oracle dates back to 1991 with our Chief Executive Officer’s close involvement with the following Oracle committees:

• Oracle Development Tools User Group (ODTUG)
• International Oracle User Community (IOUC)
• Asia Pacific Oracle User Group Community (APOUC)
• Victorian Branch of the Australian Oracle User Group (AUSOUG)

As a 3 Star Sponsor, we are excited to be a part of this comprehensive Oracle Expert gathering set to showcase over 100 speakers around Australia and NZ with more than 50% of the 140+ presentations scheduled to be delivered by Oracle customers/users of Oracle products and services.

InSync began in 2009 and has since moved forward at a tremendous pace with the 2011 event promising to outlive the expectations of the attendees from past years’.  This year the conference will be held at the Sydney Convention Centre on 16^th & 17^th August 2011. The proposed streams to be covered include Servers & Storage Systems, Database, Middleware and Applications.

The conference is a joint venture between the Quest ANZ user group – representing JDE and PeopleSoft customers, the Australian Oracle User Group (AUSOUG), a national professional association providing knowledge resources and networking opportunities on all things Oracle and the Oracle Applications User Group (OAUG), a global user group representing all Oracle Applications users.

“What is the best idea you heard at the conference that you plan to use?” Find out what InSync 2010 atteendes have to say @ http://www.insync-conference.com.au/index.php?p=1_59

The 2011 Full Programme brochure is available at: http://www.insync-conference.com.au/index.php?p=1_24

Register for it NOW @ reg.insync11.com.au. Don’t miss this truly comprehensive Oracle Showcase event!

Title: Flashback query, Oracle Total Recall and some of it’s uses.

Author: Clancy Bufton

Abstract

Flashback query is part of Oracle’s flashback technology incorporated into the database since version 9. In version 11.2 Oracle Total Recall builds on flashback query and makes the entire history of the database available for online query.

This interesting presentation will look into how these features are implemented, how it is used, and what it can be used for.
Examples include Database Auditing, Change capture and data extraction for data-warehousing.

About InSync11

InSync11 provides the most complete conference program developed by Oracle customers for Oracle customers. This year’s conference theme is “Innovate, Educate @ Connect @InSync11″. InSync11 promises the most comprehensive Oracle applications, middleware, database and servers & storage systems agenda outside the US with the largest number of Oracle customers in one place. This foremost event will showcase over 100 speakers from around Australia and further afield, with updates, presentations and reports from senior Oracle staff as well as an array of presentations from Oracle users. (http://www.insync11.com.au/)

View the complete schedule @ http://www.insync-conference.com.au/web_documents/InSync11_working_programme.pdf

Oracle Application Testing Suite (ATS) Testing Accelerator for Web Services is an accelerated functional testing tool. It can help automate functional and regression testing, load and performance testing and manage the overall test process.

ATS allows users to test the quality and performance of their service-oriented architecture based applications directly at the web service interface level. The Functional Testing Accelerator for Web Services extends Oracle Functional Testing to enable automated functional and regression testing of Web Services. ATS provides an intuitive Web-based console to configure and run load tests and share real-time results with distributed users. Such functionality enables organisations to gather critical infrastructure performance metrics to identify bottlenecks under load.

The ATS tool is comprised of the following tightly integrated products:

• Oracle Load Testing for scalability, performance and load testing.
• Oracle Functional Testing for automated functional and regression testing.
• Oracle Test Manager for test process management, including test requirements management, test management, test execution and defect tracking.

Is your interest piqued? Join James Rabey (Macquarie Telecom) and Murali Iyengar (Oracle) for a highly informative FREE webinar on “ATS in the Cloud”.

Register @ https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/919430520

Bookmark June 23rd on your calendars!

There is burgeoning interest around Oracle’s Fusion Applications (aka Fusion Apps) which was due to launch in 2011. The announcement was first heard at the Oracle OpenWorld event (San Francisco) in September 2010.

As part of his keynote speech at Oracle World, the company’s CEO Larry Ellison emphasized the Business Intelligence focus that is the driving force behind Oracle’s Fusion Apps. Components of Oracle’s acquisitions – PeopleSoft, JD Edwards & Siebel – have been brought together to create a suite of applications on a common middleware platform making integration between apps an easier process.

The applications have been divided into seven product families: financial management; procurement and sourcing; project and portfolio management; human capital management; customer relationship management; supply chain management; and governance risk and compliance.

As an example, Oracle Fusion Financials is a 100% open; standards-based set of integrated financials modules. They differ from traditional financial systems by delivering business intelligence (BI) and business insight to users to enable intelligent and informed decision making. It is set to change the way finance professionals operate by providing an innovative new reporting platform and a native BI standard for finance.

In summary, what are the probable benefits we are likely to expect from this suite of products which has been five years in the making and a significant engineering effort?

According to Oracle, some of the key benefits (Source: Oracle.com) of Oracle Fusion Applications include:

• Service-oriented architecture: Built on a SOA foundation, Fusion Applications give users the ability to uniquely manage functions across a heterogeneous environment, such as   Distributed Order Orchestration and Shared Services Procurement.
• Role-Based user experience: Offers a revolutionary new role-based user experience, uniting exception-based processing, business intelligence, transactions and collaboration in context of the work being performed. Fusion Apps provide users with: “what do I need to know”, “what do I need to do”, “how do I get it done” and “who do I need to contact”.
• Embedded business intelligence: Features embedded business intelligence that delivers the right information to make decisions within the context of the work being performed, without having to go to a separate BI system.

However there has been little pressure on the existing client base to rush into adopting Fusion Applications. The current prediction is that customers could move to Fusion Apps at a time they deem convenient i.e. anytime over the next five years.

Combining Oracle’s Application functionality & Fusion Middleware is an exciting step into the future. One cannot deny that for an informed decision to be taken to move in this direction requires significant understanding on the part of existing and potential Oracle customers. To aid your planning efforts, an Applications Planning Tool is available at: http://www.iouc.org/p/cm/ld/fid=52

This tool was created by the Product Development Committee (PDC) & Nadia Bendjedou (Oracle). It has been designed to help you evaluate your current business environment in light of exisiting technology and make the transition to Fusion Middleware an effective process.