CRM though is not just about the product and its capabilities, it’s about the technology and how the CRM platform can become an intrinsic element of the corporate ecosystem. When it comes down to integration with SaaS CRM, fundamentally there are two approaches (External/Internal) for data integration.

Writting by my colleague Dave, Director IT Strategy, I would like to share with you his excellent document about the recommended Integration Practices for Oracle CRM On Demand. This paper identifies the advantages and disadvantages of each integration approach available today, presenting some of the architectural thinking that should be considered when deciding how best to integrate with a SaaS CRM platform. It identifies how the use of open, industry standard tools and approaches can drive down the cost of integration and also how Oracle’s Application Integration Architecture, one innovative solution to application system integration, addresses reducing the research and development efforts and costs associated with this, one of today’s, most critical business problems.

Scribd

For additional details and information please refer to the following:
Transfer Of Information session for SEPA release 11.5.10: https://metalink.oracle.com/metalink/plsql/ml2_documents.showDocument?p_database_id=NOT&p_id=737852.1
SEPA for 11.5.10 White Paper: Please see Note 738361.1

SEPA Reference Documents:

• Making SEPA a reality
  http://www.eurocoopbanks.coop/default.aspx?nav=1&contentid=246
• European Central Bank 
  http://www.ecb.int/search/search.cgi?q=SEPA&cmd=Go&sy=0&ps=10&m=all&wm=wrd&wf= 
• Roadmap towards SEPA 
  http://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.org/documents/Roadmap%20public%20version%204th%20April.pdf

• Oracle Database 11gR1 Version 11.1.0.6
• Oracle Database 11gR1 Version 11.1.0.6  Real Application Clusters (RAC)

Platforms certified

• Linux x86
• IBM AIX
• Sun Solaris SPARC
• HP-UX PA-RISC
• HP-UX Itanium
• Linux x86-64

Certifications pending

The following certifications are in progress and will be announced on a later date once completed.

• Database Vault 11.0.6 Certification with EBS Release 12
• Transparent Data Encryption using Oracle Database 11gR1 Patch Set 11.1.0.6
• Advanced Security Option / Advanced Networking Option (ANO / ASO) with Oracle Database 11gR1 Patch Set 11.1.0.6

Documentation

• OracleMetalink Note 735276.1 - Interoperability Notes E-Business Suite R12 with Oracle Database 11gR1 (11.1.0)
• OracleMetalink Note 466649.1 - Using Oracle 11g Release 1 Real Application Clusters and Automatic Storage Management with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12

Inside my Joint Solutions Center Oracle/IBM we will test very soon Active Dataguard 11g features with EBS R12 to see if we can propose this solution to our customer for Reporting in real-time on a separate server.

This week was the opportunity for the EMEA Appstech community group to build best-practices and to share product knowledge and develop their “network”. At the end of the EBS R12 on RAC installation students implemented Oracle Dataguard and Oracle Application Webcache and reverse proxy. All students really appreciated the possibily offered by IBM and hands-on labs. During this week they had the privilege to assist before OpenWorld 2008 to a Conference organized by Metin Yilmaz and Lyn Pratt on “Oracle Maximum Availability Architecture Best Practices: E-Business Suite Release 12“.

All efforts for the preparation of this event seems to be a success. I would like to thank all instructors : Maurice Melotto, Claus Hansen and Peter Hain; Murat Elci, Pascal Labrevois, Ulrich Janke (the Boss), Jos Nishoff, Daniel Freneuil and Marc De Weerdt who prepared a presentation on different subject regarding EBS R12 like “Customer experience on EBS R12 with Dataguard”, “Grid Control and Application Management Pack”, “Return and Feedback on R12 systemP AR benchmark”, “using RMAN to duplicate Database to create standby on ASM”, Special thank to Penelope Pieyre our organizer for evening arrangements (Golf and Wine tasting) and all my JSC collegues of course : Frederic Dubois, Thierry Plumeau, Anael Navarro, Nicolas Marescaux, Alain Roy and Paul Bramy. And a special thank to Stephanie Papolla for the management of accommodation and logistic for each student.
The best feedback for us was some comment like :
“Past week was for me a gr8 opportunity to meet Oracle top consultants and extraordinary people and work in a fantastic and professional environment.Thank you all for this and hopefully will get the chance to meet again soon” says Adrian Munteanu “a top support engineer” .

With the success of this week we will certainly replay another session in december. We don’t know for the moment if it will be opened externally.

Developed in collaboration between Oracle and Deloitte in conjunction with our alliance relationship, the new integration between Siebel Trade Promotion Management and Demantra is delivered as part of Oracle Application Integration Architecture, which integrates business processes across Oracle, third-party, and custom applications.

“Siebel Trade Promotion Management has helped consumer goods manufacturers identify how trade promotion funds, which can represent 20 percent of a consumer goods company’s revenue, are spent,” said Jeff Wexler, VP, Retail and Consumer Goods Product Strategy, Oracle. “The addition of the predictive capabilities enables customers to now spend that money more effectively.”

The integration supports both new and existing CRM customers who wish to extend their trade promotion management systems with simulation, planning, and optimization capabilities. By combining the sophisticated, yet easy-to-use promotion simulation and optimization capabilities in Oracle’s Demantra with Siebel’s trade promotion management execution and settlement applications, customers can maximize the effectiveness of promotional activity and spend.

“Optimization and simulation offer significant competitive advantage for consumer goods companies that can use them in conjunction with their go-to-customer activities,” said Dale Hagemeyer, Research VP, Industry Advisory Services – Manufacturing, Gartner. “The industry is so rich in data that it will take predictive capabilities to truly understand and influence future outcomes. Companies that cannot do so will remain trapped in the past.”

For more details, read the press release here.

A l’occasion de sa toute prochaine conférence Open World (21-25 septembre, San Francisco), Oracle devrait faire un point sur l’avancée des développements réalisés autour de sa suite applicative Fusion Applications.

Voilà plus de trois ans que l’éditeur travaille sur sa suite Fusion Applications qui doit réunir le meilleur des grands progiciels de gestion qu’il a rachetés depuis 2005 (PeopleSoft, JDE et Siebel , en tête). La prochaine conférence Open World (21-25 septembre 2008, San Francisco) devrait permettre d’en savoir un peu plus sur les développements en cours. 

[...]

Lire la suite sur http://www.lemondeinformatique.fr/actualites/lire-oracle-fusion-applications-les-developpements-progressent-surement-26861.html

Fusion Applications Seen Up Close

I took a day trip up the coast to Oracle HQ today. The purpose of the trip was to attend a special demo of Oracle Fusion Applications; a capstone to the Oracle Fusion Project Portfolio Management Design Validation project Oracle conducted with a small group of customers, including the Jet Propulsion Lab. I saw up close what will eventually evolve into Fusion Applications Version 1.0. Not a PowerPoint deck of slides, not non-functional or semi-functional prototypes, but the real honest-to-goodness applications. Not in a live production environment, but a live demo environment…akin to the “Vision” demo instance for the E-Business Suite. I witnessed execution of transactions, data input, and drill-downs from analytics into transactional detail.

[...]

Lire la suite sur http://orclville.blogspot.com/2008/08/fusion-applications-seen-up-close.html

Migration de données : SmartDB arrive en France. Seagull Software lance SmartDB, qui s’affiche comme le “leader du marché pour la conversion des données vers les applications Oracle”.

La conversion non invasive des données représente une opération fastidieuse mais indispensable au développement de l’entreprise. Elle accompagne, notamment, les projets de type migration des informations (entre tout ou partie d’applications d’entreprise), mise à jour d’applications (avec conservation de l’intégrité des données), réalisation de correspondances entre les bases de plusieurs applications, consolidation des données d’entreprise…

Seagull Software va donc assurer le support de SmartDB en France, outil destiné à faciliter l’exploitation du progiciel de gestion intégrée (ERP en anglais) d’Oracle quis’appelle E-Business Suite.

[...]

Lire la suite sur http://www.vnunet.fr/news/migration_de_donnees_smartdb_arrive_en_france-2028591

• How frequently do I encounter unplanned downtime after a change?
• How much time do I spend trying to fix a problem in production?
• What percentage of my applications do I properly test before deployment?
• Am I testing procedures automated and well-defined?

You could be interested by Oracle Application Testing Suite (OTM)… I participated yesterday to an internal webcast about Oracle Application Testing Suite (more information on the official Oracle page here), focusing on the Oracle Test Manager for Web Applications. I would like to share with you my personal feedbacks.

Oracle Test Manager for Web Applications is a comprehensive yet very easy to use tool that allows you to organize, document and manage your overall testing process. Basically, with OTM you can:

• Document and manage all of your test requirements
• Create test plans and manage all of your manual and automated test cases
• Generate defects for any issues identified during testing and track their resolution

I have been very impressed by the reports capabilities. Reports allow you to view information on the entire test project. You can create summary reports or charts, manage filter data for customized views, print reports or export to MS Excel or create your own customized reports.

Application Testing Suite is an integrated, full lifecycle solution that enables you to define and manage your application testing process, validate application functionality, and ensure that their applications will perform under load. So, during this demonstration, I have also seen the Load Testing for Web Applications capabilities.

The “Load Testing for Web Applications” solution’s virtual users can generate multithreaded browser requests while performing rigorous functional validation under load conditions—validation that protocol-based legacy client server testing tools cannot provide. Oracle Load Testing for Web Applications can also be used to test the performance of Web service interfaces by simulating thousands of concurrent clients accessing SOA-based applications.

With this solution (details here), you can:

• Create realistic load test scenarios that simulate end-user behavior
• Scale to thousands of concurrent users
• Perform functional content validation under load
• Monitor server-side performance & correlate to end-user response times
• Isolate and resolve performance bottlenecks

	Data Sheet: Load Testing for Web Applications
	Data Sheet: Functional Testing for Web Applications
	Data Sheet: Test Manager for Web Applications
	Technical White Paper: Ensuring Web Service Quality
	Technical White Paper: Rapid Bottleneck Identification

ClearApp addresses the increasingly difficult task of managing composite applications built on SOA platforms by providing visibility of business services across all related application components.

The combination of ClearApp products and Oracle Enterprise Manager is expected to provide customers with a comprehensive application management solution that delivers enhanced service levels, reduced system down-time and improved return on SOA investments. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the second half of 2008.

Click here for more information about Oracle and ClearApp or read the press release.

Un court article intéressant et clair publié à l’instant sur LeMondeInformatique.fr.