Many of you have heard about Oracle Mix, an Oracle social website which enables the Oracle customers, partners and employees to come together around topics of mutual interest. Mix.oracle.com is the platform to give everyone a voice and help us to shape the future of Oracle together. You can use Mix to connect with other customers and get to know Oracle experts in your product area or industry.

We’ve been informed today that there is a new AIA group on Mix. Many of the AIA development team are already members and Oracle will continue to add more development experts over time. In about a week, as customers or partners, you will be able to access a slew of useful content to assist them with their usage and adoption of AIA, which will be updated regularly.

This Mix site will become a key channel for Oracle to engage the AIA ecosystem in a conversation, and is simple for you to join and participate. To join it is simply a matter of going to mix.oracle.com, signing in, creating your profile, and then going to the Groups tab and joining the “AIA” group: more members, more participation, more value for everyone!

• AUFO - Groupe de travail CRM, Site : http://www.afrc.org/palmesrelationclient/main.html . Le 18 septembre 2008 àl’Elysée Biaritz, Paris 8
• Top Transport Marseille. Site : http://www.top-transport.net/rdveurope2008. Du 23 au 25 septembre 2008 au Palais du Pharo, Marseille
• Salon eCommerce. Site : http://www.ecommerceparis.com/2008/index.php. Du 23 au 25 septembre 2008,  Porte de Versailles à Paris
• Palmes d’Or de la Relation Client. Site : http://www.afrc.org/palmesrelationclient/main.html” le 30 septembre 2008
• Salon ERP/MVI CRM. Site : http://www.salons-solutions.com/fr/erp/index.php. Du 30 sept. au 2 oct. au CNIT, Paris la Défense
• Conférence Focus RH / Focus CO. Le 14 octobre 2008 au Palais des Congrès, Porte Maillot
• Odette 2008 - Automotive Conference, The 13th International Conference and Exhibition for Supply Chain Management, IT, Product Design & Development and Telecommunications in the Automotive Industry. Site : http://www.odetteconference.org/conference/index.asp. Du 21 au 22 octobre 2008 à Strasbourg
• Oracle European CRM Summit. Le 21 octobre 2008 à l’Hôtel Lutétia
• Forum CXP - Le logiciel au service de vos objectifs métier. Gouvernance d’entreprise et Les bons outils de la relation client. Le 21 octobre 2008 au Pavillon Royal, Bois de Boulogne
• Les Matinales du Digital Marketing. Le 22 octobre 2008 à l’Hôtel Bristol
• Forum Peoplesoft RH. Evénement annuel des clients Peoplesoft le 23 octobre 2008 au Pavillon Kléber, 8ème Paris
• Salon Progilog. Le salon du Supply Chain du 23 au 24 octobre 2008 au CNIT, Paris la Défense
• Les Journées Nationales du Marketing – Adetem. Novembre 2008, à Paris
• The Next Generation Manufacturing Summit. Site : http://www.ngmsummit.com. Du 4 au 6 novembre 2008, au Ritz-Carlton Wolfsburg, en Allemagne
• Congrès National de l’ASLOG : la logistique durable. Association Française de la Logistique. Site : http://www.aslog.org/fr/ACTU_dossiers.php?mois_courant=07-2008 du 26 au 27 novembre 2008, Nantes
• Business Transformation Tour (Apps Day). L’événement phare d’Oracle sur les Applications le 4 décembre 2008 au Pré-Catelan, Paris

Si en tant que clients ou partenaires Oracle, vous souhaitez participer et recevoir des invitations, visitez le site http://events.oracle.com/ ou prenez directement contact avec nous.

Real Application Testing (details here), a new and useful feature for Oracle 11g Enterprise Edition, consists of several components used to capture, analyze, and replay production database transactions. The goal of RAT is to assist DBAs in testing and identifying the full impact of upgrades and system changes.

First, the capture component of RAT works by recording production system workload transactions, including concurrency and timing details, and storing them in a set of binary capture files. In terms of what activity is captured depends on user-defined filters. Capture filtering allows a DBA to not only filter sessions which should and should not be captured, but also attributes such as users, programs, modules, actions, services, and session IDs. In addition, capture can be run at a scheduled interval or on-demand. While the capture process itself introduces some performance overhead, it is minimal (generally < 5%).

Second, the workload files must be processed and the secondary environment must be built. Generally, as the secondary test system must be logically similar to production, it is most easily built by using a backup of the production database. Also, during workload processing, the capture files are translated into replay files and relevant meta-data is generated. As processing is time-consuming and carries significant performance overhead, it is recommended that it be performed on the secondary test system. After all capture files have been processed into replay files, the workload can be replayed indefinitely.

Third, replay is performed using one or more driver systems. The number of driver systems required depends on the scale of concurrency. The best way to identify the number of clients needed to effectively replay the workload is by using the Client Calibration Advisor. Each driver system, reading the replay files, is able to recreate the captured production workload. In addition to preserving the production timings and concurrency (Synchronized Replay), the workload can be altered to perform stress testing (Unsynchronized Replay). In Synchronized Replay mode, the workload is recreated exactly; all concurrency, timing, and commit ordering remaining identical to that captured. In Unsynchronized Replay mode, the DBA is able to alter several parameters of replay such as think time, commit order, and logon time.

After replay, the DBA can analyze and report on the three types of divergence, Data Divergence, Error Divergence, and Performance Divergence. Data Divergence will compare and report on the divergence of both systems in regards to the number of rows returned by each call. For each call, Error Divergence reports on whether an error occurred only during replay (new error), when an error which happened during capture did not occur during replay (error not found), and whether a different error occurred during replay than it did in production (mutated error). Performance Divergence provides both high-level and detailed performance divergence information.

Notes:

• Real Application Testing is a separate licensed option for Enterprise Edition 11g only.
• The following platforms are certified with the E-Business Suite Release 11i and the Oracle Database 11g Release 11 (11.1.0.6.0):
  • HP-UX PA RISC,
  • Sun Solaris SPARC
  • IBM AIX
  • Linux x86-32
  • HP-UX PA-RISC
  • IBM AIX
  • Sun Solaris SPARC
  • Windows x86
• DB 11g Prerequisites with Oracle E-Business Suite 11i (Oracle is still in the process of certifying the 11g DB with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12):
  • Oracle E-Business Suite 11.5.10 Consolidation Update 2 (11.5.10.2)
  • Oracle Database Release 11g Release 1 (11.1.0.6.0)
  • Oracle Applications Technology ATG_PF.H Rollup 6
  • Oracle Developer 6i Patch Set 18 (6.0.8.27)
  • Additional interoperability patches are also required. See Interoperability Notes - Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i with Oracle Database 11g Release 1 (11.1.0) (OracleMetalink Note 452783.1)

This is a great opportunity to honor and recognize pioneering/innovative projects at the interesection of Oracle Applications and Oracle Fusion Middleware. Please note that Oracle is also specifically welcoming Oracle Applications customers (e-Business Suite, Siebel, PeopleSoft, JDE etc.) who have been using BEA’s SOA offering as well as the entire portfolio of Fusion Middleware capabilities (SOA, EPM, OBI EE, IdM, WebCenter, ECM, etc.).

Last year’s Excellence Award was a great success with an award ceremony jointly hosted by Thomas Kurian and Ed Abbo and an Oracle Profit Magazine cover story. Please note that the UK and Australian Oracle user groups provide further benefits for overseas winners.

If you want to submit a nomination right now, please give us a quick heads-up.

* For EBS 11i version 11.5.9 CU2 and up:
o Oracle Database 10gR2 Patch Set 10.2.0.4.0
o Oracle Database 10gR2 Patch Set 10.2.0.4.0 non-RAC to RAC conversion
o Transparent Data Encryption using Oracle Database 10gR2 Patch Set 10.2.0.4.0
* For EBS 11i version 11.5.10 CU2 and up:
o Advanced Security Option / Advanced Networking Option (ANO / ASO) with Oracle Database 10gR2 Patch Set 10.2.0.4.0

Prerequisites & Interoperability

* For prerequisites and interoperability, refer to the relevant Metalink Notes listed in the documentation section below.

Platforms

* Linux x86-32
* Sun Sparc Solaris
* HP-UX PARisc
* IBM AIX
* Microsoft Windows 2003

Database Vault Update

* Database Vault 10.2.0.4 Certification with EBS 11i is in progress and will be announced separately when completed.

Documentation

* OracleMetalink Note 362203.1 - Interoperability Notes - Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i with Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2.0)
* OracleMetalink Note 362135.1 - Configuring Oracle Applications Release 11i with 10g Real Application Clusters and Automatic Storage Management
* OracleMetalink Note 403294.1 - Using Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) with the eBusiness Suite (EBS)
* OracleMetalink Note 391248.1 - Encrypting EBS 11i Network Traffic using Advanced Security Option / Advanced Networking Option

The full Wall Street Journal article is available here.

With enterprise applications, iPhone becomes an even more effective productivity tool. Enterprises can easily build their own in-house applications to meet distinct business needs utilising iPhone Multi-Touch technology, the accelerometer, wireless connectivity and GPS. Or users can simply download commercial applications directly to iPhone from the App Store.

Oracle recently announced the first in a series of Oracle business applications for the Apple® iPhone – Oracle Business Indicators – that became available on the Apple App Store as of July 10, 2008. These new Oracle business applications address how executives and managers work today – requiring targeted, intelligent and task focused information to make informed decisions with ease and simplicity with today’s increasingly mobile work style. The applications leverage the power of Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Plus (OBIEE) and Oracle Business Intelligence Applications, Fusion Edition to provide access to key metrics and analytical data for mobile executives. These native applications for the Apple iPhone also leverage the Serviced-Oriented Architecture (SOA) capabilities of OBIEE and the powerful set of Oracle Business Intelligence Web Services. They also have support of SSL encryption protocol enabling superior and secure mobile flexibility and performance.

Oracle Business Indicators allows users to view and interact with Oracle Business Intelligence Applications that include financial, human resources, supply chain and customer relationship management analytics, as well as analytical alerts generated by Oracle Delivers, an integrated component of OBIEE. User configuration options allow users to select the relevant indicators to their role and preferences for browsing.

Oracle intends to release rich CRM solutions for the iPhone with applications that help users be productive when mobile; collaborate and share information with colleagues and customers, and manage leads, accounts, opportunities and forecasts, all through the iPhone.

The English language version of Oracle Business Indicators is available for free from Apple’s App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore. Details from Oracle also available here.

Linux on mainframe (Red Hat and SUSE) is just like any other Linux deployment from Oracle’s perspective.  The novelty of a mainframe deployment is that  Linux server instances are completely virtualized through z/VM — their virtualization software (this is how they compete effectively with very large Linux/Unix server farms). In Japan we have the largest pure Oracle customer on System z deployment running 3 RAC clustered mainframes with 300 processors (huge).   There are dozens more in production.   The customer may only be thinking server consolidation to realize management, power and other environmental savings.

Where can I find more information?

Certify’s E-Business Suite -> EBS Release 12 -> Database Tier Only page for details

Interoperability Notes: Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 with Oracle 10g Release 2 (10.2.0) (OracleMetaLink Note 454750.1)

Using Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 with a Database Tier Only Platform on Oracle 10g Release 2 (OracleMetaLink Note 456197.1)

Export/Import Process for Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 Database Instances Using Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (OracleMetaLink Note 454616.1)

Yvan: After a 4+ year career in Oracle consulting, I was looking for a new opportunity to work in a sales environment with diverse workforce. As a Sales consultant I have now really the feeling to be an active part of closing the business by providing presales support to prospective clients and partners. I worked as a part of a expert team called IASG in FY08, along side sales account managers, and pre-sales functional consulting staff in the positioning and sale of the Oracle Applications set. I prepare and present product demonstrations including Oracle Applications but also a variety of other Oracle software such as Business Intelligence, Application Integration Architecture, User Productivity Kit, Identity Management, Oracle Grid Control, etc.

Yvan, in your opinion, which qualities are the most important for becoming a successful member of the Oracle Presales Team of Consultants?

Apparently, you need to have a deep understanding of the enterprise landscape and business challenges and be effective at communicating with good presentation skills. But in the Oracle context of the new acquisitions, all presales consultants will have to be more and more analytical thinkers with an ability to translate complex business needs into feasible and valuable solutions.

You are also a very active Oracle blogger, and now your blog is officially referenced on the Oracle blogs public page http://blogs.oracle.com/ and http://blogs.oracle.com/schan/blogroll as well. Do you find this communication method equally important important?

Yes. I manage the OracleInsight.net blog dedicated to the Oracle Applications Market and the new technologies like the Enterprise 2.0. Presently, we record around 600 to 1′000 unique visitors per day. After only 5 months, it’s a great achievement, which demonstrates the interest of all the Internet community for the Oracle technologies within the applications, especially for in-depth discussions of technology stack architectures.

What are your future plans? I heard you are now assuming a new position starting June 1st 2008. Can you tell us more about it?

Yes, I’m now an Application Solution Architect (ATA). Responsible for developing and presenting the technical solution architecture in multi-pillar sales engagements, I’m helping customers assess their technical application architecture and its suitability for supporting relevant business processes. I recommend Oracle and Partner application and technology solutions and IT best practice to meet the
customer’s business requirements. I’m working across all ERP, CRM and Global Business Units and with Technology teams to present a single Oracle vision to the customer. My role is Sales led and focused on delivering long-term value to the customer and for Oracle.

Written by Laura Ispas, Application Technology Presales Consultant EBS.