Getting Personal with OA Framework Pages

Here are some common questions regarding personalization of E-Business Suite (EBS) HTML-based pages:

"How can we quickly determine if particular E-Biz pages support personalizations?"

First of all, I assume we're talking about the Oracle Application Framework (OAF) Administrator personalization, not Personalized Views (Saved Searches).

All pages built using OA Framework are personalizable by default--the page developer has to do something specific to make the page be non-personalizable. One thing a developer can do to make a page (usually just a region or field) non-personalizable is to set a specific property to false during development. The other is to create regions or fields programmatically (so they don't exist in the page definition that is stored for using with personalizations). These are generally the exception cases.

Some HTML Products Don't Support OAF Personalization

In 11.5.10 (11i), many E-Business Suite CRM products and some other products were built using a different technology stack (JTT/JTF), so they couldn't use OAF personalization. In EBS Release 12, most of these have been rebuilt using OAF.

EBS Business Intelligence products have their own version of personalization, and they do not use the OA Framework feature even though they are built with OAF. Business Intelligence products have somewhat different implementations of their personalization depending on whether you are looking at a dashboard or a report page. But the way to tell if it's a BI page is to look in the upper corners. If you see an Actions dropdown, it's a BI page.



But Which Ones Are Built Using OA Framework?

Sometimes people have trouble telling which pages are created using OA Framework. Here are several ways I use to tell if a page is built using OAF:

The best and easiest way I know of is to look for "OA.jsp" in the URL of the page.



You can also use the About this Page feature to confirm if a page is an OA Framework page. If you don't have it already, you'll need the FND: Diagnostics profile option set to Yes (you may need your administrator to set this). Go to a product page (I'm using iProcurement here) and click on the About this Page link:



If you see that the first line of the page definition is "pageLayout", it's an OAF page.



Beyond looking at each page individually, you can use the About this Page feature to get a whole list of pages built with OAF, all at once. Since you're already there, simply go look at the page context (menu), as follows:

About this Page > Page Context > Menu (Expand All)

Most of the functions in the menu display a URL, so you can see at a glance which ones start with "OA.jsp":



Another way to check for a single page is to use View Page Source in the browser. Early in the source, you will see the following for an OAF page:



You can also list the pages (and more) using the JDR_UTILS package. It is described in the "Inspecting the MDS Repository Content" chapter of the Oracle Application Framework Developer's Guide for your release version (available on MetaLink).

Finally, you can set the "Personalize Self-Service Defn" profile option to Yes to allow personalization, and then look for the Personalize Page link on the top of each page. Of course you can also use the link to see the personalization hierarchy page (or the context page if you are using 11.5.9 up to 11.5.10 CU1--it changed in 11.5.10 CU2).

Note that all of this applies to both Release 11.5.10 and Release 12 of the E-Business Suite. It also applies to EBS 11.5.9 if you applied OAF 11.5.10 to it as part of a patch.

To learn more about OA Framework Personalization, see the Oracle Application Framework Personalization Guide in the Oracle Applications Online Documentation Library.

Here's an Extra Tip: Hidden Fields Between the Fields

Some product teams build features into their pages that are hidden by default because they expect most customers won't use them. These include extra fields for special purposes, hidden Additional Information regions containing descriptive flexfields, and so on. We recommend to product teams that they explicitly document places in their applications where customers are expected to personalize the pages. Check your product's documentation for such updates. I know that iProcurement, at least, mentions such hidden fields directly in the text of their implementation manual. I found one on page 2-17 of the Oracle iProcurement Implementation and Administration Guide, Release 12, Part No. B31402-01. Also, the Oracle Workflow Administrator's Guide and Oracle Workflow User's Guide both have appendices highlighting some of the personalizations for Workflow pages that customers may be most interested in using.

Happy personalizing!

Related

• Oracle Applications Online Documentation Library (OTN)
  
• Forms Personalization - Get It While It's Hot!
• Personalizing and Extending Release 12

What Does "DMZ Certification" Mean?

Depending on whom you ask, the E-Business Suite has somewhere around 200 functional applications products, clustered into larger product families such as Oracle Financials. A subset of those products are specifically certified for deployment in an externally-facing configuration via demilitarized zones (DMZ). For example, products certified for these types of "external" deployments include iRecruitment, iStore, and iSupplier Portal.

The diagram above shows a common DMZ configuration for the E-Business Suite Release 11i. All of the points I'll make in this article apply equally to Release 11i and 12.

Loopbacks are Incompatible with DMZs

Some E-Business Suite products use loopbacks, which I've discussed in a previous article. Apps products certified for external use in demilitarized zone configurations are tested to ensure that they don't use loopbacks.

In fact, we turn off loopback support completely as part of the DMZ certification process for externally-facing products. If a particular product breaks during testing in these environments, this means that their code must be upgraded to eliminate the use of loopbacks.

Which Products are Certified for DMZs?

Products certified for external deployment are listed in:

• Metalink Note 287176.1 for Release 11i
  
• Metalink Note 380490.1 for Release 12
  

Not all Apps products are appropriate for use in demilitarized zones, so product testing in these configurations isn't comprehensive across all product families. For example, regardless of security measures, no sane Apps architect would consider allowing their Chart of Accounts to be modified via the Internet. So, there's no point in certifying that particular product with in a DMZ configuration.

If a product isn't in listed in the appendices of the Notes listed above, it could mean one of two things:

1. It uses loopbacks and is not certified for external use in a DMZ configuration
   
2. It hasn't been tested in a DMZ configuration, and may or may not use loopbacks
   

What If a Product Isn't Certified?

Here's a hypothetical situation:

You'd like to deploy a particular application externally in a DMZ configuration. It's not listed in either of the referenced Metalink Notes. What do you do?

The answer: log a Service Request against the specific application via Metalink stating your requirement. It always helps to include a network diagram of your proposed topology, by the way. If all goes as planned, the Development team for the product will be notified of your requirement and will respond with an update on their plans for that certification.

Related

• Oracle E-Business Suite 11i Configuration in a DMZ (Metalink Note 287176.1)
• Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 Configuration in a DMZ (Metalink Note 380490.1)
  
• In-Depth: Demilitarized Zones and the E-Business Suite
• Loopbacks, Virtual IPs & the E-Business Suite

Will the Real JRE Please Stand Up?

Unlike Release 11i, E-Business Suite Release 12 no longer requires Oracle Jinitiator for its Forms-based content. In theory, it will be possible to use any version of the native Sun J2SE Runtime Engine (JRE) plug-in to access Forms-based content in this Applications release.

The present reality is that you need to use a specific version of the Sun JRE with Release 12. I know some of you have been interested in going deep on this, so strap on your helmets; we're goin' in.

A Problem of Focus

When you have multiple windows for different programs open in WinXP (say, Outlook and Firefox), the one you're working in actively has the focus. So, if you're working in Outlook and then click on the Firefox window, the focus changes to Firefox.

Here's the complicating factor: current releases of the native Sun JRE plug-in may lose focus from Forms-based content in a few situations. This behavior occurs in all Sun JRE versions released publicly to date, including 1.5.0_11.

We've been working closely with Sun on this issue. Sun has committed to including the fix for this issue in an upcoming JRE release. In the meantime, Sun has provided Oracle with a specially-patched version of 1.5.0_10 that includes the fix for this bug. This version is informally called 1.5.0_10-erdist and is included as part of the Release 12 Rapid Install.

Checking Your JRE Version

To check which version you have installed:

1. Enable the Java Console on your PC through the 'Java Control Panel' by clicking on the 'Java' icon within your desktop's 'Control Panel'.
   
   
2. Select the 'Advanced' Tab and expand the 'Java Console' field, then ensure the 'Show Console' option is selected.
   
3. Select the 'General' Tab and click the 'About' button.
   

If the version displayed is:

• Version 1.5.0 (build 1.5.0_10-erdist-b20061221)
  
  You have the special version that includes the focus fix required for use with Release 12.
  
• Version 1.5.0 (build 1.5.0_10-b03)
  
  You have the standard version of 1.5.0_10 that does not include the focus fix. If you wish to use Forms-based content in Release 12, you need to uninstall this version and install the special 1.5.0_10-erdist version included with Release 12.

A Word About Upgrading Your JRE

It's important to remember that JRE 1.5.0_10-erdist is the only version available today that includes this focus fix. If you or your end-users use (or upgrade to) 1.5.0_11, they may encounter issues with accessing Forms-based content in E-Business Suite Release 12.

Later JRE versions that include the focus fix will be certified with Release 12, of course. At present, I don't have any information that I can share about either their release dates or their certification schedules with the E-Business Suite. I'll post updates here as soon as they're available.

Related

• Upgrading Sun J2SE (Native Plug-in) with Oracle Applications 12.0 for Windows Clients (Metalink Note 393931.1)
  
• Replacing Oracle JInitiator with Sun's Native Plug-In
• Native Sun Plug-In to Replace Jinitiator in E-Business Suite Release 12

Choosing Between Release 12 or 11i

One of the most frequently asked questions at OpenWorld was, "Should I upgrade to 11.5.10 or Release 12?" Release 12 wasn't available at that time. Now that Release 12 is available, the answer is a bit simpler.

Not About the Technology Stack

First, the answer to this question is not about the relative merits about the technology stack for the respective E-Business Suite releases. At the heart of the choice between Release 11i and 12 is a hierarchy of business decisions, decisions that require broad and deep input from the stakeholders in your end-user community.

Assessing the Business Benefits

Back in the days when I was a management consultant, a system selection project could run for months (if not years). As with all business decisions in large organisations, your costs and benefits will likely be weighted by qualitative and political considerations, too. At minimum, if you're deliberating between a Release 11i (11.5.10) or 12 upgrade, I would recommend checking that your existing system selection framework includes variants of the following questions:

1. What's the prioritised list of applications that your business users use today? What are the differences in Release 11i and Release 12 functionality for those applications?
   
   
2. What business advantages, process improvements, and new organizational capabilities will be possible with the new Release 12 features?
   
   
3. What are the new architectural or deployment capabilities in Release 12? How will these new capabilities improve system performance, scalability, availability, manageability, and security?
   
   
4. What investments have you made in adapting your organisation to Release 11i, and vice versa? This might include:
• Employee, partner, vendor, and supplier training
• Customisations and personalisations, including custom Forms, OA Framework screens, workflows, concurrent programs, and reports
  
• Integrations with third-party systems
  
  
5. Which of your customisations, extensions, and personalisations can be replaced with new Release 12 features? What savings will these represent? How much of those investments will carry over to Release 12?
   
   
6. How will Release 12 help reduce your operational costs? What are the incremental costs of Release 12 infrastructure, relative to your current Release 11i infrastructure costs? These costs might include server, storage, and networking hardware and licencing

Sneak Preview Release 12

Much speculation about the release dates of Oracle Applications next major release which is Release 12 has been around, However there is still no conformation on the official dates for its release to the users. The beta code version though has been out for some time now.

The post takes a sneak preview at Release 12 (Beta).
The post is just meant to share the new look and feel in Release 12.

As expected Release 12 will be real big in terms of disk space.

This is how it ate up disk space on a server being used to set up a demo environment within Oracle.

Application Tier Files - 20GB
Database Binaries - 4.5 GB
Vision Demo Data Files - 81GB

The login screen is the one perhaps that has undergone most of the changes. It comes with a fresh cool blue look. Something which you will have to get used with this Release.

The Self Service Home Page does not seem to have changed much expect for the new color scheme and link to Oracle Diagnostics on it.

The Oracle Application Manager console also looked pretty much similar with almost the same links as with 11.5.10.2

Invoking the forms based applications, it prompts you to install the Java 2 Standard Edition on your PC. Yes the Jinitiator is now gone. The installation is quick and over in a few clicks.



The forms interface is almost undistinguishable from 11.5.10.2, maybe just the fonts and color again.



Though the User Interface did not undergo any major changes, the Oracle Applications File system has changed quite a bit.

APPSORA.env -> APPS.env

The APPSORA.env used to setup your E-Business environment has now been replaced by the APPS.env which in trun calls the
$ORA_CONFIG_HOME/10.1.2/$TWO_TASK.env
$APPL_CONFIG_HOME/$TWO_TASK.env

Instance Top
A new Instance Top has been introduced
INT_TOP=$HOME/inst/apps/
One of the main advantages of having this is to get a clear distinction between the shared file system and the file system unique to an instance.

Other Newly Introduced Variables

AF_JLIB - This points to your $COMMON_TOP/java/lib

JAVA_BASE - This points at $COMMON_TOP/java/

Other Environment Variable Changes

JAVA_TOP- The JAVA_TOP now points to $COMMON_TOP/java/classes instead of $COMMON_TOP/java

OA_HTML - The OA_HTML now points to $COMMOM_TOP/oacore/html instead of $COMMON_TOP/html

FND_SECURE - FND_SECURE now points at $INST_TOP/apps/fnd/12.0.0/secure/ as opposed to $FND_TOP/secure//

Apart from this the machine admin scripts are now located at
$INST_TOP/admin/scripts/

Fusion Applications - The More You Know, The Better You'll Feel

Every morning, I check my favorite Oracle-related news sources and blogs for the latest buzz. Although it takes longer these days as my IT colleague has blocked my ability to use Firefox. Today, I stumbled across a great piece of research at The Register. The article, "Oracle's Fusion Applications Strategy: What The Customers Think", is based on 321 responses to a survey of Oracle Applications Users who are members of The Register's Technology Panel. This is pretty similar to the Fusion Applications Customer Profiling initiative recently completed by the International Oracle User Council (IOUC), but The Register's sample size is much larger.

The IOUC survey results were recently presented during Oracle OpenWorld (OOW). You can find the presentation and review the results for yourself at the OOW presentation download site.

The Register survey results indicated that Oracle Application customers were concerned about:

1. Oracle's lack of clarity and consistency in dealing with the future management of its multiple product lines.

2. The possibility that Oracle will delivery an immature and inelegantly integrated set of applications in order to meet self-imposed schedule milestones.

3. Fear about costs, disruption and protection of investments, mostly rooted in a concern that a migration to Oracle Fusion Applications will be forced upon them at some time in the future.

After sharing these concerns and concluding that only 15% of customers were completely sold on the Oracle Fusion Application strategy, The Register survey disclosed another very interesting result: there is a clear correlation between the level of customer confidence and the customer's depth of Fusion knowledge. For example, customers stating that the Fusion story is well understood in their organizations are also very confident of their investment being protected. These same customers are also very confident that they will obtain benefits in application flexibility through Oracle Fusion Applications. In other words, the more customers understand about Fusion Applications, the more confident they become in Oracle's Fusion Applications strategy...the more you know, the better you'll feel.

I share this timely information from The Register survey because the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) is teaming with Solution Beacon to provide Oracle Applications customers with a wonderful opportunity to feel better with The Road To Las Vegas workshops. The overriding theme of the workshops is "Demystifying Fusion - OAUG's Three Step Fusion Program". The presentations will include some recommendations on getting your organization to Fusion Applications, as well as some hands-on workshops (BPEL and RAC are just a few of the workshop subjects). The overall intent of The Road to Las Vegas is to educate Oracle Applications customers about Fusion Applications - including Release 12, which is an interation on the way to Fusion Applications.

Oracle Containers For J2EE (OC4J)

Oracle Containers For J2EE (OC4J)

One of the reasons I am writing today’s post on Oracle Container For J2EE is that apart from being a core component of the 10g Application Server Oracle Containers For J2EE is also an important member of the new Oracle Applications Release 12 Tech Stack.

Oracle Containers For J2EE or commonly referred to as OC4J is the underlying runtime engine for the 10g Application Server infrastructure. It is an extremely lightweight and easy to install component which requires less than 50 MB of disk space and 20 MB of your server memory to be up and running. It also has a support for a wide range of operating systems including NT, Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, IBM-AIX and Compaq True 64 with support for both 32 and 64 bit operating system.

OC4J runs on the Java 1.4 virtual machine and is J2EE 1.3 complaint. You can have multiple OC4J process running each of which is referred to as a OC4J instance. The OC4J configuration is controlled via XML configuration files and OC4J properties file. An OC4J instance is referred to as a container as it provides a web container to support services like Java Server Pages(JSP),Servlets , Enterprise Java Beans(EJB) and Web Services.

The OC4J also implements the following J2EE services.

• Java Authentication And Authorization Service (JAAS)
• Java API for XML Parsing (JAXP)
• J2EE Connector (J2C)
• Java Mail
• Java Naming and Directory Interface(JNDI)
• Java Database Connectivity (JDBC)
• Java Application Framework(JAF)
• Java Transaction API (JTA)
• Java Messaging Service (JMS)

High Availability Single Sign On and SOA

OC4J can also be configured to support High availability architectures with Oracle RDBMS using Real Application Clusters and Oracle Datagaurd Technologies.OC4J also supports the Single Sign On functionality by making use of the JAAS service. OC4J is also out of the box Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) compliant as it supports the underlying feature of persistence.

Deployment

Though I am mostly talking about OC4J as a component of the Oracle Application Server, its important to note here that it comes as a standalone java component as well in the form a single zip file. Both the standalone distribution and the Application server distribution are developer friendly and deployment friendly. The code deployment in OC4J is done
through a Enterprise Archive File (EAR). The EAR file contains the Web Archive (WAR file) which in turn encapsulates the Java Archive (JAR) files containing the code.

OC4J In Oracle Applications

OC4J replaces the Jserv component which is there in the current release 11i of Oracle Applications. Also as a result the mod_jserv component would be replaced by the mod_oc4j component in release 12 of Oracle Applications. The mod_oc4j is used to communicate between different OC4J instances.

The default installation Release 12 of Oracle Applications will create 3 OC4J instances

• Oacore: This runs the OA Framework-based applications.
• Forms: This runs the Forms-based applications.
• OAFM: This is responsible for running the web services.

The Jserv groups which are there current in Oracle Applications Release 11i are also planned be replaced by OC4J instances.

As mentioned earlier the OC4J properties are controlled using the XML files and OC4J.properties file. These files are managed by the standard Oracle Applications Autoconfig.

The Java code deployment in Oracle E-Business suite for OC4J is done at the time of install using rapid install and maintained by ad tools like adadmin and adpatch. New custom code deployment can be done by using the Application Server Control user interface.

The OC4J implementation in Oracle Applications Release 12 will include the following directory structure.

• applications: Contains applications deployed
• applications-deployment: Contains configuration settings for the applications deployed
• config: Contains common configuration setting for the OC4J instance.

Native Sun Plug-In to Replace Jinitiator in E-Business Suite Release 12

E-Business Suite Release 12 will replace Oracle JInitiator with the native Sun Java2 Standard Edition (J2SE).

[More cheering from Oracle Apps DBAs, Business Analysts and Users]

As most of you know, Oracle JInitiator is an authorised version of Sun Microsystems' Java2 Standard Edition with some specific fixes required to support Oracle Forms. JInitiator is currently required to run Oracle Forms in the E-Business Suite Release 11i, although Oracle is apparently running an Early Adopter Program that's evaluating the feasibility of eliminating this requirement for Release 11i.

Oracle JInitiator will no longer be required to run Oracle Forms in E-Business Suite Release 12. Oracle Forms in Release 12 will run directly in the native Sun Java2 Standard Edition plug-in. This will be the standard configuration for Release 12.

Related Articles:
Replacing Oracle JInitiator with Sun's Native Plug-In

Process Management in Release 12

Oracle executives have been devoting a lot of slides in recent customer briefings to Oracle BPEL Process Manager: it's the cornerstone for our corporate integration strategy. This begs the obvious question: what's going to be included in Release 12?

Workflow in Release 12

The Rapid Install for Release 12 will include Oracle Workflow out-of-the-box. At present, Oracle expect that the version included will be Workflow 2.6, but as always, this is subject to change.

The practical implication of including Workflow in Release 12 is that all of your existing customized workflows will continue to function with minimal disruption and effort if you're upgrading from Release 11i.

Optional R12 Integration with BPEL Process Manager

If you're excited about working with BPEL Process Manager, you'll have the option of doing that, too.



Given that the E-Business Suite provides standard SOA web services, all that you'll need to do is to install OracleAS 10g and and BPEL Process Manager on a separate instance and point it to business service endpoints available from the E-Business Suite Release 12.

Getting Started with BPEL Process Manager and Release 11i

The BPEL Process Manager is considered a standalone tool outside of the E-Business Suite space, so you don't need to wait until Release 12. You can use BPEL Process Manager and other Oracle Integration connectors with Release 11i today. That's a good way of getting a headstart if you plan to upgrade to the combination of Release 12 and BPEL Process Manager in the future, or if you'd like to kick the tires and take this for a test drive today.

Diving Deep Into the Release 12 Techstack

Diving Deep Into the Release 12 Techstack

The deep innards of the Release 12 technology stack....

For the most comprehensive preview released so far on how the Release 12 technology stack will be architected and work, take a look at this presentation:

Deep Dive: Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 New Technology Stack (PDF, 520K.)
(Username: cboracle, Password: oraclec6 to download)

Areas covered:

• Highlights of new R12 techstack components
• New Application Server 10g (10.1.2 & 10.1.3) ORACLE_HOMEs replacing the 9iAS 1.0.2.2.2 O_HOMEs from 11i
• Switch from JServ to Oracle Containers for J2EE (OC4J) for running servlets, Java Server Pages (JSP), and Enterprise Java Beans (EJB)
• OC4J Deployment details, including replacements for jserv.conf and jserv.properties configuration files
  
• New R12 filesystem layout, including the introduction of an Instance Home (INST_TOP)
• New use of Oracle Process Manager & Notification Server (OPMN)
  
• New Forms 10g deployment
  
• Comparison of 11i and R12 environment variables
  
• Discussion of relative benefits of Forms Servlet vs. Server (socket) mode deployments
• Disabled mod_plsql in R12 (more about this in a later article)
  
• Things you can do today to prepare for R12

Oracle Open World Keynotes

OK. This is far to long for a blog post but there is a lot of information to communicate; so bear with me.

Whilst being unable to attend the most recent Oracle Open World Event due to a bike accident , I was able to listen to the keynotes live on the Internet as well as review the concurrent press releases and blog postings.

There was a lot of good information delivered through the speakers. Below are what I consider to be the highlights from OOW 2006.

Links to my summaries of the TOP 5 Keynote speeches
1. Phillips; OpenWorld Keynote Kickoff
2. Ellison Announces Enterprise-Class Support Program for Linux
3. Wookey Outlines Applications' Progress and Charts Their Future (includes Fusion demo)
4. Kurian Unveils Oracle WebCenter
5. Rowzat; Meeting the Business Intelligence Crisis with Oracle Technology

Other interesting topics
1. Identity Management
Links to Oracle Identity Management offerings
At Macerich we looked at Oracle Identity Management solutions earlier this year, including a set of presentations and demos. Clearly the solutions and functionality are a good fit with our requirements and future direction. Most of the components in this stack are comprised of software solutions acquired by Oracle over the past year. Given the number of projects currently under way it was decided to deal only with the Single-Sign-On component in 2006 and address other components at the end of Q1 2007. This would also give Oracle time to more seamlessly integrate these newly acquired products.

Over the course of the last 6 months I have posted a number of Identity Management related articles on my Macerich-Oracle blog. Here is a listing of those articles:
Synchronizing Oracle HRMS with OID
Password Management with OID
Using Third Party Identity Managers with EBusiness Suite 11i
Password Management with Third Party Solutions
Aliases Maiden Names and Nicknames
COREid, Thor, Xellerate and Others

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2. Ten Things You Can Do To Prepare for Fusion Applications

Although Fusion Applications are years away, there are many components of Fusion Middleware that are available today to help get us one step closer to Fusion Applications. The message from John Wookey, Cliff Godwin, Nadia Bendjedou, and others regarding Release 12, Fusion Middleware, and Fusion Applications remains consistent - we don’t need to wait for the release of Fusion Applications to start preparing for Fusion.

Moving to Fusion Applications will require new skills and experience to install, configure and support the new Applications Suite. However, many of the tools and technologies for Fusion Applications are available today and can be leveraged with 11i10 and/or Release 12, allowing us to get a head start on preparing our environment and staff for Fusion Apps.

Dr. Nadia Bendjedou’s session “Oracle E-Business Suite Customers: 10 Things You Can Do Now to Prepare for Oracle Fusion Applications” was still standing room only for some despite the fact the room held almost 500 people. There is obviously a lot of interest in Fusion, and the good news is we don’t have to wait years to start preparing today. Nadia’s presentation focused on both best practices as well as product components, and listed 10 items e-Business Suite customers should start focusing on now:

Dr. Bendjedou's Top 10 List

1. Rethink your customization strategy
2. Consider Master Data Management (MDM)
3. Move to SOA-based integration
4. Extend your business intelligence portfolio
5. Adopt enterprise reporting and publishing
6. Secure your global enterprise
7. Deploy grid computing
8. Centralize your lifecycle management
9. Upgrade to the e-Business Suite R12
10. Prepare a Fusion project plan

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1. Phillips; OpenWorld Keynote Kickoff

(5 min. audio summary)

Keynote Highlights - Real Media

Keynote Highlights - MP3

Oracle President Charles Phillips announced Oracle's business strategies for grid computing, Oracle Fusion Middleware, and applications. Mr. Phillips also discusses Oracle's acquisitions, Oracle Accelerate, and the enterprise software ownership experience (PDF).

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2. Ellison Announces Enterprise-Class Support Program for Linux

(5 min. audio summary)

Keynote Highlights - Real Media

Keynote Highlights - MP3

Addressing the largest crowd in Oracle OpenWorld history, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison unveiled Oracle Unbreakable Linux.
Link to brief summary of Mr. Ellison's keynote.
Quotes from Mr. Ellison's keynote:
- "Oracle's new Unbreakable Linux program will provide bug fixes to future, current, and back releases of Linux"
- "the new support program is available for all Linux users for as little as $99 per system per year; until January 31, 2007"
- "Oracle customers can get a free trial, and anyone can purchase support at a 50-percent discount"
- "..all you have to do is point your Red Hat server to the Oracle network; switching takes less than a minute"
- "We think it's important not to fragment the market, and we will maintain compatibility with Red Hat Linux,..we will resynchronize with their code"

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3. Wookey Outlines Applications' Progress and Charts Their Future

(5 min. audio summary)

Keynote Highlights - Real Media

Keynote Highlights - MP3

Link to brief summary of Mr. Wookey's keynote
Mr. Wookey reiterated Oracle's Applications Unlimited initiative. Mr. Ellison later stated that maintaining all of these Applications Suite was not a problem. Oracle could afford it as long as customers wanted it. He believes that within 10 years the demand for these legacy suites will have waned.
He also discussed the following topics:
a. The improved user experience within Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12
b. Four concepts that drive thinking about the next generation of Oracle applications:

- secure enterprise search, which is the new metaphor for navigating applications;

- XML-based reporting, which allows reports to be customized in countless ways;

- role-based analytics, a concept taken from Siebel products, which places business insight into the context of operational systems;

- sustainable integration, or connecting all products to one another and to third-party applications. To highlight this last point, he announced the creation of Oracle's Adaptive Business Solutions Group, which is dedicated to applications integration.

c. Oracle Fusion, its time line, and the four technologies that enable it:

- Web 2.0 concepts, such as desktop and collaboration tools;

- Service-oriented architecture (SOA), which gives businesses flexibility in how they develop and deliver business processes;

- Middleware, which orchestrates those processes;

- Standards, which provide Oracle, its partners, and its customers with common, shared tools for doing all of the above.

d. One of the biggest highlights of the entire Open World event for me was the demonstration which provided the first glimpse of Fusion Applications during Mr. Wooskey's keynote address. Jeremy Ashley from the Applications User Experience group walked through a scenario where a sales rep uses Fusion Apps to prepare a quote, ultimately leading to a closed sale. Here is a link to the screen shots from the demo.

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4. Kurian Unveils Oracle WebCenter

(4 min. audio summary)

Keynote Highlights - Real Media

Keynote Highlights - MP3

Link to summary of Mr. Kurian's keynote
Mr. Kurian discussed how Oracle WebCenter will provide a way to build sophisticated Web 2.0-based user interaction environments, and deliver task-oriented, contextual, multichannel interactions for users. "[Web 2.0] technologies are fundamentally changing how people interact with information on the Internet", he said. "WebCenter is used to streamline and automate tasks that involve jumping between different applications and tools that don't share content or context." The new set of tools, which is based on a service-oriented architecture, will enable companies to build applications that bring together data from various enterprise applications such as CRM, ERP, Microsoft Office desktop and mobile devices.

Kurian identified a number of other processes of Oracle Fusion Middleware's software:

- service-oriented development of applications

- business process management

- secure identity management

He also announced the next release of Oracle's open, standards-based suite of business intelligence products: Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition 10g Release 3

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5. Meeting the Business Intelligence Crisis with Oracle Technology

(5 min. audio summary)

Keynote Highlights - Real Media

Keynote Highlights - MP3

Link to Mr. Rozwat's Keynote summary
Chuck Rozwat announced Oracle Database 11g and its 482 new features. Rozwat also reviewed a cross section of Oracle technology that helps customers address the issues associated with getting a single view of information, customers, and suppliers, including Oracle Content Database 10g, Oracle Records Database 10g, Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 10g, and Oracle Audit Vault 10g, articulating how these products help companies' CIOs and IT directors manage content across the enterprise.

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2. Ellison Announces Enterprise-Class Support Program for Linux

Addressing the largest crowd in Oracle OpenWorld history, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison unveiled Oracle Unbreakable Linux, a new support program for Linux that provides the same enterprise-class support for Linux that Oracle provides for its database, middleware, and applications products.

"Currently, Red Hat only provides bug fixes for the latest version of its software. This often requires customers to upgrade to a new version of Linux software to get a bug fixed," explained Ellison. "Oracle's new Unbreakable Linux program will provide bug fixes to future, current, and back releases of Linux. In other words, Oracle will provide the same level of enterprise support for Linux as is available for other operating systems."

Better Support, Lower Cost

Oracle is offering its Unbreakable Linux program for substantially less than Red Hat currently charges for its best support. Ellison explained that the new support program is available for all Linux users for as little as $99 per system per year; until January 31, 2007, Oracle customers can get a free trial, and anyone can purchase support at a 50-percent discount. "This is all about broadening the success of Linux," added Ellison. "And to get Oracle support for Red Hat Linux, all you have to do is point your Red Hat server to the Oracle network; switching takes less than a minute."

Midway through his keynote, Ellison invited Edward Screven, Oracle chief corporate architect, and Wim Coekaerts, vice president of Linux engineering, to join him on stage.

"We think it's important not to fragment the market, and we will maintain compatibility with Red Hat Linux," said Screven. "Every time Red Hat distributes a new version, we will resynchronize with their code. All we add are bug fixes, which are immediately available to Red Hat and the rest of the community."

Coekaerts concurred. "We have many years of Linux engineering experience and an excellent technical team solely dedicated to Linux," said Coekaerts. "In fact, several Oracle employees are Linux mainline maintainers, and Oracle has a long history of contributing to the community." Oracle's breadth and depth of technical expertise, advanced support technologies, and global reach includes 7,000 support staff in 17 global support centers, providing help to Oracle customers in 27 languages, in any time zone.

Screven echoed Ellison's assertion that true enterprise-quality support for Linux at a lower cost is something that customers demand, and a long list of customers and partners have already endorsed Oracle's new Linux support program. Yahoo! Vice President of Engineering Laurie Mann took the keynote stage to share his company's enthusiasm for Oracle Unbreakable Linux. Mann explained that Yahoo!, which runs Oracle and Linux, is the most visited home page on the Web, so reliability and support are paramount. Oracle's enterprise-class support program addresses this demand head-on.

Many more customers and partners appeared via video on the massive screens in the keynote hall, including Dell, Intel, HP, IBM, Accenture, AMD, BearingPoint, EMC, BMC Software, Network Appliance, and many others. Toward the keynote conclusion, the audience was treated to Oracle's version of "The March of the Penguins," as several live penguins (accompanied by their professional trainers) waddled on stage.

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3. Wookey Outlines Applications' Progress and Charts Their Future

Now I know why security apparently worked extra-hard to keep aisles clear during the Wednesday morning keynote.

A few minutes into his talk, Oracle Senior Vice President John Wookey said, "Continuing our tradition of having sexy Italian companies present with me at Oracle Openworld, I'm very excited to introduce and welcome Ducati Motorcycles." A roar came from the back of the hall, and two gleaming Ducati bikes raced up the aisles and onto the stage.

Answering the question of why Ducati chose Oracle E-Business Suite, Giovanni Contino, Ducati Consulting CEO, joked that Oracle and Ducati have the same red color in their logos. But the real reason, he said, was that Oracle Applications adapted to his business. Contino then showed how Oracle E-Business Suite had helped Ducati become a "lean ride" and how the company had ridden Oracle-powered Lean processes to an International Best Factory Award (from the U.K.-based Cranfield School of Management) in just three years.

While the motorcycles were impressive, Oracle's Applications Unlimited initiative was the real high-powered machine in the room. Wookey reiterated Oracle's plans to support and enhance all of its application lines. "The commitment is very real," Wookey said. "We have dedicated development teams and dedicated leadership across product lines that are absolutely passionate about them, and passionate about working with customers to make sure we continually improve how we support you, how we continue to enhance the product with new features, and how we bring innovation and next-generation technology into those product lines."

Indeed, the needs and desires of customers drive Oracle's efforts in applications development. Wookey discussed the countless hours that Oracle applications teams have spent interviewing, surveying, and learning from customers in order to determine how they work and how—they want to work--and then plowed that information back into the applications.

Wookey also emphasized that major new releases are planned in all application product lines. "In fact, the new release of [JD Edwards] World is the first major functional release of the product since 1998," he pointed out.

Oracle's acquisition of applications companies has allowed it to take the best elements of each of its application lines and incorporate them into other applications. "We're bringing great intellectual property out of these product lines, across [to] other product lines, and into our next generation of applications," Wookey said.

Take, for example, the task-based user interface pioneered by Siebel. "It's a great idea, and something we think Siebel customers will be very excited about," Wookey said. "But we think it's something everyone can benefit from, so it's one of the design principles from a user-interface perspective that's actually getting architected into Fusion applications."

Wookey discussed the new Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12. Improvements include tailored installation scripts that customize upgrades that minimize upgrade interruption, and the application's improved user experience. "We've benefited from a lot of great [intellectual property] that's come into Oracle from PeopleSoft and Siebel," he said. "They had done a lot of great work on usability design, and we've actually taken advantage of that in all of our product lines, certainly in the [Oracle] E-Business Suite Release 12."

Turning an eye to the future, four concepts drive thinking about the next generation of Oracle applications, according to Wookey:

a. secure enterprise search, which is the new metaphor for navigating applications;

b. XML-based reporting, which allows reports to be customized in countless ways;

c. role-based analytics, a concept taken from Siebel products, which places business insight into the context of operational systems;

d. sustainable integration, or connecting all products to one another and to third-party applications. To highlight this last point, he announced the creation of Oracle's Adaptive Business Solutions Group, which is dedicated to applications integration.

Lastly, Wookey spent a few minutes discussing Oracle Fusion, its timeline, and the four technologies that enable it:

a. Web 2.0 concepts, such as desktop and collaboration tools;

b. service-oriented architecture (SOA), which gives businesses flexibility in how they develop and deliver business processes;

c. middleware, which orchestrates those processes;

d. standards, which provide Oracle, its partners, and its customers with common, shared tools for doing all of the above.

"That's what really brings the promise of SOA home," Wookey said, "the idea that there are accessible tools that we've used to build the system that you have equal access to."

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4. Kurian Unveils Oracle WebCenter

Heralding the first user interaction environment to break down the boundaries between Web-based portals, enterprise applications, and Web 2.0 technologies, Thomas Kurian, senior vice president of development for middleware platform products delivered his keynote address, called "The Middleware Revolution," at Oracle OpenWorld on Tuesday morning.

Kurian announced a new product of Oracle Fusion Middleware called Oracle WebCenter Suite, which will provide a way to build sophisticated Web 2.0-based user interaction environments, and deliver task-oriented, contextual, multichannel interactions for users.

"[Web 2.0] technologies are fundamentally changing how people interact with information on the Internet. We're bringing those technologies to you, the enterprise application community, and to people who want to build applications that use Web tool technologies within their corporate enterprise," said Kurian.

Customers can use WebCenter to streamline and automate tasks that involve jumping between different applications and tools that don't share content or context. WebCenter also creates a more dynamic, interactive work environment by deploying the new wave of Web 2.0 technologies, such as mashups, wikis, Voice over IP, RSS feeds, and discussion forums, across the enterprise.

The new set of tools, which is based on a service-oriented architecture, will enable companies to build applications that bring together data from various enterprise applications such as customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource management (ERP). Because it is hot-pluggable and based on open industry standards, users can also access this environment from other environments, such as Microsoft Office desktop and mobile devices.

"Only Oracle WebCenter Suite enables a superior user experience based on a full set of enterprise services that are pre-integrated and based on open industry standards," said Kurian.

Kurian identified a number of other processes of Oracle Fusion Middleware's software that companies can use to streamline business operations and improve information technology flexibility. These include service-oriented development of applications, business process management, and secure identity management.

He also announced the next release of Oracle's open, standards-based suite of business intelligence products: Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition 10g Release 3, which includes new components and improvements, allows for strategic integration with other Oracle products, and has expandable hot-pluggable support for third-party data sources and systems.

"Fusion Middleware has grown from virtually nothing in 2001 to over a billion dollars in just five years. Thirty-one thousand global companies use Fusion Middleware today," said Kurian. "The Internet continues to transform the architecture of enterprise applications. Fusion Middleware gives you the best middleware suite in the industry to exploit that transformation."

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5. Meeting the Business Intelligence Crisis with Oracle Technology

Chuck Rozwat, Oracle's executive vice president of Server Technologies, outlined Oracle's vision for its key technologies and provided some details on the company's product road map in a Monday morning keynote speech at Oracle OpenWorld, titled "The Information Road Map: What's Next?"

"We have a business intelligence crisis in the midst of our content data crisis," Rozwat told the crowd. "Most companies have a collection of different applications, so getting a single view of information, customers, and suppliers can be difficult."

In addition to the announcement of Oracle Database 11g and its 482 new features, Rozwat reviewed a cross section of Oracle technology that helps customers address those issues, including Oracle Content Database 10g, Oracle Records Database 10g, Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 10g, and Oracle Audit Vault 10g, articulating how these products help companies' CIOs and IT directors manage content across the enterprise.

In addition to listing Oracle's range of products, Rozwat discussed several of Oracle's recent acquisitions and how those companies' solutions bolster Oracle's technology road map. A representative from TimesTen helped to illustrate the point, explaining in a video presentation how TimesTen's real-time data caching solution works with Oracle Database.

A theme of Rozwat's keynote was the belief that evolving and expanding information requires businesses of all sizes to embrace a road map for managing important content and data in a secure, reliable, and cost-effective way. Oracle software, using advanced grid computing technology, adapts to a company's changing business needs, Rozwat emphasized.

"As data volumes increase, stress is being put on existing computing resources. The ability to scale is incredibly important, and you need an architecture that allows you to plug in more servers," said Rozwat. "Grid computing has grown over the years because of this."

Rozwat described the information explosion from both the demand side, which includes user demands and needs, and the supply side, examining how companies struggle to bring all this information to users in an integrated way.

"The amount of information that's being generated is truly incredible," he said. "However, the demands on how we use information can turn an asset into a liability. Oracle has new solutions to harness this information explosion."

Rozwat concluded by detailing Oracle's vision for its key technologies and outlining a specific strategy for the future of Oracle products, including Oracle Database, Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle's development products, and Oracle Grid Computing.

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Oracle Identity Management: Best-in-Class. Application Centric. Hot-Pluggable.

Oracle Identity Management's best-in-class suite of IdM solutions delivers hot-pluggable middleware, allowing enterprises to manage the end-to-end life cycle of user identities across all enterprise resources both within and beyond the firewall. One can now deploy applications faster, apply the most granular protection to enterprise resources, automatically eliminate latent access privileges, and much more.

Oracle Identity management is leading the next wave of Identity Management with an Application-Centric approach.
Read more about best-in-class Oracle Identity Management solutions:

SINGLE SIGN-ON AND WEB ACCESS CONTROL

USER PROVISIONING

FEDERATED IDENTITY

DIRECTORY SERVICES

STRONG AUTHENTICATION

WEB SERVICES ACCESS CONTROL

ENTERPRISE SINGLE SIGN-ON SUITE

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Fusion Applications - Bits and Pieces of Future Direction

While I believe this information to be reliable, please insert the appropriate legal boilerplate: these thoughts are my own and do not represent those of Oracle; while I believe this information to be accurate, I do not present them with the intent that any person or enterprise to rely on this content to their detriment, the author accepts no personal liability, blah…blah…blah…

Now that the CYA is finished, let’s get on with sharing the news.

Release 12

R12 of the E-Business Suite is, to a large degree, a delivery iteration on the path to Fusion Applications. Although we all already know that R12 will run on Fusion Middleware, I’m not sure we all understand that one of the major points of R12 is to extend the functionality of the E-Business Suite using Fusion Middleware. In other words, this might be a worthwhile release for those E-Business customers ready to dive deeper into SOA.

Fusion Applications

- Oracle Forms will be replaced by Java Server Faces (”JSF”)
- The combination of Business Process tools and a BPEL execution environment will replace the Oracle Workflow product
- Fusion 1.0 will not eliminate PL/SQL and C++ from the apps environment, but the intent is for both to be eliminated at some point
- The Fusion development effort is still on-track to release individual applications in 2007 and the integrated Fusion Applications Suite in 2008.
- Oracle has released their flavor of an SOA maturity model, which you can read about here. This model provides substantial insight on where Fusion is headed.
- JDeveloper with ADF will continue to be the IDE and framework of choice for development work within the Fusion Applications environment.

Well, that’s all I have for now. Like I stated earlier, it’s in bits and pieces. There is not much of a unifying thread running through all this, it’s just chunks of info that seem worthy of sharing.

The Importance of Being 12

With apologies to Oscar Wilde for the title of this post, may I take a moment to consider the importance of Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12? R12 is due for release in the last quarter of 2006. As more information becomes available, each Oracle customer will have to decide for themselves whether or not a move to R12 has value for them. Some of us may opt to stick with what we have until the Fusion Applications picture becomes clear. Some will see value in R12 and make the leap in relatively short order. Others may move to another product line (or apps vendor) altogether. Regardless of our individual choices, R12 is important to everyone in the applications market space (including those who are not Oracle customers) because it’s an important step in the progress to achieving Oracle’s ambitious vision for Fusion Applications.

Please don’t misconstrue my meaning: R12 has importance, at least for Oracle E-Business customers, for reasons other than Fusion. R12 has 12 new application modules and over 2,300 new features, including the SWAN user interface, sub ledger accounting, new HRMS localizations, improved support for APAC manufacturing practices, Retek integration, and several new industry-specific business flows. Discounting R12 without seriously considering whether it holds significant value for your organization would be foolish, and I don’t mean to do so here. But my contention is that Release 12 represents a significant proof-point in the Fusion Applications evolution, and that the importance to Fusion is R12’s most essential feature.

R12 will be the first complete E-Business Suite release on Fusion middleware. This is the next step in a series of iterations toward Fusion applications technology that started with the Early Adopter Program for integration of 11i with the 9i Applications Server. While R12 is definitely not a Fusion Applications release, delivery of a high-quality E-Business Suite release on Fusion middleware will constitute a major milestone on the road to Fusion Applications.

E-Business Suite customers are about to find out just how well and reliably Fusion technology works with our apps environment, and the entire applications space is about to discover just how much progress Oracle has made in integrating all the moving pieces of this giant and complex technical puzzle. In other words, the rubber is about to meet the road…it should be an interesting drive!

Updated User Interface for E-Business Suite Release 12

Updated User Interface for E-Business Suite Release 12

It's expected that the E-Business Suite Release 12 will feature an updated user interface, codenamed "Project Swan." Aside from the unfortunate implication that the existing 11i user interface is an ugly duckling, Project Swan has some very appealing new aspects:

1. Background pattern for branding
2. Base font change to Tahoma 9pt
3. Button style change
4. Background color change
5. Tab style sub-tab layout with gradient background
6. Gradient background for header
7. Icon change
8. Table color update
9. Gradient background for footer
10. Vertical spacing change

For comparison, here's an existing Release 11i Self-Service Expenses screenshot (OA Framework):



And here's a draft version of the Release 12 equivalent:

Here's an existing Release 11i Form for the Contacts Center:

And here's a draft version of the Release 12 equivalent:

Here's the Release 11i Login Screen:

Here's a draft of the Release 12 equivalent:



Here's an existing Release 11i CRM/JTT screenshot for iSupport:



Here's a draft of the Release 12 equivalent:

Converting From Previous Versions

If you've customized or extended Release 11i screens according to our published customization standards, there shouldn't be significant effort involved in getting to the Project Swan look-and-feel. This is expected to vary a bit by the type of screen.

Oracle Applications Forms

Project Swan changes for Forms are limited to changing the color scheme and using non-boldfaced fonts for field values. These changes will be made in the technology layer, so no changes need to be made by Forms designers. There will be no change to the position or layout of any fields on the forms.

Oracle Applications Framework Screens

In most cases, no code changes will be needed, since the cosmetic changes will be implemented at the OAF technology layer. There may be specific cases where the use of custom stylesheets may require additional tweaks.

CRM/JTT Screens

Like OAF, in most cases, no code changes will be needed, since the cosmetic changes will be implemented at the technology layer. There may be specific cases (e.g. custom renderers, custom stylesheets) that require additional tweaks.

Migration Tools or Documents?

Given that the vast majority of existing screens should automatically be uplifted to the Swan UI, I haven't yet been told whether there will be tools to aid in conversions. It's likely that we'll provide you with the same internal Swan conversion guidelines that E-Business Suite product teams are using today (albeit with better spell-checking and grammar).

Alternate Colour Schemes

A common question at last month's OAUG conference was whether we would support alternate colour schemes, since many of you distinguish DEV, TEST, and PROD environments with different colours.

Short answer: Yes, you'll still be able to customize colour schemes in the new Swan UI. It isn't clear whether we'll provide you with a preset selection of different schemes, but you'll be able to design your own.