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• Partner Webcast - Focus on Oracle Data Profiling and Data Quality 11g

  - by lukasz.romaszewski(at)oracle.com

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• Book Review: Oracle ADF 11gR2 Development Beginner's Guide

  - by Grant Ronald

  Packt Publishing asked me to review Oracle ADF 11gR2 Development Beginner's Guide by Vinod Krishnan, so on a couple of long flights I managed to get through the book in a couple of sittings. One point to make clear before I go into the review.  Having authored "The Quick Start Guide to Fusion Development: JDeveloper and Oracle ADF", I've written a book which covers the same topic/beginner level.  I also think that its worth stating up front that I applaud anyone who has gone  through the effort of writing a technical book. So well done Vinod.  But on to the review: The book itself is a good break down of topic areas.  Vinod starts with a quick tour around the IDE, which is an important step given all the work you do will be through the IDE.  The book then goes through the general path that I tend to always teach: a quick overview demo, ADF BC, validation, binding, UI, task flows and then the various "add on" topics like security, MDS and advanced topics.  So it covers the right topics in, IMO, the right order.  I also think the writing style flows nicely as well - Its a relatively easy book to read, it doesn't get too formal and the "Have a go hero" hands on sections will be useful for many. That said, I did pick out a number of styles/themes to the writing that I found went against the idea of a beginners guide.  For example, in writing my book, I tried to carefully avoid talking about topics not yet covered or not yet relevant at that point in someone's learning.  So, if I was a new ADF developer reading this book, did I really need to know about ADFBindingFilter and DataBindings.cpx file on page 58 - I've only just learned how to do a drag and drop simple application so showing me XML configuration files relevant to JSF/ADF lifecycle is probably going to scare me off! I found this in a couple of places, for example, the security chapter starts on page 219 but by page 222 (and most of the preceding pages are hands-on steps) we're diving into the web.xml, weblogic.xml, adf-config.xml, jsp-config.xml and jazn-data.xml.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you shouldn't know this, but I feel you have to get people on a strong grounding of the concepts before showing them implementation files.  If having just learned what ADF Security is will "The initialization parameter remove.anonymous.role is set to false for the JpsFilter filter as this filter is the first filter defined in the file" really going to help me? The other theme I found which I felt didn't work was that a couple of the chapters descended into a reference guide.  For example page 159 onwards basically lists UI components and their properties.  And page 87 onwards list the attributes of ADF BC in pretty much the same way as the on line help or developer guide, and I've a personal aversion to any sort of help that says pretty much what the attribute name is e.g. "Precision Rule: this option is used to set a strict precision rule", or "Property Set: this is the property set that has to be applied to the attribute". Hmmm, I think I could have worked that out myself, what I would want to know in a beginners guide are what are these for, what might I use them for...and if I don't need to use them to create an emp/dept example them maybe it’s better to leave them out. All that said, would the book help me - yes it would.  It’s obvious that Vinod knows ADF and his style is relatively easy going and the book covers all that it has to, but I think the book could have done a better job in the educational side of guiding beginners.

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• PARTNER WEBCAST- ORACLE COMPETENCE - PROGRAM (COMPETENCE VIRTUAL)

  - by mseika

  I am pleased to invite you to join the second (Competence Virtual). In Competence - program we will present Oracle Applications' Product's new functions and features including sales positioning. The key objectives of these webcasts are to inspire System Integrator's implementation personnel to conduct successful after sales in their Customer projects. Competencewill be presented on 1st Monday of each quarter after the billable day (4:00 to 5:00 PM CET). The webcast is intended for System Integrator's Implementation Certified Specialists but Competence is open for other interested Oracle Applications system Integrator's personnel as well. At first, two Oracle representatives will discuss Oracle's contribution to Partners. Then you will see product breakout session followed by Q&A with Oracle Experts. Each session will last for maximum 1 hour. A Q&A Document covering all questions and answers will be made available two weeks after the webcast. What are the Benefits for Partners? Find out how Competence helps you to improve your after sales Discover new functions and features so you can enrich your Customer’s solution Learn more about Oracle Applications products, especially sales positioning Hear crucial questions raised by colleagues alike, learn from their interest Engage and present your questions to subject experts Be inspired of the richness of Oracle Applications portfolio – for your and your Customer’s benefit.   Note: Should you already be familiar with a specific Product, then choose another one. Doing so you would expand your knowledge of the overall Applications portfolio. Some presentations contain product demonstration, although these presentations are not intended to be extremely detailed technical presentations. Product breakout sessions:- Fusion CRM: Effective, Efficient and Easy- Fusion HCM: Talent management overview performance, goals, talent review- Distributed Order Management - Fusion SCM Solution- Oracle Transportation Management- Oracle Value Chain Planning: Demantra Sales & Operation Planning and Demantra Demand Management- Oracle CX (Customer Experience) - formerly CEM: Powering Great Customer Experiences- EPM 11.1.2.2 Overview- Oracle Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management, 11.1.2.1 For more details please visit and other breakout sessions on OPN page. Delivery FormatCompetence- program (Competence Virtual) is a series of FREE prerecorded Applications product presentations followed by Q&A. It will be delivered over the Web. Participants have the opportunity to submit questions during the cast via chat and subject matter experts will provide verbal answers live. Competence consists of several parallel prerecorded product breakout sessions, each lasting for max. 1 hour. At first, two Oracle representatives will discuss Oracle’s contribution to Partners. Then you’ll see the product breakout sessions followed by Q&A with Oracle Experts. A Q&A document covering all questions and answers will be made available two weeks after the webcast. You can also see Competence afterwards as its content will be available online for the next 6-12 months.The next Competence web casts will be presented as follows: June the 4th  2012 September the 3rd  2012 December the 3rd  2012 March the 4th  2013. Note: Depending on local network bandwidth please allow some seconds time the presentations to download. You might want to refresh your screen by pressing F5. DurationMaximum 1 hour For further information please contact me at [email protected]. Best regards Markku RouhiainenDirector, Applications Partner EnablementWestern Europe

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• Removing Barriers to Create Effective Data Models

  After years of creating and maintaining data models, I have started to notice common barriers that decrease the accuracy and usefulness of models. In my opinion, the main causes of these barriers are the lack of knowledge and communication from within a company. The lack of knowledge in regards to data models or data modeling can take many forms. Company Culture Knowledge Whether documented or undocumented, existing business rules of a company can affect how data is modeled. For example, if a company only allows 1 assigned person per customer to be able to manipulate a customer’s record then then a data model that includes an associated table that joins customers and employee’s would be unneeded because that would allow for the possibility of multiple employees to handle a customer because of the potential for a many to many relationship between Customers and Employees. Technical Knowledge Depending on the data modeler’s proficiency in modeling data they can inadvertently cause issues and/or complications with a design without even noticing. It is important that companies share data modeling responsibilities so that the models are developed from multiple perspectives of a system, company and the original problem.  In addition, the tools that a company selects to create data models can also affect the accuracy of the model if designer are not familiar with the tools or the tools are too complex to use for the designer. Existing System Knowledge In order for a data modeler to model data for an existing system so that new changes can be applied to a system then they need to at least know the basic concepts of a system so that they can work within it. This will promote reusability of data and prevent the chance of duplicating data. Project Knowledge This should be pretty obvious, but it is very hard to create an accurate data model without knowing what data needs to be modeled. I have always found it strange that I have been asked to start modeling data prior to a client formalizing any requirements. Usually when this happens I have to make several iterations to a model, and the client still does not know exactly what they want.  In addition additional issues can arise when certain stakeholders of a project are not consulted prior to the design or after the project is over because it can cause miss understandings and confusion by the end user as well as possibly not solving the original problem for which a project is intended to solve. One common thread between each type of knowledge is that they can all be avoided through the use of good communication. For example, if a modeler is new to a company then they should ask older employees about any business specific rules that may be documented or undocumented that must be applied to projects in general. Furthermore, if a modeler is not really familiar with a specific data modeling software then they need to speak up and ask for help form other employees or their manager. This will not only help the modeler in the project, but also help them in future projects that they do for the company. Additionally, if a project is not clearly defined prior to a data modeler being assigned the modeling project then it is their responsibility to communicate with the other stakeholders to clarify any part of a project that is unclear so that the data model that is created is accurately aligned with a project.

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• Be the surgeon

  - by Rob Farley

  It’s a phrase I use often, especially when teaching, and I wish I had realised the concept years earlier. (And of course, fits with this month’s T-SQL Tuesday topic, hosted by Argenis Fernandez) When I’m sick enough to go to the doctor, I see a GP. I used to typically see the same guy, but he’s moved on now. However, when he has been able to roughly identify the area of the problem, I get referred to a specialist, sometimes a surgeon. Being a surgeon requires a refined set of skills. It’s why they often don’t like to be called “Doctor”, and prefer the traditional “Mister” (the history is that the doctor used to make the diagnosis, and then hand the patient over to the person who didn’t have a doctorate, but rather was an expert cutter, typically from a background in butchering). But if you ask the surgeon about the pain you have in your leg sometimes, you’ll get told to ask your GP. It’s not that your surgeon isn’t interested – they just don’t know the answer. IT is the same now. That wasn’t something that I really understood when I got out of university. I knew there was a lot to know about IT – I’d just done an honours degree in it. But I also knew that I’d done well in just about all my subjects, and felt like I had a handle on everything. I got into developing, and still felt that having a good level of understanding about every aspect of IT was a good thing. This got me through for the first six or seven years of my career. But then I started to realise that I couldn’t compete. I’d moved into management, and was spending my days running projects, rather than writing code. The kids were getting older. I’d had a bad back injury (ask anyone with chronic pain how it affects  your ability to concentrate, retain information, etc). But most of all, IT was getting larger. I knew kids without lives who knew more than I did. And I felt like I could easily identify people who were better than me in whatever area I could think of. Except writing queries (this was before I discovered technical communities, and people like Paul White and Dave Ballantyne). And so I figured I’d specialise. I wish I’d done it years earlier. Now, I can tell you plenty of people who are better than me at any area you can pick. But there are also more people who might consider listing me in some of their lists too. If I’d stayed the GP, I’d be stuck in management, and finding that there were better managers than me too. If you’re reading this, SQL could well be your thing. But it might not be either. Your thing might not even be in IT. Find out, and then see if you can be a world-beater at it. But it gets even better, because you can find other people to complement the things that you’re not so good at. My company, LobsterPot Solutions, has six people in it at the moment. I’ve hand-picked those six people, along with the one who quit. The great thing about it is that I’ve been able to pick people who don’t necessarily specialise in the same way as me. I don’t write their T-SQL for them – generally they’re good enough at that themselves. But I’m on-hand if needed. Consider Roger Noble, for example. He’s doing stuff in HTML5 and jQuery that I could never dream of doing to create an amazing HTML5 version of PivotViewer. Or Ashley Sewell, a guy who does project management far better than I do. I could go on. My team is brilliant, and I love them to bits. We’re all surgeons, and when we work together, I like to think we’re pretty good! @rob_farley

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• Graphical driver 13.10 ATI RV630

  - by Michael Cephalus

  I started updating the distro from 13.04 to 13.10. Then I got my hands on a Radeon HD 2600. I installed the RV630 compatible Catalystdriver from the official webpage. Then xserver crashed everytime I opened a browser or vlc fx. I took notice that there was no driver listed in configuration underneath. michael@statubtunu:~$ lshw -c video WARNING: you should run this program as super-user. *-display UNCLAIMED description: VGA compatible controller product: RV630 PRO [Radeon HD 2600 PRO] vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0 version: 00 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: vga_controller bus_master cap_list configuration: latency=0 resources: memory:d0000000-dfffffff memory:e0500000-e050ffff ioport:1000(size=256) memory:e0000000-e001ffff i installed additional drivers from jockey and the ubuntu softwarecenter ati-driver. though that only made it to crash xserver completely and when i type: michael@statubtunu:~$ sudo startx X.Org X Server 1.14.3 Release Date: 2013-09-12 X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0 Build Operating System: Linux 3.2.0-37-generic i686 Ubuntu Current Operating System: Linux statubtunu 3.11.0-13-generic #20-Ubuntu SMP Wed Oct 23 17:26:33 UTC 2013 i686 Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.11.0-13-generic root=UUID=8fb2e395-0ea2-4f45-ac66-225696b7ce2c ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7 Build Date: 15 October 2013 09:23:29AM xorg-server 2:1.14.3-3ubuntu2 (For technical support please see http://www.ubuntu.com/support) Current version of pixman: 0.30.2 Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org to make sure that you have the latest version. Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting, (++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational, (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown. (==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Tue Nov 12 18:50:02 2013 (==) Using system config directory "/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d" Initializing built-in extension Generic Event Extension Initializing built-in extension SHAPE Initializing built-in extension MIT-SHM Initializing built-in extension XInputExtension Initializing built-in extension XTEST Initializing built-in extension BIG-REQUESTS Initializing built-in extension SYNC Initializing built-in extension XKEYBOARD Initializing built-in extension XC-MISC Initializing built-in extension SECURITY Initializing built-in extension XINERAMA Initializing built-in extension XFIXES Initializing built-in extension RENDER Initializing built-in extension RANDR Initializing built-in extension COMPOSITE Initializing built-in extension DAMAGE Initializing built-in extension MIT-SCREEN-SAVER Initializing built-in extension DOUBLE-BUFFER Initializing built-in extension RECORD Initializing built-in extension DPMS Initializing built-in extension X-Resource Initializing built-in extension XVideo Initializing built-in extension XVideo-MotionCompensation Initializing built-in extension SELinux Initializing built-in extension XFree86-VidModeExtension Initializing built-in extension XFree86-DGA Initializing built-in extension XFree86-DRI Initializing built-in extension DRI2 Loading extension GLX ERROR: could not insert 'fglrx': No such device (II) [KMS] drm report modesetting isn't supported. (EE) (EE) Backtrace: (EE) 0: /usr/bin/X (xorg_backtrace+0x49) [0xb77780b9] (EE) 1: /usr/bin/X (0xb75d8000+0x1a3e24) [0xb777be24] (EE) 2: (vdso) (__kernel_rt_sigreturn+0x0) [0xb75b540c] (EE) 3: /usr/bin/X (xf86findOption+0x2a) [0xb7681daa] (EE) 4: /usr/bin/X (xf86findOptionValue+0x23) [0xb7681f43] (EE) 5: /usr/bin/X (0xb75d8000+0x7ebfd) [0xb7656bfd] (EE) 6: /usr/bin/X (xf86ProcessOptions+0x37) [0xb7657507] (EE) 7: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libvbe.so (vbeDoEDID+0xe7) [0xb5eb8647] (EE) 8: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/vesa_drv.so (0xb5ee7000+0x287c) [0xb5ee987c] (EE) 9: /usr/bin/X (InitOutput+0xb23) [0xb7659c33] (EE) 10: /usr/bin/X (0xb75d8000+0x2a30b) [0xb760230b] (EE) 11: /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (__libc_start_main+0xf5) [0xb71ba905] (EE) 12: /usr/bin/X (0xb75d8000+0x2a908) [0xb7602908] (EE) (EE) Segmentation fault at address 0x5 (EE) Fatal server error: (EE) Caught signal 11 (Segmentation fault). Server aborting (EE) (EE) Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support at for help. (EE) Please also check the log file at "/var/log/Xorg.0.log" for additional information. (EE) (EE) Server terminated with error (1). Closing log file. This is what comes, but no GUI. Is there any way to deal with this?

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• To SYNC or not to SYNC – Part 4

  - by AshishRay

  This is Part 4 of a multi-part blog article where we are discussing various aspects of setting up Data Guard synchronous redo transport (SYNC). In Part 1 of this article, I debunked the myth that Data Guard SYNC is similar to a two-phase commit operation. In Part 2, I discussed the various ways that network latency may or may not impact a Data Guard SYNC configuration. In Part 3, I talked in details regarding why Data Guard SYNC is a good thing, and the distance implications you have to keep in mind. In this final article of the series, I will talk about how you can nicely complement Data Guard SYNC with the ability to failover in seconds. Wait - Did I Say “Seconds”? Did I just say that some customers do Data Guard failover in seconds? Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Data Guard has an automatic failover capability, aptly called Fast-Start Failover. Initially available with Oracle Database 10g Release 2 for Data Guard SYNC transport mode (and enhanced in Oracle Database 11g to support Data Guard ASYNC transport mode), this capability, managed by Data Guard Broker, lets your Data Guard configuration automatically failover to a designated standby database. Yes, this means no human intervention is required to do the failover. This process is controlled by a low footprint Data Guard Broker client called Observer, which makes sure that the primary database and the designated standby database are behaving like good kids. If something bad were to happen to the primary database, the Observer, after a configurable threshold period, tells that standby, “Your time has come, you are the chosen one!” The standby dutifully follows the Observer directives by assuming the role of the new primary database. The DBA or the Sys Admin doesn’t need to be involved. And - in case you are following this discussion very closely, and are wondering … “Hmmm … what if the old primary is not really dead, but just network isolated from the Observer or the standby - won’t this lead to a split-brain situation?” The answer is No - It Doesn’t. With respect to why-it-doesn’t, I am sure there are some smart DBAs in the audience who can explain the technical reasons. Otherwise - that will be the material for a future blog post. So - this combination of SYNC and Fast-Start Failover is the nirvana of lights-out, integrated HA and DR, as practiced by some of our advanced customers. They have observed failover times (with no data loss) ranging from single-digit seconds to tens of seconds. With this, they support operations in industry verticals such as manufacturing, retail, telecom, Internet, etc. that have the most demanding availability requirements. One of our leading customers with massive cloud deployment initiatives tells us that they know about server failures only after Data Guard has automatically completed the failover process and the app is back up and running! Needless to mention, Data Guard Broker has the integration hooks for interfaces such as JDBC and OCI, or even for custom apps, to ensure the application gets automatically rerouted to the new primary database after the database level failover completes. Net Net? To sum up this multi-part blog article, Data Guard with SYNC redo transport mode, plus Fast-Start Failover, gives you the ideal triple-combo - that is, it gives you the assurance that for critical outages, you can failover your Oracle databases: very fast without human intervention, and without losing any data. In short, it takes the element of risk out of critical IT operations. It does require you to be more careful with your network and systems planning, but as far as HA is concerned, the benefits outweigh the investment costs. So, this is what we in the MAA Development Team believe in. What do you think? How has your deployment experience been? We look forward to hearing from you!

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama Top 10 for August 19-26, 2012

  - by Bob Rhubart

  The Top 10 most popular items shared via the OTN ArchBeat Facebook page for the week of August 19-26, 2012. Now Available: Oracle SQL Developer 3.2 (3.2.09.23) The latest release of Oracle SQl Developer includes UI enhancements, 12c database support, and bug fixes. ADF Tutorial Chapter 3: Creating a Master-Detail taskflow | Yannick Ongena Oracle ACE Yannick Ongena continues his ADF tutorial with a chapter devoted to view layer and using the data control to build pages that allow user to update reference data. GlassFish Community Event at JavaOne 2012 Don't miss out on this exclusive GlassFish Community Event on Sunday, September 30th from 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. in Moscone South. Register Now! Part of JavaOne 2012. Oracle BI 11g Book Authors – Podcast #9 | Art of Business Intelligence In this home-grown podcast, authors Christian Screen, Haroun Khan, and Adrian Ward talk about their new book, "Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g: A Hands-On Tutorial," about their sessions at Oracle OpenWorld, and about their ORACLENERD t-shirts. Oracle Service Bus duplicate message check using Coherence | Jan van Zoggel "Giving the fact that every message on our ESB has an unique messageID element in the SOAP header we could store this on disk, database or in memory,"says Jan van Zoggel. "With the help of Oracle Coherence this last option, in memory, is relatively simple." Even simpler with Jan's detailed instructions. Oracle Technology Network Architect Day - Boston - Sept 12 There are easier ways to increase your IT brainpower. Skip the electrodes and register for Oracle Technology Network Architect Day in Boston, September 12, 2012. This free event includes 8 technical sessions, panel Q&A, roundtable discussions—and a free lunch. 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. at the Boston Marriott Burlington, One Burlington Mall Road, Burlington, MA 01803. Oracle BPM enable BAM | Peter Paul van de Beek "BAM enables you to make decisions based on real-time information gathered from your running processes," says Peter Paul van de Beek. "With BPMN processes you can use the standard Business Indicators that the BPM Suite offers you and use them to with BAM without much extra effort." Sample Application for Switching Application Module Data Sources | Andrejus Baranovskis A sample application and how-to guide from Oracle ACE Director and ADF expert Andrejus Baranovskis. ORCLville: Some Basic BI Thoughts "If we'd stop to consider what business intelligence really is, many of us might grow a different perspective about how we implement enterprise apps," says Oracle ACE Director Floyd Teter. "What if we implemented with an eye to what kind of information we'd like to get from our enterprise apps?" Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.1.20 released |Oracle's Virtualization Blog Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.1.20 was just released at the community and Oracle download sites, reports the Fat Bloke. This is a maintenance release containing bug fixes and stability improvements. Thought for the Day "The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures." — Frederick P. Brooks Source: SoftwareQuotes

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• Sunshine after the iCloud release?

  - by Laila

  "Why should I believe them? They're the ones that brought us MobileMe? It was not our finest hour, but we learned a lot." Steve Jobs June 6th 2011 Apple's new cloud service has been met with uncritical excitement by industry commentators.  It is wonderful what a rename can do.  Apple has had a 'cloud' offering for three years called MobileMe, successor to .MAC and  iTools, so iCloud is now the fourth internet service Apple have attempted. If this had been Microsoft, there would have been catcalls all around the blogosphere.  I'll admit that there is a lot more functionality announced for iCloud than MobileMe has ever managed to achieve, but then almost anything has more functionality than MobileMe.  It's an expensive service (£120 a year in the UK, $90 in the states), launched as far back as  June 9, 2008, that has delivered very little and suffered a string of technical problems; the documentation was mainly  a community effort, built up gradually by the frustrated and angry users. It was supposed to synchronise PC Outlook calendars but couldn't manage Microsoft Exchange (Google could, of course). It used WebDAV to allow Windows users to attach to the filestore, but didn't document how to do it. The method for downloading and uploading files to the cloud-based filestore was ridiculously clunky. It allowed you to post photos on a public site, but forgot to include a way of deleting photos. I could go on with the list, but you can explore the many sites that have flourished to inhabit the support-vacuum left by Apple. MobileMe should have had all the bright new clever things announced for iCloud. Apple dropped the ball, and allowed services such as Flickr to fill the void. However, their PR skills are such that, a name-change later (the .ME.com email address remains), it has turned a rout into a victory, and hundreds of earnest bloggers have been extolling Apple's expertise in cloud matters. This must be frustrating for the other cloud providers who have quietly got the technology working right. I wish iCloud well, even though I resent the expensive mess they made of MobileMe. Apple promise that iCloud will sync files, apps, app data, and media across all the different iOS5 devices, Macs, and PCs. It also hopes to sync music across devices, but not video content. They've offered existing MobileMe users free use of the MobileMe service for a year as the product is morphed, and they will be able to transfer to iCloud when it is launched in the autumn.  On June 30, 2012, MobileMe will die, and Apple's iWeb is also soon to join iTools and .MAC in the hereafter. So why get excited about iCloud? That all depends on the level of PC integration. Whereas iOS5 machines will be full participants in the new world of data-sharing (Sorry iPod Touch users) what about .NET libraries? There is talk of synchronising 'My Pictures' libraries with iOS5 and iMac machines, but little more detail as yet. Apple has a lot to prove with iCloud and anyone with actual experience of their past attempts to get into cloud services will be wary.

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• Oracle Retail Mobile Point-of-Service

  - by David Dorf

  When most people discuss mobile in retail, they immediately go to shopping applications.  While I agree the consumer side of mobile is huge, I believe its also important to arm store associates with mobile tools.  There are around a dozen major roll-outs of mobile POS to chain retailers, and all have been successful.  This does not, however, signal the demise of traditional registers.  Retailers will adopt mobile POS slowly and reduce the number of fixed registers over time, but there's likely to be a combination of both for the foreseeable future.  Even Apple retains at least one fixed register in every store, you just have to know where to look. The business benefits for mobile POS are pretty straightforward: 1. Faster checkout.  Walmart's CFO recently reported that for every second they shave off the average transaction time, they can potentially save $12M a year in labor.  I think its more likely that labor will be redeployed to enhance the customer experience. 2. Smarter associates.  The sales associates on the floor need the same access to information that consumers have, if not more.  They need ready access to product details, reviews, inventory, etc. to meet consumer expectations.  In a recent study, 40% of consumers said a savvy store associate can impact their final product selection more than a website. 3. Lower costs.  Mobile POS hardware (iPod touch + sled) costs about a fifth of fixed registers, not to mention the reclaimed space that can be used for product displays. But almost all Mobile POS solutions can claim those benefits equally.  Where there's differentiation is on the technical side.  Oracle recently announced availability of the Oracle Retail Mobile Point-of-Service, and it has three big technology advantages in the market: 1. Portable. We used a popular open-source component called PhoneGap that abstracts the app from the underlying OS and hardware so that iOS, Android, and other platforms could be supported.  Further, we used Web technologies such as HTML5 and JavaScript, which are commonly known by many programmers, as opposed to ObjectiveC which is more difficult to find.  The screen can adjust to different form-factors and sizes, just like you see with browsers.  In the future when a new, zippy device gets released, retailers will have the option to move to that device more easily than if they used a native app. 2. Flexible.  Our Mobile POS is free with the Oracle Retail Point-of-Service product.  Retailers can use any combination of fixed and mobile registers, and those ratios can change as required.  Perhaps start with 1 mobile and 4 fixed per store, then transition over time to 4 mobile and 1 fixed without any additional software licenses.  Our scalable solution supports lots of combinations. 3. Consistent.  Because our Mobile POS is fully integrated to our traditional POS, the same business logic is reused.  Third-party Mobile POS solutions often handle pricing, promotions, and tax calculations separately leading to possible inconsistencies within the store.  That won't happen with Oracle's solution. For many retailers, Mobile POS can lower costs, increase customer service, and generally enhance a consumer's in-store experience.  Apple led the way, but lots of other retailers are discovering the many benefits of adding mobile capabilities in their stores.  Just be sure to examine both the business and technology benefits so you get the most value from your solution for the longest period of time.

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• Chalk Talk with John: How Does SOA Add Value to Your Enterprise?

  - by John Brunswick

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} In this episode of Chalk Talk with John we revisit our town of Middleware Fields from What Does User Experience Mean to You? to look at demystifying the business value of SOA. Middleware fields is an extremely eco-conscious community and has been trying to setup a commuting program for their employees. Though a good idea, they soon run into challenges ensuring that people are able to use the commuting services easily.  Take a look below to see how SOA is like a transit pass for your enterprise and how it addresses common issues you may have with your enterprise systems. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} About me: Hi, I am John Brunswick, an Oracle Enterprise Architect. As an Oracle Enterprise Architect, I focus on the alignment of technical capabilities in support of business vision and objectives, as well as the overall business value of technology.  Before coming to Oracle, I was a Practice Manager within BEA System's Business Interaction Division consulting organization, orchestrating enterprise systems in support of line of business goals. Follow me on Twitter and visit my site for Oracle Fusion Middleware related tips.

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• Handling "related" work within a single agile work item

  - by Tesserex

  I'm on a project team of 4 devs, myself included. We've been having a long discussion on how to handle extra work that comes up in the course of a single work item. This extra work is usually things that are slightly related to the task, but not always necessary to accomplish the goal of the item (that may be an opinion). Examples include but are not limited to: refactoring of the code changed by the work item refactoring code neighboring the code changed by the item re-architecting the larger code area around the ticket. For example if an item has you changing a single function, you realize the entire class now could be redone to better accommodate this change. improving the UI on a form you just modified When this extra work is small we don't mind. The problem is when this extra work causes a substantial extension of the item beyond the original feature point estimation. Sometimes a 5 point item will actually take 13 points of time. In one case we had a 13 point item that in retrospect could have been 80 points or more. There are two options going around in our discussion for how to handle this. We can accept the extra work in the same work item, and write it off as a mis-estimation. Arguments for this have included: We plan for "padding" at the end of the sprint to account for this sort of thing. Always leave the code in better shape than you found it. Don't check in half-assed work. If we leave refactoring for later, it's hard to schedule and may never get done. You are in the best mental "context" to handle this work now, since you're waist deep in the code already. Better to get it out of the way now and be more efficient than to lose that context when you come back later. We draw a line for the current work item, and say that the extra work goes into a separate ticket. Arguments include: Having a separate ticket allows for a new estimation, so we aren't lying to ourselves about how many points things really are, or having to admit that all of our estimations are terrible. The sprint "padding" is meant for unexpected technical challenges that are direct barriers to completing the ticket requirements. It is not intended for side items that are just "nice-to-haves". If you want to schedule refactoring, just put it at the top of the backlog. There is no way for us to properly account for this stuff in an estimation, since it seems somewhat arbitrary when it comes up. A code reviewer might say "those UI controls (which you actually didn't modify in this work item) are a bit confusing, can you fix that too?" which is like an hour, but they might say "Well if this control now inherits from the same base class as the others, why don't you move all of this (hundreds of lines of) code into the base and rewire all this stuff, the cascading changes, etc.?" And that takes a week. It "contaminates the crime scene" by adding unrelated work into the ticket, making our original feature point estimates meaningless. In some cases, the extra work postpones a check-in, causing blocking between devs. Some of us are now saying that we should decide some cut off, like if the additional stuff is less than 2 FP, it goes in the same ticket, if it's more, make it a new ticket. Since we're only a few months into using Agile, what's the opinion of all the more seasoned Agile veterans around here on how to handle this?

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• SQL Authority News – Presenting at SQL Bangalore on May 3, 2014 – Performing an Effective Presentation

  - by Pinal Dave

  SQL Bangalore is a wonderful community and we always have a great response when we present on technology. It is SQL User Group and we discuss everything SQL there. This month we have SQL Server 2014 theme and we are going to have a community launch on this subject. We have the best of the best speakers presenting on SQL Server 2014 technology. Looking at the whole line of celebrity speakers, I have decided not to present on SQL Server. I will be presenting on the performance tuning subject, but with the twist of soft skills. I will be presenting on “Performing an Effective Presentation“. Trust me, you do not want to miss this presentation, I will be presenting on how to present effectively when presenting SQL Server topics. What this session will NOT have I personally believe that we all are good presenters most of the time. We can all easily call out if someone is bad presenter. There is no point talking about basics like bigger bullet points, talk loudly, talk with confidence, use better analogies etc. In simple words – this is not going to some philosophy session and boring notes. What this session will have Well, this session will tell stories of my life. It will tell how we can present about technology and SQL Server with the help of stories and personal experience. I am going to tell stories about two legends  who have inspired me. Right after that we will be doing two exercises together where we will learn quickly and effectively, how to become better speaker – instantly! There is no video recording of this session. If you want to get resources from this session, please sign up my newsletter at http://bit.ly/sqllearn Here are few of the slides from this presentation: Here is the details about the event and location Venue:Microsoft Corporation, Signature Building,Embassy Golf Links Business Park, Intermediate Ring Road, Domlur, Bangalore – 560071 The agenda is amazing – we have top line SQL Speakers. Everyone is welcome and don’t forget to get your friend along for this event. Loads to learn and tons to share !!! Keynote (20 mins) by Anupam Tiwari – Business Program Manager – GTSC Backup Enhancements with SQL Server 2014 by Amit Banerjee – PFE Microsoft Performance Enhancements with SQL Server 2014 by Sourabh Agarwal - PFE Microsoft LUNCH BREAK Performing an effective Presentation by Pinal Dave – Community Member (SQLAuthority.com) InMemory Enhancements with SQL Server 2014 by Balmukund Lakhani – Support Escalation Engg. Microsoft Some more lesser known enhancements with SQL Server 2014 by Vinod Kumar – Technical Architect Microsoft MTC Power Packed – Power BI with SQL Server by Kane Conway – Support Escalation Engg. Microsoft I am very big fan of Amit, Balmukund and Vinod – I have always watched their session and this time, I am going to once again attend their session without missing a single min. They are SQL legends, I am going to be there and learn when they are sharing their knowledge.  Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, T SQL

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• Rolling Along: PASS Board Year 2, Q2

  - by Denise McInerney

  Eighteen months into my time as a PASS Director I’m especially proud of what the Virtual Chapters have accomplished and want to share that progress with you. I'm also pleased that the organization has invested more resources to support the VCs. In this quarter I got to attend two conferences and meet more members of the SQL community. Virtual Chapters In the first six months of 2013 VCs have hosted more than 50 webinars, offering free technical education to over 6200 attendees. This is a great benefit to PASS members; thanks to the VC leaders, volunteers and speakers who contribute their time to produce these events. The Performance VC held their “Summer Performance Palooza”, an event featuring eight back-to-back sessions. Links to the session recordings can be found on the VCs web site. The new webinar platform, GoToWebinar, has been rolled out to all the VCs. This is a more stable, scalable platform and represents an important investment into the future of the VCs. A few new VCs are in the planning stages, including one focused on Security and one for Russian speakers. Visit the Virtual Chapter home page to sign up for the chapters that interest you. Each Virtual Chapter is offering a discount code for PASS Summit 2013. Be sure to ask your VC leader for the code to save $200 on Summit registration. 24 Hours of PASS The next 24HOP will be on July 31. This Summit Preview edition will feature 24 consecutive webcasts presented by experts who will be speaking at Summit in October. Registration for this free event is open now. And we will be using the GoToWebinar platform for 24HOP also. Business Analytics Conference April marked the first PASS Business Analytics Conference in Chicago. This introduced PASS to another segment of data professionals: the analysts and data scientists who work with the world’s growing collection of data. Overall the inaugural event was a success and gave us a glimpse into this increasingly important space. After Chicago the Board had several serious discussions about the lessons learned from this seven and what we should do next. We agreed to apply those lessons and continue to invest in this event; there will be a PASS Business Analytics Conference in 2014. I’m very pleased the next event will be in San Jose, CA, the heart of Silicon Valley, a place where a great deal of investment and innovation in data analytics is taking place. Global SQL Community Over the last couple of years PASS has been taking steps to become more relevant to SQL communities in different parts of the world. In May I had the opportunity to attend SQL Bits XI in Nottingham, England. It was enlightening to meet and talk with SQL professionals from around the U.K. as well as many other European countries. The many SQL Bits volunteers put on a great event and were gracious hosts. Budgets The Board passed the FY14 budget at the end of June. The  budget process can be challenging and requires the Board to make some difficult choices about where to allocate resources. Overall I’m satisfied with the decisions we made and think we are investing in the right activities and programs. Next Up The Board is meeting July 18-19 in Kansas City. We will be holding the Executive Committee election for the Exec Co that will take office in 2014. We will also be discussing plans for the next BA conference as well as the next steps for our Global Growth initiative. Applications for the upcoming Board of Directors election open on July 24. If you are considering running for the Board you can visit the PASS elections site to learn more about the election process. And I encourage anyone considering running to reach out to current and past Board members to learn about what the role entails. Plans for the next PASS Summit are in full swing. We are working on some fun new ideas to introduce attendees to the many ways to become involved in the SQL community.

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• JavaOne User Group Sunday

  - by Tori Wieldt

  Before any "official" sessions of JavaOne 2012, the Java community was already sizzling. User Group Sunday was a great success, with several sessions offered by Java community members for anyone wanting to attend. Sessions were both about Java and best practices for running a JUG. Technical sessions included "Autoscaling Web Java Applications: Handle Peak Traffic with Zero Downtime and Minimized Cost,"  "Using Java with HTML5 and CSS3," and "Gooey and Sticky Bits: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Java." Several sessions were about how to start and run a JUG, like "Getting Speakers, Finding Sponsors, Planning Events: A Day in the Life of a JUG" and "JCP and OpenJDK: Using the JUGs’ “Adopt” Programs in Your Group." Badr ElHouari and Faiçal Boutaounte presented the session "Why Communities Are Important and How to Start One." They used the example of the Morocco JUG, which they started. Before the JUG, there was no "Java community," they explained. They shared their best practices, including: have fun, enjoy what you are doing get a free venue to have regular meetings, a University is a good choice run a conference, it gives you visibility and brings in new members students are a great way to grow a JUG Badr was proud to mention JMaghreb, a first-time conference that the Morocco JUG is hosting in November. They have secured sponsors and international speakers, and are able to offer a free conference for Java developers in North Africa. The session also included a free-flowing discussion about recruiters (OK to come to meetings, but not to dominate them), giving out email addresses (NEVER do without permission), no-show rates (50% for free events) and the importance of good content (good speakers really help!). Trisha Gee, member of the London Java Community (LJC) was one of the presenters for the session "Benefits of Open Source." She explained how open sourcing the LMAX Disruptor (a high performance inter-thread messaging library) gave her company LMAX several benefits, including more users, more really good quality new hires, and more access to 3rd party companies. Being open source raised the visibility of the company and the product, which was good in many ways. "We hired six really good coders in three months," Gee said. They also got community contributors for their code and more cred with technologists. "We had been unsuccessful at getting access to executives from other companies in the high-performance space. But once we were open source, the techies at the company had heard of us, knew our code was good, and that opened lots of doors for us." So, instead of "giving away the secret sauce," by going open source, LMAX gained many benefits. "It was a great day," said Bruno Souza, AKA The Brazilian Java Man, "the sessions were well attended and there was lots of good interaction." Sizzle and steak!

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• Communication between state machines with hidden transitions

  - by slartibartfast

  The question emerged for me in embedded programming but I think it can be applied to quite a number of general networking situations e.g. when a communication partner fails. Assume we have an application logic (a program) running on a computer and a gadget connected to that computer via e.g. a serial interface like RS232. The gadget has a red/green/blue LED and a button which disables the LED. The LEDs color can be driven by software commands over the serial interface and the state (red/green/blue/off) is read back and causes a reaction in the application logic. Asynchronous behaviour of the application logic with regard to the LED color down to a certain delay (depending on the execution cycle of the application) is tolerated. What we essentially have is a resource (the LED) which can not be reserved and handled atomically by software because the (organic) user can at any time press the button to interfere/break the software attempt to switch the LED color. Stripping this example from its physical outfit I dare to say that we have two communicating state machines A (application logic) and G (gadget) where G executes state changes unbeknownst to A (and also the other way round, but this is not significant in our example) and only A can be modified at a reasonable price. A needs to see the reaction and state of G in one piece of information which may be (slightly) outdated but not inconsistent with respect to the short time window when this information was generated on the side of G. What I am looking for is a concise method to handle such a situation in embedded software (i.e. no layer/framework like CORBA etc. available). A programming technique which is able to map the complete behaviour of both participants on classical interfaces of a classical programming language (C in this case). To complicate matters (or rather, to generalize), a simple high frequency communication cycle of A to G and back (IOW: A is rapidly polling G) is out of focus because of technical restrictions (delay of serial com, A not always active, etc.). What I currently see as a general solution is: the application logic A as one thread of execution an adapter object (proxy) PG (presenting G inside the computer), together with the serial driver as another thread a communication object between the two (A and PG) which is transactionally safe to exchange The two execution contexts (threads) on the computer may be multi-core or just interrupt driven or tasks in an RTOS. The com object contains the following data: suspected state (written by A): effectively a member of the power set of states in G (in our case: red, green, blue, off, red_or_green, red_or_blue, red_or_off...etc.) command data (written by A): test_if_off, switch_to_red, switch_to_green, switch_to_blue operation status (written by PG): operation_pending, success, wrong_state, link_broken new state (written by PG): red, green, blue, off The idea of the com object is that A writes whichever (set of) state it thinks G is in, together with a command. (Example: suspected state="red_or_green", command: "switch_to_blue") Notice that the commands issued by A will not work if the user has switched off the LED and A needs to know this. PG will pick up such a com object and try to send the command to G, receive its answer (or a timeout) and set the operation status and new state accordingly. A will take back the oject once it is no longer at operation_pending and can react to the outcome. The com object could be separated of course (into two objects, one for each direction) but I think it is convenient in nearly all instances to have the command close to the result. I would like to have major flaws pointed out or hear an entirely different view on such a situation.

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• Book Review (Book 12) - 20 Master Plots

  - by BuckWoody

  This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for a year. You can read my first book review here, and the entire list is here. The book I chose for May 2012 was:20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias. This is my final book review - at least for this year. I'll explain what I've learned in this book in particular, and in the last twelve months in general. Why I chose this book: Stories and themes are part of software, presenting, and working in teams. This book claims there are only 20 plots, ever. I wanted to find out. What I learned: Probably my most favorite read of the year. Deceptively small, amazingly insightful. The premise is that there are only a few "base" themes, and that once you learn them you can put together an interesting set of stories on most any topic. Yes, the author admits that this number has been different throughout history - some have said 50, others 14, and still others claim only one or two basic plots. This doesn't change the fact that you can build very complex stories from a simple set of circumstances and characters. Be warned - if you read this book it takes away much of the wonder from almost every movie or book you'll read from here on! I loved it. My favorite part is that the author gives you exercises to build stories, right from the start. I've actually used these as the start of a meeting to foster creativity. Amazing stuff. One of my favorite sections of the book deals with plot and story. Plot: The king died, and the queen died. Story: The king died, and the queen died of heartbreak. Add one or two words, and you have the essence of storytelling. A highly recommended read, for all folks of all ages. You'll like it, your spouse will like it, and your kids will like it. I learned to be a better storyteller, and it helped me understand that plots and stories are not just things in books - they are a direct reflection of human nature. That makes me a better manager of myself and others.   And this is the last of the reviews - at least for this year. I probably won't post many more book reviews here, but I will keep up the practice. As a reminder, the goal was to select 12 books that will help you reach your career goals. They don't have to be technical, or even apply directly to your job - but they do need to be books that you mindfully select as getting you closer to what you want to be. Each month, jot down what you learned from the work. And see if it doesn't in fact get you closer to your goals. These readings helped me - I got a promotion this year, and I attribute at least some of that to the things I learned.

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• PARTNER WEBCAST- INNOVATIONS IN PRODUCTS PROGRAM (FORMERLY KNOWN AS COMPETENCE VIRTUAL)

  - by mseika

  PARTNER WEBCAST- INNOVATIONS IN PRODUCTS PROGRAM (FORMERLY KNOWN AS COMPETENCE VIRTUAL) JULY 2ND, 2012 AT 04:00 PM CET (03:00 PM GMT)I am pleased to invite you to join the Innovations in Products –webcast. Innovations in Products will present Oracle Applications' Product's new functions and features including sales positioning. The key objectives of these webcasts are to inspire System Integrator's implementation personnel to conduct successful after sales in their Customer projects. Innovations in Products will be presented on the 1st Monday of each quarter after the billable day (4:00 to 5:00 PM CET). The webcast is intended for System Integrator's Implementation Certified Specialists but Innovations in Products is open for other interested Oracle Applications system Integrator's personnel as well. At first, two Oracle representatives will discuss Oracle's contribution to Partners. Then you will see product breakout session followed by Q&A with Oracle Experts. Each session will last for maximum 1 hour. A Q&A Document covering all questions and answers will be made available after the webcast. What are the Benefits for partners? Find out how Innovations in Products helps you to improve your after sales Discover new functions and features so you can enrich your Customers's solution Learn more about Oracle Applications products, especially sales positioning Hear crucial questions raised by colleague alike, learn from their interest Engage and present your questions to subject experts Be inspired of the richness of Oracle Application portfolio – for your and your customer’s benefit. Note: Should you already be familiar with a specific Product, then choose another one. Doing so you would expand your knowledge of the overall Applications portfolio. Some presentations contain product demonstration, although these presentations are not intended to be extremely detailed technical presentations. Note: At the latter part of this email you have also 17 links into the recent Applications Products presentations and 6 links into the Public Sector Value Proposition presentations that were presented in Innovations in Industries -program. Product breakout sessions: Fusion Applications Technology and Extensibility Fusion Applications - Transforming your Back-Office Accounting Function Fusion HCM & Talent Overview & Extensibility Fusion HCM Compensation Planning Enterprise PLM for the Product Value Chain Oracle's Asset Management and Maintenance Solution For more details please visit Innovations in Products and other breakout sessions on OPN page. Delivery Format Innovations in Products –program is a series of FREE prerecorded Applications product presentations followed by Q&A. It will be delivered over the Web. Participants have the opportunity to submit questions during the web cast via chat and subject matter experts will provide verbal answers live. Innovations in Products consists of several parallel prerecorded product breakout sessions, each lasting for max. 1 hour. At first, two Oracle representatives will discuss Oracle’s contribution to Partners. Then you’ll see the product breakout sessions followed by Q&A with Oracle Experts. A Q&A document covering all questions and answers will be made available after the webcast. You can also see Innovations in Products afterwards as its content will be available online for the next 6-12 months.The next Innovations in Products web casts will be presented as follows: July 2nd 2012 October 1st 2012 January 14th 2013 April 8th 2013. Note: Depending on local network bandwidth please allow some seconds time the presentations to download. You might want to refresh your screen by pressing F5. DurationMaximum 1 hour For further information please contact me Markku Rouhiainen.

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• PARTNER WEBCAST- INNOVATIONS IN PRODUCTS PROGRAM (FORMERLY KNOWN AS COMPETENCE VIRTUAL)

  - by mseika

  PARTNER WEBCAST- INNOVATIONS IN PRODUCTS PROGRAM (FORMERLY KNOWN AS COMPETENCE VIRTUAL) JULY 2ND, 2012 AT 04:00 PM CET (03:00 PM GMT)I am pleased to invite you to join the Innovations in Products –webcast. Innovations in Products will present Oracle Applications' Product's new functions and features including sales positioning. The key objectives of these webcasts are to inspire System Integrator's implementation personnel to conduct successful after sales in their Customer projects. Innovations in Products will be presented on the 1st Monday of each quarter after the billable day (4:00 to 5:00 PM CET). The webcast is intended for System Integrator's Implementation Certified Specialists but Innovations in Products is open for other interested Oracle Applications system Integrator's personnel as well. At first, two Oracle representatives will discuss Oracle's contribution to Partners. Then you will see product breakout session followed by Q&A with Oracle Experts. Each session will last for maximum 1 hour. A Q&A Document covering all questions and answers will be made available after the webcast. What are the Benefits for partners? Find out how Innovations in Products helps you to improve your after sales Discover new functions and features so you can enrich your Customers's solution Learn more about Oracle Applications products, especially sales positioning Hear crucial questions raised by colleague alike, learn from their interest Engage and present your questions to subject experts Be inspired of the richness of Oracle Application portfolio – for your and your customer’s benefit. Note: Should you already be familiar with a specific Product, then choose another one. Doing so you would expand your knowledge of the overall Applications portfolio. Some presentations contain product demonstration, although these presentations are not intended to be extremely detailed technical presentations. Note: At the latter part of this email you have also 17 links into the recent Applications Products presentations and 6 links into the Public Sector Value Proposition presentations that were presented in Innovations in Industries -program. Product breakout sessions: Fusion Applications Technology and Extensibility Fusion Applications - Transforming your Back-Office Accounting Function Fusion HCM & Talent Overview & Extensibility Fusion HCM Compensation Planning Enterprise PLM for the Product Value Chain Oracle's Asset Management and Maintenance Solution For more details please visit Innovations in Products and other breakout sessions on OPN page. Delivery Format Innovations in Products –program is a series of FREE prerecorded Applications product presentations followed by Q&A. It will be delivered over the Web. Participants have the opportunity to submit questions during the web cast via chat and subject matter experts will provide verbal answers live. Innovations in Products consists of several parallel prerecorded product breakout sessions, each lasting for max. 1 hour. At first, two Oracle representatives will discuss Oracle’s contribution to Partners. Then you’ll see the product breakout sessions followed by Q&A with Oracle Experts. A Q&A document covering all questions and answers will be made available after the webcast. You can also see Innovations in Products afterwards as its content will be available online for the next 6-12 months.The next Innovations in Products web casts will be presented as follows: July 2nd 2012 October 1st 2012 January 14th 2013 April 8th 2013. Note: Depending on local network bandwidth please allow some seconds time the presentations to download. You might want to refresh your screen by pressing F5. DurationMaximum 1 hour For further information please contact me Markku Rouhiainen.

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• Oracle MAA Part 1: When One Size Does Not Fit All

  - by JoeMeeks

  The good news is that Oracle Maximum Availability Architecture (MAA) best practices combined with Oracle Database 12c (see video) introduce first-in-the-industry database capabilities that truly make unplanned outages and planned maintenance transparent to users. The trouble with such good news is that Oracle’s enthusiasm in evangelizing its latest innovations may leave some to wonder if we’ve lost sight of the fact that not all database applications are created equal. Afterall, many databases don’t have the business requirements for high availability and data protection that require all of Oracle’s ‘stuff’. For many real world applications, a controlled amount of downtime and/or data loss is OK if it saves money and effort. Well, not to worry. Oracle knows that enterprises need solutions that address the full continuum of requirements for data protection and availability. Oracle MAA accomplishes this by defining four HA service level tiers: BRONZE, SILVER, GOLD and PLATINUM. The figure below shows the progression in service levels provided by each tier. Each tier uses a different MAA reference architecture to deploy the optimal set of Oracle HA capabilities that reliably achieve a given service level (SLA) at the lowest cost.  Each tier includes all of the capabilities of the previous tier and builds upon the architecture to handle an expanded fault domain. Bronze is appropriate for databases where simple restart or restore from backup is ‘HA enough’. Bronze is based upon a single instance Oracle Database with MAA best practices that use the many capabilities for data protection and HA included with every Oracle Enterprise Edition license. Oracle-optimized backups using Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) provide data protection and are used to restore availability should an outage prevent the database from being able to restart. Silver provides an additional level of HA for databases that require minimal or zero downtime in the event of database instance or server failure as well as many types of planned maintenance. Silver adds clustering technology - either Oracle RAC or RAC One Node. RMAN provides database-optimized backups to protect data and restore availability should an outage prevent the cluster from being able to restart. Gold raises the game substantially for business critical applications that can’t accept vulnerability to single points-of-failure. Gold adds database-aware replication technologies, Active Data Guard and Oracle GoldenGate, which synchronize one or more replicas of the production database to provide real time data protection and availability. Database-aware replication greatly increases HA and data protection beyond what is possible with storage replication technologies. It also reduces cost while improving return on investment by actively utilizing all replicas at all times. Platinum introduces all of the sexy new Oracle Database 12c capabilities that Oracle staff will gush over with great enthusiasm. These capabilities include Application Continuity for reliable replay of in-flight transactions that masks outages from users; Active Data Guard Far Sync for zero data loss protection at any distance; new Oracle GoldenGate enhancements for zero downtime upgrades and migrations; and Global Data Services for automated service management and workload balancing in replicated database environments. Each of these technologies requires additional effort to implement. But they deliver substantial value for your most critical applications where downtime and data loss are not an option. The MAA reference architectures are inherently designed to address conflicting realities. On one hand, not every application has the same objectives for availability and data protection – the Not One Size Fits All title of this blog post. On the other hand, standard infrastructure is an operational requirement and a business necessity in order to reduce complexity and cost. MAA reference architectures address both realities by providing a standard infrastructure optimized for Oracle Database that enables you to dial-in the level of HA appropriate for different service level requirements. This makes it simple to move a database from one HA tier to the next should business requirements change, or from one hardware platform to another – whether it’s your favorite non-Oracle vendor or an Oracle Engineered System. Please stay tuned for additional blog posts in this series that dive into the details of each MAA reference architecture. Meanwhile, more information on Oracle HA solutions and the Maximum Availability Architecture can be found at: Oracle Maximum Availability Architecture - Webcast Maximize Availability with Oracle Database 12c - Technical White Paper

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• Big Data – ClustrixDB – Extreme Scale SQL Database with Real-time Analytics, Releases Software Download – NewSQL

  - by Pinal Dave

  There are so many things to learn and there is so little time we all have. As we have little time we need to be selective to learn whatever we learn. I believe I know quite a lot of things in SQL but I still do not know what is around SQL. I have started to learn about NewSQL recently. If you wonder what is NewSQL I encourage all of you to read my blog post about NewSQL over here Big Data – Buzz Words: What is NewSQL – Day 10 of 21. NewSQL databases are quickly becoming popular – providing the scale of NoSQL with the SQL features and transactions. As a part of learning NewSQL database, I have recently started to learn about ClustrixDB. ClustrixDB has been the most mature NewSQL database used by some of the largest internet sites in the world for over 3 years, with extensive SQL support. In addition to scale, it provides fast real-time analytics by bringing massively parallel processing (MPP), available only in warehousing databases, to the transactional database. The reason I am more intrigued about learning ClustrixDB is their recent announcement on Oct 31. ClustrixDB was only available as an appliance, but now with their software release on Oct 31, everyone can use it. It is now available as forever free for up to 12 cores with community support, and there is a 45 day trial for unlimited cluster sizes. With the forever free world, I am indeed interested in ClustrixDB now. I know that few of the leading eCommerce sites in the world uses them for their transactional database. Here are few of the details I have quickly noted for ClustrixDB. ClustrixDB allows user to: Scale by simply adding nodes to the cluster with a single command Run billions of transactions a day Run fast real-time analytics Achieve high-availability with recovery from node failure Manages itself Easily migrate from MySQL as it is nearly plug-and-play compatible, use MySQL drivers, tools and replication. While I was going through the documentation I realized that ClustrixDB also has extensive support for SQL features including complex queries involving joins on a dozen or more tables, aggregates, sorts, sub-queries. It also supports stored procedures, triggers, foreign keys, partitioned and temporary tables, and fully online schema changes. It is indeed a very matured product and SQL solution. Indeed Clusterix sound very promising solution, I decided to dig a bit deeper to understand who are current customers of the Clustrix as they exist in the industry for quite a few years. Their client list is indeed very interesting and here is my quick research about them. Twoo.com – Europe’s largest social discovery (dating) site runs 4.4 Billion Transactions a day with table sizes over a Terabyte, on a 168 core cluster. EngageBDR – Top 3 in the online advertising category uses ClustrixDB to serve 6.9 billion ads a day through real-time bidding platform. Their reports went from 4 hours to 15 seconds. NoMoreRack – Top 2 fastest growing e-commerce company in US used ClustrixDB for high availability and fast growth through Amazon cloud. MakeMyTrip – India’s leading travel site runs on ClustrixDB with two clusters running as multi-master in Chennai and Bangalore. Many enterprises such as AOL, CSC, Rakuten, Symantec use ClustrixDB when their applications need scale. I must accept that I am impressed with the information I have learned so far and now is the time to do some hand’s on experience with their product. I want to learn this technology so in future when it is about NewSQL, I know what I am talking about. Read more why Clustrix explains why you ClustrixDB might be the right database for you. Download ClustrixDB with me today and install it on your machine so in future when we discuss the technical aspects of it, we all are on the same page. The software can be downloaded here. Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)Filed under: Big Data, MySQL, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: Clustrix

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• Conflict Minerals - Design to Compliance

  - by C. Chadwick

  Dr. Christina  Schröder - Principal PLM Consultant, Enterprise PLM Solutions EMEA What does the Conflict Minerals regulation mean? Conflict Minerals has recently become a new buzz word in the manufacturing industry, particularly in electronics and medical devices. Known as the "Dodd-Frank Section 1502", this regulation requires SEC listed companies to declare the origin of certain minerals by 2014. The intention is to reduce the use of tantalum, tungsten, tin, and gold which originate from mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and adjoining countries that are controlled by violent armed militia abusing human rights. Manufacturers now request information from their suppliers to see if their raw materials are sourced from this region and which smelters are used to extract the metals from the minerals. A standardized questionnaire has been developed for this purpose (download and further information). Soon, even companies which are not directly affected by the Conflict Minerals legislation will have to collect and maintain this information since their customers will request the data from their suppliers. Furthermore, it is expected that the public opinion and consumer interests will force manufacturers to avoid the use of metals with questionable origin. Impact for existing products Several departments are involved in the process of collecting data and providing conflict minerals compliance information. For already marketed products, purchasing typically requests Conflict Minerals declarations from the suppliers. In order to address requests from customers, technical operations or product management are usually responsible for keeping track of all parts, raw materials and their suppliers so that the required information can be provided. For complex BOMs, it is very tedious to maintain complete, accurate, up-to-date, and traceable data. Any product change or new supplier can, in addition to all other implications, have an effect on the Conflict Minerals compliance status. Influence on product development  It makes sense to consider compliance early in the planning and design of new products. Companies should evaluate which metals are needed or contained in supplier parts and if these could originate from problematic sources. The answer influences the cost and risk analysis during the development. If it is known early on that a part could be non-compliant with respect to Conflict Minerals, alternatives can be evaluated and thus costly changes at a later stage can be avoided. Integrated compliance management  Ideally, compliance data for Conflict Minerals, but also for other regulations like REACH and RoHS, should be managed in an integrated supply chain system. The compliance status is directly visible across the entire BOM at any part level and for the finished product. If data is missing, a request to the supplier can be triggered right away without having to switch to another system. The entire process, from identification of the relevant parts, requesting information, handling responses, data entry, to compliance calculation is fully covered end-to-end while being transparent for all stakeholders. Agile PLM Product Governance and Compliance (PG&C) The PG&C module extends Agile PLM with exactly this integrated functionality. As with the entire Agile product suite, PG&C can be configured according to customer requirements: data fields, attributes, workflows, routing, notifications, and permissions, etc… can be quickly and easily tailored to a customer’s needs. Optionally, external databases can be interfaced to query commercially available sources of Conflict Minerals declarations which obviates the need for a separate supplier request in many cases. Suppliers can access the system directly for data entry through a special portal. The responses to the standard EICC-GeSI questionnaire can be imported by the supplier or internally. Manual data entry is also supported. A set of compliance-specific dashboards and reports complement the functionality Conclusion  The increasing number of product compliance regulations, for which Conflict Minerals is just one example, requires companies to implement an efficient data and process management in this area. Consumer awareness in this matter increases as well so that an integrated system from development to production also provides a competitive advantage. Follow this link to learn more about Agile's PG&C solution

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• Book Review (Book 12) - 20 Master Plots

  - by BuckWoody

  This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for a year. You can read my first book review here, and the entire list is here. The book I chose for May 2012 was:20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias. This is my final book review - at least for this year. I'll explain what I've learned in this book in particular, and in the last twelve months in general. Why I chose this book: Stories and themes are part of software, presenting, and working in teams. This book claims there are only 20 plots, ever. I wanted to find out. What I learned: Probably my most favorite read of the year. Deceptively small, amazingly insightful. The premise is that there are only a few "base" themes, and that once you learn them you can put together an interesting set of stories on most any topic. Yes, the author admits that this number has been different throughout history - some have said 50, others 14, and still others claim only one or two basic plots. This doesn't change the fact that you can build very complex stories from a simple set of circumstances and characters. Be warned - if you read this book it takes away much of the wonder from almost every movie or book you'll read from here on! I loved it. My favorite part is that the author gives you exercises to build stories, right from the start. I've actually used these as the start of a meeting to foster creativity. Amazing stuff. One of my favorite sections of the book deals with plot and story. Plot: The king died, and the queen died. Story: The king died, and the queen died of heartbreak. Add one or two words, and you have the essence of storytelling. A highly recommended read, for all folks of all ages. You'll like it, your spouse will like it, and your kids will like it. I learned to be a better storyteller, and it helped me understand that plots and stories are not just things in books - they are a direct reflection of human nature. That makes me a better manager of myself and others.   And this is the last of the reviews - at least for this year. I probably won't post many more book reviews here, but I will keep up the practice. As a reminder, the goal was to select 12 books that will help you reach your career goals. They don't have to be technical, or even apply directly to your job - but they do need to be books that you mindfully select as getting you closer to what you want to be. Each month, jot down what you learned from the work. And see if it doesn't in fact get you closer to your goals. These readings helped me - I got a promotion this year, and I attribute at least some of that to the things I learned.

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• Where Have All the Ugly Forms Gone? Users and ADF Took Care Of It

  - by ultan o'broin

  Sometimes I hear that our application demos are a bit too "cutsey" and that we never talk about with any user roles that have lots of data entry as a requirement. Some (no names) consider those old clunker forms, with the myriad rows of fields, to be super-productive for data clerks. We do have such roles covered in Oracle Fusion Applications for sure. But consider what is really the issue here: productivity. Check out how the Oracle Fusion Financials Applications User Experience team went about designing for productivity when receiving and entering invoice data, for example. See how Fusion Financials caters so well for input and control of data? Central to all this is knowing the users and how they work: what tasks do they need to perform, and when. Read more about Fusion Financials productivity in the white paper, Get It Done Fast, Get It Done Right: The Oracle Fusion Financials User Experience. Now and then, I see forms that weren't designed for end user activity at all. Instead, they were designed by developers or by the IT department around the database schema. Forms with literally dozens of fields on the same page, sometimes. Forms that give the impression there was only task involved, when there may have been several. At times, completing one of these huge forms accurately became so tedious that, under pressure, it made more sense for the user to complete it quickly as possible and then let somebody else check it for accuracy and fill in the gaps from data emailed along in spreadsheet form. Data accuracy is critical in our business. Not good. Not efficient. Not productive. So here are a few basics on forms design for data entry-type user roles. A great place for developers to start exploring what is possible with forms layout is the Rich Client User Experience (RCUX) guidance on Form Layout, using ADF components. User-Centered Forms Design Considerations The starting point--something you must always keep in mind with your own design--is design for the end user. Find a representative end user, and keep that user engaged throughout the design, deployment, and test process. Consider these points in user testing those forms: Are there automated or technical solutions to entering the data that avoid manual input in the first place? For example, imports, uploads, OCR, whatever. Some day we will be able to tell Siri to do it, but leave that for now. Design your form to reflect the task involved (i.e., the business process) and not the database schema. On the form, group like fields together, logically. Eliminate duplicate data entry or prepopulate from previous data entry. Allow users to complete fields in the order they wish (i.e., no interdependency). Allow for tabbing between fields (keyboard is faster than mouse), so know how the browser supports this (see that RCUX guideline). Allow for final validation at the page level not at field-level entry. Way better for heads-down users. For example, ADF messages allow you to see a list of all validation errors on a page on a final submit or navigation action and to easily navigate to the point of error. Better still, be error tolerant. Allow users to enter data in formats they comfortable with. Bind any relevant user preference setting to the input format allowed (for example, the locale date format). Explore what data entry conversion can do for you automatically too (see the ADF converter demos, convenience patterns can also be written). Only ask for data input when it's needed. Get rid of, or hide optional fields. Cut down on the number of mandatory fields, and mark them clearly (use a *). Clearly label the fields in plain language. I am sure you may have a few more tips on forms design for data entry users. Remember the user before finding the comments.

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• Part 6: Extensions vs. Modifications

  - by volker.eckardt(at)oracle.com

  Customizations = Extensions + Modifications In the EBS terminology, a customization can be an extension or a modification. Extension means that you mainly create your own code from scratch. You may utilize existing views, packages and java classes, but your code is unique. Modifications are quite different, because here you take existing code and change or enhance certain areas to achieve a slightly different behavior. Important is that it doesn't matter if you place your code at the same or at another place – it is a modification. It is also not relevant if you leave the original code enabled or not! Why? Here is the answer: In case the original code piece you have taken as your base will get patched, you need to copy the source again and apply all your changes once more. If you don't do that, you may get different results or write different data compared to the standard – this causes a high risk! Here are some guidelines how to reduce the risk: Invest a bit longer when searching for objects to select data from. Rather choose a view than a table. In case Oracle development changes the underlying tables, the view will be more stable and is therefore a better choice. Choose rather public APIs over internal APIs. Same background as before: although internal structure might change, the public API is more stable. Use personalization and substitution rather than modification. Spend more time to check if the requirement can be covered with such techniques. Build a project code library, avoid that colleagues creating similar functionality multiple times. Otherwise you have to review lots of similar code to determine the need for correction. Use the technique of “flagged files”. Flagged files is a way to mark a standard deployment file. If you run the patch analyse (within Application Manager), the analyse result will list flagged standard files in case they will be patched. If you maintain a cross reference to your own CEMLIs, you can easily determine which CEMLIs have to be reviewed. Implement a code review process. This can be done by utilizing team internal or external persons. If you implement such a team internal process, your team members will come up with suggestions how to improve the code quality by themselves. Review heavy customizations regularly, to identify options to reduce complexity; let's say perform this every 6th month. You may not spend days for such a review, but a high level cross check if the customization can be reduced is suggested. De-install customizations which are no more required. Define a process for this. Add a section into the technical documentation how to uninstall and what are possible implications. Maintain a cross reference between CEMLIs and between CEMLIs, EBS modules and business processes. Keep this list up to date! Share this list! By following these guidelines, you are able to improve product stability. Although we might not be able to avoid modifications completely, we can give a much better advise to developers and to our test team. Summary: Extensions and Modifications have to be handled differently during their lifecycle. Modifications implicate a much higher risk and should therefore be reviewed more frequently. Good cross references allow you to give clear advise for the testing activities.

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