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• EBS Techstack Sessions at OAUG/Collaborate 2010

  - by Steven Chan

  We have a large contingent of E-Business Suite Applications Technology Group staff rolling out to the OAUG/Collaborate 2010 conference in Las Vegas new week.  Our Applications Technology Group staff will be appearing as guest speakers or full-speakers at the following E-Business Suite technology stack related sessions:Database Special Interest GroupSunday, April 18, 11:00 AM, Breakers FSIG Leaders:  Michael Brown, Colibri; Sandra Vucinic, Vlad GroupGuest Speaker:  Steven ChanCovering database upcoming and past desupport dates, and database support policies as they apply to E-Business Suite environments, general Q&A E-Business Suite Technology Stack Special Interest GroupSunday, April 18, 3:00 PM, Breakers FSIG Leaders:  Elke Phelps, Paul Jackson, HumanaGuest Speaker:  Steven ChanCovering the latest EBS technology stack certifications, roadmap, desupport noticesupgrade options for Discoverer, OID, SSO, Portal, general Q&A E-Business Suite Applications Technology Roadmap & VisionMonday, April 19, 8:00 AM, South Seas GOracle Speaker:  Uma PrabhalaLatest developments for SOA, AOL, OAF, Web ADI, SES, AMP, ACMP, security, and other technologies Oracle E-Business Suite Applications Strategy and General Manager UpdateMonday, April 19, 2:30 PM, Mandalay Bay Ballroom DOracle Speaker:  Cliff GodwinUpdate on the entire Oracle E-Business Suite product line. The session covers the value delivered by the current release of Oracle E-Business Suite applications, the momentum, and how Oracle E-Business Suite applications integrate into Oracle's overall applications strategy 10 Things You Can Do Today to Prepare for the Next Generation ApplicationsTuesday, April 20, 8:00 AM, South Seas FOracle Speaker:  Nadia Bendjedou"Common sense" and "practical" steps that can be taken today to increase the value of your Oracle Applications (E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Siebel, and JDE) investments by using the latest Oracle solutions and technologiesReducing TCO using Oracle E-Business Suite Management PacksTuesday, April 20, 10:30 AM, South Seas EOracle Speaker:  Angelo RosadoLearn how you can reduce the Total Cost of Ownership by implementing Application Management Pack (AMP) and Application Change Management Pack (ACP) for E-Business Suite 11i, R12, R12.1. AMP is Oracle's next generation system manageability product offering that provides a centralized platform to manage and maintain EBS. ACP is Oracle's offering to monitor and manage E-Business Suite changes in the areas of E-Business Suite Customizations, Patches and Functional Setups. E-Business Suite Upgrade Special Interest GroupTuesday, April 20, 3:15 PM, South Seas ESIG Leaders:  John Stouffer; Sandra Vucinic, Vlad GroupGuest Speaker:  Steven ChanParticipating in general Q&A E-Business Suite Technology Essentials: Using the Latest Oracle Technologies with E-Business Suite Wednesday, April 21, 8:00 AM, South Seas HOracle Speaker:  Lisa ParekhOracle continues to build new functionality into the Oracle Database, Fusion Middleware, and Enterprise Manager. Come see how you can enhance the value of E-Business Suite for your users and lower your costs of ownership by utilizing the latest features of these Oracle technologies with E-Business Suite. Learn about the latest advanced E-Business Suite topologies and features, including new options for security, performance, third-party integration, SOA, virtualization, clouds, systems management, and much more How to Leverage the New E-Business Suite R12.1 Solutions Without Upgrading your 11.5.10 EnvironmentWednesday, April 21, 10:30 AMOracle Speaker:  Nadia Bendjedou, South Seas ELearn how you can use the latest E-Business Suite 12.1 standalone solutions without upgrading from your E-Business Suite 11.5.10 environment Web 2.0 User Experience and Oracle Fusion Middleware Integration with Oracle E-Business SuiteWednesday, April 21, 4:00 PM, South Seas FOracle Speaker:  Padmaprabodh AmbaleSee the next generation Oracle E-Business Suite OA framework improvements that will provide new rich interactions in components such as LOV, Tables and Attachments.  See  new components like the Rich Container that allows any Web 2.0 content like Flash or OBIEE to be embedded in OA Framework pages. Advanced Technology Deployment Architectures for E-Business Suite Wednesday, April 21, 2:15 PM, South Seas EOracle Speaker:  Steven ChanLearn how to take advantage of the latest version of Oracle Fusion Middleware with Oracle E-Business Suite. Learn how to utilize identity management systems and LDAP directories. In addition, come to this session for answers about advanced network deployments involving reverse proxy servers, load balancers, and DMZ's, and to see how you can take benefit from virtualization and new system management capabilities. Upgrading to Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 - Best PracticesThursday, April 22, 11:00 AM, South Seas EOracle Speaker:  Lester Gutierrez, Udayan ParvateFundamental of upgrading to Release 12.1, which includes the technology stack components and differences, the upgrade path from various releases of Oracle E-Business Suite, upgrade steps, monitoring the upgrade, hints and tips for minimizing downtime and upgrade best practices for making the upgrade to Release 12.1 a success.  We look forward to seeing you there!

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• SharePoint Saturday Michigan 2010 Recap, Slides, and Photos

  - by Brian Jackett

  This past weekend I attended SharePoint Saturday Michigan (SPSMI) in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  For those unfamiliar, SharePoint Saturday is a community driven event where various speakers gather to present at a FREE conference on all topics related to SharePoint.  This made my third SharePoint Saturday attended and second I’ve spoken at.  I believe today it was announced that about 210 people total attended the event.  I was very happy with the turnout, especially the ratio of male to female attendees.  Typically with computer related conferences the ratio leans towards more males attending, but both Peter Serzo (one of conference organizers) and I both commented to each other that at the end of the day it appeared to be close to 40% women in the crowd.  So here’s my recap of the weekend. Arrival     Friday afternoon I drove up from Columbus, OH to Ann Arbor, MI and arrived around 4pm.  I was attempting to avoid the rush hour traffic and construction backups.  Turned out to be a good idea because other speakers coming up Friday got stuck on a highway which literally closed down in both directions due to a bad accident.  I was talking my friend Sean McDonough through the highway closing and this was the first time I had seen a solid black traffic line on Google Maps.  Most of us are familiar with Green, Yellow, and Red, but this line was black if that tells you how bad it got. Speaker “Dinner”     Fast forward a few hours and it was time for the speaker “dinner.”  I put “dinner” in quotes because with this night alone SPSMI set a new bar for nicest and most extravagant speaker appreciation events for SharePoint Saturday.  By tapping into some very influential contacts, the conference organizers were able to provide a truck limo (yep you heard right) with refreshments, access to an underground suite at the Palace of Auburn Hills, and courtside tickets to see the Detroit Pistons play that night.  Being a Michigan native I have to say that I was absolutely floored by this experience and very thankful to our conference organizers Peter, Sebastian, and Jesse along with Trillium Teamologies. Sessions     The actual conference started Saturday morning at 9am with the keynote by Rob Collie who is the Microsoft program manager for PowerPivot.  The day continued and I attended the following sessions: Mike Watson (@mikewat) – “SharePoint 2010 Fight Night: Devs vs. Admins” Karl Swedeberg (@kswedberg) – “A Walk on the Client Side with jQuery“ [my session] Brian Jackett (@briantjackett) - “Real World Deployment of SharePoint 2007 Solutions” Jeff Willinger (@jwillie) - “Social Computing and Collaboration Inside and Outside the 4 Walls” Paul Schaeflein (@paulschaeflein) – “PowerShell for the SharePoint Developer” My Presentation     I had a great time presenting my session on Deploying SharePoint 2007 Solutions, but it wasn’t without its fair share of technical issues.  As my session was right after lunch I came in to my room 10 mins early to set up my laptop, slides, and demos.  As a quick background note, a few months ago I got an upgraded laptop from my company Sogeti and have been dual booting it between XP (factory installed) and Windows Server 2008 R2 w/ Hyper-V.  As such I had prepared all of my demo virtual machines to run under Hyper-V.  About 3 minutes before my session was scheduled to start though it became apparent that I did not have the correct display drivers to connect Windows Server 2008 R2 to the projector…     As you can imagine this was a slight cause for concern as I was potentially going to be unable to give my presentation.  Luckily for me I usually prepare for such unforeseen issues and had my presentation and some spare VMs that would run on XP on my external hard drive.  Knowing this I rebooted my machine into XP and began my presentation without slides until about 5 mins into the session when everything was up and running on XP.  Despite this being the first time I gave this presentation I have to say it was one of my favorites I’ve given so far.  The audience was very engaged in the session and I received some great, positive feedback afterwards.  Thanks to all who attended my session, I appreciate it very much. Link to Presentation Files     For those of you who attended my session and would like my slides or demo PowerShell scripts they can be found on my SkyDrive at the link below.  Also, if you have a few minutes and wouldn’t mind rating my session I have this session posted on SpeakerRate.  As speakers we always appreciate any and all feedback attendees offer, so thank you if you are able to provide any. SkyDrive folder with session files Rate my SharePoint 2007 Solutions session   Picture Albums     For everyone else, here are my pictures from the weekend.  The first link is to my FaceBook album which will have tagging (recommend this one.)  The second is to my Live album if you care for higher resolution images. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2154482&id=21905041&l=a3fb72ee8c View Full Album Conclusion     A big thank you goes out to all of the organizers, speakers, sponsors, and attendees of SPSMI.  As I’ve said so many times, without each and every one of you these events wouldn’t be possible.  I thoroughly enjoyed this trip back to my home state and presenting a new session.  For those interested in my upcoming schedule I will be giving two sessions on PowerShell at SharePoint Saturday Charlotte in April, helping plan Stir Trek: Iron Man Edition in May, and I’m submitting sessions to Day of .Net Ann Arbor in May as well.  Beyond that I haven’t planned out any travels.  Thanks for reading my recap.  Look forward to more technical posts now that I have a short break in conferences.         -Frog Out   links: Michigan image

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• Change Comes from Within

  - by John K. Hines

  I am in the midst of witnessing a variety of teams moving away from Scrum. Some of them are doing things like replacing Scrum terms with more commonly understood terminology. Mainly they have gone back to using industry standard terms and more traditional processes like the RAPID decision making process. For example: Scrum Master becomes Project Lead. Scrum Team becomes Project Team. Product Owner becomes Stakeholders. I'm actually quite sad to see this happening, but I understand that Scrum is a radical change for most organizations. Teams are slowly but surely moving away from Scrum to a process that non-software engineers can understand and follow. Some could never secure the education or personnel (like a Product Owner) to get the whole team engaged. And many people with decision-making authority do not see the value in Scrum besides task planning and tracking. You see, Scrum cannot be mandated. No one can force a team to be Agile, collaborate, continuously improve, and self-reflect. Agile adoptions must start from a position of mutual trust and willingness to change. And most software teams aren't like that. Here is my personal epiphany from over a year of attempting to promote Agile on a small development team: The desire to embrace Agile methodologies must come from each and every member of the team. If this desire does not exist - if the team is satisfied with its current process, if the team is not motivated to improve, or if the team is afraid of change - the actual demonstration of all the benefits prescribed by Agile and Scrum will take years. I've read some blog posts lately that criticise Scrum for demanding "Big Change Up Front." One's opinion of software methodologies boils down to one's perspective. If you see modern software development as successful, you will advocate for small, incremental changes to how it is done. If you see it as broken, you'll be much more motivated to take risks and try something different. So my question to you is this - is modern software development healthy or in need of dramatic improvement? I can tell you from personal experience that any project that requires exploration, planning, development, stabilisation, and deployment is hard. Trying to make that process better with only a slightly modified approach is a mistake. You will become completely dependent upon the skillset of your team (the only variable you can change). But the difficulty of planned work isn't one of skill. It isn't until you solve the fundamental challenges of communication, collaboration, quality, and efficiency that skill even comes into play. So I advocate for Big Change Up Front. And I advocate for it to happen often until those involved can say, from experience, that it is no longer needed. I hope every engineer has the opportunity to see the benefits of Agile and Scrum on a highly functional team. I'll close with more key learnings that can help with a Scrum adoption: Your leaders must understand Scrum. They must understand software development, its inherent difficulties, and how Scrum helps. If you attempt to adopt Scrum before the understanding is there, your leaders will apply traditional solutions to your problems - often creating more problems. Success should be measured by quality, not revenue. Namely, the value of software to an organization is the revenue it generates minus ongoing support costs. You should identify quality-based metrics that show the effect Agile techniques have on your software. Motivation is everything. I finally understand why so many Agile advocates say you that if you are not on a team using Agile, you should leave and find one. Scrum and especially Agile encompass many elegant solutions to a wide variety of problems. If you are working on a team that has not encountered these problems the the team may never see the value in the solutions.   Having said all that, I'm not giving up on Agile or Scrum. I am convinced it is a better approach for software development. But reality is saying that its adoption is not straightforward and highly subject to disruption. Unless, that is, everyone really, really wants it.

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• &ldquo;My life at Oracle&rdquo;

  - by cristian.condurache(at)oracle.com

  Hello everybody! My name is Eva and I currently work in Oracle Italy as Sales Programs Manager for the Technology Sales organization. Since 2009, I also proudly represent the Oracle Education Foundation within my country as the Ambassador for Italy. My career path in this amazing company began 5 years ago as a fresh graduate: after various years studying abroad, in Germany and Ireland mainly, I was looking for a valuable and concrete opportunity which could fulfill my energetic spirit. I wanted to develop myself inside a stimulating and “fast” business environment.. and here came Oracle and I really couldn’t ask for anything better!  THE PARTNER EXPERIENCE The first department I had the chance to work into was the Alliances and Channels organization, where I had the opportunity to join a brilliant team of great and visionary guys. I began having the responsibility to analyze and rationalize the portfolio of Oracle business partners and to identify potential cross-area solutions, which had to be highlighted both on the local market and internationally: this ended up with the implementation of the “Partner Community” model, a business environment of selected Oracle partners, specialized on the different technology focus areas. This new concept was then recognized as an EMEA Best Practice and replicated internationally. Having the opportunity to strengthen day after day strategic relationships with several business partners and study the market positioning of their technology solutions, I was given the role to develop the “Oracle Partner Network Innovation Award” in Italy: the EMEA competition encouraging and rewarding proven and successful technology innovations, creating high value for our common customers and generating new business potential. Several Italian partner solutions won different prizes and I decided that it was worth collecting all those valuable projects, winners and short-listed, inside two specific books in order also to provide them an international market visibility: OPN Innovation Award Booklet 2007 and OPN Innovation Award Booklet 2008 Inside the Alliances and Channels department I really had the opportunity to do    amazing things, like for example working side-by-side with one of the most exceptional teams in Oracle I have ever worked with: the EMEA Recruitment Team. Together, in fact, we conceived a brand new business initiative for our partners, called “Oracle Campus Joint Program”. This program was awarded as an EMEA Best Practice and acknowledged by both Italian public institutions and press media. Italy   is currently running its 5th edition.   Briefly, the “Oracle Campus Joint Program” aims at facing the growing issue of lack of  technology competences and skills on the market. By identifying a specific technology area and developing an intensive 4-6 week Oracle University training course and by collaborating with important academic institutes, international “gurus” and professionals, our business partners are able to benefit from a pool of brilliant top talented young consultants and offer them a significant career opportunity. BUSINESS BUT NOT ONLY: THE NO-PROFIT EXPERIENCE OF ORACLE Currently my mission in Oracle is to continue driving the implementation of strategic business development and sales programs for the entire Oracle Technology stack, involving both partners and the end-customers. But as a completely distinguished role from the day-today business, I’m also honored to represent in Italy the charity global organization founded by Oracle - the Oracle Education Foundation - and drive its corporate citizenship and marketing programs. Oracle Education Foundation is an independent charitable organization funded by Oracle and is dedicated to helping students develop 21st century skills through project learning and the use of technology. It provides “ThinkQuest” as a free program to primary and secondary (K12) schools. Just some significant numbers: today 548,000 students/teachers in 47 countries use ThinkQuest and the Oracle Education Foundation partners with 40+ no-profit or government organizations globally. ABOUT MYSELF AND MY INTERESTS About myself…I’m very enthusiastic and positive, trying always to transform difficult issues in challenging opportunities. My day usually begins very early in the morning with running, swimming or when I need to collect some “zen” energies with a yoga session or better with a long walk with my dog. I definitely love animals and generally speaking I’m very keen on environmental issues and try, as much as I can, to carry out a healthy and “planet respectful” lifestyle. My thirst for knowledge pushed me some time ago to begin a new personal challenge: I decided to enroll, dedicating a good part of my free time, for a second university degree: I chose “Neuroeconomics”, an innovative academic path which combines psychology, economics, and neuroscience and studies how people make decisions and the role of the brain when people evaluate these decisions, categorizing risks and rewards and generally interacting with each other. I’ve been very glad to talk about my experience in this article, as working for Oracle is something very stimulating. This company ensures you the opportunity to face new challenges, work with highly talented people and be professionally highlighted also globally. Motivation, good results and innovation is always pursued, recognized and fully supported. Thanks and wish you all an amazing career! If you have any question please contact [email protected]. For our job opportunities, please look at http://campus.oracle.com.   Technorati Tags: EMEA,Oracle Partners,Oracle Campus,Oracle Education,experience,EMEA Recruitment Team

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• Off The Beaten Path—Three Things Growing Midsize Companies are Thankful For

  - by Christine Randle

  By: Jim Lein, Senior Director, Oracle Accelerate Last Sunday I went on a walkabout.  That’s when I just step out the door of my Colorado home and hike through the mountains for hours with no predetermined destination. I favor “social trails”, the unmapped routes pioneered by both animal and human explorers.  These tracks  are usually more challenging than established, marked routes and you can’t be 100% sure of where you’re going to end up. But I’ve found the rewards to be much greater. For awhile, I pondered on how—depending upon your perspective—the current economic situation worldwide could be viewed as either a classic “the glass is half empty” or a “the glass is half full” scenario. Midsize companies buy Oracle to grow and so I’m continually amazed and fascinated by the success stories our customers relate to me.  Oracle’s successful midsize companies are growing via innovation, agility, and opportunity. For them, the glass isn’t half full—it’s overflowing. Growing Midsize Companies are Thankful for: Innovation The sun angling through the pine trees reminded me of a conversation with a European customer a year ago May.  You might not recognize the name but, chances are, your local evening weather report relies on this company’s weather observation, monitoring and measurement products.  For decades, the company was recognized in its industry for product innovation, but its recent rapid growth comes from tailoring end to end product and service solutions based on the needs of distinctly different customer groups across industrial, public sector, and defense sectors.  Hours after that phone call I was walking my dog in a local park and came upon a small white plastic box sprouting short antennas and dangling by a nylon cord from a tree branch.  I cut it down. The name of that customer’s company was stamped on the housing. “It’s a radiosonde from a high altitude weather balloon,” he told me the next day. “Keep it as a souvenir.”  It sits on my fireplace mantle and elicits many questions from guests. Growing Midsize Companies are Thankful for: Agility In July, I had another interesting discussion with the CFO of an Asia-Pacific company which owns and operates a large portfolio of leisure assets. They are best known for their epic outdoor theme parks. However, their primary growth today is coming from a chain of indoor amusement centers in the USA where billiards, bowling, and laser tag take the place of roller coasters, kiddy rides, and wave pools. With mountains and rivers right out my front door, I’m not much for theme parks, but I’ll take a spirited game of laser tag any day.  This company has grown dramatically since first implementing Oracle ERP more than a decade ago. Their profitable expansion into a completely foreign market is derived from the ability to replicate proven and efficient best business practices across diverse operating environments.  They recently went live on Oracle’s Fusion HCM and Taleo. Their CFO explained to me how, with thousands of employees in three countries, Fusion HCM and Taleo would enable them to remain incredibly agile by acting on trends linking individual employee performance to their management, establishing and maintaining those best practices. Growing Midsize Companies are Thankful for: Opportunity I have three GPS apps on my iPhone. I use them mainly to keep track of my stats—distance, time, and vertical gain. However, every once in awhile I need to find the most efficient route back home before dark from my current location (notice I didn’t use the word “lost”). In August I listened in on an interview with the CFO of another European company that designs and delivers telematics solutions—the integrated use of telecommunications and informatics—for managing the mobile workforce. These solutions enable customers to achieve evolutionary step-changes in their performance and service delivery. Forgive the overused metaphor, but this is route optimization on steroids.  The company’s executive team saw an opportunity in this emerging market and went “all in”. Consequently, they are being rewarded with tremendous growth results and market domination by providing the ability for their clients to collect and analyze performance information related to fuel consumption, service workforce safety, and asset productivity. This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for health, family, friends, and a career with an innovative company that helps companies leverage top tier software to drive and manage growth. And I’m thankful to have learned the lesson that good things happen when you get off the beaten path—both when hiking and when forging new routes through a complex world economy. Halfway through my walkabout on Sunday, after scrambling up a long stretch of scree-covered hill, I crested a ridge with an obstructed view of 14,265 ft Mt Evans just a few miles to the west.  There, nowhere near a house or a trail, someone had placed a wooden lounge chair. Its wood was worn and faded but it was sturdy. I had lunch and a cold drink in my pack. Opportunity knocked and I seized it. Happy Thanksgiving.  

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• Last GUID used up - new ScottGuID unique ID to replace it

  - by Eilon

  You might have heard in recent news that the last ever GUID was used up. The GUID {FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF} was just consumed by a soon to be released project at Microsoft. Immediately after the GUID's creation the word spread around the Microsoft campuses around the globe. Microsoft's approximately 100,000 worldwide employees then started blogging, tweeting, and facebooking about the dubious "achievement." The following screenshot shows GUIDGEN (the Windows tool for creating GUIDs) with the last ever GUID. All GUIDs created by projects at Microsoft must be registered in a central repository for record keeping. This allows quick-fix engineers, security engineers, anti-malware developers, and testers to do a quick look up of an unknown GUID and find out if it belongs to Microsoft. The following screenshot shows the Microsoft GUID Tracker internal application and the last few GUIDs being used up by various Microsoft projects. What is perhaps more interesting than the news about the GUID is the project that used that last GUID. The recent announcements regarding the development experience for the Windows Phone 7 Series (WP7S) all involve free editions of Visual Studio 2010. One of the lesser known developer tools is based on a resurrected project that many of you are probably familiar with, but have never used. The tool is in fact Microsoft Bob 7 Series (MB7S). MB7S is an agent-based approach for mobile phone app development. The UI incorporates both natural language interfaces and motion gesture behaviors, similar to the Windows Phone 7 Series “Metro” interface. If it works, it will help to expand the breadth of mobile app developers. After the GUID: The ScottGuID It came as no big surprise that eventually the last GUID would be used up. Knowing this, a group of engineers at Microsoft has designed, implemented, and tested a replacement to the GUID: The ScottGuID. There are several core principles of the ScottGuID: 1. The concepts used in ScottGuIDs must be easily understood by a developer who is already familiar with GUIDs 2. There must exist a compatibility layer between ScottGuIDs and GUIDs 3. A ScottGuID must be usable in a practical manner in non-computing environments 4. There must exist ScottGuID APIs for all common platforms: Win32/Win64/WinCE, .NET (incl. Silverlight), Linux, FreeBSD, MacOS (incl. iPhone OS), Symbian, RIM BlackBerry, Google Android, etc. 5. ScottGuIDs must never run out ScottGuID use cases One of the more subtle principles of the ScottGuID is principle #3. While technically a GUID could be used in any environment, it was not practical to do so in terms of data entry and error detection. In order to have the ScottGuID be a true universal ID it must be usable in non-computing environments. Prior to the announcement of the ScottGuID there have been a number of until-now confidential projects. One of the tools that will soon become public is ScottGuIDGen, which is in essence an updated version of GUIDGEN that can create ScottGuIDs. The following screenshot shows a sample ScottGuID. To demonstrate the various applications of the ScottGuID there were test deployments around the globe. The following examples are a small showcase of the applications that have already been prototyped. Log in to Hotmail: Pay for gas: Sign in to Twitter: Dispense cat food: Conclusion I hope that this brief introduction to the ScottGuID shows how technology can continue to move forward, even when it appears there is a point that cannot be passed. With a small number of principles, a team of smart engineers, and a passion for "getting it right" the ScottGuID should last well past our lifetimes. In the coming months expect further announcements regarding additional developer tools, samples, whitepapers, podcasts, and videos. Please leave a comment on this post if you have any questions about the ScottGuID or what you would like to see us do with it. With ScottGuID, the possibilities are nearly endless and we want to stretch their reach as far as possible.

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• Calling All Agile Customers-Share Your Stories at the Upcoming PLM Summit

  - by Terri Hiskey

  Now that we've closed the door on another Oracle OpenWorld, planning is in full swing for the next PLM Summit, taking place February 4-6, 2013 in San Francisco, in conjunction with the Oracle Value Chain Summit. This event is a must-attend for all Agile PLM customers. We will be holding five tracks with over forty Agile PLM-focused sessions covering a range of topics and industries. If you'd like to be notified once registration is live for this event, be sure to sign up at www.oracle.com/goto/vcs. CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS: We are looking for some fresh, new customer stories to share with attendees. Read below for descriptions of the five tracks, and the suggested topics that we'd like to hear from customers. If you are interested in presenting at the PLM Summit (and getting a FREE pass to attend if your presentation is accepted!) send me an email at terri.hiskey-AT-oracle.com with: Your proposed session title and the track your session fits into 3-5 bullets of takeaways that attendees will get from your presentation Your complete contact information including name, title, company, telephone number and email The deadline for this call for presentations is Thursday, November 15, so get your submission in soon! PLM Track #1:  Product Insights and Best Practices This track will provide executive attendees and line of business managers with an overview of how Agile PLM has been deployed and used at customers to enable and manage critical product-related business processes including enterprise quality and supplier management, compliance, product cost management, portfolio management, commercialization and software lifecycle management. These sessions will also provide details around how to manage the development and rollout of the solutions and how to achieve and track value. Possible session topics: Software Lifecycle Management Enterprise Quality Management New Product Development Integrated Business Planning ECO effectivity planning Rapid Commercialization             Manage the Design to Release Process for Complex Configured Products PLM for Life Sciences Companies I (Compliant Data Set) PLM for Life Sciences Companies II (eMDR, UDI) Discrete CPG – Private Label Mgmt Cost Management and Strategic Sourcing IP Mgmt in the Semiconductor Industry Implementing the Enterprise Training Record using Agile PLM PLM Track #2: Product Deep Dives & Demos This track is aimed at line of business  and IT managers who would like to understand the benefits of expanding their PLM footprint. The sessions in this track will provide attendees with an up-close and in-depth look Agile PLM’s newer and exciting applications, including analytics and innovation management, and will detail features and functionality that are available in the latest version of Agile PLM Possible session topics: Oracle Product Lifecycle Analytics Integrating PLM with Engineering and Supply Chain Systems Streamline PLM Design to Manufacturing Processes with AutoVue Visualization Solutions         Achieve Environmental Compliance (REACH and ROHS) with Agile Product Governance & Compliance PIM Deep Dive Achieving Integrated Change Control with Agile PLM and E-Business Suite Deploying PLM at Small and Midsize Enterprises Enhancing Oracle PQM w/APQP and 8D functionality Advanced Roles and Privileges – Enabling ITAR Model Unit Effectivity Implementing REACH with 9.3.2 Deploying Job Functions, Functional Teams in 9.3.2 to Improve Your Approval Matrix PLM Track #3: Administration & Integrations This track will provide sessions for Agile administrators, managers and daily Agile PLM users who are preparing to upgrade or looking to extend the use of their current PLM implementation through AIA and process extensions. It will include deeper conversation about Agile PLM features and best practices on managing an Agile PLM infrastructure. Possible session topics: Expand the Value of your Agile Investment with Innovative Process Extension Ideas Ensuring Implementation & Upgrade Success Ensure the Integrity and Accuracy of Product Data Across the Enterprise              Maximize the Benefits of an Integrated Architecture with AIA Integrating your PLM Implementation with ERP               Infrastructure Optimization Expanding Your PLM Implementation PLM Administrator Open Forum Q&A/Discussion FDA Validation Best Practices Best Practices for Managing a large Agile Deployment: Clustering, Load Balancing and Firewalls PLM Track #4: Agile PLM for Process This track is aimed at attendees interested in or currently using Agile PLM for Process. The sessions in this track will go over new features and functionality available in the newest version of PLM for Process and will give attendees an overview on how PLM for Process is being used to manage critical business processes such as formulation, recipe and specification management Possible session topics: PLM for Process Strategy, Roadmap and Update New Product Development and Introduction Effective Product Supplier Collaboration             Leverage Agile Formulation and Compliance to Manage Cost, Compliance, Quality, Labeling and Nutrition Menu Management Innovation Data Management Food Safety/ Introduction of P4P Quality Mgmt PLM Track #5: Agile PLM and Innovation Management This track consists of five sessions, and is for attendees interested in learning more about Oracle’s Agile Innovation Management, an exciting new addition to the Agile PLM application family that redefines the industry’s scope of product lifecycle management. Oracle’s innovation solutions enable companies to collaborate in a focused way among various functional groups (marketing, sales, operations, engineering/R&D and sourcing), combining insights of customer needs/requirements, competition, available technologies, alternate design scenarios and portfolio constraints to deliver what customers truly value. The results are better products, higher margins, greater efficiencies, more satisfied customers and the increased ability to continuously innovate. Possible session topics: Product Innovation Management Solution Overview Product Requirements & Ideation Management Concept Design Management Product Lifecycle Portfolio Management Innovation as a Competitive Differentiator

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• Stuck due to "knowing too much"

  - by Ran Biron

  Note more discussion at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4037794 Welcome Hacker News Visitors! While HN is a fine forum for discussion and debate, Programmers - Stack Exchange is not. From the FAQ: If your motivation for asking the question is “I would like to participate in a discussion about ____”, then you should not be asking here. However, if your motivation is “I would like others to explain ____ to me”, then you are probably OK. (Discussions are of course welcome in our real time web chat.) Currently, this question is viewed by the membership of Programmers.SE as more likely to provoke unproductive discussion than constructive answers; while debates on its form and future are conducted, it will be locked to prevent arguments and vandalism. -- Shog9 I have a relatively simple development task, but every time I try to attack it, I end up spiraling in deep thoughts - how could it extending the future, what are the 2nd generation clients going to need, how does it affect "non functional" aspects (e.g. Performance, authorization...), how would it best be architectured to allow change... I remember myself a while ago, younger and, perhaps, more eager. The "me" I was then wouldn't have given a thought about all that - he would've gone ahead and wrote something, then rewrote it, then rewrote it again (and again...). The "me" today is more hesitant, more careful. I find it much easier today to sit and plan and instruct other people on how to do things than to actually go ahead and do them myself - not because I don't like to code - the opposite, I love to! - but because every time I sit at the keyboard, I end up in that same annoying place. Is this wrong? Is this a natural evolution, or did I drive myself into a rut? Fair disclosure - in the past I was a developer, today my job title is a "system architect". Good luck figuring what it means - but that's the title. Wow. I honestly didn't expect this question to generate that many responses. I'll try to sum it up. Reasons: Analysis paralysis / Over engineering / gold plating / (any other "too much thinking up-front can hurt you"). Too much experience for the given task. Not focusing on what's important. Not enough experience (and realizing that). Solutions (not matched to reasons): Testing first. Start coding (+ for fun) One to throw away (+ one API to throw away). Set time constraints. Strip away the fluff, stay with the stuff. Make flexible code (kinda opposite to "one to throw away", no?). Thanks to everyone - I think the major benefit here was to realize that I'm not alone in this experience. I have, actually, already started coding and some of the too-big things have fallen off, naturally. Since this question is closed, I'll accept the answer with most votes as of today. When/if it changes - I'll try to follow.

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• Do MORE with WebCenter

  - by Michael Snow

  We’ve been extremely busy here on the Oracle WebCenter team. We hope that you’ve all be keeping up with the interesting news each week. Last week was jammed full of GartnerPCC and Gartner360 buzz. If you missed any of the highlights – be sure to check out both Kellsey’s post from last week: Gartner PCC: A Shovel & Some Ah-Ha's and Christie’s overview of Loren Weinberg’s PCC presentation: "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Engage Your Customers or Lose Them"  . This week, we’ll be focusing on “Doing More with WebCenter” leading up to a great webcast scheduled for Thursday, March 22 (invite and registration link below). This is the 2nd in a series of 3 webcasts dedicated to expanding the understanding of the full capabilities of WebCenter. Yes – that might mean that you are not getting the full benefits of the software you already own or the expansion potential via upgrade to the full WebCenter Suite Plus. Tune in on Thursday 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET.  ++++++++++++++ Want to be a Speaker at Oracle OpenWorld 2012? Oracle Open World planning has already kicked off. We know that it is only March and next October is far in the distance. But planning has already started for Oracle OpenWorld 2012. So if you want to be a speaker and propose your own session for this year's event in San Francisco on September 30th - October 4th, starting thinking now!  The annual OpenWorld Call for Papers is now open until April 9th! All of the details to submit a paper are available here. Of course, the WebCenter team here is interested in sessions including case studies, thought-leadership, customer stories around any of the Oracle WebCenter solutions, but the Call for Papers is open to all Oracle topics. When submitting your topic, be sure to describe what you plan to discuss and the value of the presentation to other attendees. Sell your session, because there will be a lot of competition to be selected.  Bonus News: Speakers for selected sessions receive a complimentary full conference pass! Get your papers in and we'll see you in San Francisco! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Webcast Series: Do More with Oracle WebCenter - Expand Beyond Content Management Enable Employees, Partners, and Customers to Do More with Your Content Dear [FIRSTNAME] [LASTNAME],-- Did you know that, in addition to content management, Oracle WebCenter now also includes comprehensive portal, composite application, collaboration, and Web experience management capabilities? Join us for this Webcast and learn how you can provide a new level of user engagement. Learn how Oracle WebCenter: Drives task-specific application data and content to a single screen for executing specific business processes Enables mixed internal and external environments where content can be securely shared and filtered with employees, partners, and customers, based upon role-based security Offers Web experience management, driving contextually relevant, social, and interactive online experiences across multiple channels Provides social features that enable sharing, activity feeds, collaboration, expertise location, and best-practices communities Learn how to do more with Oracle WebCenter. Register now for the Webcast. Register Now Join us for the second Webcast in the series "Do More With Oracle WebCenter". March 22, 2012 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET Presented by: Michelle Huff Senior Director, WebCenter Product Management, Oracle Greg Utecht Project Manager,IT Operations,TIES Copyright © 2012, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Contact Us | Legal Notices | Privacy Oracle Corporation - Worldwide Headquarters, 500 Oracle Parkway, OPL - E-mail Services, Redwood Shores, CA 94065, United States

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• eSTEP Newsletter November 2012

  - by uwes

  Dear Partners,We would like to inform you that the November '12 issue of our Newsletter is now available.The issue contains information to the following topics: News from CorpOracle Celebrates 25 Years of SPARC Innovation; IDC White Papers Finds Growing Customer Comfort with Oracle Solaris Operating System; Oracle Buys Instantis; Pillar Axiom OpenWorld Highlights; Announcement Oracle Solaris 11.1 Availability (data sheet, new features, FAQ's, corporate pages, internal blog, download links, Oracle shop); Announcing StorageTek VSM 6; Announcement Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.1 Availability (new features, FAQ's, cluster corp page, download site, shop for media); Announcement: Oracle Database Appliance 2.4 patch update becomes available Technical SectionOracle White papers on SPARC SuperCluster; Understanding Parallel Execution; With LTFS, Tape is Gaining Storage Ground with additional link to How to Create Oracle Solaris 11 Zones with Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center; Provisioning Capabilities of Oracle Enterprise Ops Center Manager 12c; Maximizing your SPARC T4 Oracle Solaris Application Performance with the following articles: SPARC T4 Servers Set World Record on Siebel CRM 8.1.1.4 Benchmark, SPARC T4-Based Highly Scalable Solutions Posts New World Record on SPECjEnterprise2010 Benchmark, SPARC T4 Server Delivers Outstanding Performance on Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g; Oracle SUN ZFS Storage Appliance Reference Architecture for VMware vSphere4;  Why 4K? - George Wilson's ZFS Day Talk; Pillar Axiom 600 with connected subjects: Oracle Introduces Pillar Axiom Release 5 Storage System Software, Driving down the high cost of Storage, This Provisioning with Pilar Axiom 600, Pillar Axiom 600- System overview and architecture; Migrate to Oracle;s SPARC Systems; Top 5 Reasons to Migrate to Oracle's SPARC Systems Learning & EventsRecently delivered Techcasts: Learning Paths; Oracle Database 11g: Database Administration (New) - Learning Path; Webcast: Drill Down on Disaster Recovery; What are Oracle Users Doing to Improve Availability and Disaster Recovery; SAP NetWeaver and Oracle Exadata Database Machine ReferencesARTstor Selects Oracle’s Sun ZFS Storage 7420 Appliances To Support Rapidly Growing Digital Image Library, Scottish Widows Cuts Sales Administration 20%, Reduces Time to Prepare Reports by 75%, and Achieves Return on Investment in First Year, Oracle's CRM Cloud Service Powers Innovation: Applications on Demand; Technology on Demand, How toHow to Migrate Your Data to Oracle Solaris 11 Using Shadow Migration; Using svcbundle to Create SMF Manifests and Profiles in Oracle Solaris 11; How to prepare a Sun ZFS Storage Appliance to Serve as a Storage Devise with Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c; Command Summary: Basic Operations with the Image Packaging System In Oracle Solaris 11; How to Update to Oracle Solaris 11.1 Using the Image Packaging System, How to Migrate Oracle Database from Oracle Solaris 8 to Oracle Solaris 11;  Setting Up, Configuring, and Using an Oracle WebLogic Server Cluster; Ease the Chaos with Automated Patching: Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c; Book excerpt: Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud Handbook You find the Newsletter on our portal under eSTEP News ---> Latest Newsletter. You will need to provide your email address and the pin below to get access. Link to the portal is shown below.URL: http://launch.oracle.com/PIN: eSTEP_2011Previous published Newsletters can be found under the Archived Newsletters section and more useful information under the Events, Download and Links tab. Feel free to explore and any feedback is appreciated to help us improve the service and information we deliver.Thanks and best regards,Partner HW Enablement EMEA

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• Stumbling Through: Making a case for the K2 Case Management Framework

  I have recently attended a three-day training session on K2s Case Management Framework (CMF), a free framework built on top of K2s blackpearl workflow product, and I have come away with several different impressions for some of the different aspects of the framework.  Before we get into the details, what is the Case Management Framework?  It is essentially a suite of tools that, when used together, solve many common workflow scenarios.  The tool has been developed over time by K2 consultants that have realized they tend to solve the same problems over and over for various clients, so they attempted to package all of those common solutions into one framework.  Most of these common problems involve workflow process that arent necessarily direct and would tend to be difficult to model.  Such solutions could be achieved in blackpearl alone, but the workflows would be complex and difficult to follow and maintain over time.  CMF attempts to simplify such scenarios not so much by black-boxing the workflow processes, but by providing different points of entry to the processes allowing them to be simpler, moving the complexity to a middle layer.  It is not a solution in and of itself, development is still required to tie the pieces together. CMF is under continuous development, both a plus and a minus in that bugs are fixed quickly and features added regularly, but it may be difficult to know which versions are the most stable.  CMF is not an officially supported K2 product, which means you will not get technical support but you will get access to the source code. The example given of a business process that would fit well into CMF is that of a file cabinet, where each folder in said file cabinet is a case that contains all of the data associated with one complaint/customer/incident/etc. and various users can access that case at any time and take one of a set of pre-determined actions on it.  When I was given that example, my first thought was that any workflow I have ever developed in the past could be made to fit this model there must be more than just this model to help decide if CMF is the right solution.  As the training went on, we learned that one of the key features of CMF is SharePoint integration as each case gets a SharePoint site created for it, and there are a number of excellent web parts that can be used to design a portal for users to get at all the information on their cases.  While CMF does not require SharePoint, without it you will be missing out on a huge portion of functionality that CMF offers.  My opinion is that without SharePoint integration, you may as well write your workflows and other components the old fashioned way. When I heard that each case gets its own SharePoint site created for it, warning bells immediately went off in my head as I felt that depending on the data load, a CMF enabled solution could quickly overwhelm SharePoint with thousands of sites so we have yet another deciding factor for CMF:  Just how many cases will your solution be creating?  While it is not necessary to use the site-per-case model, it is one of the more useful parts of the framework.  Without it, you are losing a big chunk of what CMF has to offer. When it comes to developing on top of the Case Management Framework, it becomes a matter of configuring what makes up a case, what can be done to a case, where each action on a case should take the user, and then typing up actions to case statuses.  This last step is one that I immediately warmed up to, as just about every workflow Ive designed in the past needed some sort of mapping table to set the status of a work item based on the action being taken definitely one of those common solutions that it is good to see rolled up into a re-useable entity (and it gets a nice configuration UI to boot!).  This concept is a little different than traditional workflow design, in that you dont have to think of an end-to-end process around passing a case along a path, rather, you must envision the case as central object with workflow threads branching off of it and doing their own thing with the case data.  Certainly there can be certain workflow threads that get rather complex, but the idea is that they RELATE to the case, they dont BECOME the case (though it is still possible with action->status mappings to prevent certain actions in certain cases, so it isnt always a wide-open free for all of actions on a case). I realize that this description of the Case Management Framework merely scratches the surface on what the product actually can do, and I dont think Ive conclusively defined for what sort of business scenario you can make a case for Case Management Framework.  What I do hope to have accomplished with this post is to raise awareness of CMF there is a (free!) product out there that could potentially simplify a tangled workflow process and give (for free!) a very useful set of SharePoint web parts and a nice set of (free!) reports.  The best way to see if it will truly fit your needs is to give it a try did I mention it is FREE?  Er, ok, so it is free, but only obtainable at this time for K2 partnersDid you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• What's New in Oracle's EPM System?

  - by jmorourke

  Oracle’s EPM System R11.1.2.2  is now generally available to customers and partners on the download center.  Although the release number doesn’t sound significant, this is a major release of Oracle’s Hyperion EPM Suite with new modules as well as significant enhancements across the suite.  This release was announced back on April 4th as part of Oracle’s Business Analytics Strategy launch, so analytics is a key aspect of the release.  But the three biggest pieces of news in this release are Oracle Hyperion Planning support for the Exalytics In-Memory Machine, the new Project Financial Planning Application and the new Account Reconciliations Manager module. The Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine was announced back in October 2011, at Oracle OpenWorld.  It’s the latest installment from Oracle in a line of engineered systems that combine Oracle Sun hardware, with Oracle database and application technologies – in solutions that are designed to provide high scalability and performance for specific tasks.  Exalytics is the first engineered system specifically designed for high performance analytics.  Running in-memory versions of Oracle Essbase, as well as the Oracle TimesTen database and Oracle BI tools, Exalytics provides speed of thought response times for complex analytic processes with advanced visualizations.  Early adopter customers have achieved 5X to 100X faster interactivity and 6X to 10X faster planning cycles.  Hyperion Planning running with Oracle Exalytics will support enterprise-wide planning, budgeting and forecasting with more detailed data, with hundreds to thousands of users across an organization getting speed of thought performance. The new Hyperion Project Financial Planning application delivered with EPM 11.1.2.2 is also great news for Oracle customers.  This application follows on the heels of other special-purpose planning applications that Oracle has delivered for Workforce and Capital Asset planning.  It allows Project Managers to identify project-related expenses and revenues, plan and propose new projects, and track results over time. Finance Managers can evaluate and compare different projects, manage the funding process, monitor and report the actual financial results and impacts of projects and project portfolios. This new application is applicable to capital projects, contract projects and indirect projects like IT and HR projects across all industries.  This application is a great complement to existing Project Management applications, and helps bridge the gap between these applications, and the financial planning and budgeting process. Account reconciliations has to be one of the biggest bottlenecks and risks in the financial close and reporting process, and many organizations rely on spreadsheets and manual processes to perform this critical process.  To help address this problem, Oracle developed an Account Reconciliation Manager module that is being delivered as part of Oracle Hyperion Financial Close Management.   This module helps automate and streamline account reconciliations and eliminates the chances for errors, omissions and fraud.  But unlike standalone account reconciliation packages, it’s integrated with the rest of the Oracle Hyperion Financial Close suite, and can integrate balances from any source system.  This can help alleviate a major bottleneck in the financial close process, increase accuracy and reduce risk, and can complement existing investments in Hyperion Financial Management, as well as Oracle and non-Oracle transaction processing systems. Other enhancements in this release include an enhanced Web 2.0 interface for Hyperion Planning and Hyperion Financial Management (HFM), configurable dimensionality in HFM, new Predictive Planning feature in Hyperion Planning, new Detailed Profitability feature in Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management, new Smart View interface for Hyperion Strategic Finance, and integration of the Hyperion applications with JD Edwards Financials. For more information about Oracle EPM System R11.1.2.2 check out the links below: Press Release:  http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/1575775 Product Information on O.com:  http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/business-analytics/overview/index.html Product Information on OTN:  http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/epm/downloads/index.html Webcast Replay:  http://www.oracle.com/us/go/index.html?Src=7317510&Act=65&pcode=WWMK11054701MPP046 Please contact me if you have any questions or need additional information – [email protected]

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• Master Data Management Implementation Styles

  - by david.butler(at)oracle.com

  In any Master Data Management solution deployment, one of the key decisions to be made is the choice of the MDM architecture. Gartner and other analysts describe some different Hub deployment styles, which must be supported by a best of breed MDM solution in order to guarantee the success of the deployment project.   Registry Style: In a Registry Style MDM Hub, the various source systems publish their data and a subscribing Hub stores only the source system IDs, the Foreign Keys (record IDs on source systems) and the key data values needed for matching. The Hub runs the cleansing and matching algorithms and assigns unique global identifiers to the matched records, but does not send any data back to the source systems. The Registry Style MDM Hub uses data federation capabilities to build the "virtual" golden view of the master entity from the connected systems.   Consolidation Style: The Consolidation Style MDM Hub has a physically instantiated, "golden" record stored in the central Hub. The authoring of the data remains distributed across the spoke systems and the master data can be updated based on events, but is not guaranteed to be up to date. The master data in this case is usually not used for transactions, but rather supports reporting; however, it can also be used for reference operationally.   Coexistence Style: The Coexistence Style MDM Hub involves master data that's authored and stored in numerous spoke systems, but includes a physically instantiated golden record in the central Hub and harmonized master data across the application portfolio. The golden record is constructed in the same manner as in the consolidation style, and, in the operational world, Consolidation Style MDM Hubs often evolve into the Coexistence Style. The key difference is that in this architectural style the master data stored in the central MDM system is selectively published out to the subscribing spoke systems.   Transaction Style: In this architecture, the Hub stores, enhances and maintains all the relevant (master) data attributes. It becomes the authoritative source of truth and publishes this valuable information back to the respective source systems. The Hub publishes and writes back the various data elements to the source systems after the linking, cleansing, matching and enriching algorithms have done their work. Upstream, transactional applications can read master data from the MDM Hub, and, potentially, all spoke systems subscribe to updates published from the central system in a form of harmonization. The Hub needs to support merging of master records. Security and visibility policies at the data attribute level need to be supported by the Transaction Style hub, as well.   Adaptive Transaction Style: This is similar to the Transaction Style, but additionally provides the capability to respond to diverse information and process requests across the enterprise. This style emerged most recently to address the limitations of the above approaches. With the Adaptive Transaction Style, the Hub is built as a platform for consolidating data from disparate third party and internal sources and for serving unified master entity views to operational applications, analytical systems or both. This approach delivers a real-time Hub that has a reliable, persistent foundation of master reference and relationship data, along with all the history and lineage of data changes needed for audit and compliance tracking. On top of this persistent master data foundation, the Hub can dynamically aggregate transaction data on demand from different source systems to deliver the unified golden view to downstream systems. Data can also be accessed through batch interfaces, published to a message bus or served through a real-time services layer. New data sources can be readily added in this approach by extending the data model and by configuring the new source mappings and the survivorship rules, meaning that all legacy data hubs can be leveraged to contribute their records/rules into the new transaction hub. Finally, through rich user interfaces for data stewardship, it allows exception handling by business analysts to keep it current with business rules/practices while maintaining the reliability of best-of-breed master records.   Confederation Style: In this architectural style, several Hubs are maintained at departmental and/or agency and/or territorial level, and each of them are connected to the other Hubs either directly or via a central Super-Hub. Each Domain level Hub can be implemented using any of the previously described styles, but normally the Central Super-Hub is a Registry Style one. This is particularly important for Public Sector organizations, where most of the time it is practically or legally impossible to store in a single central hub all the relevant constituent information from all departments.   Oracle MDM Solutions can be deployed according to any of the above MDM architectural styles, and have been specifically designed to fully support the Transaction and Adaptive Transaction styles. Oracle MDM Solutions provide strong data federation and integration capabilities which are key to enabling the use of the Confederated Hub as a possible architectural style approach. Don't lock yourself into a solution that cannot evolve with your needs. With Oracle's support for any type of deployment architecture, its ability to leverage the outstanding capabilities of the Oracle technology stack, and its open interfaces for non-Oracle technology stacks, Oracle MDM Solutions provide a low TCO and a quick ROI by enabling a phased implementation strategy.

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• Spotlight on an office - Denmark

  - by jessica.ebbelaar(at)oracle.com

  Hi, my name is Michael. I work as an Intern at the Danish office in Ballerup. My job is a part-time position beside my bachelor study in International Business at Copenhagen Business School. I joined Oracle end of February last year, and what a thrilling ride it has been! Last year, when I was offered the position, there was no doubt that I wanted to go for it. Back then, I only had little idea about Oracle as a company and what kind of exciting assignments lay ahead of me. My main role is internal communications, i.e. editor of a monthly employee’s news letter; Newszone. It is an interesting task, since it requires that I am updated on the different activities that take place within the Oracle Denmark office. I try to bring interesting articles, which are relevant and interesting news to my colleagues and it allows me to interact with many different persons at the office and to learn from their experience, which give me great inspiration and ideas for the magazine. Besides being the editor of Newszone, I also make sure that other communication flow freely at the Oracle Denmark office. I do this through our LCD screen channels. I update the internal channel with the latest information and important messages for employees, and on the external channel I circulate marketing videos featuring Oracle products and customer reference stories. In addition to this, I have the responsibility acting as a content manager of the Local Communication Denmark site on MyOracle (UCM). These are more or less my usual work assignments. On top of these I take care of various ad hoc assignments such as updating the GCM database, renew newspaper subscriptions etc. The Oracle Denmark office Being part of the local employees club I also assist with arranging social events outside working hours – e.g. evenings at the theater or cinema or by attending many of the sportsactivities;such as our running club, cycling club, food club and book club. These activities have indeed helped me grow my personal network within Oracle.  The office is packed with engaging, high-paced and motivated people who manage to take time off to spend a day attending Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, one of them being GVD (Global Volunteer Day) with approximately 40 employees attending. This proofs some of the social responsible aspects of Oracle. I was positively surprised on how the office (named O-Zone) is designed. The office is designed into three distinct zones, namely Call zone, Project and Dialogue zone and Quiet zone, having different working environments for different job roles. The other thing which I like is that you do not have your own desk, which means you get to sit next to different people every day, getting new ideas and inspiration as well as getting to know more people in the organization you work in. To sum up: If you are considering pursuing an intern or a career after graduation in Oracle, do it! You will not regret it. It has given me many relevant practical experiences beside my study, and I am sure many great experiences will await you too.   Want to know more about the current vacancies in Denmark? Check http://campus.oracle.com for all of our vacancies.

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• Can Kind People Finish First?

  - by Oracle Accelerate for Midsize Companies

  by Jim Lein, Oracle Midsize Programs In an earlier post, I expressed my undying love for KIND Snacks' products. This month's Oracle Profit magazine features an interview with KIND Healthy Snacks Founder and CEO Daniel Lubetzky entitled "Better Business". Lubetzky expresses his vision for making KIND a "not for profit only" company.  All great companies start with a good idea. In this case, that one great idea was to offer a healthy snack with ingredients you can "see and pronounce". That's one of things I really like about this company--that coupled with the fact that their snacks taste great. They compete in an over crowded playing field but I've found that it's rare to find an energy snack that both tastes good and is good for you.  A couple of interesting facts I learned from reading this article: 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-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} 9 out of 10 consumers who try a KIND bar will purchase a KIND product again and recommend it to others KIND has the highest Net Promoter Score among the top 10 brands in the nutritional bar category (I confess I've never heard about this rating before but now that I have it's pretty cool) KIND's coporate mantra, "Do the Kind Thing" both encourages people to do random acts of kindness and provides easy mechanisms for doing so. Not coincidentally, I think, KIND is indeed a story about how nice guys can finish first. KIND has doubled in size every year for the last ten  years and now employees over 300 people, with sales exceeding $120M annually. Growth Applies Pressures One thing I know for certain from interacting our with fast growing customers over the last fifteen years is that growth applies myriad pressures across the organization--resources, processes, technology systems, and leadership agility. And it's easy to forget that Oracle was once an entrepreneurial startup and experienced all those same pressures that other growing companies are experiencing today. When asked by Profit Editor in Chief Aaron Lazenby, " What sort of pressure does KIND"s growth and success place on operations?", Lubetzky responded, "We have a demand planning process right now that is manual to a significant extent, and it just takes so much management time. It takes us days and sometimes weeks to produce information that is critical to our business—and by the time we get the results, we need revised data. Our sales leadership could go out selling, but instead they’re talking to our team about forecasts." Hitching Your Wagon to Oracle Lubetzky and his team selected Oracle for what I believe is our company's greatest strength: hitch your wagon to Oracle and you can trust that we will be there for the long run with the solutions you need and financial staying power. In Lubetzky's words, "The KIND philosophy requires you to have a long-term view of things; taking shortcuts may be the fastest way to get things done, but in the long term that can come back and bite you. Oracle is the type of company—and has the kind of platform—that is here for the long term. It’s not going to go away tomorrow. And Oracle is going to invest all the necessary resources into staying ahead of the game and improving." o next time you're in the supermarket or an REI (my favorite store in the world) or any of the other 80,000 locations that carry KIND, give one a try. Maybe some day you'll want to become a KIND Brand Ambassador.   Looking for more news and information about Oracle Solutions for Midsize Companies? Read the latest Oracle for Midsize Companies Newsletter Sign-up to receive the latest communications from Oracle’s industry leaders and experts Jim Lein I evangelize Oracle's enterprise solutions for growing midsize companies. I recently celebrated 15 years with Oracle, having joined JD Edwards in 1999. I'm based in Evergreen, Colorado and love relating stories about creativity and innovation whether they be about software, live music, or the mountains. The views expressed here are my own, and not necessarily those of Oracle.

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• The Customer Experience Imperative: A Game Changer for Brands

  - by Jeri Kelley

  By Anthony Lye, SVP, Cloud Applications Strategy, Oracle We know that customer experience has emerged as a primary differentiator for businesses today.  I’ve talked a lot about the new age of the empowered consumer. At Oracle we’ve spent a lot of time developing technologies and practices that our customers can implement to greatly improve their customer experience strategies. Of course I’m biased, but I think that we have created a portfolio of the best solutions on the planet to help organizations deal with the challenges of providing great customer experiences. We’ve done this because we started to witness some trends over the last few years. As the average person began to utilize social and mobile technologies more frequently and products commoditized, customer experience truly remained the only sustainable differentiator for businesses.In fact, we have seen that customer experience is often driving the success or the failure of a product or a brand. And as end customers have become more vocal about their experiences with companies on social and mobile channels, they now have the power to decide which brands will win and which brands will lose. To address this customer experience imperative, I believe that business today must do three things really well:Connect with your customers. You have to connect with customers whenever, wherever and however they want. Organizations must provide a great experience on their existing channels— the call center, the brick and mortar store, the field sales organizations, the websites and social properties. Businesses must also be great at managing and delivering journeys on these channels, while quickly adapting to embrace the new channels that emerge. You have to understand mobile. You have to understand social. You have to understand kiosks. These are all new routes to market, new channels where your customers may or may not show up. You have to interact with them where they are. You have to present information in a way that's meaningful to them. As well as providing what we would call a multichannel experience. We have to recognize that customers may start their experience on one channel, but end it on a different channel. It’s important that an organization’s technology solutions enable, not just a multichannel strategy, but a strategy that can power new channels and create customer journeys that cross these channels.Get to know your customers. Next, companies need to get to know the customer as intimately as the customer will allow. Today most customer interactions are anonymous, but it’s important for brands to know which customers drive value. Customers want to provide feedback. They want to share their opinions, but they want to know that those opinions are being heard and acted upon. For this to occur, we need to know much more about the customer and then reward them for their loyalty and for their advocacy.Enable connections. The last thing is to enable people to connect or transact with your brand. We've got to make it really, really simple for customers to do business with us. We can't make them repeat the steps; we can't make them tell us their identity for the fifth time as they move between organizations. These silos can no longer sustain or deliver a good customer experience. It's extremely important that companies be where customers want them to be—that we create profitable journeys for us and for them.Organizations have to make sure that there is a single source of truth that defines the customer. We have to make sure that the technology applications that we rely on understand not just the dimensions of multichannel, but of cross-channel too. We have to enable social at the very core of the overall architecture. We have to use historical analytics, real-time decisioning as well as predictive analytics to help personalize and drive an experience. And these are all technologies that IT needs, that IT is familiar with, but needs to enable for the line of business that in turn can enable for the end customer.  This means that we've got to make our solutions available to the customers in the cloud.In this new age of the empowered consumer, businesses have to focus on delivery mechanisms that reduce the overall TCO, while driving a rapid rate of innovation and a more rapid rate of deployment. At the Oracle Customer Experience Summit @ OpenWorld, I’ll discuss these issues and more. I hope that you can join us for what promises to be an unforgettable experience.

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• XBRL - Moving from Production to Consumption

  - by jmorourke

  Here's an update on what’s new with XBRL and how it can actually benefit your organization versus adding extra time and costs to financial reporting.  On February 29th (leap day) of 2012 I attended the XBRL and Financial Analysis Technology Conference at Baruch College in NYC.  The event, which attracted over 300 XBRL gurus and fans was presented by XBRL US, The New York Society of Security Analysts’ Improved Corporate Reporting Committee, and Baruch College’s Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity.  The event featured keynotes from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the CFA Institute as well as panels covering alternative research tools and data, corporate reporting to stakeholders and a demonstration of XBRL analysis tools.  The program culminated in a presentation of the finalists and the winner of the $20,000 XBRL Challenge.    Some of the key points made in the sessions included: The focus of XBRL tools is moving from production to consumption. As of February 2012, over 9000 companies are reporting in XBRL, with over 10 million facts filed to date XBRL taxonomy extensions have dropped from 27% to 11% making comparisons easier The SEC reports that XBRL makes it easier to analyze disclosures, focus on accounting issues XBRL is helping standards-setters like the FASB speed their analysis of impacts of proposed accounting rule changes Companies like Thomson Reuters report that XBRL is helping speed the delivery of data to clients The most interesting part of the program though, was the session highlighting the 5 finalists in the XBRL Challenge competition and the winning solution.  The XBRL Challenge was launched in 2011 as a means of spurring the development of more end-user tools to help with the consumption of XBRL-based financial information.       Over an 8-month process handled by 5 judges, there were 84 registrants, 15 completed submissions, 5 finalists and one winner of the challenge.  All of the solutions are open-sourced tools and most of them focus on consuming XBRL-based data.  The 5 finalists included: Advanced XBRL Processing from Oxide solutions – XBRL viewer for taxonomies, filings and company data with peer comparison capabilities. Arrelle – API for XBRL processes, supports SEC Validations, RSS Feeds to access filings etc. Calcbench – XBRL data analysis tool that can be embedded in other web applications.  This tool can combine XBRL filings with real-time market data. XBRL to XL – allows the importing of XBRL data into Microsoft Excel for analysis, comparisons.  Users start on the web and populate Excel with XBRL data. XBurble – allows users to search and view XBRL filings, export to Excel, merge for comparison, and includes a workflow interface. The winner of the $20,000 XBRL Challenge prize was CalcBench.  More information about the XBRL Challenge and the finalists can be found at www.XBRLUS.org/challenge XBRL for Sustainability Reporting – other recent news on the XBRL front was the announcement by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) of an XBRL taxonomy for Sustainability Reporting.  This taxonomy was co-developed by the GRI and Deloitte and is designed to make the consumption of data found in Sustainability Reports much easier.  Although there is no government mandate to file Sustainability Reports in XBRL format, organizations that do use the GRI guidelines for Sustainability Reporting are encouraged to tag and submit their data voluntarily to the GRI – who will populate a database with Sustainability Reporting data and make this available to the public.  For more information about this initiative, you can go to the GRI web site:  www.globalreporting.org. So how does all of this benefit corporate filers and investors?  Since its introduction, the consensus in the market is that XBRL has mainly benefited the regulators and investment analysts who need to consume and analyze large volumes of financial data.  But with the emergence of more end-user tools for consuming and analyzing XBRL-based data, and the ability to perform quick comparisons of one company versus its peers and competitors in an industry group, will soon accelerate the benefits to corporate finance staff, as well as individual investors.  This could apply to financial results tagged in XBRL, as well as non-financial information such as Sustainability Reporting – which over the long-term will likely be integrated with financial reporting.   And as multiple regulators and agencies in a country adopt the XBRL standard for corporate filings, more benefits will accrue as companies will be able to leverage one set of XBRL-based financial data for multiple regulatory filings.     For more information about the latest developments in XBRL, check out the XBRL US or XBRL International web sites:  www.xbrl.org, www.xbrlus.org. For more information about what Oracle is doing to support XBRL, here are some links: http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/ent-performance-bi/disclosure-management-065892.html http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/features/xmldb/index-087631.html Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need more information:  [email protected]

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• your AdSense account poses a risk of generating invalid activity

  - by Karington

  i received a mail from the adsense team saying: I am not an adsense expert, im actually quite new to it. I spent a lot of time on my site http://www.media1.rs, its a news aggregator with tons of options. In the meantime i discovered the double click service that had a good option to turn on google ads when you don't have any other running so i joined up for google adsense with my company account. Everything went smooth until one day (21.Jul.2011) i got an email... Hello, After reviewing our records, we've determined that your AdSense account poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due to invalid activity, we've found it necessary to disable your AdSense account. Your outstanding balance and Google's share of the revenue will both be fully refunded back to the affected advertisers. Please understand that we need to take such steps to maintain the effectiveness of Google's advertising system, particularly the advertiser-publisher relationship. We understand the inconvenience that this may cause you, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation. If you have any questions or concerns about the actions we've taken, how you can appeal this decision, or invalid activity in general, you can find more information by visiting http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153. Sincerely, The Google AdSense Team At first i didn't have any idea why... but then it came to me that it was maybe the auto refresh script we had because we publish news very very often and it would be useful for visitors... but i removed it immediately after i got the mail... Then i thought it might be my friends clicking thinking that that will help me (i didn't tell them to do it and don't know if they did) or something like that but than it couldn't be that because everyone can organize 10 people and get anyone who is a start-up banned? right? Anyway i filled out the form that was on the answers page with the previously removed script and got this from them: Hello, Thank you for your appeal. We appreciate the additional information you've provided, as well as your continued interest in the AdSense program. However, after thoroughly re-reviewing your account data and taking your feedback into consideration, our specialists have confirmed that we're unable to reinstate your AdSense account. As a reminder, if you have any questions or concerns about your account, the actions we've taken, or invalid activity in general, you can find more information by visiting http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153. I do understand them that they have to keep things secret in a way but i don't know what I'm supposed to do now? Is there a check list that i can go through and re-apply? Where do i re-apply on the same form? Please help as we are a small company and cant really have a budget for hiring a specialist + don't know any also... p.s. the current ads on the site are my own through doubleclick... Thanks in advance! Best, Karington

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• Educause Top-Ten IT Issues - the most change in a decade or more

  - by user739873

  The Education IT Issue Panel has released the 2012 top-ten issues facing higher education IT leadership, and instead of the customary reshuffling of the same deck, the issues reflect much of the tumult and dynamism facing higher education generally.  I find it interesting (and encouraging) that at the top of this year's list is "Updating IT Professionals' Skills and Roles to Accommodate Emerging Technologies and Changing IT Management and Service Delivery Models."  This reflects, in my view, the realization that higher education IT must change in order to fully realize the potential for transforming the institution, and therefore it's people must learn new skills, understand and accept new ways of solving problems, and not be tied down by past practices or institutional inertia. What follows in the remaining 9 top issues all speak, in some form or fashion, to the need for dramatic change, but not just in the areas of "funding IT" (code for cost containment or reduction), but rather the need to increase effectiveness and efficiency of the institution through the use of technology—leveraging the wave of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) to the institution's advantage, rather than viewing it as a threat and a problem to be contained. Although it's #10 of 10, IT Governance (and establishment and implementation of the governance model throughout the institution) is key to effectively acting upon many of the preceding issues in this year's list.  In the majority of cases, technology exists to meet the needs and requirements to effectively address many of the challenges outlined in top-ten issues list. Which brings me to my next point. Although I try not to sound too much like an Oracle commercial in these (all too infrequent) blog posts, I can't help but point out how much confluence there is between several of the top issues this year and what my colleagues and I have been evangelizing for some time. Starting from the bottom of the list up: 1) I'm gratified that research and the IT challenges it presents has made the cut.  Big Data (or Large Data as it's phased in the report) is rapidly going to overwhelm much of what exists today even at our most prepared and well-equipped research universities.  Combine large data with the significantly more stringent requirements around data preservation, archiving, sharing, curation, etc. coming from granting agencies like NSF, and you have the brewing storm that could result in a lot of "one-off" solutions to a problem that could very well be addressed collectively and "at scale."   2) Transformative effects of IT – while I see more and more examples of this, there is still much more that can be achieved. My experience tells me that culture (as the report indicates or at least poses the question) gets in the way more than technology not being up to task.  We spend too much time on "context" and not "core," and get lost in the weeds on the journey to truly transforming the institution with technology. 3) Analytics as a key element in improving various institutional outcomes.  In our work around Student Success, we see predictive "academic" analytics as essential to getting in front of the Student Success issue, regardless of how an institution or collections of institutions defines success.  Analytics must be part of the fabric of the key academic enterprise applications, not a bolt-on.  We will spend a significant amount of time on this topic during our semi-annual Education Industry Strategy Council meeting in Washington, D.C. later this month. 4) Cloud strategy for the broad range of applications in the academic enterprise.  Some of the recent work by Casey Green at the Campus Computing Survey would seem to indicate that there is movement in this area but mostly in what has been termed "below the campus" application areas such as collaboration tools, recruiting, and alumni relations.  It's time to get serious about sourcing elements of mature applications like student information systems, HR, Finance, etc. leveraging a model other than traditional on-campus custom. I've only selected a few areas of the list to highlight, but the unifying theme here (and this is where I run the risk of sounding like an Oracle commercial) is that these lofty goals cry out for partners that can bring economies of scale to bear on the problems married with a deep understanding of the nuances unique to higher education.  In a recent piece in Educause Review on Student Information Systems, the author points out that "best of breed is back". Unfortunately I am compelled to point out that best of breed is a large part of the reason we have made as little progress as we have as an industry in advancing some of the causes outlined above.  Don't confuse "integrated" and "full stack" for vendor lock-in.  The best-of-breed market forces that Ron points to ensure that solutions have to be "integratable" or they don't survive in the marketplace. However, by leveraging the efficiencies afforded by adopting solutions that are pre-integrated (and possibly metered out as a service) allows us to shed unnecessary costs – as difficult as these decisions are to make and to drive throughout the organization. Cole

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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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• Merging Social Accounts: What We Learned This Weekend

  - by Mike Stiles

  Guest Post by Erika BrookesWe learned that it’s not always as easy as you think it’s going to be. While it’s widely accepted that merging multiple owned Facebook Pages that are duplicating communities and putting out the same type of content is a best practice, actually pulling it off without rattling fans is a trickier proposition. Facebook is nice and clear about how to merge Facebook Pages. Although content is not carried over, Likes from the pages you’re merging are. So you can imagine the surprise when such fans start seeing posts in their News Feed from a page they don’t believe they ever Liked. One community member accurately likened it to having your bank come under another bank’s brand name. The Facebook Page changes to the new brand, just like your debit card, emails, signs and other communication. This weekend we did our merge. The Facebook communities of Vitrue, Involver and Collective Intellect were pulled into one community, Oracle Social. Could we have handled it better? Oh yeah. Our intent was to make sure, to the fullest extent possible, that the fans of the Vitrue, Involver, and Collective Intellect brand pages were well-informed about the pending page merges in ADVANCE of the merge. While many were aware that Oracle acquired the three companies, many were not. We learned from fan feedback that we should have sent notifications MUCH earlier to make the brand Page merge crystal clear and to answer any questions. That was our bad, our responsibility and we apologize for Oracle Social showing up in your News Feed if you were not aware that it was a result of your fandom of Vitrue, Involver or Collective Intellect. It was our job to make you aware well in advance. Some felt they had never Liked the fan Pages of Vitrue, Involver or Collective Intellect, so they were understandably upset (some cultures may call it “fit to be tied”) when they found themselves fans of Oracle Social. One thing to consider is that since 2009, brands and developers have used and enjoyed free Involver tab apps like Twitter, RSS and YouTube (1.2 million of which are currently active), which included an opt-in Liking the Involver Page. Often, when Liking happens in a manner outside of the traditional clicking of a Like button on a brand Page, it’s easy to forget a Page was indeed Liked. Lastly, a few felt that their Like of the Page had been “bought.” It was not. No fans or Likes were separately purchased. Yes, the companies and the social properties of Vitrue, Involver and Collective Intellect were acquired by Oracle. Those brands are now being coordinated into the larger Oracle brand. In social media, that means those brands are being integrated into the Oracle Social community. So what now? We apologize and apply lessons learned. We learned that you not only have to communicate thoroughly and clearly, but you have to communicate well in advance of any actionable items that will affect fans. We’re more than willing to walk straight to the woodshed when we deserve it. Going forward, the social team here is dedicated to facilitating content, discussion and sharing around social for marketers, agencies, IT stakeholders and social staffs, including community managers. We anticipate Oracle Social being the premier gathering place for true social innovators as we move into social’s exciting next phase of development. Inevitably, some will still feel they are fans of the Page in error. While we hate to see you go, you may unlike the Page if it’s not relevant or useful to you. Let’s continue to contribute, participate, foster our desire to learn, and move forward together positively and constructively - both for current fans of the community and the many fans to come.

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• Impressions and Reactions from Alliance 2012

  - by user739873

  Alliance 2012 has come to a conclusion.  What strikes me about every Alliance conference is the amazing amount of collaboration and cooperation I see across higher education in the sharing of best practices around the entire Oracle PeopleSoft software suite, not just the student information system (Oracle’s PeopleSoft Campus Solutions).  In addition to the vibrant U.S. organization, it's gratifying to see the growth in the international attendance again this year, with an EMEA HEUG organizing to complement the existing groups in the Netherlands, South Africa, and the U.K.  Their first meeting is planned for London in October, and I suspect they'll be surprised at the amount of interest and attendance. In my discussions with higher education IT and functional leadership at Alliance there were a number of instances where concern was expressed about Oracle's commitment to higher education as an industry, primarily because of a lack of perceived innovation in the applications that Oracle develops for this market. Here I think perception and reality are far apart, and I'd like to explain why I believe this to be true. First let me start with what I think drives this perception. Predominately it's in two areas. The first area is the user interface, both for students and faculty that interact with the system as "customers", and for those employees of the institution (faculty, staff, and sometimes students as well) that use the system in some kind of administrative role. Because the UI hasn't changed all that much from the PeopleSoft days, individuals perceive this as a dead product with little innovation and therefore Oracle isn't investing. The second area is around the integration of the higher education suite of applications (PeopleSoft Campus Solutions) and the rest of the Oracle software assets. Whether grown organically or acquired, there is an impressive array of middleware and other software products that could be leveraged much more significantly by the higher education applications than is currently the case today. This is also perceived as lack of investment. Let me address these two points.  First the UI.  More is being done here than ever before, and the PAG and other groups where this was discussed at Alliance 2012 were more numerous than I've seen in any past meeting. Whether it's Oracle development leveraging web services or some extremely early but very promising work leveraging the recent Endeca acquisition (see some cool examples here) there are a lot of resources aimed at this issue.  There are also some amazing prototypes being developed by our UX (user experience team) that will eventually make their way into the higher education applications realm - they had an impressive setup at Alliance.  Hopefully many of you that attended found this group. If not, the senior leader for that team Jeremy Ashley will be a significant contributor of content to our summer Industry Strategy Council meeting in Washington in June. In the area of integration with other elements of the Oracle stack, this is also an area of focus for the company and my team.  We're making this a priority especially in the areas of identity management and security, leveraging WebCenter more effectively for content, imaging, and mobility, and driving towards the ultimate objective of WebLogic Suite as our platform for SOA, links to learning management systems (SAIP), and content. There is also much work around business intelligence centering on OBI applications. But at the end of the day we get enormous value from the HEUG (higher education user group) and the various subgroups formed as a part of this community that help us align and prioritize our investments, whether it's around better integration with other Oracle products or integration with partner offerings.  It's one of the healthiest, mutually beneficial relationships between customers and an Education IT concern that exists on the globe. And I can't avoid mentioning that this kind of relationship between higher education and the corporate IT community that can truly address the problems of efficiency and effectiveness, institutional excellence (which starts with IT) and student success.  It's not (in my opinion) going to be solved through community source - cost and complexity only increase in that model and in the end higher education doesn't ultimately focus on core competencies: educating, developing, and researching.  While I agree with some of what Michael A. McRobbie wrote in his EDUCAUSE Review article (Information Technology: A View from Both Sides of the President’s Desk), I take strong issue with his assertion that the "the IT marketplace is just the opposite of long-term stability...."  Sure there has been healthy, creative destruction in the past 2-3 decades, but this has had the effect of, in the aggregate, benefiting education with greater efficiency, more innovation and increased stability as larger, more financially secure firms acquire and develop integrated solutions. Cole

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• 2D isometric picking

  - by Bikonja

  I'm trying to implement picking in my isometric 2D game, however, I am failing. First of all, I've searched for a solution and came to several, different equations and even a solution using matrices. I tried implementing every single one, but none of them seem to work for me. The idea is that I have an array of tiles, with each tile having it's x and y coordinates specified (in this simplified example it's by it's position in the array). I'm thinking that the tile (0, 0) should be on the left, (max, 0) on top, (0, max) on the bottom and (max, max) on the right. I came up with this loop for drawing, which googling seems to have verified as the correct solution, as has the rendered scene (ofcourse, it could still be wrong, also, forgive the messy names and stuff, it's just a WIP proof of concept code) // Draw code int col = 0; int row = 0; for (int i = 0; i < nrOfTiles; ++i) { // XOffset and YOffset are currently hardcoded values, but will represent camera offset combined with HUD offset Point tile = IsoToScreen(col, row, TileWidth / 2, TileHeight / 2, XOffset, YOffset); int x = tile.X; int y = tile.Y; spriteBatch.Draw(_tiles[i], new Rectangle(tile.X, tile.Y, TileWidth, TileHeight), Color.White); col++; if (col >= Columns) // Columns is the number of tiles in a single row { col = 0; row++; } } // Get selection overlay location (removed check if selection exists for simplicity sake) Point tile = IsoToScreen(_selectedTile.X, _selectedTile.Y, TileWidth / 2, TileHeight / 2, XOffset, YOffset); spriteBatch.Draw(_selectionTexture, new Rectangle(tile.X, tile.Y, TileWidth, TileHeight), Color.White); // End of draw code public Point IsoToScreen(int isoX, int isoY, int widthHalf, int heightHalf, int xOffset, int yOffset) { Point newPoint = new Point(); newPoint.X = widthHalf * (isoX + isoY) + xOffset; newPoint.Y = heightHalf * (-isoX + isoY) + yOffset; return newPoint; } This code draws the tiles correctly. Now I wanted to do picking to select the tiles. For this, I tried coming up with equations of my own (including reversing the drawing equation) and I tried multiple solutions I found on the internet and none of these solutions worked. Trying out lots of solutions, I came upon one that didn't work, but it seemed like an axis was just inverted. I fiddled around with the equations and somehow managed to get it to actually work (but have no idea why it works), but while it's close, it still doesn't work. I'm not really sure how to describe the behaviour, but it changes the selection at wrong places, while being fairly close (sometimes spot on, sometimes a tile off, I believe never more off than the adjacent tile). This is the code I have for getting which tile coordinates are selected: public Point? ScreenToIso(int screenX, int screenY, int tileHeight, int offsetX, int offsetY) { Point? newPoint = null; int nX = -1; int nY = -1; int tX = screenX - offsetX; int tY = screenY - offsetY; nX = -(tY - tX / 2) / tileHeight; nY = (tY + tX / 2) / tileHeight; newPoint = new Point(nX, nY); return newPoint; } I have no idea why this code is so close, especially considering it doesn't even use the tile width and all my attempts to write an equation myself or use a solution I googled failed. Also, I don't think this code accounts for the area outside the "tile" (the transparent part of the tile image), for which I intend to add a color map, but even if that's true, it's not the problem as the selection sometimes switches on approx 25% or 75% of width or height. I'm thinking I've stumbled upon a wrong path and need to backtrack, but at this point, I'm not sure what to do so I hope someone can shed some light on my error or point me to the right path. It may be worth mentioning that my goal is to not only pick the tile. Each main tile will be divided into 5x5 smaller tiles which won't be drawn seperately from the whole main tile, but they will need to be picked out. I think a color map of a main tile with different colors for different coordinates within the main tile should take care of that though, which would fall within using a color map for the main tile (for the transparent parts of the tile, meaning parts that possibly belong to other tiles).

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• A .NET Developers day with the iPad.

  - by mbcrump

  The Apple iPad is currently getting a lot of buzz because of the app store, the book store and of course iTunes. I had the chance to play with one and this is what I have learned about the device. Let’s get this out of the way first, the iPad is awesome. It is the device for media consumption and casual web browsing. But how does it measure up to those of us with .NET on our brains all days. Let’s find out… Main Screen – you can customize everything on this page. I guess I should replace that image with a C# or VS logo. Its pretty standard stuff if you have an iPhone.   Programming Books If you have a subscription to Safari Books Online, then you are in luck, its very easy to read the books on the iPad. Just fire up Safari web browser and goto the Safari Books Online. The biggest benefit that I can see with the iPad is the ability to read books wherever and not have to worry about purchasing books that I already have the .PDF for. Below is a sample from Code Complete 2nd Edition. Below is a PDF of the ECMA-334 C# Language Specification. As you can see its very readable and you should have no problem reading actual code.   Example of Code shown below: It is however easier to read the PDF and store them with a 3rd party PDF reader. I have seen several for .99 cents or less. You can however switch the screen to vertical to get more viewing space as shown below: I was disappointed with the iBooks application. I could not find a single .NET programming book anywhere. I was able to download the excellent sci-fi book “A memory of Wind” for free though. If I just overlooked them, then please email me with the names and titles. I couldn’t even find a technology category in the categories list. Web Surfing – Technical Sites Below is an example of my site in Safari. The code is very readable and the experience was identical to viewing it in Firefox. I tried multiple programming site and the pages looked great except those that used flash and of course it did not display on those pages.   News Apps - Technical Content The standard NY Times and USA Today looked great, but the Technical Content was lacking. It would probably be better to use Google Reader for online technical news.     YouTube Videos – Technical Content  Since its YouTube, we already know that a lot of technical content exist and it plays great on the iPad. I watched several programming videos and could clearly see the code being written. Taking Technical Notes The iPad comes with a great notepad for taking notes. I found that it was easy to take notes regarding projects that I am currently working on.   Calendar The calendar that ships with the iPad is great for organizing. You can setup exchange server or manually enter the information. Pretty standard stuff.    Random Applications that I like: TweetDeck.   and Adobe Ideas. Adobe Ideas is kinda like SketchFlow except you use your finger to mock up the sketches.  Don’t forget that the iPad is great for any type of podcasting. That pretty much sums it up, I would definitely recommend this device as it will only get better. I believe the iOS4 comes out on the 24th and the iPad will only get more and more apps. You could save a few bucks by waiting for the 2nd generation, but that’s a call that only you can make.

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• SOA, Governance, and Drugs

  Why is IT governance important in service oriented architecture (SOA)? IT Governance provides a framework for making appropriate decisions based on company guidelines and accepted standards. This framework also outlines each stakeholder’s responsibilities and authority when making important architectural or design decisions. Furthermore, this framework of governance defines parameters and constraints that are used to give context and perspective when making decisions. The use of governance as it applies to SOA ensures that specific design principles and patterns are used when developing and maintaining services. When governance is consistently applied systems the following benefits are achieved according to Anne Thomas Manes in 2010. Governance makes sure that services conform to standard interface patterns, common data modeling practices, and promotes the incorporation of existing system functionality by building on top of other available services across a system. Governance defines development standards based on proven design principles and patterns that promote reuse and composition. Governance provides developers a set of proven design principles, standards and practices that promote the reduction in system based component dependencies.  By following these guidelines, individual components will be easier to maintain. For me personally, I am a fan of IT governance, and feel that it valuable part of any corporate IT department. However, depending on how it is implemented can really affect the value of using IT governance.  Companies need to find a way to ensure that governance does not become extreme in its policies and procedures. I know for me personally, I would really dislike working under a completely totalitarian or laissez-faire version of governance. Developers need to be able to be creative in their designs and too much governance can really impede the design process and prevent the most optimal design from being developed. On the other hand, with no governance enforced, no standards will be followed and accepted design patterns will be ignored. I have personally had to spend a lot of time working on this particular scenario and I have found that the concept of code reuse and composition is almost nonexistent.  Based on this, too much time and money is wasted on redeveloping existing aspects of an application that already exist within the system as a whole. I think moving forward we will see a staggered form of IT governance, regardless if it is for SOA or IT in general.  Depending on the size of a company and the size of its IT department,  I can see IT governance as a layered approach in that the top layer will be defined by enterprise architects that focus on abstract concepts pertaining to high level design, general  guidelines, acceptable best practices, and recommended design patterns.  The next layer will be defined by solution architects or department managers that further expand on abstracted guidelines defined by the enterprise architects. This layer will contain further definitions as to when various design patterns, coding standards, and best practices are to be applied based on the context of the solutions that are being developed by the department. The final layer will be defined by the system designer or a solutions architect assed to a project in that they will define what design patterns will be used in a solution, naming conventions, as well as outline how a system will function based on the best practices defined by the previous layers. This layered approach allows for IT departments to be flexible in that system designers have creative leeway in designing solutions to meet the needs of the business, but they must operate within the confines of the abstracted IT governance guidelines.  A real world example of this can be seen in the United States as it pertains to governance of the people in that the US government defines rules and regulations in the abstract and then the state governments take these guidelines and applies them based on the will of the people in each individual state. Furthermore, the county or city governments are the ones that actually enforce these rules based on how they are interpreted by local community.  To further define my example, the United States government defines that marijuana is illegal. Each individual state has the option to determine this regulation as it wishes in that the state of Florida determines that all uses of the drug are illegal, but the state of California legally allows the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes only. Based on these accepted practices each local government enforces these rules in that a police officer will arrest anyone in the state of Florida for having this drug on them if they walk down the street, but in California if a person has a medical prescription for the drug they will not get arrested.  REFERENCESThomas Manes, Anne. (2010). Understanding SOA Governance: http://www.soamag.com/I40/0610-2.php

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