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• OLL Live webcast - Using SQL for Pattern Matching in Oracle Database

  - by KLaker

  If you are interested in learning about our exciting new 12c SQL pattern matching feature then mark your diaries. On Wednesday, October 30th at 8:00 am (US/Pacific time zone) Supriya Ananth, who is one of our top curriculum developers at Oracle, will be hosting an OLL webcast on our new SQL pattern matching feature. The ability to recognize patterns in a sequence of rows has been a capability that was widely desired, but not possible with SQL until now. Row pattern matching in native SQL improves application and development productivity and query efficiency for row-sequence analysis. With Oracle Database 12c you can use the new MATCH_RECOGNIZE clause to perform pattern matching in SQL to do the following: Logically partition and order the data using the PARTITION BY and ORDER BY clauses Use regular expressions syntax to define patterns of rows to seek using the PATTERN clause. These patterns a powerful and expressive feature, applied to the pattern variables you define. Specify the logical conditions required to map a row to a row pattern variable in the DEFINE clause. Define measures, which are expressions usable in the MEASURES clause of the SQL query. For more information and to register for this exciting webcast please visit the OLL Live website, see here: https://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=44785:145:116820049307135::::P145_EVENT_ID,P145_PREV_PAGE:461,143.  Please note - if the above link does not work then go to OLL (https://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=44785:1:) and click the OLL Live icon (upper right, beneath the Login link or logout link if you are already logged in). The pattern matching webcast is listed on the calendar of events on 30 October.

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• TCO Comparison: Oracle Exadata vs IBM P-Series

  - by Javier Puerta

  Cost Comparison for Business Decision-makersOracle Exadata Database Machine vs. IBM Power SystemsHow to Weigh a Purchase DecisionOctober 2012 Download full report here In this research-based  white paper conducted at the request of Oracle, The FactPoint Group compares the cost of ownership of the Oracle Exadata engineered system to a traditional build-your-own (BYO) solution, in this case an IBM Power 770 (P770) with SAN storage.  The IBM P770 was chosen given it is IBM’s current most popular model, based on FactPoint primary and secondary research and IBM claims, and because at least one of the interviewed customers had specifically migrated from a P770 to Exadata, affording us a more specific data point for comparison. This research found that Oracle Exadata: Can be deployed more quickly and easily requiring 59% fewer man-hours than a traditional IBM Power Systems solution. Delivers dramatically higher performance typically up to 12X improvement, as described by customers, over their prior solution.  Requires 40% fewer systems administrator hours to maintain and operate annually, including quicker support calls because of less finger-pointing and faster service with a single vendor.  Will become even easier to operate over time as users become more proficient and organize around the benefits of integrated infrastructure. Supplies a highly available, highly scalable and robust solution that results in reserve capacity that make Exadata easier for IT to operate because IT administrators can manage proactively, not reactively.  Overall, Exadata operations and maintenance keep IT administrators from “living on the edge.”  And it’s pre-engineered for long-term growth. Finally, compared to IBM Power Systems hardware, Exadata is a bargain from a total cost of ownership perspective:  Over three years, the IBM hardware running Oracle Database cost 31% more in TCO than Exadata.

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• New Book - Oracle ADF Enterprise Application Development Made Simple

  - by Shay Shmeltzer

  It's nice to see another ADF book out there, this one from Sten Vesteli titled "Oracle ADF Enterprise Application Development Made Simple" comes from Packet Publishing Unlike other ADF books out there, this one doesn't aim to teach you Oracle ADF, but rather focuses on the right way to structure and manage a project that leverages ADF. This is a welcomed addition to the bookshelf for people who are looking into ADF based development. One thing I find is that some organization just start developing an ADF application without first doing much planning, something that is understandable given that it is very easy to start building a prototype with ADF and then just grow it into a full blown application. However, as the book points out, doing a bit of planning before you delve into the actual project development can save you a lot of time in the future. For example it is much better to have the right breakdown and structure of your project to allow you to do efficient team development right out of the gate, then to find out 1 year down the road that you are dealing with one monolithic size project which is hard to manage. The book touches on such topics as project organization (workspaces, projects, packages), planning your infrastructure (templates, framework classes), coding standards, team structure, etc. It also covers various aspects of application lifecycle management such as versioning, build, testing, deployment and managing requirements and tasks and how all of those are done when using JDeveloper and Oracle ADF. It's nice to see that the book covers working with Oracle Team Productivity Center - a solution that might not be getting the exposure it deserves. The book also has some chapters about security, internalization and customization of applications both with MDS and with ADF Faces skins (and it even covers the brand new skin editor). Overall I think this is definitely a book you should read if you are about to start your way on a new enterprise scale ADF application. Taking into account the topics that the book discusses before you start your work will save you time and effort down the road. By the way, don't forget that as an OTN member you can get discount on this and other books.

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• An Oracle's Interns Story by Samarth Varshney

  - by user769227

  I have written a short write-up about my experience at Oracle and am attaching some pics along:  I joined Oracle on 5th January 2011 as part of my internship program in BITS Pilani Goa Campus. In the short period of six months, I had the most beautiful and interesting time of my life. It was fun to work in Oracle, thanks to the whole team. I had an excellent manager, simple and sophisticated, who gave me the utmost enthusiasm to work. I gained a lot of knowledge during my internship, thanks to my colleagues. They were very helpful and motivated us (interns) in every possible way. In the initial stages of work, in which you know almost nothing, they helped me gain knowledge at a rapid speed. Thanks to the vast database of study material at the Oracle site, that I could start on with my project in a very short time.  For me, the time flew like anything and made the 6 months look like a few days. It was probably due to the team, that the work was so much fun. We had our deadlines but had full freedom as to how to work and when to work. I don't remember a single instance, in which I was working and not listening to songs. I mean it will always be a time to remember. I hope to join this company and make this time last forever.  Samarth 

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• Oracle OpenWorld Session: “Business Driven Development with BPM: Lessons from the Real World”

  - by Ajay Khanna

  One of key values that BPM promises is “Business Empowerment”. People closest to the processes, who participate in the process every day, are the ones who know most about the process. These are the people who run day-to-day operations, people who triage customer issues, people who envision improvements and innovations. It is, therefore, imperative that when a company decides to use BPM technology to automate their business processes, business people take the driver’s seat. BPM is not an IT only project. Oracle BPM suite has been designed keeping this core tenet of BPM, Business Empowerment, in mind. The result is business user centered design of Process Composer. Process Composer is designed to let business users document their processes, analyze them using simulation, create web forms, specify business rules and even run them in testing mode using process player, to see if the designed process meets their needs. This does not mean that IT has no role in this process. In fact, Oracle BPM Suite has made it very easy for Business and IT to collaborate. The same process can be shared among business, and IT stakeholders and each can collaborate to create model-driven, process based executable applications. A process may need to integrate with multiple systems via various mechanisms, and IT leads system and data integration effort. IT helps fine tune the performance of process applications and ensures that the deployment of process application meets scalability and failover standards. In this session, we saw Harish Gaur and Satya Narayanan from Oracle demonstrate roles Business and IT play in BPM projects and how Oracle BPM Suite enables business and IT collaboration to design and automate process based applications. They also discussed real life customer stories. Some key takeaways from this session: There are no IT projects, only business initiatives, requiring IT support Identify high impact processes – critical, better BPM ROI Identify key metrics to measure process performance Align business with IT layer

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• Oracle OpenWorld 2012 is Around the Corner - Discover AutoVue Activities

  - by Pam Petropoulos

  Planning to attend Oracle OpenWorld 2012?  If so, be sure to check out the various AutoVue Enterprise Visualization activities that you can take advantage of while in San Francisco. AutoVue Sessions: CON8381 - Streamline PLM Design-to-Manufacturing Processes with AutoVue Visualization   Click here for full session description. Date: Monday, October 1, 2012 Time: 10:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. Location: Intercontinental Hotel - Telegraph Hill Customer Speaker: Siew Yeow Loye, Global Foundries   CON8385 - Optimize Asset Performance and Reliability with AutoVue Visualization   Click here for full session description. Date:Thursday, October 4, 2012 Time: 2:15 p.m. – 3:15 p.m. Location: Palace Hotel – Gold Ballroom AutoVue Demo Pods: Demo   Demo ID: 3122   AutoVue: PLM & Enterprise Visualization Moscone West; Workstation: W-082 Demo ID: 3001  Oracle E-Business Suite Enterprise Asset Management and AutoVue Visualization Solutions Palace Hotel Level 2 HPU-008   Customers are also invited to attend the Oracle OpenWorld 2012 Supply Chain Management Customer Reception on Tuesday, October 2, 2012. This year's event is being held at ROE Lounge, located just 2 blocks from Moscone Center, and offers a casual and upbeat atmosphere so you can mix and mingle with friends and colleagues. This event sold out last year and space is again limited so Register Today. Date: Tuesday, October 2, 2012 Time: 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. Location: ROE Lounge, 651 Howard Street, San Francisco   For additional information regarding AutoVue sessions, demos, and activities be sure to review the AutoVue FocusOn Document.   Join us at Oracle OpenWorld, September 30–October 4, 2012 and discover new products, solutions, and practices to make you even more successful in your job and in your industry.

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• Wer kennt Oracle Label Security?

  - by Heinz-Wilhelm Fabry (DBA Community)

  Oracle Label Security (OLS) ist eine Option der Enterprise Edition der Datenbank seit der Datenbankversion 9.0.1. Es handelt sich bei OLS um eine fertige Anwendung, die vollständig auf Oracle Virtual Private Database (VPD) aufgebaut ist. Obwohl es sich also bei OLS um ein 'gestandenes' Oracle Produkt handelt, ist es vielen Kunden unbekannt. Oder vielleicht sollte man präziser sagen: Kaum ein Kunde redet über OLS. Das liegt sicherlich in erster Linie daran, dass Kunden, die sensibel für Security Fragen sind, sowieso nicht gerne Auskunft geben über die Massnahmen, die sie selbst ergriffen haben, sich zu schützen. Wenn man dann noch bedenkt, dass die Kunden, die OLS einsetzen, häufig aus Bereichen stammen, die für ihre Diskretion bekannt sind - Dienste, Polizei, Militär, Banken - hat man einen weiteren Grund dafür gefunden, warum so wenige über OLS reden. Das ist allerdings bedauerlich, denn besonders in dieser Zeit steigenden Security Bewusstseins, verdient OLS auf jeden Fall mehr Aufmerksamkeit. Dieser Tipp möchte deshalb dazu beitragen, OLS bekannter zu machen. Dazu werden zunächst einige einführende Informationen zu OLS gegeben. Danach wird anhand eines kleinen Beispiels gezeigt, wie man mit OLS arbeitet. Ergänzend sei hier noch erwähnt, dass der Einsatz von OLS keinerlei Veränderungen an vorhandenen Anwendungen erfordert. In der Oracle Terminologie heisst das: OLS ist transparent für Anwender und Anwendungen. Zum vollständigen Artikel geht es hier.

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• What to "CRM" in San Francisco? CRM Highlights for OpenWorld '12

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  There is plenty to SEE for CRM during OpenWorld in San Francisco, September 30 - October 4! Here are some of the sessions in the CRM Track that you might want to consider attending for products you currently own or might consider for the future. I think you'll agree, there is quite a bit of investment going on across Oracle CRM. Please use OpenWorld Schedule Builder or check the OpenWorld Content Catalog for all of the session details and any time or location changes. Tip: Pre-enrolled session registrants via Schedule Builder are allowed into the session rooms before anyone else, so Schedule Builder will guarantee you a seat. Many of the sessions below will likely be at capacity. General Session: Oracle Fusion CRM—Improving Sales Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Ease of Use (Session ID: GEN9674) - Oct 2, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM. Anthony Lye, Senior VP, Oracle leads this general session focused on Oracle Fusion CRM. Oracle Fusion CRM optimizes territories, combines quota management and incentive compensation, integrates sales and marketing, and cleanses and enriches data—all within a single application platform. Oracle Fusion can be configured, changed, and extended at runtime by end users, business managers, IT, and developers. Oracle Fusion CRM can be used from the Web, from a smartphone, from Microsoft Outlook, or from an iPad. Deloitte, sponsor of the CRM Track, will also present key concepts on CRM implementations. Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management: Overview/Strategy/Customer Experiences/Roadmap (CON9407) - Oct 1, 3:15PM - 4:15PM. In this session, learn how Oracle Fusion CRM enables companies to create better sales plans, generate more quality leads, and achieve higher win rates and find out why customers are adopting Oracle Fusion CRM. Gain a deeper understanding of the unique capabilities only Oracle Fusion CRM provides, and learn how Oracle’s commitment to CRM innovation is driving a wide range of future enhancements. Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service Vision and Roadmap (CON9764) - Oct 1, 10:45 AM - 11:45 AM. Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service combines Web, social, and contact center experiences for a unified, cross-channel service solution in the cloud, enabling organizations to increase sales and adoption, build trust, strengthen relationships, and reduce costs and effort. Come to this session to hear from Oracle experts about where the product is going and how Oracle is committed to accelerating the pace of innovation and value to its customers. Siebel CRM Overview, Strategy, and Roadmap (CON9700) - Oct 1, 12:15PM - 1:15PM. The world’s most complete CRM solution, Oracle’s Siebel CRM helps organizations differentiate their businesses. Come to this session to learn about the Siebel product roadmap and how Oracle is committed to accelerating the pace of innovation and value for its customers on this platform. Additionally, the session covers how Siebel customers can leverage many Oracle assets such as Oracle WebCenter Sites; InQuira, RightNow, and ATG/Endeca applications, and Oracle Policy Automation in conjunction with their current Siebel investments. Oracle Fusion Social CRM Strategy and Roadmap: Future of Collaboration and Social Engagement (CON9750) - Oct 4, 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM. Social is changing the customer experience! Come find out how Oracle can help you know your customers better, encourage brand affinity, and improve collaboration within your ecosystem. This session reviews Oracle’s social media solution and shows how you can discover hidden insights buried in your enterprise and social data. Also learn how Oracle Social Network revolutionizes how enterprise users work, collaborate, and share to achieve successful outcomes. Oracle CRM On Demand Strategy and Roadmap (CON9727) - Oct 1, 10:45AM - 11:45AM. Oracle CRM On Demand is a powerful cloud-based customer relationship management solution. Come to this session to learn directly from Oracle experts about future product plans and hear how Oracle is committed to accelerating the pace of innovation and value to its customers. Knowledge Management Roadmap and Strategy (CON9776) - Oct 1, 12:15PM - 1:15PM. Learn how to harness the knowledge created as a natural byproduct of day-to-day interactions to lower costs and improve customer experience by delivering the right answer at the right time across channels. This session includes an overview of Oracle’s product roadmap and vision for knowledge management for both the Oracle RightNow and Oracle Knowledge (formerly InQuira) product families. Oracle Policy Automation Roadmap: Supercharging the Customer Experience (CON9655) - Oct 1, 12:15PM - 1:15PM. Oracle Policy Automation delivers rapid customer value by streamlining the capture, analysis, and deployment of policies across every facet of the customer experience. This session discusses recent Oracle Policy Automation enhancements for policy analytics; the latest Oracle Policy Automation Connector for Siebel; and planned new capabilities, including availability with the Oracle RightNow product line. There is much more, so stay tuned for more highlights or check out the Content Catalog and search for your areas of interest. 

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• Oracle NoSQL Database: Cleaner Performance

  - by Charles Lamb

  In an earlier post I noted that Berkeley DB Java Edition cleaner performance had improved significantly in release 5.x. From an Oracle NoSQL Database point of view, this is important because Berkeley DB Java Edition is the core storage engine for Oracle NoSQL Database. Many contemporary NoSQL Databases utilize log based (i.e. append-only) storage systems and it is well-understood that these architectures also require a "cleaning" or "compaction" mechanism (effectively a garbage collector) to free up unused space. 10 years ago when we set out to write a new Berkeley DB storage architecture for the BDB Java Edition ("JE") we knew that the corresponding compaction mechanism would take years to perfect. "Cleaning", or GC, is a hard problem to solve and it has taken all of those years of experience, bug fixes, tuning exercises, user deployment, and user feedback to bring it to the mature point it is at today. Reports like Vinoth Chandar's where he observes a 20x improvement validate the maturity of JE's cleaner. Cleaner performance has a direct impact on predictability and throughput in Oracle NoSQL Database. A cleaner that is too aggressive will consume too many resources and negatively affect system throughput. A cleaner that is not aggressive enough will allow the disk storage to become inefficient over time. It has to Work well out of the box, and Needs to be configurable so that customers can tune it for their specific workloads and requirements. The JE Cleaner has been field tested in production for many years managing instances with hundreds of GBs to TBs of data. The maturity of the cleaner and the entire underlying JE storage system is one of the key advantages that Oracle NoSQL Database brings to the table -- we haven't had to reinvent the wheel.

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• Oracle Customer Experience (CX) Solutions Make Retailers Merry

  - by Tuula Fai

  Tis the season to be jolly. If you’re a retailer, your level of jolliness depends on sales. So you watch trends like U.S. store traffic increasing 3.5% to 308 million on Black Friday but sales actually falling 1.8% to $11.2 billion. Fortunately, by the end of November, retail sales were up 3.7% over the previous year, thanks to life recovering after Hurricane Sandy. And online sales topped $1 billion for the first time ever! Who are the companies improving their sales online? They are big names like Walgreen’s Drugstore.com, Nordstrom’s HauteLook, and Intuit. More importantly, how are they doing it? They use cutting-edge business practices enabled by Oracle’s CX Cloud Service & Support solutions to: Increase conversions rates and order sizes (Customer Acquisition) Enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty (Customer Retention) Reduce contact center costs and improve agent productivity (Operational Efficiency). Acquisition + Retention + Operational Efficiency = Sustainable Growth and Profits. That’s the magic formula for retail customer service success. Don’t take our word for it. Look at the results of these Oracle customers: Walgreen’s Drugstore—30% sales conversion rate on chat sessions with 20% increase in shopping cart size Nordstrom’s HauteLook—40,000+ interactions per month—20% growth over last year— efficiently managed by 40 agents, with no increase in IT costs Intuit—50% increase in customer satisfaction and 70% decrease in cost per interaction Using Oracle’s CX Cloud & Service solutions, these retailers deliver consistent, relevant, and personalized experiences across all touchpoints, including social, mobile, and web. Their ability to connect with customers anytime, anywhere—providing the right answer at the right time—helps them create a defensible advantage in the marketplace. Want to learn more? Please visit http://www.oracle.com/goto/cloudlaunchpad for free resources on delivering exceptional customer service in the Cloud. Also, watch our YouTube channel to learn more about seamless multichannel retail and Winston Furnishings’ exceptional customer experience.

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• Enable Diagnostics in Oracle apps

  - by PRajkumar

  How to enable Oracle apps Diagnostics-> Examine, for certain users?   Steps 1 Navigate to System Administrator responsibility> Profile> System>     Steps 2 Enter profile name: Utilities:Diagnostics Enter Application User for whom you want to enable Diagnostics-> Examine   Steps 3 Give Yes at User level and Save the Changes Note – You can set Yes at Site level also if you want to enable this option for all Oracle application users   Steps 4 Again navigate to System Administrator responsibility> Profile> System> Enter profile name: Hide Diagnostics menu entry Enter Application User for whom you do not want to hide Diagnostics menu entry   Steps 5 Give No at User level and Save the Changes Note – You can set No at Site level also if you do not want to hide menu entry option for all Oracle application users Steps 6 Congratulations you have successfully enabled Diagnostics-> Examine Logout from Oracle Application and login again. Now can see Diagnostics-> Examine option

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• Partner Webcast - Oracle Data Integration Competency Center (DICC): A Niche Market for services

  - by Thanos Terentes Printzios

  Market success now depends on data integration speed. This is why we collected all best practices from the most advanced IT leaders, simply to prove that a Data Integration competency center should be the primary new IT team you should establish. This is a niche market with unlimited potential for partners becoming, the much needed, data integration services provider trusted by customers. We would like to elaborate with OPN Partners on the Business Value Assessment and Total Economic Impact of the Data Integration Platform for End Users, while justifying re-organizing your IT services teams. We are happy to share our research on: The Economical impact of data integration platform/competency center. Justifying strongest reasons and differentiators, using numeric analysis and best-practice in customer case studies from specific industries Utilizing diagnostics and health-check analysis in building a business case for your customers What exactly is so special in the technology of Oracle Data Integration Impact of growing data volume and amount of data sources Analysis of usual solutions that are being implemented so far, addressing key challenges and mistakes During this partner webcast we will balance business case centric content with extensive numerical ROI analysis. Join us to find out how to build a unified approach to moving/sharing/integrating data across the enterprise and why this is an important new services opportunity for partners. Agenda: Data Integration Competency Center Oracle Data Integration Solution Overview Services Niche Market For OPN Summary Q&A Delivery Format This FREE online LIVE eSeminar will be delivered over the Web. Registrations received less than 24hours prior to start time may not receive confirmation to attend. Presenter: Milomir Vojvodic, EMEA Senior Business Development Manager for Oracle Data Integration Product Group Date: Thursday, September 4th, 10pm CEST (8am UTC/11am EEST)Duration: 1 hour Register Today For any questions please contact us at partner.imc@beehiveonline.oracle.com

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• Oracle Manageability Virtual Training for Partners

  - by Get_Specialized!

  Partners, the next opportunity to participate in Oracle Manageability Training right from your desk, is coming up March 26th, March 27th, April 2nd, and April 3rd 2012. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} This training is a virtual course, positioned especially for Partners in EMEA, prepared and presented by Oracle Product Managers and to Partners over a live webcast during business hours. Each day will consist of approximately 2-3 hours of lecture/demos on Oracle Application Management and Oracle Application Quality Management. Select here for more details and how to register.

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• Partner outreach on the Oracle Fusion Applications user experience begins

  - by mvaughan

  by Misha Vaughan, Architect, Applications User Experience I have been asked the question repeatedly since about December of last year: “What is the Applications User Experience group doing about partner outreach?”  My answer, at the time, was: “We are thinking about it.”  My colleagues and I were really thinking about the content or tools that the Applications UX group should be developing. What would be valuable to our partners? What will actually help grow their applications business, and fits within the applications user experience charter?In the video above, you’ll hear Jeremy Ashley, vice president of the Applications User Experience team, talk about two fundamental initiatives that our group is working on now that speaks straight to partners.  Special thanks to Joel Borellis, Kelley Greenly, and Steve Hoodmaker for helping to make this video happen so flawlessly. Steve was responsible for pulling together a day of Oracle Fusion Applications-oriented content, including David Bowin, Director, Fusion Applications Strategy, on some of the basic benefits of Oracle Fusion Applications.  Joel Borellis, Group Vice President, Partner Enablement, and David Bowin in the Oracle Studios.Nigel King, Vice President Applications Functional Architecture, was also on the list, talking about co-existence opportunities with Oracle Fusion Applications.Me and Nigel King, just before his interview with Joel. Fusion Applications User Experience 101: Basic education  Oracle has invested an enormous amount of intellectual and developmental effort in the Oracle Fusion Applications user experience. Find out more about that at the Oracle Partner Network Fusion Learning Center (Oracle ID required). What you’ll learn will help you uncover how, exactly, Oracle made Fusion General Ledger “sexy,” and that’s a direct quote from Oracle Ace Director Debra Lilley, of Fujitsu. In addition, select Applications User Experience staff members, as well as our own Fusion User Experience Advocates,  can provide a briefing to our partners on Oracle’s investment in the Oracle Fusion Applications user experience. Looking forward: Taking the best of the Fusion Applications UX to your customersBeyond a basic orientation to one of the key differentiators for Oracle Fusion Applications, we are also working on partner-oriented training.A question we are often getting right now is: “How do I help customers build applications that look like Fusion?” We also hear: “How do I help customers build applications that take advantage of the next-generation design work done in Fusion?”Our answer to this is training and a tool – our user experience design patterns – these are a set of user experience best-practices. Design patterns are re-usable, usability-tested, user experience components that make creating Fusion Applications-like experiences straightforward.  It means partners can leverage Oracle’s investment, but also gain an advantage by not wasting time solving a problem we’ve already solved. Their developers can focus on helping customers tackle the harder development challenges. Ultan O’Broin, an Apps UX team member,  and I are working with Kevin Li and Chris Venezia of the Oracle Platform Technology Services team, as well as Grant Ronald in Oracle ADF, to bring you some of the best “how-to” UX training, customized for your local area. Our first workshop will be in EMEA. Stay tuned for an assessment and feedback from the event.

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• Oracle Retail Industry Forum Europe 2014 – Registration Now Open!

  - by Marie-Christin Hansen-Oracle

  We are delighted to announce that registration for the 4th annual Oracle Retail Industry Forum Europe (ORIF Europe) is now open. The event is being held from 10-11 September at the Renaissance St Pancras Hotel in London. ORIF Europe is a must attend event for Oracle Retail customers, retailers who are about to embark on an Oracle implementation, or for those who simply wish to learn more about Oracle Retail solutions and how they support the provision of commerce anywhere. Further details will be announced over the coming weeks, but already confirmed as speakers are: Paul Hornby, Head of eCommerce at Shop Direct, who will discuss the company’s ambitions, challenges faced and the strategy undertaken by the team in driving the business from a catalogue-based to a web-based commerce business. The session will reveal how Shop Direct and Oracle Retail are working together to achieve the transformation of this business into a world-class digital retailer, by building a foundation for future growth for each of its individual brands and target markets. Kate Ancketill, CEO and Founder of GDR Creative Intelligence who will illustrate what best-in-market 'Access Anywhere' retail looks like. From individual retail and next generation personalisation of in-store service, to the land grab for delivery innovation, cutting edge brands are 'training' consumers to check into stores in exchange for concrete benefits. Kate will explore the opportunity this is opening up across the retail landscape. Register for the Oracle Retail Industry Forum today to secure your place.

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• Xsigo and Oracle's Storage

  - by Philippe Deverchère

  Xsigo, a virtual network infrastructure provider, has recently been acquired by Oracle. Following this acquisition, one might ask ourselves why it is important to Oracle and how Oracle's storage is going to benefit on the long term from this virtualized infrastructure layer. Well, the first thing to understand is that Virtual Networking addresses both network and storage connectivity. Oracle Virtual Networking, as the Xsigo technology is now called, connects any server to any network and storage, so this is not just about connecting servers to the Internet or Intranet. It is also for a large part connecting servers to NAS and SAN storage. Connecting servers to storage has become increasingly complex in the past few years because of the strong emergence of virtualization at the Operating System level. 50% of enterprise workloads are now virtualized, up from 18% in 2009, resulting in a strong consolidation of various applications in a high density server footprint. At the same time, server I/O capability increased 8x in the last 8 years. All this has pushed IT administrators to multiply the number of I/O connections in the back-end of their physical servers, resulting in a messy and very hard to manage networking infrastructure. Here is a typical view of a rack back-end when no virtual networking is used. We consider that today: - 75% of users have ten or more Ethernet ports per server - 85% of users have two or more SAN ports per server - 58% have had to add connectivity to a server specifically for VMs - 65% consider cable reduction a priority The average is 12 or more ports per server, resulting in an extremely complex infrastructure to manage. What Oracle wants to achieve with its Oracle Virtual Networking offering is pretty simple. The objective is to eliminate the complexity through a dramatic reduction of cabling between servers and storage/networks. It is also to provide a software based management system so that any server can be connected to any network or any storage, on demand, and without physical intervention on the infrastructure. At the end of the day, the picture on the left shows what one wants to get for the back-end of customer's racks: just a couple of connections on each physical server to provide a simple, agile and fast network infrastructure for both storage and networking access. This is exactly what the Oracle Virtual Networking solution does. It transforms a complex, error-prone, difficult to manage and expensive networking infrastructure into a simple, high performance and agile solution for the data center. Practically speaking, and for the sake of simplicity, imagine that each server just hosts a minimal number of physical InfiniBand HCAs (Host Channel Adapter) with two links (for redundancy) onto the Oracle Fabric Interconnect director. Using the Oracle Fabric Manager software, you'll then be able to create virtual NICs and HBAs (called vNIC and vHBA) that will be seen by the servers as standard NICs and HBAs and associate them to networks and storage systems which are physically connected to the back-end of the director through standard Fibre Channel and Ethernet GbE/10GbE ports. In addition to this incredibly simple "at-a-click" connectivity capability, the Oracle Virtual Networking solution offers powerful features such as network isolation, Quality of Service, advanced performance monitoring and non-disruptive reconfiguration, migration and scalability of networking infrastructure. So let's go back now to our initial question: why is Oracle Virtual Networking especially important to Oracle's storage solutions? After all, one could connect any storage in the back-end of the Oracle Fabric Interconnect directors, right? The answer is pretty simple: since Oracle owns both the virtualized networking infrastructure and the storage (ZFS-SA, Pillar Axiom and tape), it is possible to imagine several ways in the future to add value when it comes to connect storage to a virtualized storage network: enhanced storage capabilities, converged management between storage and network, improved diagnostic capabilities and optimized integration resulting in higher performance and unique features/functions. Of course, all this is not going to be done overnight, and future will tell us is which evolutions come first. But there is little doubt that the integration of Xsigo within Oracle is going to create opportunities for Oracle's storage!

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• Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.2 Event and its SNMP Interface

  - by user12609115

  Background The cluster event SNMP interface was first introduced in Oracle Solaris Cluster 3.2 release. The details of the SNMP interface are described in the Oracle Solaris Cluster System Administration Guide and the Cluster 3.2 SNMP blog. Prior to the Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.2 release, when the event SNMP interface was enabled, it would take effect on WARNING or higher severity events. The events with WARNING or higher severity are usually for the status change of a cluster component from ONLINE to OFFLINE. The interface worked like an alert/alarm interface when some components in the cluster were out of service (changed to OFFLINE). The consumers of this interface could not get notification for all status changes and configuration changes in the cluster. Cluster Event and its SNMP Interface in Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.2 The user model of the cluster event SNMP interface is the same as what was provided in the previous releases. The cluster event SNMP interface is not enabled by default on a freshly installed cluster; you can enable it by using the cluster event SNMP administration commands on any cluster nodes. Usually, you only need to enable it on one of the cluster nodes or a subset of the cluster nodes because all cluster nodes get the same cluster events. When it is enabled, it is responsible for two basic tasks. • Logs up to 100 most recent NOTICE or higher severity events to the MIB. • Sends SNMP traps to the hosts that are configured to receive the above events. The changes in the Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.2 release are1) Introduction of the NOTICE severity for the cluster configuration and status change events.The NOTICE severity is introduced for the cluster event in the 4.2 release. It is the severity between the INFO and WARNING severity. Now all severities for the cluster events are (from low to high) • INFO (not exposed to the SNMP interface) • NOTICE (newly introduced in the 4.2 release) • WARNING • ERROR • CRITICAL • FATAL In the 4.2 release, the cluster event system is enhanced to make sure at least one event with the NOTICE or a higher severity will be generated when there is a configuration or status change from a cluster component instance. In other words, the cluster events from a cluster with the NOTICE or higher severities will cover all status and configuration changes in the cluster (include all component instances). The cluster component instance here refers to an instance of the following cluster componentsnode, quorum, resource group, resource, network interface, device group, disk, zone cluster and geo cluster heartbeat. For example, pnode1 is an instance of the cluster node component, and oracleRG is an instance of the cluster resource group. With the introduction of the NOTICE severity event, when the cluster event SNMP interface is enabled, the consumers of the SNMP interface will get notification for all status and configuration changes in the cluster. A thrid-party system management platform with the cluster SNMP interface integration can generate alarms and clear alarms programmatically, because it can get notifications for the status change from ONLINE to OFFLINE and also from OFFLINE to ONLINE. 2) Customization for the cluster event SNMP interface • The number of events logged to the MIB is 100. When the number of events stored in the MIB reaches 100 and a new qualified event arrives, the oldest event will be removed before storing the new event to the MIB (FIFO, first in, first out). The 100 is the default and minimum value for the number of events stored in the MIB. It can be changed by setting the log_number property value using the clsnmpmib command. The maximum number that can be set for the property is 500. • The cluster event SNMP interface takes effect on the NOTICE or high severity events. The NOTICE severity is also the default and lowest event severity for the SNMP interface. The SNMP interface can be configured to take effect on other higher severity events, such as WARNING or higher severity events by setting the min_severity property to the WARNING. When the min_severity property is set to the WARNING, the cluster event SNMP interface would behave the same as the previous releases (prior to the 4.2 release). Examples, • Set the number of events stored in the MIB to 200 # clsnmpmib set -p log_number=200 event • Set the interface to take effect on WARNING or higher severity events. # clsnmpmib set -p min_severity=WARNING event Administering the Cluster Event SNMP Interface Oracle Solaris Cluster provides the following three commands to administer the SNMP interface. • clsnmpmib: administer the SNMP interface, and the MIB configuration. • clsnmphost: administer hosts for the SNMP traps • clsnmpuser: administer SNMP users (specific for SNMP v3 protocol) Only clsnmpmib is changed in the 4.2 release to support the aforementioned customization of the SNMP interface. Here are some simple examples using the commands. Examples: 1. Enable the cluster event SNMP interface on the local node # clsnmpmib enable event 2. Display the status of the cluster event SNMP interface on the local node # clsnmpmib show -v 3. Configure my_host to receive the cluster event SNMP traps. # clsnmphost add my_host Cluster Event SNMP Interface uses the common agent container SNMP adaptor, which is based on the JDMK SNMP implementation as its SNMP agent infrastructure. By default, the port number for the SNMP MIB is 11161, and the port number for the SNMP traps is 11162. The port numbers can be changed by using the cacaoadm. For example, # cacaoadm list-params Print all changeable parameters. The output includes the snmp-adaptor-port and snmp-adaptor-trap-port properties. # cacaoadm set-param snmp-adaptor-port=1161 Set the SNMP MIB port number to 1161. # cacaoadm set-param snmp-adaptor-trap-port=1162 Set the SNMP trap port number to 1162. The cluster event SNMP MIB is defined in sun-cluster-event-mib.mib, which is located in the /usr/cluster/lib/mibdirectory. Its OID is 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.80, that can be used to walk through the MIB data. Again, for more detail information about the cluster event SNMP interface, please see the Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.2 System Administration Guide. - Leland Chen 

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• EPM troubleshooting Utilities

  - by THE

  (in via Maurice) "Are you keeping up-to-date with the latest troubleshooting utilities introduced from EPM 11.1.2.2? These are typically not described in product documentation, so you might miss references to them. The following five utilities may be run from the command line.(1) Deployment Report was introduced with EPM 11.1.2.2 (11 April 2012). It details logical web addresses, web servers, application ports, database connections, user directories, database repositories configured for the EPM system, data directories used by EPM system products, instance directories, FMW homes, deployment distory, et cetera. It also helps to keep you honest about whether you made changes to the system and at what times! Download Shared Services patch 13530721 to get the backported functionality in EPM 11.1.2.1. Run it from /Oracle/Middleware/user_projects/epmsystem1/bin/epmsys_registry.sh report deployment (on Unix/Linux)\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\bin\epmsys_registry.bat report deployment (on Microsoft Windows). The output is saved under \Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\diagnostics\reports\deployment_report.html (2) Log Analysis has received more "press". It was released with EPM 11.1.2.3 and helps the user to slice and dice EPM logs. It has many parameters which are documented when run without parameters, when run with the -h parameter, or in the 'Readme' file. It has also been released as a standalone utility for EPM 11.1.2.3 and earlier versions. (Sign in to  My Oracle Support, click the 'Patches & Updates' tab, enter the patch number 17425397, and click the Search button. Download the appropriate platform-specific zip file, unzip, and read the 'Readme' file. Note that you must provide a proper value to a JAVA_HOME environment variable [pointer to the mother directory of the Java /bin subdirectory] in the loganalysis.bat | .sh file and use the -d parameter when running standalone.) Run it from /Oracle/Middleware/user_projects/epmsystem1/bin/loganalysis.sh -h (on Unix/Linux)\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\bin\loganalysis.bat -h (on Microsoft Windows). The output is saved under the \Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\diagnostics\reports\ subdirectory. (3) The Registry Cleanup command may be used (without fear!) to clean up various corruptions which can  affect the Hyperion (database-based) Repository. Run it from /Oracle/Middleware/user_projects/epmsystem1/bin/registry-cleanup.sh (on Unix/Linux)\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\bin\registry-cleanup.bat (on Microsoft Windows). The actions are described on the command line. (4) The Remove Instance Command is only used if there are two or more instances configured on one computer and one of those should be deleted. Run it from /Oracle/Middleware/user_projects/epmsystem1/bin/remove-instance.sh (on Unix/Linux)\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\bin\remove-instance.bat (on Microsoft Windows). (5) The Reset Configuration Tool was introduced with EPM 11.1.2.2. It nullifies Shared Services Hyperion Registry settings so that a service may be reconfigured. You may locate the values to substitute for <product> or <task> by scanning registry.html (generated by running epmsys_registry.bat | .sh). Find productNAME in INSTANCE_TASKS_CONFIGURATION and SYSTEM_TASKS_CONFIGURATION nodes and identify tasks by property pairs that have values of 'Configurated' or 'Pending'. Run it from /Oracle/Middleware/user_projects/epmsystem1/bin/resetConfigTask.sh -product <product> -task <task> (on Unix/Linux)\Oracle\Middleware\user_projects\epmsystem1\bin\resetConfigTask.bat -product <product> -task <task> (on Microsoft Windows). "Thanks to Maurice for this collection of utilities.

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• Friday Tips #33

  - by Chris Kawalek

  Happy Friday, everyone! Our tip this week is from an excellent white paper written by our own Greg King titled Oracle VM 3: Building a Demo Environment using Oracle VM VirtualBox. In it, Greg gives you everything you need to know to set up Oracle VM Server inside of Oracle VM VirtualBox for testing and demoing. The section we're highlighting below is on how to configure the network interfaces of your virtual machines: VirtualBox comes with a few different types of network interfaces that can be used to allow communication between the VM guests and the host operating system, including network interfaces that will allow the VM guests to communicate with local and wide area networks accessed from your laptop or personal computer. However, for the purpose of the demonstration environment we will limit the network communication to include access just between your desktop and the virtual machines being managed by VirtualBox. The install process for Oracle VM VirtualBox creates a single host-only network device on your laptop or personal computer. Using the host-only network device will allow you to open a browser on your desktop to access the Oracle VM Manager running within the VirtualBox VM guest. The device will only allow network traffic between the VM guests and your host operating system, but nothing outside the confines of your laptop or personal computer. We will need to add a second host-only network since the Oracle VM Server appliance has both eth0 and eth1 configured. You can choose to use eth1 on the Oracle VM Servers or not use them – the choice is yours. But, at least the host side network device will exist if you decide to use it. Greg goes on to describe in detail how to setup the network interfaces, so you can head on over to the paper and get even more info. See you next week! -Chris 

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• Additional new material WebLogic Community

  - by JuergenKress

  Update: Commercially Supported GlassFish VersionsAquarium blogger David Delabassee shares background information and links to where you can download the recently released GlassFish Server Bundle Patch 3.1.2.8. Read the article. Announcing WebLogic on Oracle Database Appliance 2.7Oracle WebLogic Server on Oracle Database Appliance 2.7 offers a complete solution for building and deploying enterprise Java EE applications in a fully integrated system of software, servers, storage, and networking that delivers highly available database and WebLogic services. Learn more. APAC Partner iDay: What's New in Oracle WebLogic, 8-Apr 12 noon SG/2pm AEDT/9:30 IST - Invite your Partners - Register Virtual Developer Conference:  Creating a Foundation for Cloud Applications using Oracle WebLogic and Oracle Coherence - OnDemand Webcast: WebLogic Configuration using Chef and Puppet - On-Demand Podcast Series: Part 3 - Oracle WebLogic Server and Oracle Database Integration - Podcast Coherence*Web: Sharing an httpSession Among Applications in Different Oracle WebLogic Clusters SOA solution architect Jordi Villena shows how easy it is to extend Coherence*Web to enable session sharing. Read the article. Multi-Factor Authentication in Oracle WebLogic Using multi-factor authentication to protect web applications deployed on Oracle WebLogic. Read the article. Video: Coherence Community on Java.net - 4 Projects available under CDDL-1.0 Brian Oliver (Senior Principal Solutions Architect, Oracle Coherence) and Randy Stafford (Architect At-Large, Oracle Coherence Product Development) discuss the evolution of the Oracle Coherence Community on Java.net and how you can actively participate in open source Coherence Community projects. Watch the video. Working with Oracle Security Token Service in an Architecture Involving Oracle WebLogic Server and Oracle Service Bus Oracle Fusion Middleware specialist Ronaldo Fernandes takes you step by step through the process of creating a single sign-on between Oracle WebLogic and Oracle Service Bus using Oracle Security Token Service (OSTS) to generate SAML tokens. Read the article. WebLogic Partner Community For regular information become a member in the WebLogic Partner Community please visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/wls-emea ( OPN account required). If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Wiki Technorati Tags: WebLogic,WebLogic Community,Oracle,OPN,Jürgen Kress,

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• Oracle MDM Maturity Model

  - by David Butler

  A few weeks ago, I discussed the results of a survey conducted by Oracle’s Insight team. The survey was based on the data management maturity model that the Oracle Insight team has developed over the years as they analyzed customer IT organizations to help them get more out of everything they already have. I thought you might like to learn more about the maturity model itself. It can help you figure out where you stand when it comes to getting your organizations data management act together. The model covers maturity levels around five key areas: Profiling data sources; Defining a data strategy; Defining a data consolidation plan; Data maintenance; and Data utilization. Profile data sources: Profiling data sources involves taking an inventory of all data sources from across your IT landscape. Then evaluate the quality of the data in each source system. This enables the scoping of what data to collect into an MDM hub and what rules are needed to insure data harmonization across systems. Define data strategy: A data strategy requires an understanding of the data usage. Given data usage, various data governance requirements need to be developed. This includes data controls and security rules as well as data structure and usage policies. Define data consolidation strategy: Consolidation requires defining your operational data model. How integration is to be accomplished. Cross referencing common data attributes from multiple systems is needed. Synchronization policies also need to be developed. Data maintenance: The desired standardization needs to be defined, including what constitutes a ‘match’ once the data has been standardized. Cleansing rules are a part of this methodology. Data quality monitoring requirements also need to be defined. Utilize the data: What data gets published, and who consumes the data must be determined. How to get the right data to the right place in the right format given its intended use must be understood. Validating the data and insuring security rules are in place and enforced are crucial aspects for full no-risk data utilization. For each of the above data management areas, a maturity level needs to be assessed. Where your organization wants to be should also be identified using the same maturity levels. This results in a sound gap analysis your organization can use to create action plans to achieve the ultimate goals. Marginal is the lowest level. It is characterized by manually maintaining trusted sources; lacking or inconsistent, silo’d structures with limited integration, and gaps in automation. Stable is the next leg up the MDM maturity staircase. It is characterized by tactical MDM implementations that are limited in scope and target a specific division.  It includes limited data stewardship capabilities as well. Best Practice is a serious MDM maturity level characterized by process automation improvements. The scope is enterprise wide. It is a business solution that provides a single version of the truth, with closed-loop data quality capabilities. It is typically driven by an enterprise architecture group with both business and IT representation.   Transformational is the highest MDM maturity level. At this level, MDM is quantitatively managed. It is integrated with Business Intelligence, SOA, and BPM. MDM is leveraged in business process orchestration. Take an inventory using this MDM Maturity Model and see where you are in your journey to full MDM maturity with all the business benefits that accrue to organizations who have mastered their data for the benefit of all operational applications, business processes, and analytical systems. To learn more, Trevor Naidoo and I have written the Oracle MDM Maturity Model whitepaper. It’s free, so go ahead and download it and use it as you see fit.

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• Can you point me to a nontrivial strategy pattern implementation?

  - by Eugen Martynov

  We are faced implementing a registration workflow with many branches. There are three main flows which in some conditions lead to one another. Each flow has at least four different steps; some steps interact with the server, and every step adds more information to the state. Also the requirement is to have it persistent between sessions, so if the user closes the app (this is a mobile app), it will restore the process from the last completed step with the state from the previous session. I think this could benefit from the use of the strategy pattern, but I've never had to implement it for such a complex case. Does anyone know of any examples in open source or articles from which I could find inspiration? Preferably the examples would be from a live/working/stable application. I'm interested in Java implementation mostly; we are developing for Java mobile phones: android, blackberry and J2ME. We have an SDK which is quite well separated from platform specific implementations, but examples in C++, C#, Objective-C or Python would be acceptable.

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• Best Practices around Oracle VM with RAC: RAC SIG webcast - Thursday, March 18th -

  - by adam.hawley

  The RAC SIG will be hosting an interesting webcast this Thursday, March 18th at 9am pacific time (5pm GMT) on: Best Practices around Oracle VM with RAC The adaptation of virtualization technology has risen tremendously and continues to grow due to the rapid change and growth rate of IT infrastructures. With this in mind, this seminar focuses on configuration best practices, examining how Oracle RAC scales & performs in a virtualized environment, and evaluating Oracle VM Server's ease of use. Roger Lopez from Dell IT will be presenting. This Week's Webcast Connection Info: ==================================== Webcast URL (use Internet Explorer): https://ouweb.webex.com/ouweb/k2/j.php?ED=134103137&UID=1106345812&RT=MiM0 Voice can either be heard via the webconference or via the following dial in: Participant Dial-In 877-671-0452 International Dial-In 706-634-9644 International Dial-In No Link http://www.intercall.com/national/oracleuniversity/gdnam.html Intercall Password 86336

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• What’s Your Tax Strategy? Automate the Tax Transfer Pricing Process!

  - by tobyehatch

  Does your business operate in multiple countries? Well, whether you like it or not, many local and international tax authorities inspect your tax strategy.  Legal, effective tax planning is perceived as a “moral” issue. CEOs are being asked to testify on their process of tax transfer pricing between multinational legal entities.  Marc Seewald, Senior Director of Product Management for EPM Applications specializing in all tax subjects and Product Manager for Oracle Hyperion Tax Provisioning, and Bart Stoehr, Senior Director of Product Strategy for Oracle Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management joined me for a discussion/podcast on this interesting subject.  So what exactly is “tax transfer pricing”? Marc defined it this way. “Tax transfer pricing is a profit allocation methodology required to be used by multinational corporations. Specifically, the ultimate goal of the transfer pricing is to ensure that the global multinational pays their fair share of income tax in each of their local markets. Specifically, it prevents companies from unfairly moving profit from ‘high tax’ countries to ‘low tax’ countries.” According to Marc, in today’s global economy, profitability can be significantly impacted by goods and services exchanged between the related divisions within a single multinational company.  To ensure that these cost allocations are done fairly, there are rules that govern the process. These rules ensure that intercompany allocations fairly represent the actual nature of the businesses activity- as if two divisions were unrelated - and provide a clear audit trail of how the costs have been allocated to prove that allocations fall within reasonable ranges.  What are the repercussions of improper tax transfer pricing? How important is it? Tax transfer pricing allocations can materially impact the amount of overall corporate income taxes paid by a company worldwide, in some cases by hundreds of millions of dollars!  Since so much tax revenue is at stake, revenue agencies like the IRS, and international regulatory bodies like the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) are pushing to reform and clarify reporting for tax transfer pricing. Most recently the OECD announced an “Action Plan for Base Erosion and Profit Shifting”. As Marc explained, the times are changing and companies need to be responsive to this issue. “It feels like every other week there is another company being accused of avoiding taxes,” said Marc. Most recently, Caterpillar was accused of avoiding billions of dollars in taxes. In the last couple of years, Apple, GE, Ikea, and Starbucks, have all been accused of tax avoidance. It’s imperative that companies like these have a clear and auditable tax transfer process that enables them to justify tax transfer pricing allocations and avoid steep penalties and bad publicity. Transparency and efficiency are what is needed when it comes to the tax transfer pricing process. Bart explained that tax transfer pricing is driving a deeper inspection of profit recognition specifically focused on the tax element of profit.  However, allocations needed to support tax profitability are nearly identical in process to allocations taking place in other parts of the finance organization. For example, the methods and processes necessary to arrive at tax profitability by legal entity are no different than those used to arrive at fully loaded profitability for a product line. In fact, there is a great opportunity for alignment across these two different functions.So it seems that tax transfer pricing should be reflected in profitability in general. Bart agreed and told us more about some of the critical sub-processes of an overall tax transfer pricing process within the Oracle solution for tax transfer pricing.  “First, there is a ton of data preparation, enrichment and pre-allocation data analysis that is managed in the Oracle Hyperion solution. This serves as the “data staging” to the next, critical sub-processes.  From here, we leverage the Oracle EPM platform’s ability to re-use dimensions and legal entity driver data and financial data with Oracle Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management (HPCM).  Within HPCM, we manage the driver data, define the legal entity to legal entity allocation rules (like cost plus), and have the option to test out multiple, simultaneous tax transfer pricing what-if scenarios.  Once processed, a tax expert can evaluate the effectiveness of any one scenario result versus another via a variance analysis configured with HPCM’s pre-packaged reporting capability known as Oracle Hyperion SmartView for Office.”   Further, Bart explained that the ability to visibly demonstrate how a cost or revenue has been allocated is really helpful and auditable.  “HPCM’s Traceability Maps are that visual representation of all allocation flows that have been executed and is the tax transfer analyst’s best friend in maintaining clear documentation for tax transfer pricing audits. Simply click and drill as you inspect the chain of allocation definitions and results. Once final, the post-allocated tax data can be compared to the GL to create invoices and journal entries for posting to your GL system of choice.  Of course, there is a framework for overall governance of the journal entries, allocation percentages, and reporting to include necessary approvals.” Lastly, Marc explained that the key value in using the Oracle Hyperion solution for tax transfer pricing is that it keeps everything in alignment in one single place. Specifically, Oracle Hyperion effectively becomes the single book of record for the GAAP, management, and the tax set of books. There are many benefits to having one source of the truth. These include EFFICIENCY, CONTROLS and TRANSPARENCY.So, what’s your tax strategy? Why not automate the tax transfer pricing process!To listen to the entire podcast, click here.To learn more about Oracle Hyperion Profitability and Cost Management (HPCM), click here.

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• Upgrading to Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Release 2: Top Tips One Must Know

  - by AnkurGupta

  Recently Oracle announced incremental release of Enterprise Manager 12c called Enterprise Manager 12c Release 2 (EM12c R2) which includes several new exciting features (Press announcement). Right before the official release, we upgraded an internal production site from EM 12c R1 to EM 12c R2 and had an extremely pleasant experience. Let me share few key takeaways as well as few tips from this upgrade exercise. I - Why Should You Upgrade To Enterprise Manager 12c Release 2 While an upgrade is usually recommended primarily to take benefit of the latest features (which is valid for this upgrade as well), I found several other compelling reasons purely from deployment perspective. Standardize your EM deployment:  Enterprise Manager comprises of several different components (OMS, agents, plug-ins, etc) and it might be possible that these are at varied patch levels in your environment. For instance, in case of an environment containing Bundle Patch 1 (customer announcement), there is a good chance that you may not have all the components up-to-date. There are two possible reasons. Bundle Patch 1 involved patching different components (OMS, agents, plug-ins) with multiple one-off patches which may not have been applied to all components yet. Bundle Patch 1 for different platforms were not released together. Which means you may not have got the chance to patch all the components on different platforms. Note: BP1 patches are not mandatory to upgrade to EM12c R2 release EM 12c R2 provides an excellent opportunity to standardize your Cloud Control environment (OMS, repository and agents) and plug-ins to latest versions in single shot. All platform releases are made available simultaneously: For the very first time in the history of EM release, all the platforms were released on day one itself, which means you do not need to wait for platform specific binaries for EM OMS or Agent to perform install or upgrades in a heterogeneous environment. Highly refined and automated process – Upgrade process is by far the smoothest and the cleanest as compared to previous releases of Enterprise manager. Following are the ones that stand out. Automatic Plug-in management – Plug-in upgrade along with new plug-in deployment is supported in upgrade installer wizard which means bulk of the updates to OMS and repository can be done in the same workflow. Saves time and minimizes user inputs. Plug-in Upgrade or Migrate Auto Update: While doing the OMS and repository upgrade, you can use Auto Update screen in Oracle Universal Installer to check for any updates/patches. That will help you to avoid the know issues and will make sure that your upgrade is successful. Allows mass upgrade of EM Agents – A new dedicated menu has been added in the EM console for agent upgrade. Agent upgrade workflow is extremely simple that requires agent name as the only input. ADM / JVMD Manager/Agent upgrade – complete process is supported via UI screens. EM12c R2 Upgrade Guide is much simpler to follow as compared to those for earlier releases. This is attributed to the simpler upgrade process. Robust and Performing Platform: EM12c R2 release not only includes several new features, but also provides a more stable platform which incorporates several fixes and enhancements in the Enterprise Manager framework. II - Few Tips To Remember In my last post (blog link) I shared few tips and tricks from my experience applying the Bundle Patch. Recently I upgraded the same site to EM 12c R2 and found few points that you must take note of, while planning this upgrade. The tips below are also applicable to EM 12c R1 environments that do not have Bundle Patch 1 patches applied. Verify the monitored application certification – Specific targets like E-Business Suite have not yet been certified as managed target in EM 12c R2. Therefore make sure to recheck the Enterprise Manager certification Matrix on My Oracle Support before planning the upgrade. Plan downtime – Because EM 12c R2 is an incremental release of EM 12c, for EM 12c R1 to EM 12c R2 upgrade supports only 1-system upgrade approach, which mean there will be downtime. OMS name change after upgrade – In case of multi OMS environments, additional OMS is renamed after upgrade, which has few implications when you upgrade JVMD and ADP agents on OMS. This is well documented in upgrade guide but make sure you read through all the notes. Upgrading BI Publisher– EM12c R2 is certified with BI Publisher 11.1.1.6.0 only. Therefore in case you are using EM 12c R1 which is integrated with BI Publisher 11.1.1.5.0, you must upgrade the BI Publisher to 11.1.1.6.0. Follow the steps from Advanced Installation and Configuration Guide here. Perform Post upgrade Tasks – Make sure to perform post upgrade steps mentioned in documentation here. These include critical changes that must be done right after upgrade to get the right configuration. For instance Database plug-in should be upgraded to Revision 3 (12.1.0.2.0 [u120804]). Delete old OMS Home – EM12c R1 to EM12c R2 is an out of place upgrade, which means it creates a new oracle home for OMS, plug-ins, etc. Therefore please ensure that You have sufficient extra space for new OMS before starting the upgrade process. You clean up the old OMS home after the upgrade process. Steps are available here. DO NOT remove the agent home on OMS host, because agent is upgraded in-place. If you have standby OMS setup then do look into the steps to upgrade the standby OMS from the upgrade guide before going ahead. Read the right documentation – Make sure to follow the Upgrade guide which provides the most comprehensive information on EM12c R2 upgrade process. Additionally you can refer other resources to get familiar with upgrade concepts. Recorded webcast - Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Release 2 Installation and Upgrade Overview Presentation - Understanding Enterprise Manager 12.1.0.2 Upgrade We are very excited about this latest release and will look forward to hear back any feedback from your upgrade experience!

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