S EPTEMBER/OCT OBER 2 0 0 9 ORACLE.

COM/ORAC LEMAGAZ I NE

ORACLE SOA SUITE /25 ORACLE WEBLOGIC SUITE /36

ORACLE BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE /41 ORACLE CONTENT MANAGEMENT /41
ORACLE IDENTITY MANAGEMENT /50 ORACLE WEBCENTER SUITE /71

ORACLE APPLICATION INTEGRATION ARCHITECTURE /42

ORACLE ADVANCED SECURITY /48
ORACLE APPLICATION EXPRESS ON AMAZON EC2 /69
ORACLE RECOVERY MANAGER /75
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 contents volu m e XXi i i , i ssue 5

FeatUr es

Oracle FusiOn Middleware 11g

The Foundation for innovation
Standards-based middleware technology enables application integration,
and Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g is based on the principles and standards
of SOA, grid computing, and Enterprise 2.0. Learn how organizations are
realizing the benefits of complete, integrated, hot-pluggable, and best-of- PreView
breed Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g. —David Baum
/36
Make plans to be in
San Francisco October 11
Cover design by Z. through 15 for Oracle
OpenWorld.
/17
inFOrMaTiOn secured.
idenTiTy cOnFirMed. inTegraTing
Compromised information—whether inFOrMaTiOn
by a company’s own employees Moving huge amounts of
or outside attack—has both legal application data has become
and financial consequences for an everyday necessity—and
organizations. See how Oracle’s headache—for many companies. From ensuring
database security and identity its quality to synchronizing its currency across
management solutions protect data multiple systems, integrating information is
and control who has access to it. crucial. Find out how Oracle Data Integrator can
—David A. Kelly
/48 deliver greater agility, leverage existing assets,
and connect data across disparate datasources.
—David A. Kelly
/54
de par t m e n ts

15
From Our Readers / 10
Readers tell us what they think.
at or ac Le
From the Editor / 12
Events / 15 News / 25
It’s Called Middleware
Find out about upcoming Oracle unveils Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g,
—Tom Haunert
technology and industry events. a modern middleware platform that delivers
Resources / 19 capabilities for next-generation business challenges.
Your guide to Oracle Webcasts, Interview / 26
podcasts, blogs, education Marie-Anne Neimat, vice president of development
offerings, and more at Oracle, talks about Oracle TimesTen In-Memory
Briefs / 22 Database 11g and Oracle In-Memory Database
Cache 11g.

oracle magazine september/october 20 09 5

contents

28 c ommu ni ty
Partner News / 28
Infosys Technologies, Wipro, the Hackett Group,
HighJump Software, Fishbowl Solutions,
Project Partners, eVerge Group, FulcrumWay,
ISC, SYSTIME
Book Beat / 28
OTN Bulletin / 30
75 tec hnology
r ec ov ery
Learn what’s happening with Oracle’s most
Scripting Oracle RMAN Commands / 75
dynamic online community.
Learn how to create and automate scripts to execute
Architect / 31
common recovery tasks. —Arup Nanda
It takes an architect community to raise a
collection of SOA design patterns.
As k tom
Up Close / 32 On DBMS_ROWID, Parsing, and Sizing / 79
Michelle Malcher, IOUG director of Our technologist identifies rows, analyzes ratios, and
membership, finds answers and adventure in fills space. —Tom Kyte
the Oracle technology stack.
Peer-to-Peer / 33
Karen Brownfield,
Eric Helmer, Dimitri Gielis

83 c omment

59 d ev el o per
f r A mewo rks
All s ec ur e
Keeping Current with Standards / 83
Oracle expertise in secure development practice
At the Breaking Point / 59 is certified. —Mary Ann Davidson
Debug more effectively with Oracle Application
Development Framework. —Steve Muench AnAly s t’ s c or ner
Portals Unbound / 84
o d p. net Portals enable an evolving web of social
Put Your Arrays in a Bind / 63 interactions to boost productivity. —David Baum
Use array binding to reduce network round-trips and
increase performance. —Mark Williams

p l / s Q l prA cti ces

On Looping, First, and Last / 67
Choose the best approach to prevent a VALUE_ERROR
exception. —Steven Feuerstein

b r o wser-b A sed
Building Applications in the Cloud / 69
Combine Oracle Application Express and Amazon EC2.
—David Peake

p o r tA l s
Turn Applications into Portlets / 71
Use Oracle WebCenter to integrate applications and task
flows with other applications. —Vanessa Wang

6 september/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
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 ed itor ia l
editor in chief tom Haunert [email protected]
Senior managing editor caroline Kvitka [email protected]
Features editor Kay Keppler [email protected]
contributing editor and Writer blair campbell
editor in chief, otn Justin Kestelyn [email protected]
technology advisor tom Kyte
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d eS ign
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8 september/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
 s p e c i a l s u p p l em e n t

Fast Tracking
Oracle Systems Improvements
Sophisticated tools let users boost Oracle performance with greater speed and less risk.

Oracle applications play a critical role in helping companies run efficiently and effectively. But business does not hold still, and
as an enterprise evolves, its IT operations need to be improved and optimized to keep pace.
In order to do this efficiently, companies have to determine where to focus their efforts and how to proceed quickly and
cost-effectively. With sophisticated enterprise technology and a fast-moving business environment, making improvement plans
and decisions can be a difficult and critical challenge.
Genpact, the global services and technology provider, offers end-to-end solutions designed to help companies meet these
challenges and get the most out of their Oracle technology. Two Genpact solutions in particular focus on the streamlining of
planning and implementing improvements and optimizations: ERP Health Index (EHI) and GenLeanSM.
ERP Health Index (EHI)
EHI is a comprehensive benchmarking tool that assesses processes, enterprise application design
and technology infrastructure components. In short, EHI tells you where you are, where you Learn more about
need to go, and how to get there. EHI uses benchmarks developed through Genpact’s work on
hundreds of ERP engagements around the world. With some 500 parameters and scripts, it
Genpact’s
provides decision makers with insights on: offerings for
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■ how well their enterprise systems are performing compared to

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■ where operations are “leaking” dollars visit
■ where to invest in high-impact improvements
genpact.com/oracle
EHI provides a roadmap of process reengineering, application re-configuration/
or
rationalization and technology-stack optimization efforts. This roadmap prioritizes
initiatives, defining both “quick hit” improvements and longer-term transformational oraclewhitepapers.com /
projects that let companies move towards achieving best-in-class performance. For a $5 listc/genpact
billion manufacturing company, EHI was used to benchmark and identify opportunities,
which resulted in process efficiency improvements of 35% for the Order to Cash process.
GenLeanSM
The GenLeanSM solution provides accelerators designed to increase the speed of complex Oracle upgrades,
especially in highly customized environments. It enables companies to:
■ analyze the current state of applications in light of the functionality available in the target version

■ identify wasteful processes and customizations

■ create accurate estimates and highly predictable upgrade plans

During actual upgrades, GenLeanSM automates a number of tasks, including the rationalization of customizations. A key
element in the solution is a repository of processes and reusable assets that greatly reduces risk and accelerates and simplifies
the management of various technical and functional dependencies. Companies using GenLeanSM have typically seen a 25%
to 30% reduction in upgrade time, which translates directly into reduced cost and risk.

The Lean Heritage

EHI and GenLeanSM target different challenges, but they both draw on Genpact’s heritage with Lean Six Sigma methodologies.
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With that foundation, Genpact maintains a clear focus on business results, taking an approach that looks at the process first,
and then at how technology can enable the right process. Genpact combines process and IT expertise, along with Lean Six
Sigma skills, to help Oracle users focus on improvements that matter to the business—and on making those improvements
quickly and cost-effectively.

Copyright © Genpact 2009. All rights reserved. Other names may be trademarks of their perspective corporations.
 f r o m o u r READERS

Your corrections, your opinions, and your requests:

Here’s your forum for telling us what’s right and
wrong in each issue of Oracle Magazine, and for
letting us know what you want to read.

Now we’re CookiNg Tom Kyte replies: First, thanks! Second, you are correct. The
Oracle has released a version of Oracle Database 10g for the following sentence
Mac OS X platform—finally. This is great news. As a 20-year
user of SunOS when I was working, I can now enjoy Oracle . . . Now, in Oracle Database 10g and before, P1
tools on my iMac in my retirement years. would be invalid, but because we were using Oracle
Great job to all those involved in the development and in Database 11g and we did not change the signature
providing a cookbook-style install. of the procedure, we did not invalidate the dependent
code. . . .
Michael Morin
[email protected] should read

The editors reply: For more information about Oracle Database on . . . Now, in Oracle Database 10g and before, P2
the Mac, visit the Oracle-on-Mac OS X Technology Center at would be invalid, but because we were using Oracle
otn.oracle.com/tech/macos. Database 11g and we did not change the signature
There you’ll be able to find the Oracle Database 10g Release of the procedure, we did not invalidate the dependent
2 (10.2.0.4.0) download and documentation, as well as product code. . . .
reviews, install guides, and blogs.
As to your second question about the reference to Oracle
More Pages for CodiNg Database 10g, that was intentional. It was Oracle Database 10g
I really like Oracle Magazine. I am a high school student in that added the “check to see if we need to recompile first” logic. I
Indonesia, and I can never wait until the next issue comes out. I could definitely have made that more clear—sorry about that.
would love to see you provide special pages in the magazine—
or on your Web site—to demonstrate connecting Oracle tech- The editors add: The correction is online at otn.oracle.com/
nology with Visual Basic, .NET, C, PHP, and other languages. oramag/oracle/09-jul/o49asktom.html.

Sinclair Pahlevi More To The PoiNT

[email protected] “Restore to the Point” by Arup Nanda (Oracle Magazine,
November/December 2006, otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/06-
Two Ps iN a Pod nov/o66recovery.html) is a great article. I’ve used it to imple-
Two questions came to mind in reading Tom Kyte’s latest ment flashback and restore points on our test databases.
column, “On Popularity and Natural Selection” (Oracle I’d be interested to see details on what happens to the
Magazine, July/August 2009, otn.oracle.com/oramag/ files used for the restore points after a restore point has been
oracle/09-jul/o49asktom.html). dropped. Perhaps that’s in the next article.
First, in the statement “P1 would be invalid . . . ,” don’t you
mean P2? P1 has just been recompiled. P2 is dependent on P1. Tim Chidlow
Second, in the statement “Oracle Database 10g added . . . ,” [email protected]
do you mean Oracle Database 11g? The context of this discus-
sion is the new compilation enhancements introduced in Oracle
Database 11g. send mail to the EDITOR
I hope I’m not mistaken in these assumptions. Send your opinions about what you read in Oracle Magazine, and suggestions
for possible technical articles, to [email protected]. Or click the Write the
Editors link on our Web site, oracle.com/oraclemagazine.
Ted Persky
Letters may be edited for length and clarity and may be published in any
[email protected] medium. We consider any communications we receive publishable.

10 september/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
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 f r o m t h e editor

It’s Called Middleware

Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g is platforms, foundation, and more.
hen covering the area of middleware technology, some Call it wHat it is
publications used to qualify that category as “so-called Rather than grinding conversation and development to a
middleware.” The “so-called” modifier seemed to question halt, modern middleware is starting new dialogues and spur-
the logic of naming software based on its location relative ring new development. Middleware is still about integration,
to other software, or perhaps it merely suggested that the but that integration has gone far beyond the idea of custom-
reader’s own description of middleware might vary, as its def- built pieces of “middle software” as point-to-point plumbing
inition was constantly evolving. Middleware may have been between old and new components. Middleware has evolved
difficult to explain a few years ago, but today there’s good from one-off connectors for integrating mainframe technol-
news and greater clarity about its current state and its place ogy with client/server applications to collections of tools and
in information technology. suites for integrating all manner of datasources and applica-
tions. What is called middleware today is a modern technol-
Middleware Past ogy foundation that supports new application functionality
Many years back, I first heard the word middleware in status and changes the way companies do business.
meetings where developers provided reports that invari- The standards and components of Oracle Fusion
ably mentioned the same middleware connectors week Middleware 11g make it easy to see what this middleware
after week. These custom, one-off projects were needed to transformation means to today’s business applications.
provide key integrations between a part of the new develop- Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g supports SOA, Web ser-
ment and some older software, and the development of this vices, grid computing, portal, and Enterprise 2.0 standards
plumbing (as the software pieces were sometimes known) and frameworks; and its middleware platforms include
was typically done by a separate internal group or an exter- Oracle SOA Suite 11g, Oracle WebLogic Suite 11g, Oracle
nal third party. The combination of the importance of this WebCenter Suite 11g, Oracle Identity Management 11g,
plumbing and the lack of information on the status of these Oracle development tools, Oracle Content Management 11g,
critical integration points inspired a lot of concern, a little and Oracle business intelligence solutions.
general grumbling, and some plan B workaround ideas for And while Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g is composed
testing and even production. of a diverse set of suites and functionalities, this founda-
It may be partly because of the meeting agendas, but on tion for innovation is complete, integrated, hot-pluggable,
more than one occasion I remember a status meeting ending best-of-breed technology. Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g
with a question about a missing middleware component, is also the foundation for Oracle Application Integration
some heads shaking, and people getting up to leave, as if the Architecture, which includes prebuilt, certified, standards-
mere mention of middleware was like referencing a taboo based integrations for old, new, and future business and
subject at a cocktail party—a room-clearing event. industry-specific applications.
For information on the Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g
release, see “Modern Middleware” (page 25) and “Oracle Fusion
nextStePS Middleware 11g: The Foundation for Innovation” (page 36).

reAd more about answering tHe Call for great events

oracle Fusion Middleware 11g
oracle.com/fusionmiddleware11g There was nothing “so-called” about my experience at the
otn.oracle.com/products/middleware Kaleidoscope conference held by the Oracle Development
oracle Application integration Architecture Tools User Group (ODTUG) in Monterey, California, in June.
www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/application-integration-architecture It was a great event, and I’m looking forward to working with
odtUG several people I met there in the near future. Speaking of
www.odtug.com
the near future, I’m also looking forward to attending Oracle
oracle openWorld San Francisco OpenWorld San Francisco from October 11 through 15.
oracle.com/openworld

doWNLoAd oracle Fusion Middleware 11g

otn.oracle.com/software/products/middleware Tom Haunert, Editor in Chief
[email protected]

12 September/OctOber 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
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 a t O r a c l e EvEnts
Oracle user grOups
UKOUG UNIX SIG Meeting
September 8, Slough, England
www.ukoug.org

Technology Events Dallas Oracle Users Group BI Forum

September 10, Arlington, Texas
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September 16 and October 21,
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oracle magazine september/october 20 09 15

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BrainStorm DC features thought leaders from October 5–7, Orlando, Florida nology issues facing the public and private
the federal government and private sector who Get the latest insight on creating and sustain- sectors. Get details and sign up at www
will share ideas on applying management dis- ing an agile, process-powered organization .nascio.org/events/2009Annual.
ciplines, architectural principles, and enabling at this summit. Beginner, intermediate, and
technologies to deliver transparent, open, advanced tracks are available, along with SDP Asia Summit
and accountable government. Tracks include opportunities to network with more than 500 October 27–28, Singapore
business process management and business attendees. Learn more and register at www This event draws upon both regional and inter-
architecture. Case studies will be presented. .gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=911413. national expertise with practical case studies
Get information and register at www across the entire service delivery platform
.bpminstitute.org/events. Billboard Mobile (SDP) value chain. SDP players will gather and
Entertainment Live! network on how to optimize SDP technology
Vietnam Telecoms Growth October 6, San Diego, California toward profitable business models and appli-
Forum 2009 Cosponsored by CTIA—The Wireless cations. Learn more at europe.sdpsummit
September 23–24, Hanoi, Vietnam Association, this event explores how today’s .com/series_info/sdp_asia.
This inaugural forum, sponsored by Frost & advanced devices and applications have
Sullivan, will bring together stakeholders in the revolutionized the mobile industry and the way Andicom 2009
telecom industry—in particular, those with an artists, managers, and promoters use mobile October 28–30, Cartagena, Colombia
eye on Vietnam—to network and share their technology. Hear directly from music industry The XXIV Congreso de Telecomunicaciones—
experiences and discuss and showcase the innovators, device manufacturers, application better known as Andicom 2009—brings
opportunities and challenges in the emerging, developers, and mobile operators. Details are at together the most-important players in the
high-growth Vietnamese market. Learn more and www.billboardevents.com/billboardevents/ information and communications technology
register at www.frost-telecomvietnam.com. melivefall/2008/index.jsp. sector for three days to analyze and present
the state of the art and trends in the industry.
Oracle Clinical User Group PMI Global Congress 2009— The event includes an academic forum, com-
(OCUG) Conference North America mercial exhibits, a business forum, and round-
October 4–7, New Orleans, Louisiana October 10–13, Orlando, Florida tables. Learn more at www.andicom.org.co.
The OCUG annual meeting will include presen- Hosted by the Project Management Institute
tations on the technical and functional aspects (PMI), this three-day professional development
of Oracle Life Sciences applications. Clinical, event provides an opportunity for thousands eventsLOCAtOR
pharmaceutical, biotech, medical device, clini- of project management professionals across Oracle Events
cal research, and support companies will par- all industries to exchange ideas. Networking oracle.com/events
ticipate. Focus groups and discussions will be opportunities and more than 150 educational Oracle OpenWorld 2009
oracle.com/openworld
held on the implementation and use of Oracle sessions are on the agenda. Get informa-
Getty imaGes

Locate User Groups

Life Sciences applications. Get information at tion and register at congresses.pmi.org/ otn.oracle.com/collaboration/user_groups
www.ocug.org. NorthAmerica2009.

16 September/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
 Oracle OpenWorld, the world’s largest informa- Oracle OpenWorld 2009 Highlights Explore. Oracle OpenWorld Exhibition Halls
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October 11 through 15. Register by October 10 Infrastructure, and Middleware—to help you experts, the Callaway Golf Experience, and the
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 a t O r a c l e resources

What’s New at Oracle

The latest Webcasts, podcasts, courses, and white papers
WEBCASTS AND INTERNET tions are making collaboration technology a cost savings from Oracle Configuration
SEMINARS strategic priority. Management Pack and Oracle Provisioning
ClearView: Grid Computing Introducing Oracle SOA Suite 11g and Patch Automation Pack.
www.youtube.com/watch?v= oracle.com/products/middleware/ Building Your Business Case for Best-Practice
OkO-Depf9TM ofmradio.html IT Services Delivery
This Oracle ClearView video explains the Widespread SOA adoption has fueled oracle.com/goto/TCOOnDemand
“why” and “how” of grid computing in less service enabling of IT systems but has also IT organizations are under pressure to
than two minutes. exposed a new set of challenges in com- drive continuous value from IT invest-
Linux Kernel Development at Oracle, posing next-generation business applica- ments while reducing operational costs.
Parts 1 and 2 tions. Find out how Oracle SOA Suite 11g Find out how to ensure that nothing gets
otn.oracle.com/techcasts tackles these challenges. missed in the business case process for
Oracle Vice President of Linux Engineering IT service delivery.
Wim Coekaerts provides a report from RESOURCE CENTERS “Guide to Advanced Linux command Mastery,
the recent Linux Foundation conference, oracle’s cloud computing center Part 4: Managing the Linux environment”
explains the purpose of Linux kernel devel- otn.oracle.com/tech/cloud otn.oracle.com/pub/articles
opment efforts at Oracle, and offers an Visit this center for the latest information Oracle ACE Director Arup Nanda explains
overview of Oracle VM server virtualization. about cloud computing, including Oracle’s how to manage the Linux environment effec-
Introducing Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g partnership with Amazon Web Services. tively through commonly used commands.
oracle.com/products/middleware/ Find out how to get started, download
ofmradio.html
Rick Schultz, vice president of technology
Amazon Machine Images, and get hands-on
advice with demos and tutorials. oracle Direct
marketing at Oracle, discusses the signifi- For Oracle product information, call the number for
cance of the Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g ARTICLES, WHITE PAPERS, AND your region:
release and its relevance to both IT and REPORTS Country Phone Number
U.S. and Canada .....................................1.800.367.8674
business stakeholders. Oracle VM High Availability: Hands-on Guide
Australia ....................................................1800.735.467
Introducing Oracle Identity Management 11g to Implementing Guest VM HA Austria .......................................................0800.29.7626
Belgium ........................................................0800.73280
oracle.com/products/middleware/ oracle.com/technologies/virtualization/ Brazil .........................................................0800.901.985
ofmradio.html docs/guest-vm-ha-whitepaper.pdf China .........................................................800.810.0161
Denmark.........................................................8088.1068
Amit Jasuja, vice president of development This white paper provides a step-by-step Finland ......................................................0800.113.573
France .......................................................0800.905.805
at Oracle, discusses how Oracle Identity guide and best practices for designing and Germany .................................................0800.1.810.111
Management 11g establishes the foundation implementing the guest virtual machine Greece .................................................00800.353.12020
Hong Kong ......................................................3002.1246
for service-oriented security. high-availability feature in Oracle VM. India ..........................................................1600.44.6725
Enterprise Collaboration—Gold Mine or “creating oracle Database-backed Indonesia ...........................................001.800.1.672.253
Ireland ........................................................1850.672253
Money Pit? iGoogle Gadgets” Italy ..............................................................8008.74720
Japan ........................................................0120.155.096
oracle.com/goto/ciowebcast otn.oracle.com/pub/articles Malaysia ....................................................1800.80.1837
David Gilmour, senior vice president of col- Learn how to build gadgets for iGoogle and Mexico...................................................01800.221.7321
The Netherlands .............................................0800.0827
laboration technologies at Oracle, discusses OpenSocial containers that read data from New Zealand .............................................0508.555.215
how organizations can use Oracle Beehive an Oracle database. Norway ...........................................................800.14411
Philippines ........................................................811.5831
to simultaneously improve productivity The Total Economic Impact of Oracle Portugal .......................................................800.853.021
Singapore ................................................1800.6722.531
and lower IT costs through a simplified Enterprise Manager Configuration
South Africa ...............................................0800.994.225
approach to enterprise collaboration. Management Pack and Provisioning and Patch South Korea ...............................................080.2194.114
Spain ............................................................900.952900
Why Collaboration Is Hot: Getting Ahead of the Automation Pack Sweden ........................................................020.798798
Business Curve in a Disruptive Market oracle.com/goto/config_tei Switzerland................................................0800.55.2574
Taiwan .......................................................0800.672.253
oracle.com/goto/techtargetwebcast An independent multicustomer study con- Thailand ..............................................001800.441.0545
Turkey .................................................00800.353.90014
Forrester Principal Analyst Rob Koplowitz ducted by Forrester Consulting reveals that U.K. .........................................................0870.5.332200
discusses the reasons why many organiza- customers gain significant benefits and

oracle magazine september/october 20 09 19

ResouRces

Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g and

overHeArD Application Grid
oracle.com/products/middleware/
“Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g is about building out and ofmradio.html
delivering to customers an application platform on which Mike Piech, senior director of product
they can develop, run, and manage their custom, packaged, marketing at Oracle, discusses how Oracle
Fusion Middleware 11g enhances the appli-
and composite applications. In order to provide all the differ-
cation grid.
ent components that they need, we take a very broad view of Oracle Transportation Management:
what makes up middleware.” Sustainable Transportation
—Rick Schultz, Vice President of Technology Marketing at Oracle, in the Introducing Oracle Fusion oracle.com/applications/podcasts-
Middleware 11g Webcast (oracle.com/products/middleware/ofmradio.html) sustainability.html
Learn how you can use Oracle
Transportation Management to reduce miles
Comparative Management Costs Study: Oracle Supply Chain Planning enhancements, and greenhouse gas emissions by optimiz-
Database 11g vs. IBM DB2 Enterprise 9.5 including advanced supply chain plan- ing your transportation operations.
oracle.com/goto/na/edison_managed_ ning, advanced planning command center, Oracle Introduces Oracle Retail Data Model to
db.html demand signal repository, service parts Enable Insight-Driven Retail Intelligence
According to a recent Edison Group study, planning, production scheduling, and strate- oracle.com/database/podcasts.html
DBAs can perform day-to-day administra- gic network optimization. Find out how Oracle Retail Data Model helps
tive tasks 40 percent faster with Oracle Release 12.1 oracle Manufacturing retailers accelerate the design and imple-
Database 11g versus IBM DB2 Enterprise New Features mentation of an enterprise data warehouse.
9.5. The study also shows how organizations This course provides an overview of Oracle
can save 43 percent annually in database Manufacturing enhancements, such as the BLOGS
management costs using Oracle over DB2. manufacturing operation center, supply Application Grid Blog
Should Your Email Live in the Cloud? An chain globalization, buy/sell subcontracting, blogs.oracle.com/applicationgrid
Infrastructure and Operations Analysis shop floor management, cost management, This blog covers the concepts, architec-
oracle.com/goto/forrestercloud and quality management. ture, practices, technologies, and products
This Forrester Research report explains how Release 12.1 oracle Human capital related to the application grid.
cloud deployment models can help enter- Management New Features oracle Developer Tools Blog
prises cope with the infrastructure chal- This course provides an overview of blogs.oracle.com/devtools
lenges created by growing e-mail systems. enhancements in Oracle E-Business Suite This blog focuses on middleware-
“An Introduction to Real-Time Data human capital management solutions, related Java developer tools including
Integration” including core human resources (HR), self- Oracle JDeveloper, Oracle Application
otn.oracle.com/pub/articles/rittman- service HR, payroll, time and labor, com- Development Framework, Eclipse, and more.
odi.html pensation and benefits, recruitment, and
Oracle ACE Director Mark Rittman dis- learning management applications.
cusses how Oracle Data Integrator webLocAToR
addresses the data integration needs of PODCASTS oracle Blog center
oracle.com/blogs
heterogeneous environments. Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g: Focus on Spaces
and Social Computing Services oracle consulting
oracle.com/consulting
ORACLE UNIVERSITY oracle.com/products/middleware/
oracle events and Webcasts
oracle e-Business suite Release 12.1: ofmradio.html oracle.com/events
New Features courses Ajay Gandhi, senior director of product
oracle Podcast center
oracle.com/education management at Oracle, discusses how oracle.com/podcasts
Three new Oracle University Live Virtual Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g’s spaces and My oracle support
Classes focus on product features and social computing services increase produc- myoraclesupport.com
enhancements in Oracle E-Business Suite tivity and optimize connections between oracle Newsletters
Release 12. Designed for implementers, people, information, and applications. oracle.com/newsletters

project managers, and end users, these Introduction to Oracle ADF Desktop Integration oracle support
oracle.com/support
two-day courses are an ideal quick intro- oracle.com/products/middleware/
duction to Oracle applications. ofmradio.html oracle university
oracle.com/education
Release 12.1 oracle supply chain Planning Hear about the new integration between
oracle on Twitter
New Features Oracle Application Development Framework www.twitter.com/oracle
This course provides an overview of Oracle and Microsoft Excel.

20 september/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
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OF MODERN
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d i d y O u KNOW
? a t O r a c l e briefs

Snooping on the RiSe Oracle’s enterprise cOllabOratiOn system, Oracle beehive 1.5, nOw available
In a survey of 400 IT administrators in the Oracle Beehive 1.5, the latest release of scheduled and on-demand conferencing.
U.S. and the U.K., 35 percent admitted Oracle’s unified enterprise collaboration Support for popular desktop productiv-
to accessing corporate information such system, features new Web-based team ity tools helps eliminate training costs
as human resources records, layoff lists, collaboration capabilities, enhanced Web and user adoption challenges.
customer databases, and merger and and video conferencing, and expanded “As organizations rely increasingly
acquisition plans without authorization, and integration with desktop productivity on collaboration software to drive both
74 percent said they could circumvent the tools. Web-based collaboration allows communication and business process effi-
controls currently in place to prevent access teams to manage activities and infor- ciency, repackaged groupware and point
to internal information. mation using wikis, calendaring, RSS, solutions are proving to be costly and
contextual search, and advanced file difficult to manage on an enterprise scale.
Source: Cyber-Ark
sharing, and can be centrally provi- With its unified platform, Oracle Beehive
www.cyber-ark.com
sioned or set up by the team with no provides enterprise-ready collaboration
portal requirement. Enhanced Web in a single, easy-to-manage system with a
BuSineSS and it execS See diSaSteR and video conferencing capabilities low total cost of ownership,” says David
RecoveRy diffeRently enable organizations to apply security Gilmour, senior vice president of collabo-
Fewer than half of business executives say and content management policies to ration technologies at Oracle.
that disaster recovery and business continuity
are important to business success, compared
to 74 percent of IT executives, according to Oracle advanced security encrypts Oracle applicatiOns data
a March 2009 survey of 277 business and Oracle Advanced Security, an option of Oracle database. Oracle Transparent
220 IT executives from companies with 50 or Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition, Data Encryption provides increased pro-
more employees. 42 percent of IT decision- now transparently encrypts all applica- tection for application data stored in the
makers said insufficient funding is among tion data stored in an Oracle Database database, without requiring enterprises
the biggest obstacles they face in developing tablespace. Customers using the Oracle to know which fields contain sensi-
effective disaster recovery plans, compared Transparent Data Encryption feature tive or regulated data, helping reduce
to 32 percent of business execs; 30 percent of Oracle Advanced Security can now deployment time and effort.
of business leaders said they were unsure encrypt entire data sets used by Oracle “Using Oracle Transparent Data
how frequently their firm’s disaster recovery Applications for data privacy protection Encryption in conjunction with Oracle
plans were tested, compared to 5 percent of and to help meet regulatory requirements. Database 11g, customers can now effi-
IT execs. By transparently encrypting applica- ciently encrypt not just select fields or
Source: SunGard tion data, customers can implement columns but all the application data—
www.sungard.com greater data protection across their enabling a greater level of data privacy
applications using efficient transparent protection,” says Vipin Samar, vice presi-
companieS plan legacy modeRnization encryption and decryption inside their dent of database security at Oracle.
Of 985 businesses surveyed during the first
quarter of 2009, more than 30 percent have
allocated budget to legacy modernization Oracle subsidiary releases new embedded innOdb
activities in the 2009/2010 time frame. Of Oracle subsidiary Innobase Oy has self-contained, minimizing the memory
the businesses planning near-term legacy released Embedded InnoDB, an embed- and disk footprint and eliminating over-
system migration activities, 86 percent have dable version of its InnoDB transactional head and features unnecessary for the
allocated 10 percent or more of their total storage engine for MySQL. Embedded target applications.
IT budgets for the work. The most important InnoDB is designed specifically for “As devices and applications become
reasons for modernizing were reducing developers, device makers, independent more savvy and require information in
operating and license costs, reducing the software vendors, and original equip- real time, there is a growing requirement
time and cost of adding new functionality, ment manufacturers. for faster, more reliable data transactions
and limited availability of legacy skills. More Embedded InnoDB offers the perfor- and storage at the application edge,” says
than 70 percent of the businesses surveyed mance, reliability, and functionality of Ken Jacobs, vice president of product
anticipate purchasing migration services. InnoDB with an API for applications that strategy at Oracle. “Oracle continues to
require a small footprint and significant invest in InnoDB to bring fast, reliable,
Source: BluePhoenix
transaction processing capabilities. This and high-performance transactional
www.bphx.com
new embedded solution is complete and storage to both partners and end users.”

22 september/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
Oracle gOvernance, risk, anD cOMpliance cOntrOls suite OffereD On DeManD Oracle real-tiMe DecisiOns 3.0 available
Oracle Governance, Risk, and by automating controls that enforce Oracle has released Oracle Real-Time
Compliance Controls Suite is now avail- enterprise policies. Through deep inte- Decisions 3.0, a decision-management
able through Oracle On Demand. The gration with an organization’s applica- platform that delivers targeted recom-
suite automates governance, risk man- tions, Oracle Governance, Risk, and mendations during customer interac-
agement, and compliance safeguards Compliance Controls Suite provides tions. It helps organizations to optimize
for business applications. It enables direct control over the three fundamen- customer experiences with relevant and
organizations to reduce financial loss, tals of application behavior: user access, personalized cross-channel real-time
compliance costs, and audit effort configuration, and transaction execution. recommendations. Oracle Real-Time
Decisions 3.0 also recommends the best
course of action using embedded predic-
Oracle retail Data MODel, nOw available, suppOrts retailers’ DecisiOn-Making tive analytics and rules and enables self-
Oracle has released Oracle Retail Data providing a data warehousing platform adaptive processes through closed-loop
Model, a standards-based data model that is fast, secure, reliable, and com- predictive analytics automation and the
designed and pretuned for Oracle data pletely customizable and scalable. integration of business intelligence (BI)
warehouses, including the HP Oracle “Oracle Retail Data Model is the into interaction processes.
Database Machine. Oracle Retail Data culmination of our efforts in combining “Helping our customers optimize
Model combines Oracle’s retail applica- Oracle’s deep retail industry and data their business processes using fact-based
tion knowledge with its data warehous- warehousing expertise and technolo- insight—even in real time—is a primary
ing and business intelligence platforms. gies into a comprehensive, prebuilt, and focus of Oracle BI products,” says Paul
The solution helps retailers make better tuned solution for retailers,” says Ray Rodwick, vice president of product
decisions by providing out-of-the-box Roccaforte, vice president of data ware- management, Oracle business intel-
analytics for out-of-stock forecasting, housing and analytics at Oracle. “Oracle ligence. “Oracle Real-Time Decisions is
loss prevention, product affinity, cus- Retail Data Model offers customers a a key component of the Oracle business
tomer clustering and segmentation, halo solution designed for rapid, predictable intelligence foundation and takes Oracle
impact, and promotional lift. Oracle deployment and integration with exist- business intelligence to a new level as it
Retail Data Model works with existing ing investments to help customers save helps personalize customer interactions
retail and point-of-sale systems while time, effort, and costs.” on a real-time and transactional basis.”

Oracle cOherence 3.5 prOviDes MultiterabYte suppOrt fOr in-MeMOrY Data griDs Oracle waives extenDeD suppOrt fees
Oracle Coherence 3.5, the latest release for Oracle WebLogic Portal dramatically Oracle has waived the first year of
of Oracle’s in-memory data grid solution, increases the performance of large-scale Extended Support fees for a number of
now supports multiterabyte data grids portal applications. major product lines. Extended Support
through configurable off-heap storage Oracle Coherence*Web, an Oracle extends Oracle’s Premier Support program
outside of typical Java limitations. In addi- Coherence module, provides linear scal- for an additional three years. Affected
tion, the new guardian feature bolsters ability for HTTP session management products and time frames are as follows:
continuous availability by automatically in clusters of hundreds of production Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.11
detecting and pre-emptively correcting servers. It improves performance in (through December 2010), Oracle’s Siebel
service disruptions. The product also sup- deployments that use large sessions and Customer Relationship Management 7.8
ports network dynamic configurability for aggressive session expiry, and leverages (through May 2011), Oracle’s PeopleSoft
capacity-on-demand cloud environments. an optimistic session-locking model that Enterprise 8.9 releases (through June
Oracle Coherence 3.5 strengthens increases Web application throughput. 2011), Oracle Database 10g Release
integration with Oracle WebLogic Server It also includes new support for Oracle 2 (through July 2011), and Oracle
and Oracle WebLogic Portal. Native Coherence*Extend deployments, which E-Business Suite Release 11i10 (through
integration with Oracle WebLogic Server isolate the application server tier from the November 2011).
enables distributed HTTP session man- session management tier. “This announcement demonstrates
agement across multiple applications and “Oracle Coherence continues to Oracle’s continued commitment to
heterogeneous environments, increasing deliver on the promise of easier scalability, provide the highest level of support to
performance and availability and improv- predictability in performance, and simpli- customers in difficult economic times,”
ing time to market. Native integration of fied operation,” says Cameron Purdy, vice says Juergen Rottler, executive vice presi-
Oracle Coherence as a distributed cache president of development at Oracle. dent of global customer services at Oracle.

oracle magazine september/october 20 09 23

briefs

Oracle SQl DevelOper Data MODeler nOw available webLOCATOr

Oracle has released Oracle SQL SQL Developer Data Modeler imports
Developer Data Modeler, a data modeler from and exports to a variety of sources Oracle beehive
oracle.com/products/middleware/beehive
that integrates with Oracle SQL and targets, provides several formatting
Oracle Advanced security
Developer to provide offline, file-based options, and validates models through a oracle.com/database/advanced-security.html
database modeling and design. Oracle predefined set of design rules.
embedded innoDb
SQL Developer Data Modeler is an inde- “Every successful application starts www.innodb.com/products/embedded-innodb
pendent, standalone product with a full with a strong data model,” says Mike
Oracle Governance, risk, and
spectrum of data and database modeling Hichwa, vice president of software Compliance Controls suite
tools and utilities, including modeling development at Oracle. “Oracle SQL oracle.com/ondemand/governance-risk-
compliance.html
for entity relationship diagrams; rela- Developer Data Modeler provides not
tional (database design), datatype, and only a graphical way to develop data Oracle retail Data Model
oracle.com/database/retail-data-model.html
multidimensional modeling; full forward models but an effective way to commu-
and reverse engineering; and data defini- nicate existing data models to applica- Oracle Coherence
oracle.com/products/middleware/coherence
tion language code generation. Oracle tion developers.”
Oracle real-Time Decisions
oracle.com/appserver/business-intelligence/real-
time-decisions.html
Oracle buyS intellectual prOperty aSSetS Of cOnfOrMia
Oracle Premier support
Oracle has acquired the intellectual prop- technology underscores Oracle’s com- oracle.com/support/premier
erty assets of Conformia Software, whose mitment to provide life sciences custom-
Oracle sQL Developer Data Modeler
products enable life sciences companies ers with a differentiated, out-of-the-box otn.oracle.com/products/database/datamodeler
to manage drug design, development, industry-based solution,” says Hardeep
Oracle and Conformia
and transfer to production. Gulati, vice president of product life- oracle.com/conformia
“The addition of Conformia Software cycle management strategy at Oracle. ■

24 september/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
 a t O r a c l e news BY C a roli n e KvitKa

Modern Middleware
Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g delivers capabilities for next-generation business challenges.
ith the needs of the modern enter- tions deliver a full range of analysis and
prise in mind, Oracle has unveiled reporting capabilities.
Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g, its next-
generation middleware platform. This Easing intEgrations
complete, integrated, hot-pluggable, and According to Phillips, Oracle has deliv-
best-of-breed application infrastructure ered a middleware stack that includes
offers increased agility and intelligence for all of the services organizations need to
business applications while enabling orga- build, deploy, manage, and secure their
nizations to exploit new hardware and applications. “Any complex system that
software architectures for efficient IT exe- is not architected and engineered to
cution and cost savings. The new platform work together is going to be costly, error
simplifies the complexity of IT, while inte- prone, and not secure,” he said. “We’re
grating the latest application infrastructure the only company that has a set of ser-
requirements for simplified development, vices across all different [middleware]
SOA, business intelligence, cloud com- functions that is integrated and based on
puting, business process transformation, open standards.”
service-oriented security, enhanced col- Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g also
laboration, and IT governance. provides the foundation for Oracle
“We want to change the game of Oracle President Charles Phillips at the Oracle Fusion Application Integration Architecture, an
Middleware 11g launch in July 2009
how people think of IT environments,” integration solution for orchestrating agile,
said Oracle President Charles Phillips user-centric business processes across the
at the first Oracle Fusion Middleware ing, monitoring, and management. enterprise. “Oracle Application Integration
11g launch event, in July 2009. “We’re Oracle WebLogic Suite 11g adds new Architecture is the way we integrate our
trying to move our industry to a more levels of performance, operational insight, own applications,” said Phillips.
prefabricated environment based on and automation for even greater applica- Oracle Application Integration
open standards where a lot of [compo- tion server uptime while reducing admin- Architecture allows customers to stop
nents] have been engineered to work istration and hardware costs. building proprietary integrations, he said.
together. The only way we can do Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g provides “With Oracle Application Integration
that is to have offerings up and down a broad set of reusable, out-of-the-box Architecture, our customers stop strug-
the entire stack and make them work Oracle WebCenter Services components gling with proprietary integrations and
together at the factory first.” that can be plugged into virtually any start using certified, standard, Web
The components of Oracle Fusion type of portal to improve productivity services–based integrations. And when
Middleware 11g include Oracle SOA Suite and enhance interactions between teams, they upgrade their applications, those
11g, Oracle WebLogic Suite 11g, Oracle departments, and customers. standard integrations are protected.” ■
WebCenter Suite 11g, Oracle Identity Oracle Identity Management 11g is an

nextsTePs
Management 11g, Oracle development application-centric identity management
Freed PhotograPhy on behalF oF InVIsIon CommunICatIons

tools, and Oracle content management suite that delivers improvements in the
and business intelligence solutions. speed of compliance and e-discovery
wATCH the Oracle Fusion Middleware
Oracle SOA Suite 11g is a complete exercises as well as improved user pro-
11g launch
SOA platform that enables next- ductivity and reduced business risk. oracle.com/fusionmiddleware11g
generation business applications Oracle content management solutions LeARn more about
by unifying the management and for Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g span Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g
oracle.com/products/middleware
execution of system-, people-, and management of Web content, docu-
document-centric processes while ments, records, images and processes, DOwnLOAD Oracle Fusion
Middleware 11g
simplifying service access, integration, and information rights. otn.oracle.com/software/products/middleware
orchestration, complex event process- Oracle business intelligence solu-

oracle magazine septemBer/oCtoBer 20 09 25

 a t O r a c l e interview by c a rolin e KvitKa

Memory Matters
Performance-critical applications rely on Oracle’s in-memory databases.
n-memory databases provide applica- and JDBC, as well as SQL. The new
tions with real-time responsiveness and releases support Oracle Call Interface
high throughput. Caroline Kvitka, Oracle (OCI), Pro*C, and PL/SQL. This allows
Magazine senior managing editor, talked an application that uses any of these
with Marie-Anne Neimat, vice president of interfaces to easily start using Oracle
development at Oracle, about Oracle’s newest In-Memory Database Cache and Oracle
in-memory database offerings. The following TimesTen with minimal changes.
is an excerpt from that interview. Download The third feature is high availabil-
the full podcast at oracle.com/magcasts. ity through integration with Oracle
Oracle Magazine: What is an in-memory Clusterware, which automates failure
database, and what benefits does it offer? detection and failover of the in-memory
Neimat: An in-memory database is a database and applications. We also
database management system that relies provide integration with Oracle Data
on having all data in main memory at Guard for cross-tier high availability
runtime. Accessing main memory is between the cache and Oracle Database.
many times faster than accessing disk. Oracle Magazine: What are some exam-
In addition, the architecture of an in- ples of how these products are used?
memory database can be optimized Neimat: Our strongest industry is tele-
because it doesn’t have to manage a Marie-Anne Neimat, Vice President of Development communications, where both products
buffer pool or focus all the algorithms at Oracle are used for subscriber databases, billing
and data structures around minimiz- systems, mobile services, and network-
ing I/O to disk. This results in a system reduces the load on Oracle Database; it is ing equipment. Our second-strongest
that requires fewer CPU instructions deployed on low-cost, middle-tier com- industry is financial trading, where the
to execute requests and a faster system modity hardware; it supports the same products are used to actually execute
with extremely low response time. relational model that the application uses trades, detect fraud, and perform real-
Oracle Magazine: What are Oracle’s latest to manage its data in Oracle Database; time analytics. Oracle TimesTen is also
in-memory database products? and the transactions that are executed used by several airlines for scheduling,
Neimat: Oracle has two in-memory data- on cached tables behave just like trans- online reservations, and booking. We
base products, and we have just shipped actions executed on noncached tables. have a number of customers with other
a major new release of both. The first is Oracle Magazine: What are some of the Web-based, customer-facing applications
Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database new features of the products? where quick responses are essential to
11g, a standalone, relational database Neimat: There are three main features. achieving customer satisfaction. ■
that is memory optimized and provides The first is our new database cache grid.
very low and predictable response time
to real-time applications.
It provides the ability to deploy the cache
over a cluster of nodes and to provide nextStePS
The second is Oracle In-Memory applications with location transparency LiSten to the podcast
oracle.com/magcasts
Database Cache 11g, an Oracle Database and transaction semantics over the cluster,
Enterprise Edition option. It is Oracle with the extreme performance that Oracle reAD about
Oracle timesten in-Memory Database
TimesTen configured as a middle-tier In-Memory Database Cache already offers. oracle.com/database/timesten.html
cache for Oracle Database. An appli- It also provides the ability to add or
Oracle in-Memory Database Cache
cation that uses Oracle In-Memory remove cache nodes incrementally. oracle.com/database/in-memory-database-
Database Cache will cache a subset of The second feature focuses on mini- cache.html

information from an Oracle database in mizing changes that an application must DOwnLOAD
the application tier. This configuration make in order to use Oracle In-Memory Oracle timesten in-Memory Database
and Oracle in-Memory Database Cache
BoB Adler

has a number of advantages: it provides Database Cache and Oracle TimesTen. otn.oracle.com/software/products/timesten
very fast access to the cached data; it Prior to this release, we supported ODBC

26 september/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
 Which way to your
off-shore project?

Proximity Matters.™

We’re pretty sure you can think of something

to do with all the extra time.

866-540-3437 (US)
www.4thsource.com
 c o m m u n i t y partner news
b o o k Beat

Oracle Data Guard

11g Handbook
By Larry Carpenter, Oracle OpenWOrld partner event
Joseph Meeks, Charles On Sunday, October 11, 2009, at Oracle OpenWorld San Francisco, Oracle PartnerNetwork
Kim, Bill Burke, Sonya
Carothers, Joydip Kundu, members are invited to an exclusive event where they can hear from Oracle executives about vision
Michael Smith, and and strategy; network with peers and Oracle leaders; and gain valuable insight, contacts, and
Nitin Vengurlekar resources through specialized breakout sessions.
Oracle Press Highlights of the event include special-interest-group networking sessions; a presentation by
www.mhprofessional.com
Andrew McAfee, author of Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization’s Toughest
“If you need a road map describing how to Challenges; meetings with regional Oracle Alliances and Channels teams; and the North America
implement disaster recovery, what you need Alliances and Channels Titan Awards ceremony and the Global Partner Awards presentation.
to think about, what your options are, and Get complete information about this Oracle PartnerNetwork event at oracle.com/us/
which ones you should explore, under what openworld/018389.htm.
circumstances, then this book is for you,” writes
Oracle’s Tom Kyte in the book’s foreword.
The authors—a team of Oracle Data Guard
InfOsys cOdevelOps prIce prOtectIOn applIcatIOn fOr Oracle e-BusIness suIte
experts—provide comprehensive coverage
on best-practice configurations, day-to-day Oracle Certified Advantage Partner mitigate future discrepancies.
monitoring and maintenance, tips and techniques, Infosys Technologies and Oracle have The new application works with
and architecture to enable you to successfully set codeveloped Oracle Price Protection. Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1,
up and manage Oracle Data Guard.
This new application for high technol- leverages Oracle Fusion Middleware,
Oracle Essbase 9 ogy distributors, available from Oracle, and integrates with existing enterprise
Implementation automates price protection transac- resource planning systems. Oracle Price
Guide tional processes and streamlines overall Protection supports claims submitted
By Sarma Anantapantula pricing, promotions, and product and settled for covered product inven-
and Joseph Sydney
Gomez
discount management. Oracle Price tory (both on hand and delivered to cus-
Packt Publishing Protection automatically updates, aggre- tomers), open purchase orders that are
www.packtpub.com gates, and provides access to a distribu- adjusted with the latest inbound price
tor’s purchasing, inventory, costing, and list updates, rapid notification to pricing
Learn how to develop multidimensional online financial information. This enables dis- team members, and costing and finan-
analytical processing solutions with this step-
tributors to reduce errors during price cial system updates that reflect price
by-step guide to Oracle Essbase fundamentals.
Oracle Essbase 9 Implementation Guide claims execution, speed settlements, and changes in real time.
takes readers through the basics of software
installation to launching a fully functioning
Oracle Essbase database cube. WIprO and Hackett cOllaBOrate On Hr platfOrm sOlutIOns
The authors describe the concepts of
multidimensional database technology and how Wipro Technologies, an Oracle Certified benchmarking metrics from Hackett
to build an Oracle Essbase application complete Advantage Partner, has announced that with Oracle’s PeopleSoft human capital
with database, database calculation scripts, and its business process outsourcing divi- management applications. Wipro will
database report scripts. sion, Wipro BPO, has selected Oracle offer the combined package through its
Oracle 10g/11g Certified Advantage Partner the Hackett global HR delivery capability. The solu-
Data and Database Group to provide empirical data, best tion will be delivered using a software-
Management Utilities practices, and performance insights as-a-service model, so employers pay
By Hector R. Madrid that will be used in the development only for the amount of service that
Packt Publishing of an Oracle-based, outsourced human they use. simPlify will address the
www.packtpub.com
resources (HR) solution. needs of multinational companies
Called simPlify, the new solution across the Asia-Pacific region, Europe,
This book covers 12 utilities Oracle Database will integrate performance insights and and North America.
professionals can use to optimize the efficiency,
management, and performance of their daily
tasks. Topics include data management, session
HIgHJump sOftWare annOunces valIdated IntegratIOns
management, batch processing, massive
deployment, and troubleshooting. Readers will Oracle Certified Partner HighJump solutions, which provide integrated
learn how to use Oracle utilities to improve Software has achieved integration vali- manufacturing data collection, inven-
maintenance windows, increase data transfer dation with Oracle’s PeopleSoft supply tory, and warehouse management. The
speeds, optimize backups, and more. chain management applications for its integrations were validated through
Look for Oracle books at otn.oracle HighJump Warehouse Advantage and the Oracle Application Integration
.com/bookstore. HighJump Data Collection Advantage Architecture for Partners initiative.

28 September/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
fIShbowl SoluTIonS announcES oraclE- projEcT parTnErS rElEaSES uSEr SYSTIME To codEvElop plM procESS
baSEd SharEpoInT alTErnaTIvE InTErfacE applIcaTIonS InTEgraTIon pack
Oracle Partner Fishbowl Solutions Oracle Certified Partner Project Partners SYSTIME, an Oracle Certified Advantage
has released CollabPoint for Oracle has announced a new release of Project Partner and a subsidiary of CMS Group,
Universal Content Management. Partners User Interface Applications has entered into a codevelopment agree-
Designed as an alternative to Microsoft (UI-Apps), which enables project man- ment with Oracle to build a process inte-
SharePoint, CollabPoint allows employ- agers to use Microsoft Excel to access gration pack for Oracle’s Agile product
ees and teams to share content and Oracle Projects applications. lifecycle management (PLM) applications.
collaborate using the Oracle Universal UI-Apps uses proprietary bidirectional The PLM process integration pack will
Content Management platform. communication technology to move data include core PLM capabilities, including
With minimal reliance or burden via XML from Excel to Oracle Application design release of new product defini-
on IT, CollabPoint lets users create col- Server and Oracle Database. The pre- tions, product launch, change manage-
laborative workspaces and organize defined, role-based workbooks included ment of launched products, bidirectional
content in a way that works for them. with UI-Apps are designed for profes- synchronization of engineering change
CollabPoint’s clean, simple interface sional services firms and engineering, status and material attribute informa-
enables users to build their own context construction, and operations companies, tion, tracking and monitoring of change
around content in Oracle Universal but they can be configured for capital- processing, and an error-handling and
Content Management. projects planning in any industry. For notification framework.
CollabPoint provides Enterprise 2.0 projects that aren’t covered in existing The PLM process integration pack
features including blogs, wikis, and dis- workbooks, Project Partners’ UI-Apps will enable rapid implementations of
cussion threads. Common activities such Framework Designer allows the creation Agile PLM processes integrated with
as check-in and workflow are presented of custom workbooks using middle-tier Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
through a secure interface. XML metadata. enterprise resource planning applica-
tions. It will be built using Oracle
Application Integration Architecture,
EvErgE launchES rEadYExprESS for accElEraTEd crM on dEMand which promotes a consistent, SOA-
eVerge Group, an Oracle Certified packages (based on the number of based approach to business process
Advantage Partner, has launched users) that deliver implementation in integration for both Oracle and third-
ReadyExpress, an accelerated customer four, six, or eight weeks. All pack- party applications. ■
relationship management (CRM) on- ages include tasks such as establish-
demand solution that brings eVerge’s ing workflow processes, assigning webLOCATOR
knowledge, experience, and expertise to manager rules, creating custom fields,
Infosys Technologies
bear on Oracle CRM On Demand imple- establishing field validation rules, and www.infosys.com
mentations for sales force automation. providing initial data migration and Oracle Price Protection
ReadyExpress is available in three postproduction support. oracle.com/applications/crm/channel-
management/price-protection.html

Wipro
www.wipro.com/bpo
fulcruMwaY InTroducES applIcaTIon MapdoTnET ux SupporTS oraclE SpaTIal
The Hackett Group
rISk aSSESSMEnT SErvIcE for oraclE Erp MapDotNet UX, the newest version of www.thehackettgroup.com
Oracle Certified Partner FulcrumWay, a Oracle Partner ISC’s Web-enabled geo-
HighJump Software
provider of governance, risk, and com- graphic information system platform, www.highjumpsoftware.com
pliance solutions for Oracle customers, supports map rendering, querying, and Fishbowl Solutions
has introduced an online application risk editing of Oracle Spatial data. www.fishbowlsolutions.com
assessment service for Oracle enterprise The new version also provides Project Partners
resource planning (ERP) applications. The support for map rendering from, and www.projectp.com/products/ui.php

new service enables Oracle ERP custom- querying of, Keyhole Markup Language eVerge Group
www.evergegroup.com/crm_ready_express.htm
ers to detect gaps in internal controls, (KML) files. Using MapDotNet UX
analyze segregation-of-duties violations, Studio, users can load data from KML or FulcrumWay
www.fulcrumway.com
check configurations, examine suspicious Oracle Spatial into supported spatially
ISC
transactions, and review financial con- enabled databases. www.mapdotnet.com
trols—all online. Customers submit ERP The Oracle Spatial connector for
SYSTIME
information and download reports over a MapDotNet UX requires Oracle Instant www.systime.net
secure connection. Client 11.1.0.6.0.

oracle magazine September/october 20 09 29

 c o m m u n i t y OTN BULLETIN bY Ju Stin KeStelYn

Developer Events Get Virtual

OTN members collaborate and get hands-on training over the cloud.
he global Oracle Technology Network Applications, was sponsored by Amazon also know of at least 10 books that were
(OTN) team recognizes full well that Web Services and launched in late June written by Oracle ACEs.
the appetite for hands-on developer tools 2009. It featured a shared development The contributions of this group in
experience has not diminished, even environment for workshops accessible the social media area, however, are
as travel budgets have. In the last few through the Amazon Elastic Compute boundless: their collective blogging and
months, the team has experimented with Cloud (EC2) as well as a live Webcast twittering firepower is awe-inspiring,
different virtual workshop formats with keynote by Ted Farrell, chief architect and and their tireless stewardship of Oracle
the intention of exploiting the creative senior vice president at Oracle, and Steve discussion forums is perhaps the most
and collaborative power of the Web. Harris, senior vice president of product impressive contribution of all.
The virtual event is becoming a sig- development at Oracle. For those reasons, I want to thank
nature of the postbubble economy. In The event gave developers the oppor- all the Oracle ACEs out there for their
the past six months, I have seen more tunity to get hands-on training in Oracle outstanding commitment and passion
of them appear, popping up like mush- Application Development Framework throughout the last year. As always,
rooms, than I have in my entire career. (Oracle ADF) Faces Rich Client, Oracle you can review the current crop of
These events take various forms, the Coherence, Oracle WebLogic Server, and Oracle ACEs, or nominate a new one,
most common being the virtual trade Oracle JRockit Mission Control (with at otn.oracle.com/goto/oracle-ace. ■
show. Here, the offline model is trans- Oracle WebCenter demos available as
planted to the Web in the form of a well) with zero software installation Justin Kestelyn ([email protected]) is senior
Second Life–like experience—digitally required. Furthermore, an Oracle Mix director, Oracle Technology Network and developer
rendered exhibition halls, booth staff group served as the interaction point for programs, as well as OTN editor in chief.
avatars, and virtual lounges are the norm. participants and presenters, and a wiki
From what I can tell thus far, this format page was provided for documenting
may have some traction with business participant experiences. Amazon Web OTNLOCATOR
end users and consumer types who are Services reimbursed participants for the OTN Home
most comfortable with a familiar (some time they clocked into EC2 during the otn.oracle.com
might use the word “canned”) experience. event’s duration. OTN Headlines
But with developers? Not so much. Explore the OTN Virtual Developer otn.oracle.com/pub/news

Being more comfortable with collab- Day: Rich Enterprise Applications on- Free Software Downloads
otn.oracle.com/software
orative online environments than most demand keynote and demos at otn
other people, developers recognize that .oracle.com/events/virtualdeveloperday. Documentation
otn.oracle.com/documentation
using an offline metaphor in an online
Technology Centers
world leaves most of the creative pos- Oracle aces: rely On Their acTiviTy otn.oracle.com/tech
sibilities of the latter on the table. At At Oracle, the end of the fiscal year is
Podcasts
least that’s what I would like to think. “spreadsheet season,” with metrics and otn.oracle.com/techcasts
(Caveat: I am speaking of developers measurements being the most common Technical Articles
in North America here; it’s likely that topic of conversation. The Oracle otn.oracle.com/pub/articles
regional differences mean my observa- ACE program is not exempt from this Blogs
tions do not apply on a global basis.) process. Although it’s not an easy task, blogs.oracle.com

In North America, we have discovered we do what we can to quantify what the Discussion Forums
forums.oracle.com
a formula that holds great promise for influence of these great customer evan-
the future: OTN Virtual Developer Day, gelists has been throughout the year. Developer Events Calendar
otn.oracle.com/events
a 100 percent virtual event that uses live For example, we found that in the
Oracle ACE Program
video, social media, on-demand Flash- previous fiscal year (2009), Oracle ACEs otn.oracle.com/goto/oracle-ace
based demos, and collaborative develop- as a group delivered at least 116 known
OTN on Twitter
ment tools. The inaugural event, OTN presentations/papers at user group and www.twitter.com/oracletechnet
Virtual Developer Day: Rich Enterprise industry events around the world. We

30 September/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
 c o m m u n i t y Architect bY b ob r h ubart

Collaborating on Design Patterns

It takes an architect community to raise a collection of SOA design patterns.
o describe Thomas Erl’s recent book, Chappell had written two articles thing that we wanted,” Utschig-Utschig
SOA Design Patterns (Prentice Hall on grid-enabled SOA for Erl’s SOA says. “When it finally worked out, it was
Professional, 2009), as a community Magazine (www.soamag.com), and an exciting process.”
effort is something of an understate- according to Erl, those articles were The group contributed the
ment—like describing Tiger Woods among the magazine’s most popular. Compensating Service Transaction, UI
as “a golfer.” The book, along with its “What especially intrigued me about Mediator, and Canonical Schema Bus pat-
companion Web site, SOA Patterns those articles was how they addressed terns, the last in collaboration with Erl.
(www.soapatterns.org), is the hub of a grid computing within the modern Utschig-Utschig and Erl had
collaborative effort, the spokes of which SOA space,” says Erl. He was particu- collaborated on previous books, and
extend into global communities, includ- larly impressed with how Chappell’s more collaboration is on the horizon.
ing the architect community on Oracle articles illustrated grid computing as Utschig-Utschig and the other Masons
Technology Network (OTN). an extension of SOA that goes beyond of SOA have contributed content to
The culmination of three years’ message-oriented middleware to Erl’s upcoming book, Next Generation
work, SOA Design Patterns features 85 address the critical scalability issues SOA: A Real-World Guide to Modern
SOA patterns, reflecting the contribu- that can affect enterprise-level service- Service-Oriented Computing. Utschig-
tions of 35 pattern authors and a small oriented solutions. Utschig and Chappell, both ever busy,
army of pattern reviewers, collectively “That definitely was one of the have also discussed working together
representing more than 20 companies factors that led to this collaboration,” on Service Result Cache, another SOA
and government agencies. The list of says Erl. Patterns candidate.
people involved in the process reads Chappell’s Service Grid pattern So while Erl’s SOA Design Patterns is
like a Who’s Who in SOA. It includes is included in the book. Three other already on the shelves, the party is far
some very familiar names represent- Chappell patterns—In-Memory from over for members of the Oracle
ing some very familiar organizations, Fault-Tolerant Collection, In-Memory architect community, as their contribu-
including Oracle. Fault-Tolerant Stateful Services, and tions to SOA Patterns and other Erl
Although Erl describes the overall Load-Balanced Stateful Services—are in projects continue to extend into the
process of organizing the various con- the candidate phase. Candidate patterns global SOA community. ■
tributors and reviewers as “altogether are published at www.soapatterns.org,
crazy,” the decision to include members where they are subject to an exhaus- Bob Rhubart ([email protected]) is manager
of the Oracle community was natural, he tive community review and validation of the OTN architect community, the host of the OTN
says, “because of how important Oracle process before being classified as ready Arch2Arch podcast series, and the author of the
has been to the SOA community.” for prime time and added to the site’s ArchBeat blog (blogs.oracle.com/archbeat).
master catalog.
HASHING A GrId PAtterN
More than a dozen members of the
global Oracle community participated
MOrtArING A deSIGN FOUNdAtION
Among the 85 patterns included in the nextStePS
in the project, including Oracle Vice original master catalog that forms the LiSteN to
President and Chief SOA Technologist basis of the book are three patterns con- a three-part OtN Arch2Arch podcast
featuring thomas erl, David chappell, and
David Chappell and Senior Principal tributed by the Masons of SOA, an inter-
clemens Utschig-Utschig
Product Manager and SOA Architect national group of architects that Clemens blogs.oracle.com/archbeat/2009/05/
Clemens Utschig-Utschig. Utschig-Utschig helped form in 2006. thomas_erl_podcasts.html

Grid computing was Chappell’s point In keeping with the group’s objective other OtN Arch2Arch podcasts
otn.oracle.com/syndication/arch2arch-podcasts
of entry into the SOA Design Patterns to spread knowledge, foster discussion,
project. “It made perfect sense to reach and support SOA programs across com- Get more OtN architect information
otn.oracle.com/architect
out to David because of his expertise panies, the Masons of SOA were eager to
reAD more rhubart
and his presence in that particular participate in the SOA design project. blogs.oracle.com/archbeat
field,” Erl says. “Getting into this book was some-

oracle magazine september/october 20 09 31

 c o m m u n i t y UP Close bY jeff er i c kSo n

Exploring New Territory

A DBA finds answers and adventure in the Oracle technology stack.
hen her employer sends her company can get the benefit of
to training sessions, Michelle having more of its people discover-
Malcher—a DBA and Oracle ACE ing and using group resources.”
who is a recognized expert in Oracle events are important,
database security—learns database says Malcher. “But at a user group
skills such as performance tuning event I get to hear from a peer who
or provisioning. But when she goes has implemented [a new feature]
to user group events, she likes to and found new ways to deploy it,”
broaden her horizons by investigat- she says. “They might have archi-
ing middleware and applications. tecture similar to mine and have
“I get to explore the rest of already done an implementation
the stack,” says Malcher. “I can that I’m about to do. That’s insight
sit in on a session about Oracle that I can use right now.”
WebCenter or identity manage- Malcher shares what she learns
ment and understand where my through her blog, DBA Unleashed.
colleagues at work are coming “I enjoy being part of the user
from when they ask for permis- group community, and I think the
sions to access data.” blog reflects that,” she says. “My
Malcher believes that she needs Michelle Malcher, IOUG Director of Membership family has no idea what I’m talking
to know not only who is pulling about half the time, but there are
data from her database but why. “Part of joining for this kind of information, and people out there who understand what I
my job is to make sure that data is used I’m here to make sure my DBA colleagues do and can commiserate with my strug-
wisely in terms of security and perfor- also take advantage of these shifts.” gles and appreciate my advice. That’s why
mance,” she says. “So when developers IOUG has been collecting middleware I enjoy my work so much.”
ask for permissions to pull data into their content and expertise since it formed the Malcher says that because Oracle deliv-
enterprise portal, I want to know enough Oracle Fusion Middleware special inter- ers the entire stack—database, middle-
to ask the right questions.” est group (SIG) in 2005, and in 2008 ware, and applications—DBAs can know
For example, when developers use Malcher helped fellow IOUG leaders more about where and why their data
Oracle business intelligence (BI) tools to launch the Oracle Fusion Middleware is used. “I used to say, ‘The application
create reports and Malcher knows some- SIG portal to better share this material. managers will take care of that,’” she says.
thing about that middleware, she might “Now,” says Malcher, “a DBA can sit in “But with an integrated stack, I can go to
be able to help. “If they’re pulling way on a middleware session at an event and a user group event to investigate other
more data than they need for that report, follow up on the SIG portal.” technologies and get better at my job.” ■
then they’ve got slow queries and I’ve Another benefit of user group mem-
got performance issues,” she says. At that bership is the big-picture thinking that Jeff Erickson is a senior editor with Oracle Publishing.
point, Malcher can assess the situation happens at user group events, according Follow him at www.techspectator.com.
and make changes that get the reports to Malcher. “I can see where my compa-
done without slowing the system down.
Malcher has channeled her enthusi-
ny’s strategy aligns with Oracle’s product
direction and how it compares to what nextsTePs
asm for user group events into leadership other users are doing,” she says. JoIN IoUG
roles in the Independent Oracle Users Malcher works with the IOUG board www.ioug.org

Group (IOUG), where she is director of to find ways to enhance these synergies. ReAD Michelle Malcher’s blog
michelledbaunleashed.blogspot.com
membership. “I work with the board to “We talk about scheduling sessions in a
ensure that we expand in BI and middle- way that encourages cross-pollination in WATCH Up Close
Scott Smith

Michelle Malcher video

ware to address the needs of our member technologies,” says Malcher. “We recently oracle.com/oramag/upclose
community. More of our members are initiated a corporate membership so a

32 September/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
 c o m m u n i t y PEER-TO-PEER BY B la ir C a mpBell

Mind Your Business

Three Oracle ACEs who recognize the value of understanding the enterprise
Karen Brownfield machines running; they must peerSPECS
Company: Hackett Technology
Which new Oracle products be intimately familiar with the Solutions, a global strategic
or features are you finding applications from a business and advisory firm
most valuable? I’d say Oracle end-user perspective. Job title/description: Director,
infrastructure practice, responsible for
Business Intelligence Publisher, What are your favorite activities advising clients’ IT departments
because it enables me to tailor outside of work? I’m an avid IT Location: Dallas, Texas
a report without knowing how blogger. All too often we see Length of time using Oracle
products: 8 years
to use Oracle Reports. For the companies purchase major stra-
applications, the most valuable tegic solutions, and suddenly
features are the new Oracle an unsuspecting IT department
Subledger Accounting engine in Oracle E-Business Suite and gets blindsided by the need to otn.oracle.com/community/oracle_ace
the Oracle Approvals Management engine. implement software they’ve never
You’ve taken Oracle University heard of, almost overnight. I’ve been there, so my mission is
peerSPECS classes in the past. What led you to to help others by sharing knowledge and getting them up to
Company: Solution Beacon, a firm
specializing in enterprise management
do this? I turned to these classes speed as quickly as possible.
systems and technologies, with a because I needed to dedicate time
focus on Oracle Applications
to learning an application quickly, Dimitri Gielis
Job title/description: Solution
architect, working with clients
while avoiding the pain of trial Which capabilities in Oracle Database are you finding most valuable?
to improve their use of Oracle and error. I find that I learn just Oracle Flashback. With every new
applications
as much from the other students release, you’re able to recover more—
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
in the room as from the instructor and more quickly. In addition, Oracle
Oracle credentials: Oracle
Implementation Champion and Oracle and materials. Application Express is another very
Presales Champion, with 19 years of What would you like to see Oracle, valuable feature. It provides you with
experience using Oracle products
as a company, do differently? As a real development environment
Oracle acquires more companies, from directly within the database. No
it would be great to see more- need to get any other software; just
otn.oracle.com/community/oracle_ace obvious “It used to be called . . . connect with your browser to your
and now it’s called . . . ” types of database, develop an application,
information. But I must add that the information that is avail- and send the URL to everybody you
able for each product is amazing and much appreciated. want to have use it.
What technology has most changed your life? Oracle Database
Eric Helmer holds a special place in my heart. I always try to do everything
What advice do you have about getting into Oracle technology? A in the database. For example, I
great place to start is to get Oracle certified. It’s also important peerSPECS can easily store my files inside the
Company: Apex Evangelists, an IT
to get experience in the major enterprise systems that employers consulting firm specializing in Oracle
database and access them through
are looking for, such as business intelligence, ERP [enterprise Application Express FTP or WebDAV.
resource planning], and CRM [cus- Job title/description: Director If you were going to the International
and cofounder, managing the firm’s
tomer relationship management]. day-to-day operations Space Station for six months and
Does that advice hold true even in a Location: Louvain, Belgium could only take one Oracle refer-
tough economy? Definitely. These are Oracle credentials: Oracle ence book, what would it be? One
the technologies that are mission Certified DBA (Oracle8i, Oracle9i, of Tom Kyte’s books. Tom always
Oracle Database 10g ) with 12 years
critical to companies even in down of experience using Oracle products explains why things happen the
economies, and technical skills way they do. Even more impor-
needed to maintain them are hard tant, he proves what he says with
to find. System administrators real examples, so you’re able to
otn.oracle.com/community/oracle_ace
can no longer simply keep the test it in your own environment. ■

oracle magazine septemBer/oCtoBer 20 09 33

COMPLETE. INTEGRATED. HOT-PLUGGABLE. BEST-OF-BREED.

The FoundaTion For innovaTion

By Dav i D B au m

36 september/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
M iddleware technology has evolved,
from simple programming gate-
ways for linking software applications to
Collect America is a prime example of
this transformation. An asset-management
company that specializes in the purchase
comprehensive platforms that govern the and subsequent liquidation of charged-off
creation, deployment, and use of many credit card debt, Collect America relies on
aspects of our information systems. As IT a network of franchises, which handle col-
has diversified, Oracle Fusion Middleware lections using Collect America’s software
has grown, becoming stronger and systems and work standards.
richer and offering more solutions—and Collect America previously used a legacy
possibilities—to businesses than ever system to target its efforts and manage
before. Based on the proven principles and the debt collection process. The system
standards of SOA, grid computing, and supported only a linear workflow, with no
Enterprise 2.0, Oracle Fusion Middleware ability to dynamically alter the liquidation
11g is a unified, hot-pluggable founda- path or support diverse asset types. In
tion for building and deploying modern search of a better solution, Collect America
applications that transform the way busi- Vice President and Chief Technology
nesses operate. Officer Jennifer Briscoe and her team
“We determined that it would be cheaper and more effective to deploy Oracle Fusion
Middleware. We were looking for innovation, not just automation.”
—Jennifer Briscoe, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Collect America

evaluated commercial asset recovery software packages. They Middleware,” says Briscoe. “We were looking for innovation,
also took a hard look at what it would take to build a custom not just automation, and that’s what Oracle provides.”
solution using a SOA. Collect America is implementing Oracle WebCenter Suite,
“During an extensive cost analysis, in which we com- Oracle Service Bus, Oracle BPEL Process Manager, Oracle
pared an open source enterprise service bus and BPEL with JDeveloper, and Oracle Application Development Framework
the Oracle Fusion Middleware family, we determined that it (Oracle ADF), all key components of the Oracle Fusion
would be cheaper and more effective to deploy Oracle Fusion Middleware family. The company also participated in an

An Executive Perspective on Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g

An interview with Thomas Kurian, executive vice president of product development at Oracle

Oracle Magazine: What does Oracle using standards—it makes systems much enterprise portals, and rich internet applica-
Fusion Middleware 11g offer today’s easier to integrate. Today organizations are tions were converging rapidly. In the past,
businesses? using SOA for a variety of needs including developers had to choose different toolsets
Kurian: Today’s middleware environ- Web-enablement of their legacy systems, and frameworks for each of these, but
ments do much more than merely connect automating business processes in different Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g gives them a
disparate information systems. Oracle parts of their organization, and synchroniz- powerful drag-and-drop assembly toolset
Fusion Middleware 11g is designed to ing data between two or more systems. to build all three styles. Second, it provides
help companies move their applications Oracle SOA Suite, a component of Oracle a browser-based environment to allow
and business processes to an internet- Fusion Middleware 11g, allows organizations users to customize a Web site and to con-
based architecture. Whether you’re a small to connect applications using Web services. tribute business intelligence reports, task
company, a midsize company, or a large It is a unified suite based on standards dashboards, documents and rich media,
company—and no matter what indus- such as JMS [Java Message Service], all and business applications to it. Third, it
try you’re in—every enterprise software WS [Web services] specifications, service provides a rich set of social computing
system is going through this transforma- component architecture, Business Process technologies to allow users to share infor-
tion. Customers need a modern technology Modeling Notation [BPMN], and BPEL that mation with other users through a portal.
platform to run their applications and busi- solves many types of integration problems. Oracle Magazine: How does Oracle
ness processes in an internet environment. Oracle SOA Suite enables organizations WebCenter Suite 11g accommodate social
That’s what Oracle Fusion Middleware to integrate data between systems using computing and Web 2.0 technologies?
11g provides. ETL [extract, transform, and load]; to allow Kurian: Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g
Oracle Magazine: How does Oracle systems to communicate with others in real lets people use Web 2.0 technologies in
Fusion Middleware 11g support SOA time using messaging, routing, transforma- conjunction with the information they’re
solutions? tion, and business rules with an enterprise collecting from their enterprise systems—
Kurian: Most organizations have many service bus; to bring together people, a trend we call Enterprise 2.0. For example,
types of information systems, including systems, and information in complex busi- let’s suppose that a sales executive wants
mainframe systems, enterprise resource ness processes and human workflow; and to share some information about sales
planning [ERP] and customer relation- to monitor business events and optimize opportunities with the members of his
ship management [CRM] applications, business processes in response to these sales team. Instead of e-mailing a busi-
and custom-developed applications. They events. It provides packaged connectors to ness intelligence report with these oppor-
struggle with integrating these systems in a large number of enterprise applications tunities that soon become out of date,
productive ways. For example, they may and enterprise systems and is the foundation Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g provides the
want to take an order that came into their of Oracle Application Integration Architecture. sales executive with an out-of-the-box
CRM system and route it for fulfillment Oracle Magazine: What is Oracle team Web site. The sales executive can
through their supply chain and collect the WebCenter Suite? add team members to the team site and
money for the transaction in their financial Kurian: Oracle WebCenter Suite is Oracle’s publish the business intelligence report to
system. This entails automating a business enterprise portal and social computing it. The report can be delivered as an RSS
process workflow and synchronizing the toolset. Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g pro- feed so that team members know when
data between these systems. SOA allows vides three important benefits to custom- new information is published. Recipients
systems to communicate with each other ers. First, we recognized that Web sites, can ask questions about that report

38 september/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
 Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g beta program to avail itself of statistical information to all franchises so that each can review
Oracle’s most advanced middleware technology. its performance against stated goals as well as an online pay-
Briscoe describes the Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g beta ment mechanism.
testing experience as “a phenomenal partnership” that allowed “We now have a rich user interface that sits atop our service-
Collect America to leapfrog ahead with new technical capabili- oriented architecture,” says Briscoe. “Our software platform
ties. “We met with the Oracle ADF product managers every offers guidance by applying a grading algorithm to each account.
week. Overall it was an unbelievable success and a great It gives our franchisees an edge and helps direct their efforts—
testimony to Oracle’s customer support,” she says. Collect something that commercial off-the-shelf packages don’t offer.”
America ended up with a stable, cutting-edge platform. The Briscoe divided the two-year development project into seven
portal-style system includes Web 2.0 features to stimulate col- iterations with tangible deliverables and milestones. Oracle
laboration among franchises, such as instant chat technology helped the company pull it off—on time and within budget.
for exchanging best practices. Collect America also provides “It was a [US]$20 million project, and we were within our

through an embedded discussion forum, users, map them to roles, and manage to keep switching tools to build applications.
and people can reply by starting a chat access control. We’ve also made signifi- For example, they can in a single environ-
session. Useful documents can be tagged cant enhancements to Oracle Enterprise ment design their database schemas, write
and linked from the team site and discus- Manager to provide a unified way to provi- their Java EE [Java Platform, Enterprise
sion forums, and shared tasks and events sion, monitor, diagnose, and manage all Edition] programs, build an Ajax User
can be used to bring people together. of Oracle Fusion Middleware from a single Interface, create Web services from their
We’ve even made it easy for people to browser-based console. More than 5,000 Java EE programs, and model workflows
personalize these systems and tailor the ISVs and 40,000 system integrators today that tie these services together—completely
experience for groups or communities visually and completely based on standards.
of users. As a result, Oracle WebCenter Second, we’ve also introduced appli-
Suite 11g brings people, processes, and cation lifecycle management to allow
information together. developers working on projects together
Oracle Magazine: What does Oracle to organize tasks such as project manage-
Fusion Middleware 11g offer developers ment, defect tracking, source control, and
and independent software vendors [ISVs]? dependency management, and to col-
Kurian: Developers and ISVs favor Oracle laborate with each other. Our application
Fusion Middleware 11g because we inte- lifecycle management system is open so
grate all of the components they need you can plug in your favorite open source
in a single technically unified middleware technology or third-party products as well.
suite—application server, enterprise service Third, we’ve included a library of about
bus, business process management, busi- 200 components for developing rich inter-
ness intelligence, content management, net applications. These components enable
and enterprise portal—in one cohesive developers to deploy sophisticated user
environment. We take care of integrating Thomas Kurian, Executive Vice President of Product interfaces in JavaScript and Ajax without
the infrastructure so developers can focus Development at Oracle having to write custom JavaScript code.
on building applications. For example, if you want to combine
We also provide a single unified toolset use Oracle Fusion Middleware—there is information from an enterprise applica-
with visual or drag-and-drop assembly to a huge amount of interest from them in tion with a contact list that happens to
make developers productive when building Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g. be on Facebook, there’s no programming
applications with the platform. Furthermore, Oracle Magazine: What’s new in terms required. You simply drag and drop these
Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g is engi- of development tools with Oracle Fusion social services into your applications. So
neered around popular standards, so the Middleware 11g? it’s very easy to mix traditional applications
applications work in multivendor environ- Kurian: We have introduced three new with social computing and social services.
ments and can be easily ported as require- capabilities with Oracle Fusion Middleware In addition, for developers who want to
ments change. All the components of 11g. First, we’ve combined all of the use Eclipse, we are introducing a brand-
PHIL SALTONSTALL

Oracle Fusion Middleware share a common aspects of developing applications into a new version of Oracle Enterprise Pack for
security and identity management layer. single integrated Oracle JDeveloper envi- Eclipse with a number of Eclipse add-ins
This gives you a central place to define ronment. Software developers don’t have that target Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g.

oracle magazine september/october 20 09 39

 Oracle Consulting helped Collect America
install the Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g
suites in a clustered application server envi-
ronment. “Application clustering gives us
a higher degree of uptime, resilience, and
redundancy,” Briscoe says.
In addition, Collect America is in the
process of moving all of its software develop-
ment lifecycle artifacts into Oracle Universal
Content Management, including design
documents, use cases, and functional speci-
fications. Oracle Fusion Middleware content
management offerings span management of
Web content, documents, records, images
and processes, and information rights. (Also,
an attachments framework enables users
to attach documents directly to customer,
employee, or supplier records.) Collect
America also uses the Oracle Identity and
Access Management Suite for authentication
and authorization.
Ultimately, about 50 in-house franchises
will use the Oracle-based debt-collection
system, for a total of about 2,500 users, along
with 300 to 400 outside franchises. “The
initial deployment to two of our franchises
went unbelievably well,” Briscoe says. “We
had 100 percent uptime throughout our entire
alpha phase, which is unheard of.”
Jennifer Briscoe, vice president and chief technology officer, Collect America, says Oracle helped the Collect America plans to use Oracle
company stay on track. “It was a $[US]20 million project, and we were within our estimates by three WebCenter Suite to enable franchises to cus-
percent,” Briscoe says. “That’s a testament to the strength of Oracle’s integration tools.”
tomize the look and feel of its online payment
module. This will be possible even though
estimates by three percent,” Briscoe says. “That’s a testament to it is based on central code on the back end. “Where do they
the strength of Oracle’s integration tools, because we didn’t want their logos? What types of text do they want to display?
have to spend a lot of time doing the plumbing. We could focus Oracle provides a very simple drag-and-drop interface to cus-
on the business logic. From Day One, we knew exactly how tomize the portal for each company,” says Briscoe.
many hours it would take to build each particular service.” Thanks to revenue diversification and increased efficiencies
And because of the maturity of Oracle Service Bus, with its stemming from the new platform, Collect America expects a 1
extensive suite of database connectors and adapters, Collect percent increase in overall revenue. “That’ s where the strength
America didn’t have to spend time writing integration code of our Oracle platform really comes into play,” Briscoe says.
to interface its custom application with nearly 20 outside
vendors. “We got most of that functionality right out of the A PlAtform for Secure collAborAtion
box with Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g,” Briscoe says. According to Hasan Rizvi, senior vice president of Oracle
The company further accelerated the development cycle by Fusion Middleware development, Oracle Fusion Middleware
using many out-of-the-box Oracle ADF widgets. “They have 11g helps organizations respond more nimbly to change;
Ajax capabilities built in, which allowed us to create a very improve insight into business operations; mitigate risk; and
rich user interface in a very short period of time. The interface better connect with customers, partners, and workers in a col-
is written entirely in JavaServer Faces and Oracle ADF,” she says. laborative environment. “We have designed the software to
As the debt-collection system enters full production mode, enhance interaction among virtual teams and take advantage
having a SOA makes it easier to develop new interfaces to of social networking constructs—not just for transactional
franchises and contingent debt providers. “Each company content but for unstructured content as well,” he says.
has its own system-integration requirements and reporting That’s a perfect description of what motivated the
requirements,” says Briscoe. “Oracle SOA Suite makes it about Canadian Partnership Against Cancer to adopt Oracle Fusion
30 percent faster to set up the interfaces.” continued on page 42

40 september/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
 Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g: What’s New?
Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g is a com- ■ Oracle Fusion Middleware ActiveCache, development process across the applica-
plete, integrated, hot-pluggable, and best- which allows Oracle WebLogic Server to tion lifecycle
of-breed middleware stack. Here is a look easily and reliably store Web session state Oracle Content Management 11g. This
at what’s new in some of the platform’s in an Oracle Coherence in-memory data complete enterprise content manage-
major components. grid for greater responsiveness and scal- ment platform spans management of Web
Oracle SOA Suite 11g. This unified ability in Web applications content, documents, records, images and
process platform simplifies the design, Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g. This processes, and information rights. New
development, management, and monitor- enterprise portal platform enables users features include
ing of business processes and offers a to build and manage online business ■ Open Web content management, which

complete range of SOA capabilities from communities that help capture and enables Web developers to embed con-
development to security and governance. strengthen relationships between people, tent for viewing and updating in context
New features include processes, applications, and information. directly into Web-based applications with
■ Native service component architecture New features include just two tags
designer, which improves the productivity ■ Oracle WebCenter Suite Spaces, a pre- ■ An attachments framework that enables

of developers who are integrating systems built social networking solution that sup- enterprise application users to attach docu-
or building composite applications and ports end-user communities to increase ments directly to customer, employee, or
business processes productivity, communication, and efficiency supplier records
■ Oracle Enterprise Service Bus, which ■ Oracle WebCenter Services, which ■ Oracle Imaging and Process

enables integration of business applications provides a number of social computing Management, which leverages Oracle
with rich graphical tooling for connectivity, services, including tagging, linking, recent BPEL Process Manager and the Oracle
routing, and transformation on top of high- activity, RSS, ratings, and activity graphs Universal Content Management repository
speed messaging ■ Oracle Business Dictionary, a role- ■ Desktop integrations that promote usabil-

■ Modern business process management, specific library of enterprise applications, ity and include Microsoft Office integrations,
which supports unified human-, system-, business intelligence (BI), business pro- use of productivity nodes, and metadata
and document-centric business processes cesses, enterprise content, and informa- pop-ups in Windows Explorer
based on BPMN and BPEL standards tion that can be used by IT and business ■ Oracle Distributed Document Capture,

■ Complex event processing and business users to create executive dashboards which supports single sign-on and multiple
activity monitoring, which delivers real-time ■ Oracle Composer, a declarative, browser- provisioning directories and is fully trans-
business visibility via monitoring, filtering, based tool that enables end users and lated and accessible
correlation, and analysis of business events developers to create, share, and personal- Oracle Identity Management 11g.
■ Cross-application, end-to-end instance ize applications, portals, and social com- This fully integrated identity manage-
tracking, which provides out-of-the-box puting services ment suite delivers single sign-on and
visibility and audit trails across distributed, Oracle Developer Tools. This collec- access management for all Oracle Fusion
composite processes and applications tion of tools includes Oracle JDeveloper Middleware products. (See “Oracle Identity
■ Centralized SOA governance and policy and Oracle Application Development Management 11g—Innovations in User
management Framework (Oracle ADF) 11g Release 1, Management,” page 48, for details.)
Oracle WebLogic Suite 11g. This suite, Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse, Oracle Oracle Fusion Middleware business
which includes Oracle WebLogic Server, TopLink, and more. New features include intelligence solutions. Comprehensive
provides a foundation to integrate and run ■ Oracle Metadata Services, which provide enterprise BI tools deliver a full range of
other Oracle Fusion Middleware services. customization capabilities to allow applica- analysis and reporting capabilities for data
New features include tions and processes to be customized at that spans enterprise sources and applica-
■ Oracle Fusion Middleware GridLink for runtime without having to write any code tions. Some of these features include
Oracle Real Application Clusters, which ■ Oracle ADF desktop integration, which ■ Integration with Oracle Essbase, which

optimizes integration between database extends an Oracle ADF application to brings multidimensional online analytical
clustering and application server clustering Microsoft Excel to perform bulk data processing analysis to Oracle’s BI tools
to enable improved availability and perfor- manipulations ■ Integration with Oracle Enterprise

mance in clustered architectures ■ Oracle Team Productivity Center, which Performance Management Workspace,
■ Oracle Fusion Middleware Enterprise brings application lifecycle management which provides users with a single point
Grid Messaging, which provides an tools to Oracle JDeveloper of entry, single sign-on, and common
enterprisewide messaging backbone ■ Open application lifecycle management, navigation across Oracle performance
based on Oracle WebLogic Server Java which allows developers to bring together a management applications, BI applications,
Message Service variety of technologies to manage the and BI tools
RAY NG

oracle magazine september/october 20 09 41

 snapshots
Collect America
continued from page 40 www.collectamerica.com both an online content management
Middleware 11g. As an independent Location: Denver, Colorado repository and a collaboration document
organization funded by the federal gov- Industry: Financial services, asset management repository, in conjunction with Oracle
ernment to accelerate action on cancer Employees: 200, with 2,500 application users WebCenter Suite,” says Paul Saker,
Oracle products and services: Oracle Fusion
control for all Canadians, the Partnership Deloitte technical lead for the Cancer View
Middleware 11g, Oracle Database, Oracle
brings together cancer survivors, patients WebCenter Suite, Oracle JDeveloper, Oracle
Canada project. “Portal users access all
and families, cancer experts, and govern- Application Development Framework, Oracle this information through user interac-
ment representatives to implement the Identity and Access Management Suite, Oracle tion components. This is the front door
first pan-Canadian cancer control strategy. Enterprise Content Management Suite, Oracle for Oracle WebCenter Suite Spaces 11g,
“We are working with individuals Data Mining, Oracle Service Bus, Oracle BPEL which handles the collaborative aspects of
and organizations across the country Process Manager, Oracle Universal Content the system.”
Management, Oracle Consulting
who want to improve the cancer system The resulting collaboration comes
through a coordinated approach,” says Canadian Partnership Against Cancer in different sizes and at different times.
Lee Fairclough, vice president of knowl- www.partnershipagainstcancer.ca “Oracle WebCenter Suite supports virtual
edge management at the Partnership. Location: Toronto, Canada interactions for large initiatives that involve
“To do this, we need to make sure that Industry: Healthcare, public service many organizations in multiple prov-
knowledge is shared effectively and that Employees: 65 inces,” says the Partnership’ s Fairclough.
Oracle products: Oracle Fusion Middleware
people have a way to easily connect with “[Through Cancer View Canada,] we use
11g, Oracle Database, Oracle Real Application
others involved in relevant projects and Clusters, Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle WebCenter
Oracle collaboration tools to establish
initiatives—especially since so much of Suite, Oracle Identity and Access Management communities and encourage interactions
our work happens virtually.” Suite, Oracle Universal Content Management, between meetings. This helps people stim-
To fulfill its information-management Oracle Secure Enterprise Search, Oracle ulate ideas before they come to events and
objectives, the Partnership developed a WebLogic Server provides a forum to continue discussions
portal called Cancer View Canada. “The and codevelop documents afterwards.”
public-facing component of Cancer View Technology has changed collaboration
Canada enables users to find trusted information and local for sites such as the Partnership’ s Cancer View Canada, and,
resources, including a comprehensive registry of all clinical in turn, collaboration is driving the technology. According to
trials available in Canada as well as information about support Jim Murphy, a research director at AMR Research, yesterday’s
groups,” Fairclough says. “In addition, those working within portals were simply the face you put on your applications,
the Canadian cancer community will benefit from shared tools but today portals are deployed to make virtual teams more
where they can connect, collaborate, and share cancer knowl- efficient and enable new types of social networking strategies.
edge with one another.” “A lot of organizations are using portals not just to aggregate
The Partnership built Cancer View Canada with help from information but to integrate business processes and encourage
Oracle partner Deloitte, a professional services firm. The collaboration,” he says. “They rely on middleware frameworks
development team began by compiling existing policy and to enforce SOA standards, and they borrow from Web 2.0
legislation information into a searchable database using Oracle principles to make the user environment more compelling.”
Universal Content Management. Portals typically include a framework of related capabilities
“We deployed Oracle Universal Content Management as to enable personalization, integration, and security, he adds.

Oracle Application Integration Architecture Glues It Together

Powered by Oracle Fusion Middleware processes that our customers want to Integration Architecture saves time, effort,
and built with an open, standards-based automate,” says Hasan Rizvi, senior vice and cost, compared to building integrations
foundation, Oracle Application Integration president of Oracle Fusion Middleware from the ground up, and helps companies
Architecture is an application-independent development. “That’s where Oracle realize the value of a SOA at an acceler-
framework that enables organizations Application Integration Architecture ated pace.
to use the applications of their choice— comes in.” “Because Oracle Application Integration
including Oracle, custom-developed, Oracle Application Integration Architecture is a solution built on Oracle
and third-party applications—in order to Architecture offers prebuilt solutions at the Fusion Middleware, it brings together
create composite business processes data, process, and user interface level. All domain-specific, workflow-specific process
unique to their businesses. Oracle Application Integration Architecture and data models,” says Rizvi, “so that
“Ultimately, it’s all about the business components are designed to work together IT organizations can deliver a complete
process, whether it’s pay-to-procure, in a mix-and-match fashion and are built process-level integration solution with
order-to-cash, or other industry-specific for configurability. Oracle Application minimal effort.”

42 september/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
The Canadian Partnership Against Cancer unites all stakeholders to implement the first pan-Canadian cancer control strategy. “Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g helps us
build cohesion without being overly concerned about developing particular connections and interfaces,” says Lee Fairclough, vice president of knowledge management.

“It’s all about making it easier for people to find, compile, and experience and tailor information to users. “We want to offer a
share information.” cohesive experience with very similar functionality for all of our
Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g enables the Partnership to different areas,” Fairclough says. “Oracle Fusion Middleware
accomplish these goals within a secure enterprise environment 11g helps us build cohesion without being overly concerned
that spans portals, process managers, application infrastructure, about developing particular connections and interfaces.”
developer tools, enterprise content management, and business Fairclough acknowledges the technical prowess of the team
intelligence. (Oracle Fusion Middleware business intelligence and the tools they had at their disposal. But she has a different
offerings span enterprise sources and applications and include metric for measuring success: reducing the impact of cancer
integration with Oracle’s Hyperion performance management and saving lives.
applications and enhanced integration with Oracle Essbase.) “Our goal is to improve the quality of life for people living
“Formerly, for example, health professionals had to visit with cancer and to reduce the number of patients dying from
individual Web sites of cancer agencies, governments, or cancer—or being diagnosed with it in the first place,” she says.
other sources to find information they might need,” says the “Cancer View Canada supports this vital mission by giving us
Partnership’s Fairclough. “Now information has been com- a comprehensive view of what exactly is going on in cancer
piled in easily searchable repositories, and we’re looking to control in Canada. We are changing the way people work and
use the rich set of tools to look at innovative ways of keeping have created a flexible platform for improving cancer control.” ■
them up-to-date.”
To achieve these data-capture and alert capabilities, the David Baum ([email protected]) is a freelance business writer based in
Partnership’s Cancer View Canada portal infrastructure relies Santa Barbara, California.
on key components of the Oracle Fusion Middleware family,
including Oracle Identity Manager to provision users, Oracle
Internet Directory to manage user accounts, and Oracle Access
Manager to authorize access to applications and content reposi- nextSTEPS
tories using a single-sign-on process. All of the user interaction READ more about Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g
oracle.com/products/middleware
components run on Oracle WebLogic Server in a clustered
environment, while metadata content is stored in an Oracle DOWNLOAD Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g
otn.oracle.com/software/products/middleware
database supported by Oracle Real Application Clusters.
EXPLORE the Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g launch center
In the future, the Partnership plans to use video and social oracle.com/fusionmiddleware11g
networking technologies to maximize the Cancer View Canada

oracle magazine september/october 20 09 43

SPecIal Partner SectIon

oracle Fusion Middleware 11g

The recently released Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g
is a modern application infrastructure that enables
agile and intelligent business applications and new
hardware and software architectures for efficient IT
execution and cost savings. In the following pages,
Oracle partners explore how companies can make
the most of this middleware suite.

Partner Index
• FUJITSU
• CAPGEMINI

Fujitsu and Oracle: A Joint Focus on Middleware

oday, middleware plays a growing role across IT Database—and together, it offers complete function-
T initiatives, from consolidation to the development
of Web services. And to help in those efforts, Fujitsu
ality for application innovation and modern application
development. “Because Oracle software is seamlessly
has been collaborating closely with Oracle in a strate- integrated in this middleware suite, the Fujitsu openSEAS
gic partnership that focuses on middleware. solutions are very well suited for Oracle users,” says
This partnership has borne fruit on several fronts. Dr. Rolf Strotmann, VP Enterprise Server, Software and
For example, Fujitsu has integrated Oracle Fusion Solutions, at Fujitsu Technology Solutions.
Middleware into openSEAS, its middleware suite for On another front, Oracle and Fujitsu recently worked
infrastructure solutions. This suite also includes a range together to conduct performance measurement and
of other software and tools, such as BeanConnect, scalability validations on a business intelligence system
openUTM, WebTransactions, openFT, and Oracle based on Oracle Business Intelligence Suite, Enterprise
 Special partner Section oracle Fusion Middleware 11g
Edition Plus; Oracle Real Application Clusters; and the large up-front investments. With these consolidated
PRIMERGY BX620 X4, Fujitsu’s newest blade server. pools of industry-standard servers, companies can re-
The tests confirmed that Oracle Business Intelligence duce costs significantly. Indeed, experience indicates
Suite, Enterprise Edition Plus is capable of providing that FlexFrame can reduce data center operating costs
consistently superb performance in a changing busi- by up to 60 percent.
ness environment, and that the Fujitsu PRIMERGY
Blade Server is an effective platform that provides flex- Strategic alignment
ible scalability for such solutions. For Fujitsu, the FlexFrame solution and other middle-
ware initiatives are part of an overarching dynamic
FlexFrame For oracle infrastructures strategy. This comprehensive strategy
One tangible result of the Fujitsu and Oracle focus is designed to provide companies with a wide range of
on middleware is the jointly developed FlexFrame for choice in cost-effective, tailored, flexible infrastructures
Oracle—a preconfigured, integrated, and pretested IT that enable greater business efficiency and agility.
infrastructure solution that dynamically assigns servers Under this strategy, Fujitsu provides hardware
to Oracle application servers and database services. platforms that are integrated with software to cre-
The solution shares an operating system, storage devic- ate complete infrastructure solutions, complemented
es, and server capacity, which are managed through an with service offerings for maintenance and opera-
intelligent control center and runs on industry-standard tions, including managed services. The objective is to
technology—the Fujitsu Group’s high-performance, enable companies to spend less energy on building
highly reliable, Intel-based PRIMERGY servers. and managing the IT infrastructure, and more on criti-
With FlexFrame for Oracle, the Oracle software cal application development and implementation. For
and the operating system reside on a central storage example, Fujitsu provides support for companies run-
system, and they can be started on each server in the ning Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM on Fujitsu
FlexFrame pool in just a few minutes, greatly reducing PRIMERGY x86 servers. It also offers innovative solu-
installation and maintenance expenditures. If a failure tion contracts for the entire solution stack that deliver
occurs, the Oracle service is automatically restarted on end-to-end service with a single point of contact and
another system. The solution is designed to offer cost- accountability. And it provides an optimization service
effective high availability for both physical and virtualized that helps companies find the right balance between
servers via Oracle VM. “In all, FlexFrame for Oracle technical requirements and licensing strategies.
gives companies increased flexibility and availability, Here again, the Fujitsu strategy is a good fit with
and simple, quick, and virtually unlimited scalability,” Oracle’s approach. “Our strategies are very much aligned
says Strotmann. “And its intelligent virtualization and with one another,” says Joerg Tettenborn, Director
automation enable the optimal use of server resources Strategic Alliance Oracle at Fujitsu Technology Solutions.
and significantly lower administrative expenses.” “We are focused on providing cost-effective, simplified,
FlexFrame for Oracle is the first policy-based, auto- adaptable infrastructures that deliver efficient, agile sup-
mated management solution for Oracle Grid Computing, port for business.” And with that foundation, the two
and it helps companies dramatically improve the qual- companies expect to keep collaborating in middleware,
ity and efficiency of their applications and databases. as well as a variety of other areas. Says Tettenborn: “We
At the same time, it provides an ideal platform for will continue to help companies make better use their
data center automation efforts and the consolidation current IT resources, bring new levels of efficiency and
of Oracle Databases on industry-standard platforms, effectiveness to their infrastructure, and enable new
which can grow in small stages, reducing the need for ways of approaching both IT and the business.”

For more inFormation please visit: oracle-alliance.ts.Fujitsu.com

Special partner Section oracle Fusion Middleware 11g

Capgemini: Understanding—and Achieving—

the Benefits of Middleware
apgemini has worked with Oracle technologies for how to take advantage of that power, and how it can help
C nearly two decades, and over the years, the two com-
panies have executed thousands of joint implementations
them create value. The COFE lab can put together various
scenarios specific to the client, demonstrate implementa-
worldwide and developed a strong relationship. Capgemini tions and help them understand what is possible and how
is a Global Oracle Certified Advantage Partner, and indus- to move forward.”
try analysts have noted that Capgemini is a leader in imple- Through the lab, companies can find answers to key
menting Oracle and investing in research and development questions such as
that promotes service-oriented architectures (SOA) using • How can we benefit from using Oracle Fusion Middleware?
Oracle technologies. “Capgemini is a leader in innova- • How can we leverage our existing IT infrastructure with
tive approaches to solutions,” says Connie Cservenyak, Oracle Fusion Middleware?
Capgemini’s Global Oracle Partner Executive. “We have • What would be the total cost of ownership of such
long seen Oracle Fusion Middleware as an integral technol- a solution?
ogy which can enable our clients to leverage their current • How can we achieve flexibility, scalability, reliability, and
investments while evolving to an improved future-state busi- security?
ness environment.” • How can we retrieve data from disparate sources and use
Today, Oracle Fusion Middleware is a focal point for it to gain better business insight?
advancing Capgemini’s work with Oracle and Oracle tech- • How can we shorten time-to-market?
nologies. For its part, Capgemini has extensive expertise • How can we mitigate risk and maximize ROI with
with Oracle’s middleware and supports the recent Oracle our systems?
Fusion Middleware 11g release. The centerpiece of the The work in the COFE lab reflects the overall approach
two companies’ middleware-related work is the Capgemini that Capgemini takes with Oracle projects. The company
Oracle Fusion Experience (COFE) lab, which helps organi- applies a balance of technology expertise, business knowl-
zations understand how to optimize their investments in edge, and global and local resources—all of which helps
Oracle. The COFE lab combines the industry experience and keep the focus on the cost-effective delivery of solutions and
SOA delivery capabilities of Capgemini, Oracle, and hard- the achievement of business results.
ware provider HP in one place. It brings together Capgemini Capgemini brings a similar broad perspective to Oracle
solution architects from both the business and technology Fusion Middleware specifically, approaching it not as a sepa-
fields to collaborate on the development of road maps for rate set of technologies, but as an integral part of the overall
business processes, SOA structures, and architectures, all infrastructure. With more than 9,000 Oracle specialists, the
based on Oracle Fusion Middleware. Operating globally, the company draws on deep skills not only in middleware, but
lab is supported by Capgemini’s Rightshore Fusion Center also in the Oracle Database and Oracle E-Business Suite, as
Of Excellence Group in Mumbai, India, which is a dedicat- well as Oracle applications such as PeopleSoft Enterprise,
ed team of skilled individuals specializing in Oracle Fusion Siebel CRM, Demantra, and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, to
Middleware projects across industry verticals and technol- mention just a few. This breadth means that Capgemini is able
ogy horizontals. In addition, Capgemini offers Run for Oracle to help companies leverage the Oracle Fusion Middleware to
Fusion Middleware, which provides an outsourced approach drive improvements and innovation across a broad range of
to the support, maintenance, and ongoing development of processes and applications.
Oracle Fusion Middleware solutions. Overall, Capgemini helps companies use Oracle to
“Capgemini strongly believes that technology can and contend with a dynamic, competitive world. “With this
must support business. Our TechnoVision approach maps comprehensive approach, Capgemini helps clients use the
emerging technology solutions and determines how these technology to do things more efficiently and effectively—
solutions relate to the business needs of a particular orga- leveraging existing application investments, improving
nization or industry. This provides much-needed clarity to business process efficiency, working smarter with everyday
business and technology executives to help them under- business transactions, adapting more quickly to competitive
stand each other, focus efforts and work together effectively. changes, and planning effectively,” says Jonathan Ebsworth,
Oracle Fusion Middleware perfectly meets with this vision head of Package Solutions at Capgemini. “And we help them
and you can really do some wonderful things with it,” says to do things they couldn’t do before—to find innovative ways
Pascal Plantey, Director of the Managing Oracle Technology to create new markets, new profits, new products, and new
Alliance. “But companies sometimes find it hard to visualize business, using Oracle to enable greater competitiveness.”

For more inFormation, please visit Capgemini.Com/Fusion-middleware-seo

or www.oraClewhitepapers.Com/listC/Capgemini
 Secure
Search
Google Oracle
Searches Public Data Searches Private Data

Oracle Secure Enterprise Search

Find everything you’re authorized to see within:

business applications, email, web content, portals,
document repositories and more.

oracle.com/goto/search
or call 1.800.633.0935

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates.
Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
48 september/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
 By Dav iD a . K elly

InformatIon Secured.
IdentIty confIrmed.
Protect your organization’s data, manage users, and
grow your business with Oracle database security
and identity management solutions.

O rganizations have long attempted to protect their data

and control access to who gets to see it. From hackers
to employees who have inappropriate data access, security
threats can result in severe legal penalties and not just loss
of revenue but also loss of reputation. Now more than ever,
it’s important to ensure that the data is secured at multiple
levels to protect against sophisticated attacks from outsiders
and insiders.
Security needs to start close to the data, taking into
account potential internal security threats while also protect-
ing against traditional outside security threats. “A good strat-
egy should be ‘security inside out,’” says Vipin Samar, vice
president of database security development at Oracle. “What
we’re doing at Oracle is providing ‘defense-in-depth’ security
Stockphotopro and I-hua chen

technology that is also transparent, high-performance, and

easy to deploy,” he says.

oracle magazine september/october 20 09 49

“Oracle Advanced Security saves us a lot of development time and ensures that the
security will work with all types of files and media.”
—Andy Barrett, Cofounder and CTO, Yuntaa

Defense in depth, Samar explains, has three ee data privacy and integrity protection regulations that call
layers. “First, customers want to be sure that the data for information-specific controls.
itself is encrypted, whether the data goes on the “We’re seeing an architectural trend of moving security
disk or on the tape or on the network itself,” he closer to the data that’s being protected,” says Daniel Blum,
says. “The next layer of access control should senior vice president and principal analyst for security
ensure that only authorized people can look at and risk management strategies at the Burton Group.
your data and only under specific conditions. “Companies drive security down to the data layer partly
Just being a privileged user on the database because there are so many combinations of data—
should not automatically give you access to all centralized data, distributed data, structured data,
the application data.” unstructured data, and more—and partly because
The third layer is monitoring and audit- of increased regulatory activity that requires orga-
ing. “We need to trust the people who manage nizations to protect and retain information.”
the show, but we should monitor them and
know what’s really happening,” Samar says. PROTECTING DATA AT THE SOURCE
“For monitoring, first you want to make sure Information-centric security starts with protecting
that the systems are configured and secured data at the source—the database. Using Oracle
properly. Second, you want to audit the activi- Advanced Security with Oracle Database 11g,
ties of these users, whether they are insiders or organizations can encrypt data at rest and data
outsiders, or people with superprivileges. Third, you want to traveling between applications and the database without any
keep a history of what they have done and be able to create changes to their applications. The encryption happens trans-
reports and raise alerts as needed.” parently inside the database, protecting data against unau-
A driver for “security inside out” is an accelerating trend of thorized system- or network-level access. The data also stays

Oracle Identity Management 11g—Innovations in User Management

As part of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g, several new and a heterogeneous, multivendor environment.
updated components of Oracle Identity Management 11g are Oracle Identity Federation now features the Universal
now available, including Oracle Platform Security Services, Federation Framework, extending connectivity to a broad set
Oracle Directory Services, Oracle Web Services Manager, of protocols including SAML 2.0, Microsoft CardSpace, Liberty,
Oracle Access Manager, and Oracle Identity Federation. WS-Federation, and more. Oracle Identity Federation 11g
Oracle Platform Security Services delivers the industry’s has also passed Liberty Alliance SAML 2.0 interoperability
first service-oriented security foundation. This comprehensive testing, demonstrating that user-driven, identity-enabled
declarative security framework allows developers to build applications can interoperate across networks, devices,
security into their applications and deploy them into a central- and regions.
ized identity management framework. “The advantage of Oracle’s new identity management
Oracle Directory Services features a newly integrated innovations is that organizations can now build or deploy entire
administration console—Oracle Directory Services Manager— applications with tightly integrated security but have that secu-
to manage and configure LDAP directories, virtual directories, rity independently packaged,” says Amit Jasuja, vice president
and metadirectories from a single point. It also features new of development at Oracle. “The security elements can be auto-
wizards to help accelerate directory deployments by simplifying matically deployed with the application and then managed with
tasks such as sizing, tuning, and replication. Oracle Identity Manager, so you can easily administer the rules
Oracle Web Services Manager and Oracle Access Manager to decide which permissions get combined and aggregated
have been enhanced to provide integrated access control into a single role. The entire lifecycle of an application has been
including message encryption, identity propagation, and policy integrated with the identity management system, and if you
management for Web-based applications and Web services in look across the industry today, nobody else can do that.”

50 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 20 09 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE
encrypted when it is backed up or
exported, so data remains secure even
if a backup is lost or stolen.
Yuntaa NV, a company that pro-
vides online storing and sharing of
digital media such as photos, videos,
documents, and audio files, uses
Oracle Advanced Security with Oracle
Database 11g to protect its data—and
proves at the same time that secu-
rity isn’t always about locking things
down and restricting services. High-
performance security can enable a
company to offer services and open up
a path for future growth.
Based in Belgium, Yuntaa currently
has more than 50,000 users around
the world and uses Oracle Database
11g to store more than 1.6 million
files. While the company has plenty
of competition for online storage or
backup of digital media, Yuntaa does
much more—it can function as a
complete backup and synchronization
solution as well as an online multi-
media solution for storing, sharing,
and viewing the content that has been “Security for Yuntaa is paramount. It’s our key focus and our key objective,” says Andy Barrett, cofounder and CTO,
backed up. And everything begins Yuntaa. “Yuntaa is all about securing and protecting our customers’ data, as well as enabling them to make use of
with Oracle Database. that data. . . . We use Oracle Advanced Security to secure the data at rest and protect against intrusions.”
“Our Oracle Database implemen-
tation is the foundation of Yuntaa.com and our business. Barrett. “We use Oracle Advanced Security to secure the data
It’s allowed us to take the vision of what we want to do for at rest and protect against intrusions. Each object and all
our customers and turn it into a reality,” says Andy Barrett, user-generated content is encrypted inside the database and
cofounder and CTO, Yuntaa. remains encrypted until it’s presented to the authenticated
All user-generated content and Yuntaa’s metadata is stored user. Oracle Advanced Security saves us a lot of development
and managed using the Oracle Automatic Storage Management time and ensures that the security will work with all types of
file system, so the company doesn’t have to manage a separate files and media.”
file system or content repository. Instead of requiring users to keep track of encryption keys
Yuntaa also uses Oracle Partitioning and Oracle Advanced or other technical requirements, Oracle Advanced Security
Compression in its growing multiterabyte database. But the allows Yuntaa to make the extra security transparent, so its
key to Yuntaa’s ability to grow is the built-in data security users can focus on their digital content. “Oracle Advanced
from Oracle. Security is a real benefit for our users,” Barrett says.
“Security for Yuntaa is paramount. It’s our key focus and Using Oracle Advanced Security to implement advanced
our key objective,” says Barrett. “Yuntaa is all about securing encryption wasn’t hard for Yuntaa. “All there was to it was
and protecting our customers’ data, as well as enabling them adding the keyword ‘encrypt’ to the BLOB columns in the
to make use of that data.” database, creating an Oracle wallet for the master key, and
In fact, Yuntaa’s security architecture is so solid that it was then restarting the database,” says Barrett. “It couldn’t be
able to obtain an insurance policy—valued at €250,000 for simpler than that.”
each user—if Yuntaa is responsible for the loss or theft of a For Barrett, one of the most positive aspects about Oracle
customer’s data. Advanced Security capabilities isn’t even about security. It’s
To help secure that data, Yuntaa uses Oracle Advanced about performance.
Security. “It provides the best encryption available,” says “I haven’t noticed any additional overhead on the CPU for

oracle magazine september/october 20 09 51

 systems at Northwestern Memorial.
The hospital decided to imple-
ment an identity management solution
based on Oracle Identity Management,
which allows organizations to manage
the end-to-end lifecycle of user iden-
tities across all enterprise resources,
as well as protect all applications
and data.
“Oracle Identity Management was
deployed to improve compliance with
our IT security policies and provide
a central repository for all requests
and approvals,” says Mary Beth Jezuit,
manager of administrative systems at
Northwestern Memorial.
There were three key goals driving
the deployment of Oracle Identity
Management. The first was to main-
tain control over who has access to the
hospital’s applications and data. The
second was to provide a foundation to
support self-service password manage-
ment in an increasingly decentralized
environment. Last, Northwestern
Memorial wanted automated controls
to ensure that the right people had
Mary Beth Jezuit, manager of administrative systems (left), and Sue Lopardo, director of administrative systems,
access to the right information at the
Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “Oracle Identity Management was deployed to improve compliance with our IT right time.
security policies and provide a central repository for all requests and approvals,” says Jezuit. Oracle Identity Management was
launched at Northwestern Memorial
encrypting or unencrypting the data using Oracle Advanced in October 2008 with provisioning to the hospital’s Microsoft
Security,” says Barrett. “It’s really a dream come true. I’m com- Active Directory, four PeopleSoft systems, its clinical and
pletely satisfied with it.” revenue systems, and more. Now, when an employee leaves
the hospital or changes roles, his or her rights are turned off
Managing user access or adjusted across all the systems consistently. “Automated
The second layer of “security inside out” involves managing controls triggered by terminations and transfers are critical to a
who has access to specific data. And while access control has successful security program,” says Lopardo.
always been important in IT, access control that helps to meet For the hospital, the new system reduces staff workload.
regulatory requirements has become critical in many indus- “Before we had Oracle Identity Management, we had to do a
tries. For example, compliance mandates such as the Health lot of legwork to verify and review everyone who had access
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) have to the systems and confirm their rights,” says Lopardo. “Now,
had a big impact on data security in hospitals and healthcare with Oracle Identity Management, we get notices of termina-
institutions. Northwestern Memorial Hospital, in Chicago, tions as part of the workflow, so it is easy to validate that the
Illinois—a teaching hospital with 873 beds, 1,603 affiliated right people have the right access policies. The types of audit-
physicians, and 7,200 staff—is no exception. ing, reporting, and monitoring capabilities that Oracle Identity
“Our main challenge is achieving IT general controls— Management provides are critical.”
making sure that the hospital is following the appropriate The new system reduces workload in another way as well.
guidelines for security by tracking approval on all access to its Northwestern Memorial used Oracle Identity Management to
systems, using role-based security where possible, and ensur- roll out a self-service password-reset solution that’s already
ing that transfers and terminations are executed correctly cutting down on help desk calls. The Northwestern Memorial
and quickly,” says Sue Lopardo, director for administrative IT help desk received more than 35,000 calls for password

52 september/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
“The types of auditing, reporting, and monitoring capabilities that Oracle Identity
Management provides are critical.”
—Sue Lopardo, Director for Administrative Systems, Northwestern Memorial Hospital

resets in 2008 alone. With Oracle Identity Management, That’s why Daewoo Securities implemented Oracle
Northwestern Memorial applications now provide self-service Database Vault and Oracle Advanced Security. Using Oracle
password management with challenge questions. Database Vault, Daewoo was able to enforce least privilege and
Northwestern Memorial plans to expand its use of Oracle separation of duties and allow DBAs to manage the database
Identity Management, including connecting it to additional while preventing them from being able to access sensitive cus-
applications that use Microsoft Active Directory, and enabling tomer data. Similarly, Oracle Advanced Security allows system
a workflow process that allows managers to request and provi- and storage administrators to manage servers and storage but
sion specialized or advanced system access for staff members. prevents them from being able to see unencrypted customer
data. Customers are protected, and day-to-day operations
Protecting AgAinst insider threAts remain unaffected.
Perhaps nowhere are regulatory requirements felt more acutely “We used Oracle’s database security solutions to resolve
than in the high-stakes world of international finance. Take internal security issues—a common challenge for finan-
the example of Daewoo Securities, a leading financial services cial institutions,” says Jung HakSoo, deputy manager of the
company offering investment, banking, and brokerage services Infrastructure Development Department at Daewoo Securities.
to retail and corporate clients around the world. “Oracle Database Vault offers internal controls that help
As a company handling large financial transactions, secure human resources data,” he adds, “while Oracle
Daewoo Securities must consider both internal and external Advanced Security has automated encryption functions that
security threats, as well as the enforcement of strict ethical further protect sensitive information.”
guidelines for business practices. Specifically, the company
wanted to ensure that access to the personal and financial data A secure FoundAtion For growth
of its customers would be limited to authorized employees Today’s successful organizations are securing their information
and applications. and applications from the inside out and making sure that
access is granted only to those who need it. Such solutions
snapshots not only protect information and stakeholders, but they also
provide a foundation for future growth. By leveraging Oracle
Yuntaa NV identity management solutions and the transparent database
www.yuntaa.com security solutions of Oracle Database 11g, organizations can
Location: Groot-Bijgaarden, Belgium ensure security while focusing on business needs. ■
Industry: Online archiving and sharing
Employees: 30
David A. Kelly ([email protected]) is a business, technology, and travel
Oracle products: Oracle Database, Oracle Automatic Storage Management, Oracle
Advanced Security, Oracle Partitioning, Oracle Advanced Compression writer who lives in West Newton, Massachusetts.

nextSTEPS
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
www.nmh.org
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Industry: Healthcare READ more about
Employees: 7,200 Oracle Identity Management
Oracle products: Oracle Database, Oracle Identity Management, PeopleSoft oracle.com/products/middleware/identity-management

Human Resources, PeopleSoft Financials, PeopleSoft Inventory Oracle Database security

oracle.com/database/security
Daewoo Securities VISIT the Oracle Database forum
www.bestez.com forums.oracle.com/forums/main.jspa?categoryID=84
Location: Seoul, South Korea DOWNLOAD
Industry: Financial services Oracle Identity Manager
Employees: 3,000 otn.oracle.com/software/products/ias/htdocs/101401.html
Oracle products: Oracle Database, Oracle Database Vault, Oracle Oracle Database 11g
Advanced Security otn.oracle.com/software/products/database

oracle magazIne september/october 20 09 53

 Stockphotopro

54 september/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
“Oracle Data Integrator is very open in the sense that we have a lot of connectors to
different databases and datasources. . . . That versatility is important to us.”
—Durgaprasad Pulakkat, Architect, IT Governance Group, NBS

But, like many companies, Tokyo, Japan–based NYK Line was managed and reported—and that meant NYK Line needed
faced a business challenge: as part of implementing a new a new data integration strategy.
global shipping solution, it needed tighter integration between After considering several market-leading data integration
its key business software, its e-commerce systems, and its solutions, including tools from Informatica, NYK Line’s IT
corporate management information system. For example, group—NYK Business Systems (NBS)—turned to Oracle Data
NYK Line needed to be able to easily address a U.S. Customs Integrator for several reasons.
Service requirement for shipping companies to notify Customs “Oracle Data Integrator is very open in the sense that
24 hours before a container was loaded on a ship in a foreign we have a lot of connectors to different databases and data-
port. This meant a quantum shift in how the company’s data sources including IBM MQ, flat files, XML drivers, and more,”
says Durgaprasad Pulakkat, architect in the IT
governance group within NBS. “That versatility
is important to us.”
Oracle Data Integrator’s JDBC XML driver
simplifies development and configuration,
according to Mohan Loganathan, architect and
manager, data services group at NBS. “You
can connect to any target with a JDBC driver,”
he says. “Oracle Data Integrator is easy to
learn, and that’s one of its major advantages.
We’ve trained about 20 developers in it so far.
Everyone gets three weeks’ orientation, and
at the end of the three weeks they’re expected
to be delivering results using Oracle Data
Integrator on projects.”

DELIVERING INTEGRATION SOLUTIONS

In the short term, NYK Line was able to
meet the U.S. Customs Service requirements
for notification. “In less than a month, we
were able to implant new business processes
using Oracle Data Integrator that report on
container movements and provide that infor-
mation to U.S. Customs,” says Loganathan.
“That’s when our business managers realized
how good the time to market is with Oracle
Data Integrator–based solutions. Now when
they need a solution, they ask that we do it in
Oracle Data Integrator.”
The company began rolling out Oracle Data
Integrator–based solutions in February 2006
and has rolled out new solutions using the
technology every one or two months since.
“Right now we have about 60 to 70 Oracle
Data Integrator–based solutions running in
catherine gibbons

production, doing about 10,000 jobs on a daily

Durgaprasad Pulakkat, architect in the IT governance group at NYK Business Systems (left), pictured
with Mohan Loganathan, architect and manager, data services group, says that the company has 60 to basis and moving about 25 million transactions
70 Oracle Data Integrator–based solutions running in production, moving 25 million transactions daily. per day,” says Pulakkat.

56 september/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
 snapshots
NYK Line
NBS also uses Oracle Data Integrator www.nykline.com tomer relationship management] and ERP
for a wide variety of solutions, includ- Location: Tokyo, Japan (headquarters); systems. Doing integration ad hoc just
Secaucus, New Jersey (U.S. location)
ing data integration between e-commerce doesn’t work well. Especially when you
Revenue: US$24 billion
systems, partner integration with cus- Employees: 29,834 have a large volume of data, data inte-
tomers, legacy integration with regional Oracle products: Oracle Data Integrator, Oracle gration helps ensure data consistency, it
systems, integration with enterprise Database, Oracle Real Application Clusters, Oracle helps propagate data from one location to
resource planning (ERP) solutions such as WebLogic Suite, Oracle Identity Management another, and it reduces the cost of main-
SAP, and data integration with a corporate taining the systems.”
management information system. For City of Arnhem In an ideal world, systems would be
www.arnhem.nl
example, NBS uses Oracle Data Integrator Location: Arnhem, the Netherlands
designed to talk to each other natively
to provide the data integration services for Employees: 1,800 instead of requiring integration after the
its container-tracking application used by Oracle products: Oracle Fusion Middleware, fact. But for most organizations, the real
customers around the world, which needs Oracle Universal Content Management, world is populated by a wide range of
to be accessible 24 hours a day. Oracle Document Capture, Oracle Data Integrator, applications with diverse data models
“We need 24/7 availability primarily Oracle Application Server, Oracle WebCenter that need to be integrated or at least
Suite, Oracle BPEL Process Manager, Oracle
for our e-commerce data integration,” says consolidated for management and report-
integration, Oracle Enterprise Service Bus, Oracle
Loganathan. “Just as FedEx, DHL, or UPS Web Services Manager, additional Oracle docu- ing purposes.
provides tracking numbers for shipments, ment management and integration solutions “Data integration sits at the nexus of
NYK Line has a site, www.nykline.com, four important disciplines: database and
where customers can enter their con- data warehousing, business intelligence,
tainer or booking or bill of lading number and see where SOA, and master data management,” says Miranda Nash,
the container is.” senior director of development at Oracle. “Because Oracle is
Overall, the company supports about 5,000 users around a leader in each of these solution areas, we’re able to help our
the world for the global shipping solution, while the manage- customers extract the full value of these disciplines with a
ment information systems provide support for 500 users. “We comprehensive data integration solution.”
do a lot of data integration,” says Pulakkat.
Committing to a data integration strategy—and having a Delivering Better ServiceS
reliable, high-performance data integration solution—is criti- For the City of Arnhem in the Netherlands, data integration
cal for companies that want to succeed, says Bill Swanton, vice was only one step toward delivering better services to its citi-
president of research, AMR Research. zens. But it was an important step. The goal was to put online
“People can’t accomplish what they want to do in business more than 4 million pages of documentation such as drawings,
without a high level of data quality,” he says. “For example, building applications, and permits from the city’s planning
if you’re trying to expose just one face to your customer, you archive; to integrate and consolidate all this information into
need to have very tight control over the a single, accessible database for everyone
synchronization between your CRM [cus- from real estate agents to firefighters to

Master Data Management and understanding the rules for data

management,” he says. “The second is
and Data Integration data stewardship—how can you create
Master data management (MDM) is about and manage new data on a day-to-day
getting a single version of truth for critical basis? Both of those aspects have to
business data that may be used in many be solved to have a solid MDM solution
types of applications within a company. in place.”
Data integration is required to move and Even when these elements are solved,
transform data from applications to a data integration is never finished. “People
central staging ground or hub, where the usually think that they’ll clean up the data
data can be managed and manipulated once, and that will be the end of it,” says
and sent back out to the consuming applications. Swanton. “But what they really need is a continuous process
According to Bill Swanton, vice president of research for managing the quality of their data. Data integration tools
at AMR Research, MDM projects typically have two parts. are perfect for data stewardship and managing data migration
“The first is the data migration and harmonization process on an ongoing basis.”

oracle magazine september/october 20 09 57

 “[Oracle Data Integrator] helps us
provide better quality of data to
our citizens, and we can manage
it with fewer people because we
have one technology platform.”
—Hemmo de Groot, Director, Information
Management, City of Arnhem

each other is complex and requires a lot of

interfaces and adapters. It’s also very expensive
and time consuming to try and connect them
manually,” says Hemmo de Groot, director,
information management, City of Arnhem.
“Oracle Data Integrator, combined with Oracle
Enterprise Service Bus and Oracle BPEL Process
Manager, gives us a universal connection inter-
face that makes it possible to do it in an easy
and standardized way. Now, using Oracle Data
Integrator, we have one point to manage our
data integrations. We can use one tool to do
all those different kinds of data transportation
across the organization.”

City Goals
“The goals of a city are not commercial—
Hemmo de Groot (left), director, information management, City of Arnhem, the Netherlands, is pictured
here with Gudron van der Wal, an account manager at Oracle partner Redora, which helped the City they’re to provide good quality of services to
implement a SOA-based infrastructure. your citizens, to be a good city to live in, to
be safe, and to be a nice place,” says de Groot.
homeowners; and to make the information easily accessible. “Oracle Data Integrator is helping us achieve those goals by
The job was huge. The planning archive contains docu- enabling us to work more efficiently and standardizing our
ments dating back to 1917. Additional information related technology. It helps us provide better quality of data to our
to some documents, such as permits, was recorded on paper citizens, and we can manage it with fewer people because we
as well as by computer systems. Previously, the documents have one technology platform.”
were spread across three sites, making the task of locating and The key to successful data management, says AMR
accessing documents time consuming and costly. Research’s Swanton, is about the economy and how organiza-
With assistance from Oracle partner Redora, the city of tions can keep their employees productive. “If people spend
Arnhem implemented a flexible SOA-based infrastructure that their time fixing data errors that could have been found auto-
would enable all its central office applications to access the matically, that’s wasting their effort, and you’re probably not
consolidated information. This included using Oracle Data doing what you need to do to bring revenue in,” he says. “It’s
Integrator to import metadata and existing data records as simple as it gets: automating mundane data management
related to the documents from a wide range of diverse sources tasks will free people up to do more-useful things.” ■
(from old DataFlex and Microsoft Access applications to
existing Oracle applications) into the Redora Business and David A. Kelly ([email protected]) is a business, technology, and travel
Data Warehouse. Next, the City of Arnhem digitized all the writer who lives in West Newton, Massachusetts.
documents using Oracle Document Capture. Scanned files
were stored in compressed PDF/A format to save space and
speed downloads. nextSTEPS
By the time the project is completed at the end of 2009, READ more about Oracle data integration
oracle.com/products/middleware/odi
the solution will encompass about 25 applications from dif-
ferent suppliers sharing centralized information on properties, DOWNLOAD Oracle Data Integrator and Oracle Data
ton hendriks

Integration Suite
people, and buildings. otn.oracle.com/software/products/odi
“To get all of the 25 applications in Arnhem to talk to

58 september/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
 d e v e l o p e r frameworks By Steve Muench

At the Breaking Point

Debug more effectively with Oracle Application Development Framework.
ebugging is fundamental to successful stop the debugger whenever a specific ger. In Oracle Business Component
enterprise application development. kind of exception is thrown. The starter Browser, double-click the HRModule
This column explores Oracle Application workspace contains code that throws java application module at the root of the
Development Framework (Oracle ADF) .lang.StringIndexOutOfBoundsException tree to see the list of custom methods it
debugging features that go beyond the because of a programming error. Follow exposes to clients. The list consists of one
simple source code breakpoint. You’ll these steps to find and fix the problem: initBrowseDeptAndEmpsRegion method,
bolster your Oracle ADF debugging From the main menu, choose View -> which the browse-dept-and-emps task
toolbox by learning how to break when Debugger -> Breakpoints to show the flow uses to perform any necessary setup
an exception occurs, when an action Breakpoints tab. Right-click anywhere logic before executing. Enter a value of
binding is triggered, when a task flow in this tab, and choose Add Breakpoint TestValue for the param1 property, and
activity runs, and when a query executes. -> Exception Breakpoint. When the click Execute to test the custom method.
To begin, download the starter work- Create Exception Breakpoint dialog box The debugger stops at a line in the
space at otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/ appears, click in the Exception Class String.java source and shows an alert
09-sep/o59frame.zip and ensure that you field and type SIO (the first few capital dialog box with a message that begins,
are using the studio edition of the Oracle letters in the exception name), then select “The debugger has stopped in a class
JDeveloper 11.1.1.1 (production) release, the StringIndexOutOfBoundsException where tracing is disabled.” By default,
available as a free download on Oracle (java.lang) entry, and click OK to define the classes in packages that belong to the
Technology Network (OTN) at otn.oracle the new breakpoint. base Java Developer Kit (JDK) runtime—
.com/jdev. Start by extracting the con- In the Application Navigator, expand such as java.lang (which contains the
tents of the o59frame.zip file, and the Model project, the Application String class)—are disabled from debugger
open the FrameworksSepOct2009.jws Sources folder, and the oramag.model stepping. You usually want to leave things
workspace in Oracle JDeveloper. (If the package. Right-click the HRModule, configured this way to speed debugging
Migration Wizard appears, allow the and choose Debug to start the debug- of your own code, so dismiss the alert by
project to migrate, taking all defaults.)
The Model project in the workspace
defines a base set of Oracle ADF com-
ponents for working with the data in
the EMP table in the SCOTT schema.
The ViewController project includes the
Home.jspx page, which is based on a
page template and includes the browse-
dept-and-emps bounded task flow as
a region. Before proceeding, adjust the
properties of the connection named scott
in the Application Resources zone of the
Application Navigator until you can suc-
cessfully test a connection to the SCOTT
schema. If necessary, use the provided
CreateDeptEmpTables.sql script to create
the schema’s tables.

Using an ExcEption BrEakpoint

When an unexpected operation occurs in
a Java program, an exception signals the
problem. To locate the problem quickly,
you can use an exception breakpoint to Figure 1: Debugging an exception

oracle magazine SepteMBer/octoBer 20 09 59

frameworks

clicking No in response to “Do you want

to change the tracing options now?”
The debugger stops at a line in the
String class’s substring() method. Select
the Stack tab on the left to see the
runtime call stack. (If you can’t see the
Stack tab, select View -> Debugger ->
Stack.) Observe that the HRModuleImpl
class’s initBrowseDeptAndEmpsRegion
method calls the substring() method
on a String object. Double-click the
HRModuleImpl line in the stack tab to
jump to that line of code. As Figure 1
shows, the code adds +1 to the param1
.length() expression when passing it to
the substring() method, which is incor-
rect. Fix the problem by changing the
param1.length()+1 expression to param1
.length(). Click the red stop button in
the main toolbar to stop the debugger.
If you retest the method (right-click
HRModule, choose Debug, double-click Figure 2: Oracle ADF stack tab at an activity breakpoint
the HRModule application module in
Oracle Business Component Browser, to open the related page fragment in the breakpoints you’ve just set, right-click
enter TestValue for the param1 prop- visual editor. ViewController in the Application
erty, and click Execute), you’ll see that You’ll set a breakpoint on the action Navigator and choose Debug. After
the exception no longer occurs. Finally, binding related to the Refresh Current Oracle JDeveloper opens your default
delete the breakpoint, by selecting it in Department’s Employees button. Right- browser to request the starting page but
the Breakpoints tab and clicking the red click this button in the editor, and choose before anything appears in the browser,
X (the delete icon) in the toolbar. Go to Binding. This switches the focus the debugger stops at the breakpoint on
When you set a breakpoint for an to the Page Data Binding Definition tab the initialize activity. Ensure that you can
exception, the debugger stops for all and selects the corresponding Execute see the ADF Structure tab (you can use
exceptions of that type or its subtypes. binding for you. Right-click the Execute View -> Debugger -> ADF Structure
For example, if you set a breakpoint for binding, and choose Toggle Breakpoint to show it.) This tab displays a tree
oracle.jbo.JboException, the debugger to set the breakpoint. Note the familiar representing the Oracle ADF runtime
will stop when subclass exceptions such red sphere icon in the margin to the left context, showing that you’ve stopped at
as oracle.jbo.DMLException or oracle of the Execute binding, indicating that a breakpoint in the browse-dept-and-
.jbo.ValidationException are thrown as the breakpoint is set. emps task flow, used as a region in the
well. To keep the debugger from stopping Next you’ll set an activity break- /Home page. You can select any node
more frequently than you want, use the point. Click the browse-dept-and-emps in the ADF Structure tab and inspect
most specific exception subtype you can. task flow editor tab. Note that the relevant information about that node in
default activity of this bounded task the ADF Data tab. (If you can’t see the
Using Binding and activity Breakpoints flow is a method call activity named ADF Data tab, select View -> Debugger
Oracle ADF simplifies problem-solving by initialize. This method call activity has -> ADF Data.) Select the browse-dept-
letting you set breakpoints on key declar- already been configured to invoke the and-emps node in the ADF Structure
ative constructs such as bindings and task initBrowseDeptAndEmpsRegion method tab. In the ADF Data tab, expand the
flow activities. For example, you can set a on the application module. (This was pageFlowScope folder as shown in
breakpoint on a binding for a JavaServer accomplished when the starter workspace Figure 2 to see the values of the two
Faces (JSF) page or page fragment. To was built, by a process that involved parameters this task flow accepts, named
try this out, expand the ViewController simply dragging the method from the intParam and stringParam. This type of
project, its Web Content folder, and the Data Controls palette and dropping it structural and parameter information
Page Flows folder inside that. Double- onto the activity icon.). To set a break- can help you understand why a region
click the browse-dept-and-emps task point on the initialize activity, right-click doesn’t work as you expect it to.
flow to open it in the editor. Double-click it and choose Toggle Breakpoint. Click the debugger resume button
the BrowseDeptAndEmps view activity To see the runtime effect of the two (two blue vertical lines and a right arrow)

60 september/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
in the main toolbar to allow execution Click OK to create the breakpoint. View Whole Value dialog box, if the value
to proceed. When the page appears in Debug the application module, by gets too long, click the Wrap Text check
your browser, click the Search button to right-clicking HRModule and choos- box to see it more easily. Click OK to
show all departments. Click the Refresh ing Debug. When Oracle Business dismiss the dialog box.
Current Department’s Employees Components Browser appears, double- Click the debugger resume button to
button to trigger the Execute binding on click the WorksInDeptLink1 node in continue execution. You’ll stop again at
which you set the breakpoint. The debug- the tree to show a master/detail display the method breakpoint for the execution
ger stops, showing the Execute binding of Departments and Employees rows. of the detail view object. In the Watches
as the current point of execution and When you hit the breakpoint, if you tab, you can see that the Employees view
giving you access to the ADF Structure don’t have the Oracle ADF source object instance of type oramag.model
and ADF Data tabs. If necessary, you installed, you’ll see the Unable to Find .EmpView is being executed. By expand-
can also use the EL Evaluator tab to Source File dialog box. Select Don’t ask ing the params node and then the [0]
evaluate expression language expressions me about this file again, and click OK. node corresponding to the first array
you suspect might be causing problems At this point, the Stack tab shows you element, you can see a single bind param-
on your page by failing to return the the chain of method calls that brought eter named Bind_Deptno whose value
expected values. Click the debugger you to executing a view object’s query is 10. Again, click the debugger resume
resume button to have execution con- and binding its parameters. Click the button to let execution continue.
tinue, and then stop the default server by Data tab to see the current object, shown If the debugger stops a third time, the
choosing Run -> Terminate -> Default as the this node at the top of the tree, Stack tab will show that a view object’s
Server from the main menu. as well as any method arguments such bindParametersForCollection() method is
as params, which holds any parameter also called when asked for an estimated
Using Method Breakpoints values to be bound. To see which view row count. When a view object is per-
You’ve seen how to set a breakpoint on an object is being executed, expand the this forming its estimated row count query,
Execute action binding in a specific page node and scroll to find the mObjName you can verify in the Data tab that the
definition. Other times your troubleshoot- member. It holds the view object instance qc parameter is null. Click the resume
ing might require a more general-purpose name, which you can see is Departments. button again to continue execution.
breakpoint that enables you to stop when Right-click mObjName, and choose
Oracle ADF performs a built-in operation Watch to add a watch to the watch list Fine-tUning YoUr Breakpoints
—such as query execution—whether or (on the Watches tab) for this value. Click For an application that involves tens
not it is the result of an explicit end-user back to the Data tab, and scroll to find or hundreds of view objects, a method
action. You can create this with a method the mViewDef member (also under the breakpoint that stops when each view
breakpoint. This type of breakpoint stops this node), which is a reference to the object executes might cause a maddening
the debugger whenever a specific method view object definition. By further expand- number of stops. You can use two addi-
executes, even if you don’t have the ing the mViewDef node and looking for tional Oracle JDeveloper features to fine-
source code for that method. its mFullName member, you can see the tune how the breakpoint behaves.
To illustrate this, you might want view definition’s fully qualified name: You can make the breakpoint condi-
to stop the debugger when Oracle oramag.model.DeptView. Right-click tional on a Boolean expression, so that it
ADF executes a view object’s query. the mFullName member, and choose stops only when that expression is true.
The best method to use for this Watch to add this member to the watch For example, you can edit your existing
purpose is the ViewObjectImpl class’s list. Return to the Data tab, and add the bindParametersForCollection method
bindParametersForCollection() method. params argument (a top-level node) to breakpoint so that it stops only when
This method binds values for any rel- the watch list. the view object instance’s name is
evant bind variables in the query just While in the Watches tab, right-click Employees. To accomplish this, right-
before the query executes against the in the content area and choose Add click the breakpoint on the Breakpoints
database. To create the method break- Watch. In the Add Watch dialog box, tab and choose Edit. In the Edit Method
point, select the Breakpoints tab (click enter this.getQuery() as the expression Breakpoint dialog box, select the
View -> Debugger -> Breakpoints to watch and click OK. This causes the Conditions tab, and in the Condition
if the tab is not visible), right-click in debugger to evaluate the this.getQuery() field, enter “Employees”.equals(this
the tab’s content area, and choose Add method on the current view object. Its .mObjName)&&qc!=null and then click
Breakpoint -> Method Breakpoint. In value is the full SQL text of the view OK. Return to Oracle Business
the Method Name field of the Create object query being executed. To see Components Browser, right-click the
Method Breakpoint dialog box, enter the entire value (often a very long string) WorksInDeptLink1 node, and choose
more easily, right-click the this Re-execute Query. You can see that the
oracle.jbo.server.ViewObjectImpl .getQuery() entry in the Watches panel debugger stops, and using the Watches
.bindParametersForCollection and choose View Whole Value. In the tab, you can verify that it has stopped

oracle magazine september/october 20 09 61

FRAMEWORKS

only for the execution of the Employees the master and detail view objects to technologies and continues to evangelize them. Muench
view object instance. Click the debugger requery. Select the Debugging: Model coauthored Oracle ADF Developer’s Guide for Forms/4GL
resume button to let execution continue, .jpr - Log tab to see the console log, Developers (Oracle, 2006), wrote Building Oracle XML
and then click the debugger resume which now includes the query statements Applications (O’Reilly Media, 2000), and shares tips and
button once more if necessary. of the view objects that have executed. tricks on OTN (otn.oracle.com) and in his “Dive into ADF”
As a final step, you’ll modify the When you use the techniques you’ve blog (radio.weblogs.com/0118231).
method breakpoint to print information learned in this column to debug your

nextSTEPS
to the log instead of halting execution. own applications, remember that the
This can be useful for crafting your debugger watch expressions, breakpoint
own targeted diagnostic information, conditional expressions, and expressions
READ more Frameworks
which you can search through later. to log in to the console can involve any otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/frameworks
Start by editing the method breakpoint combination of member fields, method READ more about
again in the Breakpoints tab. On the calls, and Java operators. You should Oracle JDeveloper and Oracle
Conditions tab, remove the conditional be able to devise creative ways of using Application Development Framework
otn.oracle.com/products/jdev
expression you added earlier so that them in your troubleshooting. For more otn.oracle.com/products/jdev/tips/muench/
the log message appears for every view information, see chapter 29, “Testing and designpatterns
object execution. On the Actions tab, Debugging ADF Components,” in Oracle Oracle Fusion Middleware Fusion Developer’s Guide
for Oracle Application Development Framework 11g
uncheck the Halt Execution check Fusion Middleware Fusion Developer’s download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E12839_01/web.1111/
box, and in the Expression field enter Guide for Oracle Application Development b31974/toc.htm

getQuery() and click OK. If you are still Framework 11g. ■ DOWNLOAD
stopped at a breakpoint, click the debug- Oracle JDeveloper 11g
otn.oracle.com/software/products/jdev
ger resume button. Then re-execute Steve Muench is a consulting product manager for
the starter workspace for this column
WorksInDeptLink1 in Oracle Business Oracle JDeveloper and an Oracle ACE. Since 1990 he otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/09-sep/o59frame.zip
Components Browser as before to cause has developed and supported Oracle tools and XML

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62 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 20 09 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE
 d e v e l o p e r ODP.NET bY m a r k Wi lli ams

Put Your Arrays in a Bind

Use array binding to reduce network round-trips and increase performance.
ne of the best things about the send a single row of data to the data- string[] job_id_vals =
combination of Oracle Database base at a time, it can use array binding new string[3] { “IT_DBA”,
and Oracle Data Provider for .NET to send the data in batches of rows. By “IT_MAN”,
(ODP.NET) is that multiple methods sending the data in batches, you reduce “IT_VP” };
often are available to accomplish the the number of round-trips necessary,
same task, so you have the flexibility because you tell the database, “Insert Create parameter objects. The parameters
to make choices that suit your environ- X number of rows” in fewer messages are instances of the OracleParameter
ment and needs. For example, suppose than if you tell the database, “Insert class. Set the OracleDbType prop-
you have a requirement to first collect this row, now insert this row, now erty to the appropriate value (such
some information from your applica- insert this row” and so on. If it sounds as OracleDbType.Varchar2 or
tion’s users and then insert that infor- complicated, don’t worry. ODP.NET OracleDbType.Int32), and assign the
mation into a table in Oracle Database. makes this task easy! .NET arrays you create to the param-
Seems simple enough, right? But what eter object’s value property.
if the data collected corresponds to Using ArrAy Binding For example, the sample application
multiple rows in the table rather than The array binding feature is available creates a p_job_id parameter object,
a single row? with all supported versions of ODP sets the OracleDbType property to
One option is for you to insert these .NET, Oracle Database, and Microsoft OracleDbType.Varchar2, and assigns
multiple rows into the table through a Visual Studio. However, to best use the the job_id_vals array to the p_job_
loop in your program. This loop iter- sample application download for this id.Value property:
ates over the data to be inserted and column, I recommend
does what is known as a single-row ■ Oracle Data Access Components OracleParameter p_job_id =
insert, because the application sends 11.1.0.6 (or higher) new OracleParameter();
one single row of data to the database ■ Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 (any

at a time. This works, but is it your edition, including Express Edition) p_job_id.OracleDbType =
best-performing option? ■ Access to Oracle Database (any OracleDbType.Varchar2;
When the client and the database version, including Oracle Database 10g
need to communicate with one another Express Edition) with the HR sample p_job_id.Value = job_id_vals;
(through underlying Oracle software), schema installed
an event called a round-trip occurs. The sample application for this Add parameters to the command object.
You might think of this as the client column, available for download at With the arrays created and attached
sending a message to the database and otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/09-sep/ to parameter objects, now add the
the database sending a response back o59odpnet.zip, uses array binding to parameters to an OracleCommand
to the client. In most cases, this com- insert three new rows into the jobs object. To do this, invoke the Add
munication occurs over the network, table in the HR schema as a single method on the Parameters collection.
because the client usually isn’t located batch of data sent from the client. However, because the parameters are
on the same machine as the database. The following are the general steps arrays rather than scalar values, also
Each round-trip consumes network and for using array binding and examples set the ArrayBindCount property to
CPU resources on both the client and from the sample application: the number of elements that is in
the database server. Create arrays. Create arrays in your host the arrays.
You have another option for insert- language, using .NET types (such as For example, the sample applica-
ing multiple rows of data into the string or int in the C# language) that tion sets the ArrayBindCount property
table—an option that reduces the contain the values that will be used in for the job_id_vals array by retrieving
number of round-trips and improves the SQL code. the number of elements in the array
application performance, database For example, to create a job_id_vals (exposed by the Length property) and
performance, and network resource array of type string, the sample applica- adds the p_job_id parameter object to
use. Rather than having the application tion uses the following: the command object:

oracle magazine september/october 20 09 63

ODP.NET

cmd.ArrayBindCount = job_id_vals.Length; // add parameters to collection return a separate error for each row
in the array binding that generates a
cmd.Parameters.Add(p_job_id); cmd.Parameters.Add(p_job_id); database error.
cmd.Parameters.Add(p_job_title); To make error handling easier,
Execute. With the arrays created cmd.Parameters.Add(p_min_salary); review the OracleErrorCollection,
and attached to parameter objects cmd.Parameters.Add(p_max_salary); OracleParameter, and OracleCommand
and the parameters added to an topics in the ODP.NET documenta-
OracleCommand object, you are // perform the array insert in tion. Using OracleErrorCollection, you
ready to use array binding in your // a single call can pinpoint which data in an array
application. To do so, invoke the resulted in an error—which can be
ExecuteNonQuery method on the cmd.ExecuteNonQuery(); especially helpful if you are working
OracleCommand object, just as you with larger arrays. With just a few
would if you were not using arrays: Contrast this with a single-row simple additional steps, you can extend
INSERT method that would need to the sample application to perform any
cmd.ExecuteNonQuery(); be invoked three times, resulting in needed actions in your environment.
at least three client-to-server-to-client To contrast this array binding tech-
This particular technique applies only round-trips to perform the same nique with PL/SQL associative arrays,
to INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE oper- task. Also note that code that uses see “Using PL/SQL Associative Arrays”
ations. It is not designed to work with array binding frequently can be more (Oracle Magazine, January/February
SELECT operations, which is why the compact and easier to maintain than 2007). One difference between these
ExecuteNonQuery method is invoked. code that uses a single-row approach. two array approaches is the supported
After the new rows have been parameter types. The array binding
Exploring thE SamplE application inserted, the sample application deletes technique illustrated here supports
To appreciate the steps involved in them from the table to clean up after more types—including XMLType, LOB,
performing this task, step through itself. Note that DELETE is also imple- and TimeStamp—than PL/SQL associa-
the sample application code in mented as an array operation: tive arrays. ■
Visual Studio to see how the pieces
fit together. This code doesn’t force // delete the new jobs using an array Mark Williams ([email protected]) is
multiple round-trips by sending the a former Oracle ACE Director, an Oracle Certified
data in single rows, which is apparent cmd.CommandText = “delete from jobs “ + Professional DBA, the author of Pro .NET Oracle
because the ExecuteNonQuery method “where job_id = :1”; Programming (Apress, 2004), and a contributor to
is invoked a single time to process all several forums on Oracle Technology Network.
the rows: // clear parameters from
// existing collection
// create command and set properties
cmd.Parameters.Clear();
OracleCommand cmd =
con.CreateCommand(); // add the p_job_id array parameter
nextSTEPS
// other properties do not need READ more ODP.NET
otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/odpnet
// the sql text used to insert the // to be adjusted since they are
// rows in the arrays and this // still correct DOWNLOAD sample application code
for this column
// necessarily uses bind variables otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/09-sep/o59odpnet.zip
cmd.Parameters.Add(p_job_id);
LEARN more about
cmd.CommandText = “insert into bind variables
jobs (job_id, “ + // execute the delete for each job_id otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/05-sep/
o55odpnet.html
“job_title, “ +
“min_salary, “ + cmd.ExecuteNonQuery(); PL/SQL associative arrays
otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/07-jan/o17odp.html
“max_salary) “ +
ODP.NET
“values (:1, :2, :3, :4)”; ExtEnding thE SamplE application .NET Developer Center
Once you are comfortable with the otn.oracle.com/dotnet

// set the number of elements actions performed in the sample appli- Oracle Data Provider for .NET Developer’s Guide
download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B28359_01/win.111/
// in the arrays and all three cation, try extending the application b28375/toc.htm
// arrays are the same size to perform updates. After that, a good Oracle Database 2 Day + .NET Developer’s Guide
download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B28359_01/
next step would be to implement error appdev.111/b28844/toc.htm
cmd.ArrayBindCount = job_id_vals.Length; handling in your code. ODP.NET will

64 September/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
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 d e v e l o p e r PL/SQL PracticeS bY steven feu erstei n

On Looping, First, and Last

Choose the best approach to prevent a VALUE_ERROR exception.
f I try to use a FOR loop to iterate from FIRST DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE l_index PLS_INTEGER;
to LAST and my collection is empty, PL/SQL (names_in(indx)); BEGIN
raises a VALUE_ERROR exception. What’s the END LOOP; l_index := names_in.FIRST;
best way to avoid raising this error? END show_names;
First, the raising of VALUE_ERROR WHILE (l_index IS NOT NULL)
has nothing to do with your collection. Approach 2. Execute the loop only if LOOP
The PL/SQL runtime engine will raise a at least one element is defined in the DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE
VALUE_ERROR exception whenever it collection. (names_in(l_index));
tries to execute a numeric FOR loop and l_index := names_in.NEXT
either the low or high expression in the PROCEDURE show_names (l_index);
loop’s header evaluates to NULL. (names_in IN names_t) END LOOP;
To avoid this exception, you must IS END show_names;
ensure that neither the low nor the BEGIN
high expression evaluates to NULL. IF names_in.COUNT > 0 All four approaches achieve the
When you’re working with collections, THEN desired effect: VALUE_ERROR will not
there are several ways to accomplish FOR indx IN be raised, even if the number of elements
this, most of which should be avoided names_in.FIRST .. names_in.LAST in the names_in collection is 0. Yet I
because of their drawbacks. I will first LOOP will argue that the first approach should
show you each of them and then offer DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE never be used and that the other three
my views on which should be used and (names_in(indx)); techniques should be chosen only when
which should be avoided. END LOOP; certain conditions are met.
Each approach example is an imple- END IF; The first approach, using NVL, is a
mentation of the show_names procedure END show_names; classic example of a programmer’s trying
defined in this package specification: to be too clever by half and ending up
Approach 3. Execute the FOR loop with with code that is hard to understand
PACKAGE employees_mgr 1 for the low value and COUNT for the and maintain.
IS high value. Consider the header of the FOR loop:
TYPE names_t IS TABLE OF
employees.last_name%TYPE PROCEDURE show_names FOR indx IN NVL (names_in.FIRST, 0)
INDEX BY PLS_INTEGER; names_in IN names_t) .. NVL (names_in.LAST, -1)
IS
PROCEDURE show_names BEGIN If I had not written this block origi-
(names_in IN names_t); FOR indx IN nally and now had to maintain it, I would
END employees_mgr; 1 .. names_in.COUNT have to study this code to determine
LOOP what exactly the point of it is. Whenever
Approach 1. Use NVL to ensure that the DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE a developer must analyze and interpret
FOR loop header’s low and high expres- (names_in(indx)); code to uncover its intention, there is a
sions never return NULL. END LOOP; chance of misinterpretation and then the
END show_names; introduction of a bug.
PROCEDURE show_names I suggest that, as a general rule, devel-
(names_in IN names_t) Approach 4. Use a WHILE loop and the opers avoid being clever and instead write
IS FIRST and NEXT collection methods. code that explains itself. Which brings me
BEGIN to the second approach: use the COUNT
FOR indx IN NVL (names_in.FIRST, 0) PROCEDURE show_names method to ensure that the FOR loop is
.. NVL (names_in.LAST, -1) (names_in IN names_t) executed only when there is something in
LOOP IS the collection. Here is the relevant code:

oracle magazine september/october 20 09 67

pl/sql practices

IF names_in.COUNT > 0 FOR indx IN 1 .. names_in.COUNT tially filled, starting from index value 1.
THEN The show_names procedure works prop-
FOR indx IN This technique has the advantage of erly and the code goes into production.
names_in.FIRST .. names_in.LAST avoiding the clutter of an IF statement to Now suppose further that a year later,
ensure that the FOR loop executes only another developer is instructed to make
I believe this code speaks for itself. It when the collection is not empty. If the a change to one of the programs that
says: “If the collection contains at least collection is empty, COUNT will return 0 calls employees_mgr.show_names. The
one element, iterate from the lowest (not NULL) and the FOR loop body will developer makes a mistake and deletes
to the highest index value and take not execute, because 0 is less than 1. several of the elements in the collec-
the specified action. If the collection is It is concise and readable, but it tion that is passed to show_names. The
empty, skip the FOR loop entirely.” has the same drawback as the previous collection is now sparsely filled, but it
This is a vast improvement over the technique: it assumes that the collec- should not be. Still, show_names does its
first approach, yet I cannot recommend tion is either empty or densely filled. job without raising any errors. The net
it under all circumstances. The problem It also assumes that the lowest defined result is that show_names has, in effect,
is that if the actual collection passed to index value is 1. If you are not absolutely covered up an error.
the names_in parameter is sparse (that certain that the collection will always be The bottom line is that if you are
is, at least one index value between filled, starting with index value 1, you writing code to iterate through a collec-
FIRST and LAST is not defined), the should not use this technique. tion and you know for certain that this
FOR loop will raise a NO_DATA_ Which brings us to the fourth and collection should be sequentially filled,
FOUND exception: last approach: don’t use a FOR loop at you should use
all. Instead use a WHILE loop and the
SQL> DECLARE NEXT method: FOR indx IN
2 names_in employees_mgr.names_t; 1 .. <your_collection>.COUNT
3 BEGIN l_index := names_in.FIRST;
4 names_in (1) := ‘Kirk’; if you also know that the collection is
5 names_in (5) := ‘Spock’; WHILE (l_index IS NOT NULL) always filled from index value 1 (as with
6 employees_mgr.show_ LOOP BULK COLLECT and MULTISET), or use
names(names_in); DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE
7 END; (names_in(l_index)); IF <your_collection>.COUNT > 0
8 / l_index := names_in.NEXT THEN
DECLARE (l_index); FOR indx IN
* END LOOP; <your_collection>.FIRST ..
ERROR at line 1: <your_collection>.LAST
ORA-01403: no data found This approach makes no assumptions
about the contents of the collection. if the lowest index value might be a
This happens because the FOR loop The names_in collection can be empty, value other than 1. ■
is instructed to display the name found densely filled, or sparse, and the program
in names_in(1) through names_in(5). will still “do the right thing.” The key to Steven Feuerstein ([email protected]) is
When the PL/SQL runtime engine tries to this technique’s flexibility is the use of Quest Software’s PL/SQL evangelist. He has published
read the contents of names_in(2), it finds the NEXT method. This method returns 10 books on Oracle’s programming language, including
that there is no element defined at index the next (highest) index value after the Oracle PL/SQL Programming and Oracle PL/SQL Best
value 2 and it raises NO_DATA_FOUND. specified index value that is defined, Practices (O’Reilly Media). Feuerstein’s self-appointed
Thus, I recommend this second ignoring (or, at least conceptually, skip- mission in life these days is to improve the quality and
technique only when you know without ping over) all undefined index values. quantity of PL/SQL code testing.
any doubt that the collection through You might then expect that I would
which you are iterating is either empty or recommend that you always use this
densely filled (all index values between
FIRST and LAST are defined). You can
technique if you want to iterate through
all the elements of a collection. Yet that nextsteps
be sure of this whenever you populate is not the case. reaD more pl/sql practices
the collection with a BULK COLLECT Suppose that when I wrote the show_ otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/plsql
otn.oracle.com/pub/columns/plsql
query or with the result of a nested table names procedure, it was intended to be
MULTISET operation (UNION, UNION used to display the contents of a collec- DOWNlOaD Oracle Database 11g
otn.oracle.com/software/products/database
ALL, INTERSECT, or EXCEPT). tion that was populated with a BULK
DiscUss pl/sql
The third technique iterates from 1 to COLLECT statement. In such a case, the forums.oracle.com/forums/forum.jspa?forumiD=75
the COUNT of elements in the collection: collection is always empty or sequen-

68 September/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
 d e v e l o p e r Browser-Based bY Davi D peake

Building Applications in the Cloud

Combine Oracle Application Express and Amazon EC2.
ith tightening budgets, IT depart- Web Services account and then sign up Database instance, you’ll use this file to
ments are looking to reduce startup for these services: upgrade Oracle Application Express.
costs for new departmental and other ■ Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

application development projects. One ■ Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) Creating the OraCle database instanCe
option is to use the Amazon Elastic ■ Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) After you’ve signed up for the Amazon
Compute Cloud (EC2) for developing and Next, obtain and configure the fol- services, installed the required software
deploying Oracle Database and Oracle lowing client software packages: on your local machine, set up the pre-
Application Express applications. Oracle ■ Firefox and the Elasticfox Firefox exten- requisite KeyPair, and addressed the
Application Express is browser-based, so sion for Amazon EC2 (http://developer requirements for using Elasticfox, log in
you need only provide the URL for the .amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry to Amazon Web Services and select the
cloud environment to your developers .jspa?externalID=609). Elasticfox is a AMI to use as the basis for your Oracle
and end users. In addition, the multi- Firefox plug-in for managing the Amazon Amazon EC2 instance:
tenant capabilities of Oracle Database and EC2 environment. You’ll use Elasticfox to 1. From your local machine, launch the
Oracle Application Express enable mul- launch your instance of Oracle Database Firefox browser.
tiple development teams and their associ- and Oracle Application Express, to 2. From the Firefox Tools menu, select
ated applications to coexist within a single provision storage volumes on Amazon Elasticfox.
database instance on Amazon EC2. EBS, and to perform many of the other 3. Log in to AWS with your credentials.
This column describes the process of tasks discussed in this column. Follow (See the Elastifox Getting Started Guide if
creating an Oracle Application Express the instructions in the Amazon EC2 you need more information.)
instance on Amazon EC2. The cost of Elasticfox Getting Started Guide (http:// 4. Click the Images tab to display the
using Amazon EC2 services for the hour ec2-downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/ list of available AMIs.
or so needed to work through this setup elasticfox-owners-manual.pdf) to asso- 5. Enter oracle into the search field
is about US$1. Note that Amazon EC2 ciate your Amazon EC2 account with (adjacent to the AMIs list) to filter the
offers several sizing options, with price Elasticfox and to create a KeyPair, which list to Oracle AMIs only.
points that vary by size and resource you’ll need when connecting to your 6. Click the ami-cecb2fa7 image from
consumption; see Amazon Web Services Amazon EC2 instance. the list to select the 32-bit Oracle
(aws.amazon.com) for more information. ■ PuTTY and PuTTYgen (www.chiark Database 11g Enterprise Edition AMI.
Using the setup in this column, you .greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ 7. With the image name selected, right-
can completely control service utilization, download.html). These freeware programs click and select Launch instance(s) of
paying only for what you use and taking are distributed under an MIT license. this AMI.
the Oracle Application Express service You’ll use PuTTYgen to convert the 8. Select the appropriate size for the
offline when it’s not needed. KeyPair format, and you’ll use PuTTY to EC2 Instance Type, based on your
The licenses associated with Oracle’s connect to your Amazon EC2 instance via initial requirements. (Once the instance
Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), avail- Secure Shell (SSH). is fully configured, you can easily transi-
able at Amazon Web Services, are for ■ An FTP client for file transfers, such tion from one instance type to another
development purposes. (Be sure to check as WinSCP (www.winscp.net/eng/ as your requirements change.)
with your Oracle sales representative for download.php) for Windows or FileZilla 9. Select your KeyPair from the list.
the details of your specific licensed privi- (www.filezilla-project.org/download 10. Click the Launch button.
leges before deploying any application .php?type=client) for Linux. Both are In a few minutes, your Oracle Amazon
into production. The steps detailed in open source SFTP/FTP clients available EC2 instance is up and running. The
this column are for setting up the Oracle via the GNU General Public License. instance’s public domain name service
Database 11g AMI.) Also, download Oracle Application (DNS) name and other properties appear
Express 3.2 (otn.oracle.com/products/ in the list on the Instances tab.
Prerequisites and Preliminary setuP database/application_express/download Review the Elasticfox Getting Started
The first step in establishing your cloud .html) to a location on your local Guide for more information on the
environment is to create an Amazon machine. After creating your Oracle Amazon EC2 Web service.

oracle magazine september/october 20 09 69

Browser-Based

Setting PermiSSionS (.ppk) file you saved with PuTTYgen. cd apex

To configure your Oracle on Amazon 4. Click Open to connect to your sqlplus / as sysdba
EC2 instance for Oracle Application Amazon EC2 instance. Accept the server’s SQL>@apexins SYSAUX SYSAUX TEMP /i/
Express, add permissions to the default certificate when prompted. su – oracle
security group by following these steps: 5. When the PuTTY screen appears, log sqlplus / as sysdba
1. From the Elasticfox interface, click in as root. The KeyPair authenticates SQL>@apxldimg /home/oracle
the Security Groups tab. your session and initiates an installation SQL>@apxchpwd
2. In the left pane (labeled Your script that presents license information.
Groups), click the default group in the 6. Review the license agreements, and if Enter a new password for the Oracle
list to select it and see the permissions you accept the terms, enter y. Application Express ADMIN account
for the group in the right pane. 7. Create a password for the Oracle user when prompted.
3. Click the green check mark above account when prompted. The online version of this column,
the right pane (Group Permissions) to 8. At the prompt to create a new data- at otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/09-sep/
open the Grant New Permission dialog base, enter y. o59browser.html, provides additional
box, select SSH from the list, and enter 9. Select defaults for disk devices to information for completing the Oracle
22 in the port field. Limit access to your store datafiles, redo logs, and flash Application Express upgrade as well as
machine by clicking the Get My Host recovery area files. using Amazon EBS and Amazon S3.
Address button in the Host/Network 10. At the prompt confirming details,
Details section of the dialog box and enter y to continue. ConCluSion
then clicking the Add button. 11. Create your Oracle system ID With your Amazon Web Services envi-
4. Click the grant permission check (SID) and passwords for SYS, SYSTEM, ronment fully configured, you can
mark again, and allow anyone to access DBSNMP, SYSMAN, and APEX ADMIN. start rapidly creating applications with
port 8080. For Host/Network Details, The new database instance is created Oracle Application Express. As demand
enter Network 0.0.0.0/0. and configured automatically. rises or falls, you can easily reconfigure
your environment to adjust to changing
Configuring PuttY uPgrading the oraCle aPPliCation requirements by changing your level of
You use PuTTY to log in to Amazon exPreSS inStallation service. For example, you can take the
EC2 and create a new database instance. Although Oracle Database 11g and entire stack offline during periods when
Before you can use PuTTY, however, you Oracle Application Express 3.0.1 are the applications are not needed at all, and
must first use PuTTYgen to convert the now fully operational on your Oracle- the cost meter will stop.
.pem KeyPair file to a .ppk file: on-Amazon-EC2 instance, to use the You can also migrate applications
1. Start PuTTYgen on the command line latest Oracle Application Express fea- developed on Amazon EC2 onto your
of your local machine. tures, upgrade the system to the latest internal systems. After ensuring that the
2. Click Load and then Browse to version of Oracle Application Express correct version of Oracle Application
find the .pem KeyPair file created with (Oracle Application Express 3.2), using Express is installed on the target server,
Elasticfox. the zip file you downloaded earlier. export the Oracle Application Express
3. Click Save Private to save the .pem To upgrade Oracle Application application, database schema, and data
file as a .ppk file. Express, do the following: from Amazon EC2 and then import them
With the KeyPair file converted, 1. Start your FTP client, such as onto the target server. ■
use PuTTY to connect to your Amazon WinSCP, and connect to your Oracle-on-
EC2 instance, create an Oracle Database Amazon-EC2 instance. David Peake ([email protected]) is a principal
instance, and configure the new instance: 2. Copy the apex_3.2.zip file from product manager in Oracle’s Server Technologies
1. Start PuTTY. your local workstation to the /home/ division. He has been with Oracle since 1993.
2. For the hostname, enter the Public oracle directory of your Oracle-on-
DNS name (available on the Instances Amazon-EC2 instance.
tab). Enter 22 for Port and SSH for
Connection Type. If you are working
3. From your PuTTY terminal, log in
to the instance, and unzip the Oracle
nextsTePs
from behind a firewall, you must enter Application Express 3.2 zip file: read online-only column content
otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/09-sep/
proxy server settings in the Category -> o59browser.html
Connection -> Proxy properties section su - oracle VIsIT oracle’s Cloud Computing Center
of the PuTTY configuration. unzip apex_3.2.zip otn.oracle.com/tech/cloud

3. Specify the KeyPair to use in the dowNLoad

Category -> Connection -> SSH -> 4. Install Oracle Application Express oracle application express
otn.oracle.com/products/database/application_
Auth section of the PuTTY configuration, 3.2, upgrade the images, and set the express/download.html
by browsing to the location of the KeyPair ADMIN password:

70 September/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
 d e v e l o p e r Portals BY Va n essa Wang

Turn Applications into Portlets

Use Oracle WebCenter to integrate applications and task flows with other applications.
ode reuse is a common practice in application request by taking the time Step 1: Setting Up
application development, but as an card Oracle ADF task flow your team To begin working with this article’s
application developer, you may want designed and turning it into a portlet, applications, ensure that you are using
to reuse a complete application—or which can then be consumed by your the latest version of Oracle JDeveloper
an Oracle Application Development company’s intranet portal for the rest of 11g and the Oracle WebCenter
Framework (Oracle ADF) task flow— your organization to use. Framework extension. If you aren’t sure
with a portal or another application. (An The Oracle JSF portlet bridge is whether you have the Oracle WebCenter
Oracle ADF task flow is a reusable Framework extension, check
Web component that encapsulates by opening Oracle JDeveloper,
a set of activities and enables a then choosing Help -> About
user to complete a task. The task from the main menu, and click-
can be something as simple as ing the Extensions tab. In the
displaying the current weather Extensions list, sort by Identifier
based on the user’s zip code or to locate the oracle.webcenter.*
entering hours worked during a components. If you do not see
week on a time card.) these components, download
Oracle JDeveloper 11g and install the Oracle WebCenter
(11.1.1.1.x) enables you to create extension, by choosing Help ->
applications and Oracle ADF Check for Updates. In Step 2 of
task flows. Oracle WebCenter the Check for Updates wizard,
Framework extends Oracle ADF leave Search Update Centers
and contains a feature called the selected and click Next. On
Oracle JSF [JavaServer Faces] portlet based on the JSR 301 standard. This the Updates page, scroll down, select
bridge that can turn an application or specification enables you to take exist- Oracle WebCenter Framework . . . ,
an Oracle ADF task flow into a portlet, ing JSF applications and Oracle ADF and then click Finish. (You’ll need to
which can then be consumed by a portal task flows and turn them into JSR 168- restart Oracle JDeveloper to complete
or an application. standard-based portlets, which you can the installation process.)
For example, consider a scenario in then deploy through Web Services for Next, download this article’s appli-
which your team has designed and built Remote Portlets (WSRP). The portlets cations at otn.oracle.com/oramag/
an application that tracks time reporting can be consumed by any application oracle/09-sep/o59webcenter.zip. The
from contractors in the IT department, that can handle WSRP, such as an Oracle download includes an application con-
including a time card Oracle ADF task WebCenter application or Oracle Portal. taining a sample Oracle ADF task flow—
flow that enables employees to submit This article describes how to use SimpleWeatherApplication—the sample
their weekly work hours. Now other Oracle WebCenter Framework’s Oracle JavaServer Pages (JSPs), and images the
departments in your organization have JSF portlet bridge to turn an Oracle ADF Oracle ADF task flow calls, and it also
begun to require employees to submit task flow into a portlet and incorporate it includes a second basic application—
weekly time cards as well and have into an Oracle WebCenter application. At WeatherPortletConsumerApp—that will
asked you to design a time card applica- the end of the article, you can even reuse consume the portlet.
tion for them. Your organization already the sample portlet with your own appli- Extract the files in the o59webcenter
uses an intranet portal in which all the cation or portal. .zip file to a temporary directory, such
employees track their vacation time, so
you want to incorporate the time card codelIstING 1: Sample CSV data for the Simple Weather Application
application into this portal. dayOfWeek,hiTemp,img,lowTemp,precip,sky,zipCode Monday,55,Rainy.gif,45,0,Rainy,94065
Using the Oracle JSF portlet bridge Tuesday,85,Sunny.gif,80,0,Sunny,94065 Wednesday,61,PartlyCloudy.gif,50,0,Partly Cloudy,94065
I-Hua CHen

feature in Oracle WebCenter Framework, Thursday,80,PartlyCloudy.gif,70,0,Cloudy,94065 Friday,63,Rainy.gif,50,0,Rainy,94065

Saturday,70,Rainy.gif,55,0,Rainy,94065 Sunday,68,PartlySunny.gif,50,0,Partly Sunny,94065
you can quickly address the time card

oracle magazine septemBer/octoBer 20 09 71

Portals

as c:\temp. Then extract the Simple of the weather.jsp file. In the Location 4. Click OK.
WeatherApplication.zip file from field, enter the following URL: The Oracle JSF portlet bridge gen-
the temporary directory into the erates all the necessary portlet files,
directory where you maintain http://127.0.0.1:7101/weather/weather.jsp. including the web.xml file, which you’ll
all your applications, such as C:\ use to create the deployment profile,
JDeveloper\mywork. Extract the 4. This JSP file renders simple comma- and the portlet.xml file, which contains
WeatherPortletConsumerApp.zip file separated values (CSV) data containing the portlet entry information.
into the same directory. Your working sample weather information, including Now that you’ve turned the Oracle
directory should now contain two the day of the week; sample tempera- ADF task flow into a portlet, you can
folders: SimpleWeatherApplication and tures; and basic weather images, such as deploy the application containing this
WeatherPortletConsumerApp. rainy, sunny, and partly sunny weather. portlet to a portlet container.
Listing 1 shows sample CSV data.
Step 2: CheCking the ASSetS 5. Click the weatherConsumer.jspx Step 4: CreAting A DeplOyment prOFile
The Simple Weather Application was tab, or double-click the name in Because the Oracle JSF portlet bridge
built with the Oracle Fusion Web the Application Navigator (under turned the task flow into a JSR 168-
Application template and contains a ViewController -> Web Content). The standard-based portlet, you’ll need to
basic Oracle ADF task flow. This task page displays an Oracle ADF task flow, deploy the portlet to a Web Archive
flow displays information about the weather-task-flow, as an Oracle ADF (WAR) file.
weather, based on the zip code (using read-only table (shown in Figure 2). The 1. In the Application Navigator, navigate
the zipcode input parameter). Let’s take a task flow is based on weather.jsp. to ViewController -> Web Content ->
look at the Simple Weather Application. WEB-INF, right-click the web.xml file
1. In Oracle JDeveloper, open the Step 3: turning An OrACle ADF tASk FlOw that was generated, and choose Create
WeatherTaskFlowApplication.jws intO A pOrtlet WAR Deployment Profile.
workspace file (located in your Now let’s turn the Oracle ADF task flow 2. In the Create Deployment Profile –
SimpleWeatherApplication folder). into a JSR 168-standard-based portlet. WAR File dialog box, enter a name, such
2. Under ViewController -> Web 1. In the Application Navigator, in the as WeatherPortletApplication, as shown in
Content, right-click the weather Simple Weather Application, open the Figure 5.
Consumer.jspx page and then choose ViewController project and then navi- 3. Click OK.
Run. The page containing the Oracle gate to Web Content -> Page Flows 4. In the Edit WAR Deployment Profile
ADF task flow appears in your browser, and locate the weather-task-flow file. Properties dialog box, select Specify
as shown in Figure 1. This is the Oracle 2. Right-click weather-task-flow, and Java EE Context Root and enter a name
ADF task flow rendered as an Oracle choose Create Portlet Entry, as shown that’s easy for you to remember, such as
ADF table. in Figure 3. the name you entered for the WAR file,
3. In your browser, view the contents 3. In the Create Portlet Entry dialog box, WeatherPortletApplication, as shown in
name the portlet something descriptive, Figure 6.
such as WeatherTaskFlowPortlet, as shown 5. Click OK.
in Figure 4. 6. On the Project Properties page, click
OK to finish creating the profile.

Figure 1: Running the Simple Weather Application

Figure 2: Oracle ADF read-only table in

weatherConsumer.jspx Figure 3: Choosing Create Portlet Entry Figure 4: Entering portlet information

72 September/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
Step 5: Deploying the portlet to the
integrateD oracle Weblogic Server
Once you have a portlet and a deploy-
ment profile, you can deploy the
portlet to a portlet container. In this
example, you’ll use the Oracle portlet
container, which is included with the
integrated Oracle WebLogic Server in
Oracle WebCenter.
You started the integrated Oracle
WebLogic Server when you ran weather
Consumer.jspx, so you do not need
to run it again. If you’ve stopped the Figure 5: Create Deployment Profile – WAR File dialog box
server, you can restart it by choosing
Run -> Start Server Instance from the
main menu.
1. In the Application Navigator, right-
click the ViewController project in the
Simple Weather Application and then
choose Deploy -> WeatherPortlet
Application -> to -> IntegratedWLS
Connection, as shown in Figure 7.
2. You’ll see in the deployment log
that Oracle JDeveloper is building and
compiling your portlet. If the Select
Deployment Type dialog box appears,
click OK.
3. In the Deployment Configuration
dialog box, choose WeatherConn and
then click Deploy. This connection is
built into the sample application and Figure 6: The Edit WAR Deployment Profile Properties dialog box
points to the URL service for the data
control on which the Oracle ADF task
flow is based.
4. In the deployment log, you’ll see mes-
sages indicating that Oracle WebCenter
is deploying the application. Check for
the “Deployment finished” message.
5. Now confirm that the applica-
tion page is still working (to verify
that the application still works in the
deployed environment). To do so,
in the Application Navigator, under
ViewController -> Web Content,
open weatherConsumer.jspx
and run it. The page should appear
as it did when you first looked at it
in Step 2.
6. Now confirm that the portlet
producer test page appears. In your
browser, enter http://localhost:7101/
weather/info (the test page URL). You
should see the WSRP Producer Test
Page containing your portlet, as shown
in Figure 8. Figure 7: Deploying the portlet

oracle magazine september/october 20 09 73

Portals

At this point, you’ve successfully 2. In ViewController -> Web Content, producer with the WeatherPortlet
turned an Oracle ADF task flow into open the WeatherPortletConsumer ConsumerApp application, add the
a JSR 168-standard-based portlet and Page.jspx page. This is a blank JSF page. portlet, which was once an Oracle ADF
deployed it to a portlet container. 3. In the Resource Palette, click task flow, to the WeatherPortlet
the folder icon and choose New ConsumerPage.jspx page. Drag and
Step 6: RegiSteRing YouR new wSRp Connection -> WSRP Producer. drop WeatherTaskFlowPortlet (from
pRoduceR with an application 4. In the Producer Registration Name Resource Palette -> IDE Connections
Now that you have a deployed portlet field, enter WeatherPortletProducer, and -> WSRP Producer -> WeatherPortlet
producer, you can register it with any click Next. Producer -> WeatherTaskFlowPortlet)
application that can handle WSRP 2.0 5. In the WSDL URL field, enter onto the page.
portlet producers. In this case, we’ll the URL for the portlet producer— 9. Run the WeatherPortletConsumer
use an empty application that was http://localhost:7101/WeatherPortletApp/ Page.jspx page in the browser (right-click
provided in the sample application portlets/wsrp2?WSDL—as shown in WeatherPortletConsumerPage.jspx,
files. (This simple JSF application was Figure 9. and select Run). You should now see
created with the Oracle WebCenter 6. Click Next. your WeatherTaskFlowPortlet portlet
application template.) 7. Click Finish. You’ll see the on your WeatherPortletConsumerPage
1. In the Application Navigator, choose new portlet producer under IDE .jspx page.
WeatherPortletConsumerApp from Connections. Congratulations! You’ve turned an
the list. 8. Now that you’ve registered the WSRP Oracle ADF task flow in a JSF applica-
tion into a portlet and consumed it in
another JSF application.

concluSion
In this article, you’ve learned how to
take an Oracle ADF task flow, turn it
into a JSR 168-standard-based portlet,
and deploy it to a portlet container.
You’ve also learned how to register
the WSRP producer with an Oracle
WebCenter application built with the
Oracle WebCenter Framework and to
use the portlet with the application. And
you can now register that WSRP pro-
ducer with any other application capable
of handling WSRP and continue to use
the portlet. ■

Vanessa Wang is a principal technical writer at Oracle.

Figure 8: WSRP Producer Test Page

nextstEPs
rEaD more about
oracle WebCenter
otn.oracle.com/products/webcenter

the oracle JsF portlet bridge,

WsrP, and the Jsr 168 standard
otn.oracle.com/products/ias/portal/standards.html

Jsr 301
jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=301

Jsr 168
jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=168

DoWNloaD
sample applications for this article
otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/09-sep/
o59webcenter.zip
Figure 9: Registering the WRSP portlet producer

74 September/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
 t e c h n o l o g y recovery BY A ru p NANdA

Scripting Oracle RMAN Commands

Learn how to create and automate scripts to execute common recovery tasks.
any DBAs have discovered how in UNIX or batch files in Microsoft instead of using the @ sign to call the
Oracle Recovery Manager (Oracle Windows. Listing 1 shows a very command file, you can use the cmdfile
RMAN) can reliably back up, restore, simple example command file—named parameter as follows:
and recover Oracle Database instances. backup_ts_users.rman—used to back up
Among its many features is the ability to the USERS tablespace. The file extension rman cmdfile=backup_ts_users.rman
script the commands for batch-centric, .rman is not necessary, but it is helpful in
hands-off execution. This article discusses making the meaning of the file clear. Note that the CONNECT clauses are
the ways to script Oracle inside the backup_ts_users.
RMAN commands in Oracle rman command file, so there
Database 11g and how to is no reason to provide the
pick the right approach for password in the command
your specific needs. line—meaning that you
can eliminate the risk of
Why Script? accidental exposure of the
Why create a script for password. Had we not
Oracle RMAN commands? included the password of
There are two primary the catalog user rman inside
reasons: the command file, we would
1. Most Oracle RMAN have had to call the Oracle
activities are batch-oriented RMAN executable like this:
and can be automated.
For instance, backing up rman target=/ catalog=
a database is a repetitive rman/secretpass@rmancat
activity and not something
you would want to execute If this command were
interactively. You can call a command file in several executed, someone on the server could
2. Scripts provide consistency. For tasks ways. From the Oracle RMAN prompt, easily get the password of the catalog
of an ad hoc nature, such as recovering you can call the example command file user by checking the process. When the
a database from a backup, automation as follows: command file contains the connection
is not strictly required. When a script is information—including the password—
used to execute the activity, however, the RMAN> @backup_ts_users.rman for the catalog user, the sensitive informa-
action will be the same, regardless of the tion is not visible to anyone watching the
experience and expertise of the DBA per- Note that the command file is process. Note that you should also set the
forming the recovery. executed by the @ sign. It is important, permissions of the command file in such
There are two ways to script Oracle however, to provide the full name of the a way that nonadmin users will not be
RMAN commands in Oracle Database 11g: command file, including the extension. able to read it.
1. Use a command file. A command file (The Oracle RMAN executable does not Passing parameters. The backup_ts_users
is a text file residing in the file system. expect or apply a default extension.) .rman command file works well, but it’s
2. Use a stored script. This script is You can also call the command file too specific. It forces the output of the
stored in the Oracle RMAN catalog directly from the command line as backup to one specific directory and
database and executed from the Oracle backs up only one tablespace (USERS). If
RMAN command prompt. rman @backup_ts_users.rman you want to back up to a different loca-
tion or back up a different tablespace, you
command FileS This approach for calling the script have to create a new script.
I-Hua CHen

Oracle RMAN command files are plain- is highly useful in shell scripts or batch A better strategy is to make an
text files and similar to shell scripts files for making backups. Also note that Oracle RMAN command file parameter-

oracle magazine septemBer/octoBer 20 09 75

recovery

driven. Rather than hard-coding specific codeLISTING 1: Command file for backing up USERS tablespace
values in the script, you can include
connect target /
parameters whose values are passed at connect catalog rman/secretpass@rmancat
runtime. Listing 2 shows a modified
run {
version of the backup_ts_users
allocate channel c1 type disk format ‘/orabak/%U’;
.rman command file, named backup_ts_ backup tablespace users;
generic.rman. Instead of actual values, }
the new command file includes the
parameters (also known as placeholders codeLISTING 2: Parameter-driven command file
or substitution variables) &1 and &2. connect target /
With a parameter-driven command file, connect catalog rman/secretpass@rmancat
you can define any number of param-
run {
eters in this manner and pass the values allocate channel c1 type disk format ‘&1/%U’;
at runtime. backup tablespace &2;
A shell script, named backup_ts_ }

generic.sh, calls the backup_ts_generic

.rman command file with the values rman cmdfile=backup_ts_users.rman The solution? With Oracle RMAN
/tmp as the backup location (for param- log=backup_ts_users.log stored scripts, you can create scripts
eter &1) and USERS as the tablespace that are stored inside the Oracle RMAN
name (for parameter &2): Now the output of the backup_ catalog and not on the server itself.
ts_generic.rman command file will be Listing 3 shows an example stored script
$ORACLE_HOME/bin/rman <<EOF recorded in a file named backup_ts_users called backup_ts_users. Because it is
@backup_ts_generic.rman “/tmp” USERS .log instead of appearing on the screen. stored inside the Oracle RMAN catalog,
EOF You can view this file later to examine the you will need to connect to the catalog
results of the Oracle RMAN run. first, as shown in the listing. To execute
You can make this shell script even this script, all you have to do is call it
more generic, so that the parameters are Stored ScriptS with the execute command from the
passed from the command line of the Although command files work pretty Oracle RMAN prompt:
file system itself. For example, if you well in most cases, they have one huge
modify the second line in the backup_ drawback. A command file should be RMAN> run { execute script
ts_generic.sh shell script so it reads available on the server where the Oracle backup_ts_users; }
RMAN backup is to be run. Otherwise,
@backup_ts_generic.rman “/tmp” $1 from within the command file, you have The backup_ts_users stored script
to connect from the Oracle RMAN client created in Listing 3 is available only to
you will be able to call the backup_ts_ to the server by using a connect string: the target database to which it is currently
generic.rman command file, provide connected. It is a local stored script, and
/tmp as the backup location, and pass connect target sys/oracle123@remotedb you can’t execute a local script created
the tablespace name in the command for one database in another. To execute
line. For instance, if you want to back up There are several problems with this a script in multiple databases, create a
the MYTS1 tablespace, you can issue setup. First, this modified command global stored script by using the keyword
file needs to store the password of SYS GLOBAL between CREATE and SCRIPT.
backup_ts_generic.sh MYTS1 or some other user with the SYSDBA For instance, to create the script shown in
privilege. In a security-conscious envi- Listing 3 as a global stored script, replace
Logging. When you run Oracle RMAN ronment, that may not be acceptable.
scripts via an automated mechanism Second, the Oracle RMAN client may create script backup_ts_users
such as cron in UNIX or Scheduler in be not be compatible with the Oracle
Windows, you are not physically watch- Database release. Finally, for performance with
ing the command window, so how do reasons, you may very well want to run
you know the output of the Oracle the Oracle RMAN client on the same create global script backup_ts_users
RMAN commands? The output is espe- server as the database itself. But what if
cially crucial when command execu- you have databases on different servers? Once created, this global stored script
tion results in an error and you need You will have to replicate a command can be executed in any database con-
to examine the output. To capture the file script to all servers. And when you nected to this catalog. If you need to
output, you can use the log parameter in modify the script, you will have to make modify the script, there is no need to
the Oracle RMAN command line: sure it is copied to all those servers again. copy it to all servers or databases; it’s

76 September/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
codeLISTING 3: Stored script for backing up USERS tablespace use the following command:
C:\> rman
RMAN> connect target / RMAN> print global script
RMAN> connect catalog rman/secretpass@rmancat backup_ts_level1_any;
RMAN> create script backup_ts_users
2> comment ‘Tablespace Users Backup’
3> { If the stored script you want to print
4> allocate channel c1 type disk format ‘c:\temp\%U’; is local, omit the keyword GLOBAL in
5> backup tablespace users;
the command.
6> }
To drop a script, such as backup_ts_
level1_any, use the following command:
codeLISTING 4: Parameter-driven stored script
RMAN> create script backup_ts_any RMAN> delete global script
2> comment ‘Any Tablespace Backup’
backup_ts_level1_any;
3> {
4> allocate channel c1 type disk format ‘c:\temp\%U’;
5> backup tablespace &1; What if you want to create a stored
Enter value for 1: users
users;
script from a script file in the file
6> } system? You can import the file into the
7> catalog. Here is an example:
created script backup_ts_any
RMAN> create script backup_ts_users
from file ‘backup_ts_users.rman’;
automatically available for execution to up the SYSTEM tablespace by using this
all databases connecting to the catalog. backup_ts_any stored script, use the fol- Conversely, you can create a file from a
If the global stored script already lowing Oracle RMAN command: stored script (or export a stored script to a
exists and you want to update it, replace file). Here is an example:
CREATE with REPLACE— run { execute script
backup_ts_any using ‘SYSTEM’; } RMAN> print script backup_ts_users
replace global script backup_ts_users to file ‘backup_ts_users.rman’;
Administration. Oracle RMAN provides
—and include the updated script text. features to help administer stored scripts. ConClusion
Parameterization. This backup_ts_users To display the list of stored scripts, use Oracle RMAN scripts provide capabili-
stored script has a very specific purpose: the list script names command as follows: ties not only for automation but also for
backing up the USERS tablespace. consistency of execution. This article
What if you want to back up a different RMAN> list script names; presented two ways to script RMAN com-
tablespace? Rather than creating multiple mands: via OS-level command files and
scripts, you can create a generic stored List of Stored Scripts in Recovery Catalog through scripts stored in a catalog data-
script to back up any tablespace (as you Scripts of Target Database ARUPLAP1 base. Both approaches enable creation of
did with the command files earlier). Script Name generic scripts that use parameters whose
Listing 4 shows how to create a Description values can be passed at execution time. ■
parameterized stored script. In place of ————————————
the tablespace name, Listing 4 uses the backup_ts_any Arup Nanda ([email protected]) has been an
&1 parameter, whose value is passed at Any Tablespace Backup Oracle DBA for more than 16 years, handling all
runtime. When a parameter-driven stored aspects of database administration, from performance
script is created, Oracle RMAN asks for backup_ts_users tuning to security and disaster recovery. He was Oracle
an example value for any parameter used. Tablespace Users Backup Magazine’s 2003 DBA of the Year.
When &1 is included as a parameter in
line 5, Oracle RMAN asks for an example This command displays the names of
value. Enter users or any other example local as well as global stored scripts.
tablespace you may want to pass.
Remember, the stored script merely asks
To display the global scripts only, use
the following command:
nextSTEPS
for an example value; it does not store LEARN more about Oracle RMAN
download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B28359_01/
the value you used in the script itself. RMAN> list global script names; backup.111/b28270/toc.htm
With the parameterized stored script RMAN Recipes for Oracle Database 11g:
A Problem-Solution Approach
created, pass the value of the parameter To display the contents of a specific amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1590598512
via a USING clause. For example, to back stored script, such as backup_ts_any,

oracle magazine september/october 20 09 77

Application
Integration Architecture
E-Business
Suite
FlexCube SAP

PeopleSoft G-Log

JD Edwards
SPL Pre-Built
Standard
Demantra
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Agile PLM
Portal
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Applications Retek

Integration out of the box using standard middleware.

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Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates.
Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
 t e c h n o l o g y ask tom BY to m kYte

On DBMS_ROWID, Parsing, and Sizing

Our technologist identifies rows, analyzes ratios, and fills space.
have a partitioned table that spans mul- ■ In general, if you can do it in pure that client will think, “No more data”
tiple tablespaces, and some of these SQL, do it in pure SQL. Do not invoke and stop fetching. In this case, “no data
tablespaces are read-only. How do I deter- PL/SQL from SQL unnecessarily—it found” would be a grievous error, so I
mine if a given record from the table belongs can add measurably to the run time turn it into an error that will stop the
to a read-only tablespace? of a query. (In this case, I was calling client dead in its tracks. The client will
This is fairly straightforward. I the DBMS_ROWID package, so I was know that something went wrong.
can take the rowid and pass it to the paying the penalty already.) On a related note, I received a very
DBMS_ROWID package to extract the ■ The EXCEPTION block in the function similar question recently:
various rowid components. In this case, is there to handle a situation peculiar I need to know if there is a way to return the
I am interested in the database block to PL/SQL called from SQL. If you call name of the partition from which a row of data
number and the file number information PL/SQL that returns a “no data found” is coming back.
in the rowid. I can then use the block exception to a SQL statement, the SQL DBMS_ROWID can help here as
and file numbers in a query against the statement will return that exception to well. I can use it to extract the ROWID_
DBA_DATA_FILES view to determine the the client fetching from the result set and OBJECT, which is the data object ID—
tablespace name and then join that to the
DBA_TABLESPACES view to determine
codeLIstING 1: Creating table T in RW and RO tablespaces
the tablespace status.
To see this, I’ll need a small partitioned SQL> CREATE TABLE t
2 (
table that spans at least two tablespaces. 3 dt date,
For the purposes of demonstration, I have 4 x int,
set up two tablespaces named RW (for 5 y varchar2(13)
6 )
the read/write data) and RO (for the read- 7 PARTITION BY RANGE (dt)
only data). Initially both tablespaces are 8 (
read/write, as shown in Listing 1. 9 PARTITION part1
10 VALUES LESS THAN
Now I’ll make the RO tablespace 11 (to_date(‘01-jan-2008’,
read-only: 12 ‘dd-mon-yyyy’))
13 tablespace rw,
14 PARTITION part2
SQL> alter tablespace RO read only; 15 VALUES LESS THAN
Tablespace altered. 16 (to_date(‘01-jan-2009’,
17 ‘dd-mon-yyyy’))
18 tablespace ro
And then I am ready to join this 19 )
table T to DBA_DATA_FILES and DBA_ 20 /
TABLESPACES to see the status of each
Table created.
row, as shown in Listing 2.
Now, because I am already calling SQL> insert into t (dt,x,y)
PL/SQL from SQL and incurring that 2 values
3 (to_date(‘01-jun-2007’,
runtime hit, this might be a case where I 4 ‘dd-mon-yyyy’),
hide some of the complexity of the join 5 1, ‘hello world’ );
in a PL/SQL function that is callable from
1 row created.
SQL. The function could look like the
ts_status function in Listing 3. SQL> insert into t (dt,x,y)
The ts_status function in Listing 3 2 values
3 (to_date(‘01-jun-2008’,
achieves the same goal as the query in 4 ‘dd-mon-yyyy’),
Listing 2 but makes it a little easier to 5 2, ‘goodbye world’ );
code day to day. A couple of notes on
1 row created.
using this function, however:

oracle magazine septemBer/octoBer 20 09 79

ask tom

the unique identifier of a segment. I in very handy when looking at how the percent. My team is suggesting a change to
can then join that to one of the XXX_ data is organized in a table and for figur- the CURSOR_SHARING parameter value—
OBJECTS (XXX could be DBA, ALL, or ing out where a row comes from. to SIMILAR—to improve this ratio. Is that a
USER) views to see what the partition correct approach? Can you please explain what
name is, as shown in Listing 4. ExEcutE to ParsE this ratio actually means?
If you have never heard of the DBMS_ I’m confused about the execute-to-parse ratio The last part of that question should
ROWID package or seen it in action, you in Statspack/automatic workload repository throw up a bunch of red warning flags.
might want to check it out. It can come reports. I have observed this ratio as 12.02 You are looking at a ratio: the execute-to-
parse ratio. You feel it is “bad” and would
codeLIstING 2: Joining T, DBA_DATA_FILES, and DBA_TABLESPACES like to fix it, so you suggest changing a
SQL> select x.*, ts.status parameter to fix it. But then you ask for
2 from ( the ratio to be explained, meaning you’re
3 select t.*, not really sure what it is, what it means,
4 dbms_rowid.rowid_relative_fno( rowid ) rfno,
5 dbms_rowid.rowid_to_absolute_fno( rowid, user, ’T’ ) afno and if the value you have is bad. Not
6 from t only that, but the suggestion to change
7 ) x, dba_data_files df, dba_tablespaces ts CURSOR_SHARING cannot and will not
8 where df.relative_fno = rfno
9 and df.file_id = afno change the execute-to-parse ratio.
10 and df.tablespace_name = ts.tablespace_name OK, first of all, let’s start with an
11 / explanation of what the execute-to-parse
DT X Y RFNO AFNO STATUS ratio is. It is a measure of how many
--------------------- ---------------- ----------------------------- ----------------- ----------------- ---------------------- times, on average, your SQL statements
01-JUN-07 1 hello world 15 15 ONLINE are executed rather than parsed. The
01-JUN-08 2 goodbye world 16 16 READ ONLY
way this ratio is computed, it will be
a number near 100 percent when the
codeLIstING 3: ts_status function
application executes a given SQL state-
SQL> create or replace function ts_status( p_rowid in rowid ) return varchar2 ment many times over but has parsed it
2 is
3 l_status dba_tablespaces.status%type; only once. (An application must parse a
4 begin SQL statement at least once to execute
5 select ts.status into l_status it but needs to parse the SQL statement
6 from dba_data_files df, dba_tablespaces ts
7 where df.relative_fno = dbms_rowid.rowid_relative_fno( p_rowid ) only once to execute it over and over
8 and df.file_id = dbms_rowid.rowid_to_absolute_fno( p_rowid, ’OPS$TKYTE’, ’T’ ) again). This ratio will be near 0 percent if
9 and df.tablespace_name = ts.tablespace_name; the application parses a statement every
10
11 return l_status; time it executes it (parse count = execute
12 exception when NO_DATA_FOUND count). This ratio will go negative if the
13 then application parses more often than it
14 raise program_error;
15 end; executes (and that would definitely be a
16 / sign that something is seriously wrong
in the application). The formula (from
Function created.
Statspack) is simply
SQL> select t.*, ts_status(t.rowid) ts_status
2 from t; ‘Execute to Parse %:’, round(100*
DT X Y TS_STATUS (1-:prse/:exe),2)
--------------------- ---------------- ----------------------------- ----------------------
01-JUN-07 1 hello world ONLINE As you can see, if :prse (parse count)
01-JUN-08 2 goodbye world READ ONLY
is about the same as :exe (execute
count), the execute-to-parse ratio will
codeLIstING 4: Returning partition name
be 0 percent. If :exe is much larger than
SQL> select t.dt, uo.subobject_name, :prse, :prse/:exe will be near zero and
2 dbms_rowid.rowid_object(t.rowid) data_object_id
3 from t, user_objects uo the execute-to-parse ratio itself will be
4 where dbms_rowid.rowid_object(t.rowid) = uo.data_object_id near 100 percent. If :prse is greater than
5 / :exe, the execute-to-parse ratio will go
DT SUBOB DATA_OBJECT_ID negative (indicating “this is bad”).
--------------------- ------------- ---------------------------------- So that is, technically speaking,
01-JUN-08 PART2 84859 what the ratio is. A number near 100
01-JUN-07 PART1 84858
percent would be great but might not

80 September/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
be attainable. A negative number should cache of cursors open for us. When you As a companion to this question, assuming
definitely be avoided—it would indicate say “close this cursor” in PL/SQL, PL/SQL a query is parallelized, what is actually going
that the application actually parses a tells you, “OK, it’s closed,” but it really on in the LARGE_POOL? I realize that it con-
SQL statement but never executes it. isn’t. The PL/SQL engine smartly keeps tains parallel execution messages, but I’m not
The application developers would need the cursor open, knowing that you are certain what that really means.
to be educated, because a parse is an just going to call that stored procedure Older Oracle Database releases used
expensive operation and their goal is to and execute that SQL again. to use sort_area_size and hash_area_size
reduce the number of parse calls—not Suppose you have a subroutine in parameters to control how much PGA
create extra, unnecessary ones! your client application that is called memory could/would be used before
So what about the observed per- 10,000 times a day. Further, suppose swapping data out to disk (TEMP).
centage, 12 percent? There is room for that it executes five SQL statements and But I’m not going to talk about PGA
improvement there, but it cannot come those statements are parsed and executed memory management in older releases;
from CURSOR_SHARING. Changing every single time that routine runs. You I’m going to talk about automatic PGA
that parameter from its default (and will be doing 50,000 parse calls and memory management, which is much
preferred) setting of EXACT to SIMILAR 50,000 executes. more dynamic.
might change the type of parsing hap- If you were to move those five SQL So let’s say you run some SQL, and
pening (the parameter change can statements into a stored procedure and this SQL is going to do some operation
convert a hard parse into a soft parse), execute just one PL/SQL call in the such as
but it will never reduce the number of client application—even assuming that ■ Hashing

parse calls made by the application. After you didn’t cache that statement in the ■ Sorting (order by, analytics, sort dis-

the parameter change, the application client—you would now have tinct, group by sort, and so on)
will still be calling “prepare statement” to ■ 10,000 parse calls for the PL/SQL block ■ Anything that needs “memory”

parse SQL—under the covers, it might ■ 5 parse calls for the 5 SQL Oracle Database will allocate a work
be a soft parse, but it will still be a parse. statements area (a sort area, a hash area, whatever).
In short, your colleagues’ suggestion ■ 10,000 execute calls for the PL/SQL The size of this work area will be deter-
would do nothing to alter the execute- block mined by Oracle Database based on the
to-parse ratio and could, in fact, cause ■ 50,000 execute calls for the SQL in current workload on the system.
major issues in your already-running the PL/SQL code If this work area (in your PGA
system. Don’t even consider changing the So now you will have 10,005 parse memory) fills up and you are not done
CURSOR_SHARING parameter in order calls and 60,000 executes (plus many with the operation (the sort, the hash,
to try to fix your execute-to-parse ratio. fewer round-trips between client and whatever), Oracle Database will swap
The only way to modify the execute- server). The parse calls (be they hard the contents of that out to disk—a write
to-parse ratio would be to alter the two or soft parses) are extremely expensive. to TEMP. Later the database will read the
variables used in the formula. You can Having this one application instance cut contents of TEMP back in. TEMP works
change either (1) the number of times down the number of parse calls to 20 like virtual memory in a sense: the data-
you parse or (2) the number of times percent of what it used to be will have an base will page your PGA work area out
you execute. impact on performance and scalability— to it and page it back in. (It is not true
I vote for the first option. Your appli- a profound impact. virtual memory—that is just an analogy.)
cation should look for ways to reduce In short, the only way to really affect All the operations you mentioned—
the number of times it parses SQL, and the execute-to-parse ratio is to change group by, hash joins, analytic functions—
how to do this varies from environ- the number of execute or parse calls— occur in the PGA but could definitely be
ment to environment. Using JDBC, for and this is something the application swapped out to TEMP.
example, you can enable JDBC state- developer has to do. No magic param- As for the large pool, Oracle Database
ment caching (a quick search for “JDBC eter can be set. uses that in parallel queries to send
statement cache” will turn up plenty of messages back and forth. The paral-
information). Using .NET, you can also MeMory Versus TeMporary space lel execute servers are in different
enable statement caching (a quick search I’m trying to get a handle on what kinds of processes—they cannot talk directly to
for “Oracle .NET statement cache” will operations the database does in the TEMP each other, because they each have their
turn up lots of information as well). space versus what it does in the program own address space. Hence, one process
My preferred way to improve your global area (PGA) memory. A consistent word will put some data into the large pool (a
execute-to-parse ratio, however, is to I hear for the kinds of operations that occur in piece of shared memory everyone can
move all the SQL out of the client appli- both areas is sorting. I know that GROUP BY access), and another will read it from
cation and into stored procedures. operations, as well as hash joins and analytic there. It is just a shared-memory struc-
PL/SQL is a statement caching machine— functions, occur in the PGA. What does that ture that every Oracle process can read
it has, from its very beginning, kept a leave for the TEMP space? from and write to.

oracle magazine september/october 20 09 81

ask tom

More on the PGA Historically, the DBA configured user “fair.” In anticipation of additional
OK, I understand the above now. You wrote, the amount of memory used by Oracle users joining the system, the automatic
“The size of this work area will be determined Database by setting the size of the memory management limits the amount
by Oracle Database based on the current work- system global area—the buffer cache; of memory allocated as a percentage of
load on the system,” but what if I don’t have the log buffer; and the shared, large, the PGA_AGGREGATE_TARGET. But
lots of users or a highly concurrent workload? and Java pools. The remaining memory what happens when you don’t want to
How does this all work then? on the machine would then be used by be fair, when you know that you should
In general, you have many users. the dedicated or shared servers in the get all of the memory available? Well,
Automatic PGA memory management is PGA region. The DBA had little control that would be the time to use the ALTER
designed for an environment in which over how much of this memory would SESSION command to disable automatic
you have between 0 and an infinite or would not be used. That person memory management in your session
number of users, and it is designed to could set the SORT_AREA_SIZE, but if (leaving it in place for all others) and to
allocate memory up to the target level in there were 10 concurrent sorts, Oracle manually set your SORT|HASH_AREA_
a “fair” and “sharing” way. Database could use as much as 10 * SIZE as needed. For example, that large
The goal of automatic memory man- SORT_AREA_SIZE bytes of RAM; if batch process that takes place at 2:00 a.m.
agement is to not use all of the memory there were 100 concurrent sorts, Oracle and does tremendously large hash joins,
all at once. The idea is to hold some in Database would use 100 * SORT_AREA_ some index builds, and the like? It should
reserve, for the very possible condition SIZE bytes, and so on. Couple that with be permitted to use all the resources
of “more users need some right now” the fact that other things go into the on the machine. It does not want to be
and to avoid “but we’ve given it all to PGA, and you really don’t have good “fair” about memory use—it wants it all,
Joe over there.” control over the maximal use of PGA because it knows that it is the only thing
The following is an excerpt on this memory on the system. happening in the database right now. That
topic from my book Expert Oracle What you would like to have happen batch job can certainly issue the ALTER
Database Architecture. (The content has is for this memory to be used differently SESSION commands and make use of all
been edited for space and Oracle Magazine as the memory demands on the system resources available.
product name and style conventions.) grow and shrink. The more users, the less So, in short, I prefer to use automatic
RAM each should use. The fewer users, PGA memory management for end-user
Choosing between manual and auto the more RAM each should use. Setting sessions—for the applications that run
memory management. So, which method WORKAREA_SIZE_POLICY = AUTO day to day against my database. Manual
should you use: manual or automatic? and PGA_AGGREGATE_TARGET to the memory management makes sense for
My preference is to use the automatic maximum amount of PGA memory the large batch jobs that run during time
PGA memory management by default. database should strive to use is just such periods when they are the only activities
One of the most perplexing things for a way to achieve this. Oracle Database in the database. ■
a DBA can be setting individual memory will distribute this memory over the
management parameters, especially active sessions as it sees fit. Further, with Tom Kyte is a database evangelist in Oracle’s Server
parameters such as SORT|HASH_AREA_ Oracle9i Database Release 2 and up, there Technologies division and has worked for Oracle since
SIZE. There is a lot of confusion over is even a PGA advisory (part of Statspack, 1993. He is the author of Expert Oracle Database
how big or small these values should be. available via a V$ dynamic performance Architecture: 9i and 10g Programming Techniques
Not only that, but the values you would view and visible in Oracle Enterprise and Solutions (Apress, 2005) and Effective Oracle by
like to use for them might vary over time Manager), much like the buffer cache Design (Oracle Press, 2003), among others.
as the day goes by. At 8:00 a.m., with advisor. It will tell you over time what the
two users, a 50MB sort area size might be optimal PGA_AGGREGATE_TARGET for
reasonable. However, at 12:00 p.m. with your system is to minimize physical I/O
500 users, 50MB might not be appro-
priate. This is where the WORKAREA_
to your temporary tablespaces. You can
use this information to either dynamically
nextstEPs
SIZE_POLICY = AUTO setting and the change the PGA size online (if you have ask tom
tom Kyte answers your most difficult technology ques-
corresponding PGA_AGGREGATE_ sufficient RAM) or decide whether you tions. Highlights from that forum appear in this column.
TARGET come in handy. Setting the might need more RAM on your server to asktom.oracle.com

PGA_AGGREGATE_TARGET, the amount achieve optimal performance. REaD more tom

Expert Oracle Database Architecture: 9i and 10g
of memory you would like Oracle Are there times, however, when Programming Techniques and Solutions
Database to feel free to use to sort and you won’t want to use automatic PGA amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1590595300
tkyte.blogspot.com
hash, is conceptually easier than trying memory management? Absolutely, and
to figure out the perfect SORT|HASH_ fortunately they seem to be the exception DoWNLoaD
oracle Database 11g
AREA_SIZE, especially because the and not the rule. The automatic memory otn.oracle.com/software/products/database
perfect value varies by workload. management was designed to be multi-

82 September/october 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
 c o m m e n t ALL Secure bY m a rY a n n davi dso n

Keeping Current with Standards

Oracle expertise in secure development practice is certified.
here is a quote attributed to Andrew New hacks. There are new classes of included). While it is too early to tell if
Tanenbaum that goes, “The nice attacks being discovered all the time, CSSLP will catch on, I thought it was
thing about standards is that there are some of them by the Oracle ethical important for Oracle to show our com-
so many of them to choose from.” In hacking team. We are documenting the mitment to secure development practice
truth, open, transparently developed new attacks: how they work and how by having the people whose full-time
software standards are important, developers can avoid the vulnerabilities jobs are focused on “secure software
especially with our increased reli- that lead to the attacks. lifecycle” receive such certification. In
ance on and the interdependency of Tool usage. We continue to develop my opinion, what is notable about so
complex systems. Let’s face it, the automated tools in-house (and to many of us receiving CSSLP certifica-
internet wouldn’t work if we couldn’t license third-party tools) that help us tions isn’t the piece of paper from the
agree—via standards—on how to route find security vulnerabilities in our code. International Information Systems
messages, map arcane IP addresses to We are reviewing the in-house tools to Security Certification Consortium, the
2
things people understand, and so on. ensure that they are robust enough to issuing body that’s known as (ISC) .
A number of security standards have mandate via the SCS. Furthermore, one Instead, it is the collective years of expe-
also emerged in the past several years of our goals as we maintain the SCS is rience these CSSLP certificates represent
as people have tried to integrate the to develop concise coding-practice rules in Oracle secure development practice.
security of disparate components (à la and to try to incorporate them into the Most of my team has been in security—
SOAs) or enable security attributes and automated tools we use. Automation and in fact, in security at Oracle—for
assertions to span organizations. helps people do the right thing—and years and years. I’ve known some of my
Oracle also embraces standards, many avoid the wrong thing—more easily. team members since I joined the Oracle
of them internal standards related to Another way in which Oracle Secure Systems group in 1994. They are
secure development practices. These stan- embraces standards is in our expertise still at Oracle and still working in secu-
dards are incorporated into a document as security professionals. For years, there rity. It’s a richness of experience that the
known as the Secure Coding Standards has been a plethora of certifications for CSSLP merely acknowledges but does
2
(SCS), which my team authored, revised, security practitioners, such as Certified not confer. Still, I’m proud that (ISC)
and maintains. SCS is the foundation of Information Systems Security Professional, has recognized what I’ve known all
almost everything we do in security—our Certified Information Security Manager, along: Oracle has a wealth of expertise in
secure coding training is based on it. Certified Information Systems Auditor, secure development practice. ■
Maintaining SCS is a big project and and so on. While most certifications to
falls smack into the category of projects date have focused on operational informa- Mary Ann Davidson is the chief security officer of
that are not “urgent” but are very impor- tion security practice, a new certification Oracle, responsible for secure development practices and
tant. Recently, we’ve taken SCS from a has been developed that focuses on secure security evaluations and assessments. She represents
PDF document to a wiki-ized document development practice: the Certified Secure Oracle on the board of directors of the Information
that is easier to use, better organized, and Software Lifecycle Professional (CSSLP). Technology Information Security Analysis Center (IT-ISAC),
richer, and SCS is the most referenced To my knowledge, CSSLP is the first (and has served on the U.S. Defense Science Board, and is on
section of my team’s wiki. For example, only) certification focused on those who the editorial review board of SC Magazine.
we know that telling developers, “Don’t design, build, and deliver secure software.

nextSTePS
do X,” is less effective than telling them, And frankly, certifying those who secure
“Do Y instead.” Thus, we continue to operational systems without certifying
add “case law” illustrating the right those who build security into them is like
reAD more Davidson
way—or several right ways—to address certifying architects without certifying blogs.oracle.com/maryanndavidson
security problems developers run into structural engineers. otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/secure

(such as how to handle passwords on the I am pleased to say that most of my reAD more about
command line). team—Oracle Global Product Security— certified Secure Software Lifecycle
Professional certification
Specific additions we are making to has both applied for and received www.isc2.org
SCS include the new CSSLP certification (myself

oracle magazine september/october 20 09 83

 c o m m e n t ANALYST’S CORNER BY davi d Baum

Portals Unbound
Portals enable an evolving web of social interactions to boost productivity.
racle Magazine spoke with Jim is also expanding as they tie in related understood business policies—these
Murphy, a research director at AMR technologies such as content manage- social networking conventions can help
Research, about the changing face of ment, search, and collaboration. These people work together and collaborate
portal technology and the implications of portals are not only an end user’s more effectively. Certainly some com-
the intersection of social networking with doorway to the enterprise but increas- panies use Twitter and Facebook to
enterprise computing. ingly the enterprise’s doorway to the help promote their companies.
Oracle Magazine: What does the word end user. As companies create portals The question here is, how do we
“portal” mean to today’s businesses? for customers and partners, they open harness these same types of tech-
Murphy: The IT audience thinks of a up doorways to an enormous range of nologies to allow employees to work
portal as a unified point of access to other constituencies as well. together in more-productive ways?
applications and information systems. At AMR, we refer to these more How do we mitigate the use of these
In addition to handling security and abstract portals as “unbound portals” networks and channel their capabili-
identity management, portals include a to describe their evolution beyond ties for business use? Of course, this is
Web development platform for build- mere browser-based interfaces. An not an entirely new idea. The idea of a
ing applications from “portlets”—mini unbound portal includes three common knowledge network has been around
applications and mashups, if you will denominators: presence, identity, and for a good 15 years at least. But today’s
—and deploying them to end users. convergence. Presence refers to sophis- portal efforts are pushing the envelope
Companies see portals in terms of ticated, pervasive presence capabili- in new ways. ■
the range of applications they want to ties that allow you to manage other
deploy, or as a practical way to enable organizations’ and individuals’ access David Baum ([email protected]), a freelance
certain business functions. They want to you—by constituency, communica- business writer based in Santa Barbara, California, is
to improve the productivity of the tion channel, application, and location. a frequent contributor to Oracle Magazine.
workforce. And in some cases, they Identity means the unbound portal
want to extend the usefulness of their requires a more authoritative, consis- AMR Research provides subscription advisory
enterprise applications and information. tent, complete, reusable, and especially services and peer networking opportunities to
They also use portals as mechanisms to secure notion of identity. Convergence is operations and IT executives in the consumer
consolidate and exchange information. the ability of portal users to communi- products, life sciences, manufacturing, and retail
Meanwhile, users generally think of a cate and collaborate in one place. sectors. Jim Murphy covers knowledge manage-
portal as a customer-facing Web site. Oracle Magazine: How do Web 2.0 capa- ment, content management, enterprise portal
They see the front end, but they aren’t bilities help drive adoption and use of technology, search and retrieval, e-learning, and
always aware of all the things a portal a portal? collaboration technologies.
does behind the scenes. Murphy: Some organizations integrate
Oracle Magazine: How is portal technol- their portals with a social network-
ogy changing to accommodate Web ing platform or build a social net-

nextSTEPS
2.0 concepts? working platform using some type of
Murphy: Portals are moving from some- expert identification platform. More-
thing tangible and demonstrable, like a conservative organizations sometimes
READ more about
specific Web site, to an abstract point prohibit employees from using social portal technology
of access. In other words, while portals networking sites because they believe oracle.com/appserver/portal_home.html

employ Web-based technologies, access that they won’t have adequate control Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g
isn’t necessarily embodied in a Web of employees’ time or that they’ll oracle.com/products/middleware/user-interaction

browser. Today’s portals are better seen encourage casual interactions that will DOWNLOAD
as virtual points of presence, accessible reduce productivity among the work- the Oracle Portlet Developer Kit
otn.oracle.com/products/ias/portal/pdk.html
from any interface, system, device, or force. However, with the right security
Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g
application that happens to sit in front and identity management framework otn.oracle.com/software/products/middleware
of the user. The scope of these portals in place—and if it’s driven by well-

84 SeptemBer/octoBer 20 09 oracle.com/oraclemagazine
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