Check Your Charities

Charities

This is another non-Oracle, personal posting. I just found a great service for rating charities. The holidays are a traditional time for donations, but there's a wide mix of charities out there looking for your money, some good, some predatory. My favorite, Modest Needs, came out with a 4 out of 4 star rating on the Charity Navigator website. 

Charity Navigator analyzes charities based on several factors, notably the administrative overhead that can eat up donations. Just as I thought, Modest Needs has a very low overhead, and does a lot of good work in this world. The site allows you to register, which lets you save favorite charities so you can compare them, dive deeper into the menuing system, get the inevitable email newsletter, etc.

With the tough economic times, Modest Needs is likely to get a lot more requests this coming year, so it's a great time to start a monthly donation to them, even if it's a small one.

The worst charity I was able to find, by the way, is the National Save the Sea Turtle Foundation. These folks burn through $3.40 in admin and fundraising for every dollar that actually goes to accomplish something for the charity. No wonder turtles always look so sad.

AIA, Hyperion, Performance, Unstructured Data, EBS

Do You Need AIA?

The Official AIA Blog asks: Do you really need AIA? You'd think that as the official AIA blog, and Oracle stockholders, they'd say: Why of course you do! But they actually look at the pros and cons. Good article, found here.

ACS for Hyperion

Ok, next question, do you really need Advanced Customer Service for Hyperion? No doubts and vacillation on this one. You know you do. Read about it here. 

Performance

Glenn Fawcett's blog has a nice presentation available on performance analysis of the Oracle DB. It was prepared for Sun OS users, but has much wisdom for all trying to tame the waves of self-delusion, legend, myth and mystery that often surround performance optimization of large RDBMS.

Unstructured Data

Do you have a lot of unstructured data? Kevin Closson is looking into the future and seeing a wall of it heading our way. He has a suggestion on an HP server designed for that wall here.

EBS

EBS validation meets regular expressions in this excellent posting over at Gareth Roberts' In Depth Apps - Oracle eBusiness Suite blog.

Most Popular Stories of 2008 from Profit Online Magazine

It’s been a big year: for the global economy, for Oracle, and for Profit Online. Here’s a look back at the most popular stories of 2008—perfect for browsing as you clean out your inbox and prepare for the challenges of 2009.

Special Report: Sustainability
Green was on the enterprise agenda even before the start of 2008, but this collection of sustainability tips, case studies, and opinion was a popular read throughout the year.

Marvel's Superpowered IT Strategy
This cover story from Profit magazine's May issue hit the streets just as Marvel's Iron Man movie was arriving in theaters. It’s an excellent tale of IT strategy and teamwork between the CIO and lines of business.

Winning the Battle Against Attrition
As demand for skilled IT labor exploded in India, outsourcing pioneer Genpact used an Oracle system to keep employees trained, productive, happy, and off competitors' payroll.

Why Not Skip Web 2.0 and Go Directly to Web 3.0?
Dr. David J. Roberts of iBASEt, Inc. shared his thoughts about the impact of a semantic view of data on business, even as IT was devising strategic Web 2.0 practices in the enterprise.

Four Steps for Reducing Finance OverheadOriginally printed in Profit magazine, this story about reining in ad hoc finance processes gained new relevance as the financial crisis began to affect the marketplace.

Internet Seminars

View the following Siebel Internet seminars at your convenience:

* Breaking the Mold with Hosted Contact Centers
* Eliminate Call Center Complexity with Oracle's Preintegrated Hosted Call Center Solution
* Which CRM Deployment Is Right for Your Organization?
* The Checklist for Performing a Successful Siebel Upgrade
* Using the Customer Experience Blueprint to Achieve Outstanding Customer-Driven Business Results
* How to Deliver World-Class Customer Service While Lowering Costs
* Learn Successful Strategies for Business Intelligence Across the Enterprise

Latest Appcasts

Siebel

Siebel 8.1.1 -Why Customers should upgrade to the latest release of Oracle's Siebel CRM
(10 min.) - December 16, 2008
Listen to George Jacob, Group Vice President, CRM discuss the advantages of upgrading to the latest release of Siebel CRM and how the cost of upgrading is actually just a fraction of what you think.

Siebel 8.1.1 for Communication (10 min.)
December 9, 2008
The latest release of Siebel CRM 8.1.1 includes many new features and enhancements for the Communications industry. In this webcast, you'll hear from Brenda Harris, Principal Product Strategy Manager for Communications here at Oracle. She'll explain how Siebel Communications 8.1.1 will help your communications company provide the most differentiated and personalized customer experience proven to increase customer loyalty and profitability levels.

Siebel CRM 8.1.1 Solutions (11 min.)
October 28, 2008
Listen to George Jacob, Group Vice President, CRM Applications, discuss the new release of Siebel CRM 8.1.1. By empowering end customers and creating a consistent, engaging service experience, businesses are leveraging Siebel CRM 8.1.1 to garner high customer loyalty levels and improve business profitability in this tough economic environment. Tune in today!

Empower Siebel 8.0 users with new simple-to-use rules engines (7 min.)
September 4, 2008
Listen to Rick Watts, an experienced Siebel and Haley Authority developer and Sr. Configuration Specialist from Oracle Advanced Customer Services discuss best practices for utilizing the Haley rules engine in a Siebel implementation project

E-Business Suite


Oracle E-Business Suite-CRM Release 12 Update (9 min.)
December 11, 2007
Get the latest information about Oracle's E-Business Suite CRM from Steve Tonas, Sr. Director, EBS CRM Products. Hear about the future plans in the CRM area and why customers continue to upgrade and implement to this new release.

An Update on Oracle Product Information Management (7 min.)
December 4, 2007
Alison Schofeld, Product Strategy Director, introduces Oracle's Product Information Management (PIM) solution, discusses why it is important for companies today and why customers should chose Oracle's PIM solution.

Contributions By Angela Golla

Oracle Database 11g: The Top New Features for DBAs and Developers
In this 20-part series of articles, learn how important new Oracle Database 11g features such as Database Replay, Flashback Data Archive, and SecureFiles work via simple, actionable how-to's and sample code.

Oracle Retail News

NRF Preview: Oracle Retail Stakes Out Flagship Presence at January's BIG Show
From a two-story booth in a prime location to networking activities like the BIG CIO Party, Oracle Retail is staking out a flagship presence at this year's National Retail Federation (NRF) BIG Show, which will take place in New York's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center January 11–14. More...

Four Strategies to Protect Retail Margins in a Tough Economy
From the global credit crisis to the rising price of commodities, retailers find themselves in uncharted waters. But the news is not necessarily all bleak.

In fact, the crisis offers opportunities for retailers that provide customers value in the context of economic challenges. How is this possible? More...

Oracle Retail Courses at Oracle University
Gain a deeper understanding of Oracle Retail with an Oracle University course. Topics include
- RMS 12 Fundamentals
- RMS 12 Fundamentals - Contracts Ed 1
- Retail Sales Audit (ReSA) 12 Fundamentals Ed 1
- And many more

Contributions by Angela Golla

As the year end approaches it is a good time to review Oracle's Lifetime Support policy available at this link:

http://www.oracle.com/support/lifetime-support-policy.html

Charity

This posting is not part of our Oracle blog, but my personal appeal for you to consider a favorite charity of mine this holiday season. In a time of recession, with more and more families having a hard time making ends meet, there are times when things come to a crisis point. Just yesterday I was speaking to someone who schedules car repairs for a living and, in the ultimate irony, doesn't have enough money to fix his only car. There's a charity that helps in that kind of crisis, stepping in to help families when it comes to a decision between paying the rent and paying the doctor. It's called Modest Needs, and it works on a unique model. Instead of collecting a mass of money and doling it out to other organizations that help people in need Modest Needs takes requests from people in need, researches them to make sure they are legitimate, and pays the person's problem debt directly to the vendor (that car repair place, for instance, or a person's landlord). You can find out more at www.modestneeds.org. 

Up and Down, Virtuality, Saving, ASM, The Wall, Flashback, FBI

Better Upgrades Through Downgrades

I always like to be able to back things out. Coskan's Approach to Oracle has a posting today on how to use a utility before doing an 11g upgrade that will allow you to downgrade the EM repository back to a lower level. 

Virtual Book

Eddie Awad links to an excellent Oracle tool today. It lets you create a virtual book on a particular Oracle topic (no, you can't use it to make virtual detective novels, unless they are database forensics mysteries). Here' the link. 

Saving the Green

Everyone is trying to save a buck. The Fusion ECM blog has some good links on ROI and related topics, and how to leverage Web 2.0 into saving money (yes, I know leverage is probably not the best word to use at this point, since that always seems to be what gets us in trouble, leverage, followed by overextension, followed by bubble-popping). Anyway,  the link is here. One of the points it makes is: Like travelling? Well don't! Virtualize meetings. I think there is no doubt about it, the trend is toward more and more virtual meetings. Concalls are useful, but you lose a lot of interpersonal contact without being in a person's presence, so virtual meetings, with ever more accurate representations of the people participating in the meeting, are definitely somewhere in the future, and decreasing travel budgets may actually help push the technology forward.

ASM Striping

Ardent Performance Computing has a good brief posting on clarifying what is entailed in by ASM size here. 

The Wall

Life After Coffee has an interesting find in this post, the Oracle web page I am the Node. I admit that the visual effect made my eyes hurt. I admit that the data it returned was seemingly semirandom, a huge collection of various and sundry items, old and new. But I also enjoyed zapping into things at random to see what popped up. After a bit you learn to stop it spinning around wildly so you can actually read something. This is good, since if you keep looking at the wall in motion for too long you end up looking like the little pod creature orbiting the wall. And no, we don't offer dramamine before visiting the site, though perhaps we should.

Flashback

An article focusing on a couple of really nifty 11g flashback features at OTN. Flashback is a feature that chews up a lot of storage, but is definitely the best thing since sliced bread. The ability to move whole DBs, or parts thereof, back and forth in time gives the DBA pretentions of godlike power. If you buy your DBA enough storage to implement flashback and then find them pacing the hall muttering: "It's alive!" please medicate them and contact support.

FBI

Nah, not the Feds, the function based index. Have you always thought those are tricky? Well, actually, yes, they can be. Richard Foote's blog has an excellent posting on some of the hidden problems that can be encountered with these very handy indexes and statistics.

Contributions by Angela Golla

Build your own virtulized RAC cluster. Instructions can be found at:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/wartak-rac-vm.html

Humor, PeopleSoft, SQL Developer, JDE Survey, EBS, Tools

Geek Humor

We start off our first issue after the Thanksgiving break with this, from Dark Roasted Blend:

Q: How many Heisenbergs does it take to change a light bulb?
A: If you know the number, you don’t know where the light bulb is.

PeopleSoft Tip

The PeopleSoft Tipster has a good tip for quickly exporting multiple projects here, but perhaps of more interest still is the PeopleSoft wiki that links from the posting.

SQL Developer

SQL Developer is one of those great Oracle products with a name that is, well, not thought out (ever try to search Google for info on SQL Developer? You'll get back half of Monster.com from the search). But it’s an outstanding product, name and all,  there's a new early adapter release out, as announced by our SQL Developer team:

On Wednesday this week, the SQL Developer team  published and announced on the OTN forum, the second Early Adopter release of Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeling.

Following a successful first early adopter, with over 5000 downloads, many changes were rolled into the second early adopter based on feedback from the internal and external audience. 

• Use this page on OTN, for access to initial documentation and supporting collateral. This site includes more online demonstrations and sample models, so that you need not have access to a database to view and test data models.
  

JDE Survey

The JD Edwards Advisor blog ran a poll on future spending on JDE in the face of the current economy. The news is good, overall. Have a read here.

EBS Blog of Note

Want to get EBS release data and other key bits of news and information right from the source? The Oracle E-Business Suite Technology blog is a great place for it! Rather than link to individual items, here's the main page, which you can add through your RSS reader (you, ahem, are using one of those, yes?): http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/

Computer Tools

Eddie Awad's blog has 5 Tools That Make You a More Productive Computer User (not just Oracle users, though we'd appreciate it if you'd at least think about Oracle while using the tools). You can find his posting here.

Webcasts this month

LIVE WEBCASTS

Realize True Cost Savings with Oracle Unbreakable Linux
Tuesday, December 9, 2008 - 3:00 p.m. Eastern/ 12 noon Pacific
Discover how your organization can cut costs and save with Oracle Unbreakable Linux. More details...

Go Green, Save Green with Oracle VM
Thursday, December 11, 2008 - 3:00 p.m. Eastern/12 noon Pacific
Learn how to manage your data more efficiently, economically, and ecologically, while cutting costs with Oracle VM server virtualization. More details...

Middleware for Applications at Your Fingertips
Now available on-demand, this Webcast series dives into how to extend your applications using middleware technologies. More details...

E-Business Suite
Leveraging the Enterprise Service Bus with E-Business Suite
Tune in to this special on-demand Webcast to find out how Oracle Enterprise Service Bus can be used to integrate Oracle E-Business Suite. More details...

PeopleSoft
Consuming PeopleSoft Web Services in WebCenter
View this on-demand Webcast to learn how to leverage PeopleSoft Web Services to build out dashboards and user interfaces using Oracle WebCenter. More details...

Siebel
Building a Complex Web Application Using ADF and Siebel
Join Oracle product experts and your peers in this special on-demand Webcast exploring how you can leverage Siebel Web services to build a complex Web application using Oracle ADF. More details...

ADVISOR WEBCASTS:
Expert information on services, products, and technologies comes straight to your desktop through Oracle Web Conferencing.

Oracle E-Business Suite
Dec 10 — E-Business Suite: Release 12 Payments

Oracle Fusion Middleware
Dec 3 — Fusion Middleware: Oracle Forms 10g - Forms Look and Feel Project - EMEA and U.S.

Peoplesoft Enterprise
Dec 9 — PeopleSoft Enterprise Campus Solutions 2009-2010 Financial Aid U.S. Regulatory (Regs) 1
Dec 11 — MetaLink 3 Portal Architecture

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
Dec 2 — JDE EnterpriseOne: 2008 U.S. W2/1099 Processing Overview
Dec 2 — JDEdwards EnterpriseOne: New Value and Functionality in JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools Release 8.98
Dec 3 — JDE EnterpriseOne 9.0 Financial Management and Procurement for Services
Dec 3 — JDE EnterpriseOne: Best Practices: Platform Pack Install on System i
Dec 4 — JDE EnterpriseOne 9.0 Configurator and Kit Processing
Dec 4 — JDE EnterpriseOne: Canadian Payroll Year-End Processing Overview
Dec 4 — JDE EnterpriseOne: Avoiding a Common Issue with the UBE Scheduler
Dec 11 — JDE EnterpriseOne: MetaLink 3 Portal Architecture
Dec 11 — JDE EnterpriseOne 9.0 Real Estate Management
Dec 16 — JDE EnterpriseOne 9.0 Grower, Grower Pricing & Payments, Blend Management
Dec 17 — JDE EnterpriseOne Human Capital Management 9.0
Dec 18 — Using Oracle BI Publisher to Create JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Reports

JD Edwards World
Dec 4 — JDE World: Preparing for Year-End Processing and W-2 Reporting Season
Dec 9 — JDE World: 1099 Process Refresher for 2008 - Changes and Address Book
Dec 10 — JDE World: 1099 Process Refresher for 2008 - AP Method/Write Media
Dec 10 — JDE World: Preparing for Year-End Processing and W-2 Reporting Season
Dec 11 — JDE World: 1099 Process Refresher for 2008 - G/L Method/Write Media
Dec 11 — MetaLink 3 Portal Architecture
Dec 16 — JDE World: Preparing for Canadian T4 & Releve Reporting: Year-End Processes

View Advisor Webcast schedule for Oracle E-Business Suite, Server Tech and Communication Applications

Contributions by Angela Golla

Protect your data at the sourceSecurity Inside Out

In today's digital world, the corporate databases in which you store your data are the most valuable assets in your enterprise, and must be protected more than ever before. Whether you need to tackle privacy issues, internal threats, external theft or compliance requirements, the most effective way to safeguard your data is to start at the source: your databases. Join us for our upcoming series of live Database Security web seminars to learn how Oracle can help you quickly deploy effective strategies to safeguard your corporate data. More information is available at:

http://www.oracle.com/dm/09q2field/23149_ev_webcast.html?src=6642149&Act=257&msgid=7158307

Oracle iProcurement Handbook

Here's a little something for your reading pleasure...
The Oracle iProcurement Handbook, written by ex-Oracle iProc guru Kalyana Muthyala, covers both technical and functional aspects of iProcurement.

Hyperion, R12 and BIP, EBS, ADF, 11g Clusterware, External Table Preprocessor, Public Grants, Carl Backstrom

Hyperion

An announcement from the Look Smarter Than You Are blog that the new EPM 11.1.1.1 release is out, and it swats bugs left and right. Read about it here.

R12 and BI Publisher Patch

A new patch is out for changing the default layout format between RTF/PDF/Excel when submitting XML / BI Publisher Concurrent Request in R12. Read about it at the In Depth Apps - Oracle eBusiness Suite.

EBS

Steven Chan is continuing a series of Open World recaps with this posting on Advanced Deployment Architectures for Oracle E-Business Suite.

ADF

Raghu Yadav's weblog brings us some good links on How to deploy ADF Application on Oracle WebLogic 10.3.

11g Clusterware

11g allows you to use ASM to protect a single instance, not just a multinode system. Alejandro Vargas has a good posting on the steps involved.

External Table Preprocessor 

The Structured Data blog has a very useful posting on usage of a feature introduced in 11g (and being backported to 10.2.0.5), an external table preprocessor. 

Public Grants

It seems simple enough: Revoke public grants to improve security, yes? Well, not quite so fast! Good posting over at Pete Finnigan's blog on the subject, with some valuable material in the comments as well.

Carl Backstrom

As I reported a couple of weeks ago, we lost Carl Backstrom, one of our most popular Oracle bloggers, to a car accident. There is a memorial entry at his blog and a memorial fund open to benefit his daughter. 

Editors' Choice Awards

Contributions by Angela Golla

From all corners of the globe, from all industries, and all areas of technology—the winners of the seventh annual Editors' Choice Awards reflect outstanding leadership, innovation, and commitment. The editors of Oracle Magazine are pleased to honor the achievements of these talented professionals.

Read "Editors' Choice Awards 2008"
Read "Editors' Choice Awards 2007"

Most Recent AppCasts

Legend Valve Relies on JD Edwards EnterpriseOne to Stay Competitive in a Challenging Business Environment (10 min.)
November 18, 2008
Hear Walter Jan, Executive Vice President and Owner of Legend Hydronics, a division of Legend Valve, tell how JD Edwards EnterpriseOne gave Legend Valve the ability to model the application to work the way they want their business to operate. Learn what it's like to look into the future of a growing company and plan for new and changing business processes knowing your software will scale to your needs.

Oracle's Visual CRM Solution (8 min.)
November 17, 2008
Visual CRM adds the powerful visualization and document centric collaboration capabilities of Oracle's AutoVue to Oracle's best-in-class CRM solutions. By introducing a visual aspect to call center, field service, and ordering processes, Visual CRM helps teams provide faster responses to customer issues, optimize field service performance, and shorten ordering cycles while minimizing order errors.With Visual CRM, organizations can achieve improved customer service levels and field service operations which help drive margin, top line revenue, and customer retention.

Oracle Business Intelligence Applications (11 min.)
November 13, 2008
Get an understanding of Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) from Joe Thomas, Senior Director, Oracle BI Applications. Learn about Oracle's BI strategy, offerings and how customers are getting the information they need to make better decisions today with Oracle Business Intelligence Applications.

JD Edwards Delivers Once Again with Significant Announcements (8 min.)
November 11, 2008
Listen to Lenley Hensarling, JD Edwards Group Vice President, talk about the significant JD Edwards announcements made during Oracle OpenWorld 2008. Lenley will highlight how JD Edwards' customers can benefit from the latest product releases from EnterpriseOne and World, discuss the wave of companies who are upgrading to the most recent JD Edwards releases to take advantage of an array of industry specific enhancements, and elaborate on JD Edwards' strategy about integrating to other Oracle solutions, bringing continuous value to customers.

Enterprise Performance Management: Driving Management Excellence (13 min.)
November 10, 2008
Extending operational excellence to management excellence is the new strategic imperative for organizations large and small, all around the world. Management Excellence is a strategy for organizations to differentiate from their competition, by being smarter, more agile and more aligned. Tune into this conversation with John Kopcke, Senior Vice President of Oracle's Enterprise Performance Management Global Business Unit to learn how leading companies are integrating their management processes and using Oracle's EPM System to achieve management excellence.

Latest on Oracle Governance, Risk and Compliance (13 min.)
November 2, 2008
With the widespread uncertainty afflicting economies across the globe, regulatory mandates are expected to rise as investors and citizens worldwide demand increasing transparency and accountability from corporations and public agencies alike. Tune into this conversation with Chris Leone, Group Vice-President of Oracle Applications Product Strategy, to hear the latest on Oracle's Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) Applications Suite. You will learn how companies today are ensuring a sustainable and cost-effective risk and compliance management regimen with the help of Oracle GRC applications.

ALERT! Mandatory Patch R12.1 SCP_PF.B CU1 (12.1.01) Released

• Patch 7422116 is required for all customers who have installed base release of SCP_PF.B - 12.1 Supply Chain Planning Feature Pack - Patch 6659487
• This Patch includes release of Integration between R12.1 and EBS 11.5.10
• This Patch includes release of Integration between R12 for Demantra to 11.5.10
• This release is first release that allows a customer on R12.x to integrate Demantra with EBS 11.5.10
• This is a Controlled Release, which means that customers must contact their Oracle Sales Representative to engage APS Product Development and be approved to install this release.
• See Note 746824.1 for details

Indexing, Hotsos, Optimizer, JavaScript, PeopleSoft, EBS, RPM

Indexing

As is often the case, Richard Foote has a posting at his Oracle blog that gives some great insights on indexing, specifically fragmentation and duplicate entries.

Speaking of indexing, Mark Rittman at the Rittman Mead Consulting blog has a great article on bitmap indexes with some links to further reading.

Hotsos

The Striving for Optimal Performance blog reminds us that March of 2009 is on the horizon, that time of the year when all the performance gurus converge on Dallas for the Hotsos symposium. That's why that week is known as 'slow DB week'.

Optimizer Modes

First_rows_n for an OLTP system or all_rows? Which do we use for our Oracle optimizer? It's one of those great ontological questions like dry rubbed ribs or sauce (or both)? Well, Jonathan Lewis has some incite at his Oracle Scratchpad blog. I haven't linked to his blog in a while, so you may want to read down through some of the other postings, which are always top quality (like this posting on PX Buffer, with lots of grotty internal details).

JavaScript

A good tip on saving lots of time when working on a JavaScript local file over at Tyler Muth's blog.

PeopleSoft

The PeopleSoft Tipster blog gives us a glance at what the PeopleTools 8.5 future holds for us: Features!

And if you have some time to fill and really yearn to virtually install PeopleSoft the PSST0101 blog has the series for you.

EBS

Gareth Roberts over at the In Depth Apps - Oracle eBusiness Suite blog shows us how to turn loose Greasemonkey on your EBS homepage. He has a video, but I couldn't see any monkeys at all.

RPM

Alejandro Vargas brings us the good news that the Oracle validated RPM for Linux is available. Just add water and it will puff up like one of those little sponge dinosaurs, rearing up into a ferocious RAC-ready server.

Siebel CRM 8.1.1

Oracle has announced the next version of Oracle’s Siebel CRM 8.1.1, providing industry-specific solutions for Self Service and robust customer loyalty management enabling cost savings through use of open standards technology.

As the second major release of Siebel CRM in the last two years under the “Applications Unlimited” Program, Oracle has updated Siebel Self-Service, including Siebel eSupport and Siebel eCommerce applications, with Java-based J2EE applications built on Oracle Fusion Middleware that extends Siebel’s CRM product to the Web channel enabling a more compelling user experience and improved total cost of ownership.

Siebel CRM 8.1.1 now provides industry-specific customer self-service for communications and the public sector, as well as enhanced use of multi-channel applications with Siebel Chat and deeper, more comprehensive search capability.

New features in Siebel Loyalty for version 8.1.1 support the entire customer loyalty program lifecycle by providing membership enrollment and management, including loyalty points accrual and redemption, member services, partner management and promotion management.

New features in Siebel Marketing for version 8.1.1 provide a closed-loop solution that uniquely empowers all members of the marketing organization with actionable insight by automating processes across the marketing function, from strategy and planning to multi-channel response and lead management execution.

For more information please visit:

• Siebel CRM site on www.oracle.com
• CRM Product Marketing Blog
  

New Downloads

Free Oracle Application Express Resource Kit
Learn how Oracle Application Express can help you address the manageability, security and scalability challenges associated with using spreadsheets and personal databases to store mission-critical data. Request your free Oracle Application Express Resource Kit containing the latest release of Oracle Application Express and a link to related free packaged applications, as well as analyst reports, white papers, and customer testimonials. Download.

Download Oracle Toplink 11g
Oracle TopLink 11g (11.1.1.0.0) is now available for download; it introduces seamless integration with Oracle Coherence, flexible Object-XML binding, and provides out-of-the-box compatibility with Oracle WebLogic Server and Java frameworks including Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) 11g. Download.

New Hands-On Tutorials from Oracle By Example

Check out these new additions to the Oracle by Example (OBE) library:

• 12 tutorials: Oracle WebLogic Server 10g Release 3 (10.3)
• 1 tutorial: Converting Relational Data into RDF Format
• 3 tutorials: Oracle Secure Backup 10.2
• 4 tutorials: Oracle Role Manager 10.1.4
• 1 tutorial: Oracle Data Integrator

Lifetime Support policy updates - Technology and Applications

Lifetime Support Policy Brochures - October: New Ikan Release and 19 Application Updates (11 November 2008)

The October editions of the Lifetime Support Policy brochures is now available for Oracle customers. In the Technology brochure we have added the Oracle Ikan release.
In the Applications brochure we included Support Policy updates for Oracle Crystal Ball, Oracle Health Science releases and made other updates.
No changes have been made to the Retail brochure. The next edition will be available November 30.

Highlights:
In the Technology Brochure, the October edition includes Support Policies for this New Acquisition:

• Oracle Ikan Release

In the Applications Brochure, the October edition includes Support Policy Updates for these Product Releases:

• Oracle Hyperion Releases:
• Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System 11.1 – New Release
• Oracle Crystal Ball Releases
  

• Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Releases:
  
• 9.0 – New Release

• Oracle Health Science Releases:

• Clinical 4.5.1
• Clinical 4.5.2
• Clinical 4.5.3
• Thesaurus Management System 4.5.2
• Thesaurus Management System 4.6
• Adverse Event Reporting System 4.6.1
• Oracle Healthcare Transaction Base v4.4
  

• Oracle Utilities (Formerly Lodestar) Releases:
• Billing Component 1.5.x - New Release
• Quotations Management 1.5.x - New Release
• Rate Management 1.5.x - New Release
• Meter Data Management 1.5.x - New Release
• Portfolio Management 1.5.x - New Release
• Load Profiling and Settlement 1.5.x - New Release
• Transaction Management 1.5.x - New Release
  

• Oracle Utilities (Formerly SPL WorldGroup) Releases:
• Business Intelligence 2.2.x - New Release
• Work and Asset Management 1.8.x – New Release
  

Click here for additional Resource Information. If you have questions regarding this article, please contact Jennifer Descheneau

Firefox and EBS, ADI, Constraints, JDE, PeopleSoft, DBA's, Library for DBAs

EBS and Firefox

Tired of IE? I was, long ago, and moved to Firefox. I've had problems since the 3.0 release, but it's still a better browser than IE by far (though I must admit to an affection for the new, bare-bones Chrome browser from Google). In any case, there can be some challenges getting Firefox to make its peace with Oracle EBS. Gareth Roberts has some wisdom to share on this at his In Depth Apps - Oracle EBusiness Suite blog.

ADI on 10gR2

The ADI is now certified on 10gR2, as you can read about here on Steven Chen's Oracle E-Business Suite Technology blog. He has another good posting on R12 from Openworld: Maximum Availability Architecture: Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.

Constraints

The database, like society, is always somewhere on the continuous line that runs from locked down, buttoned up restriction on one end to carefree code it as you like looseness on the other. A lengthy post over at the Tahiti View blog gives one Oracle employee's perspective on some of the pluses and minuses of constraints. I'm sorry to tell developers that he still seems to like constraints, overall. Read all about it here. 

JDE

If JD Edwards training is what you seek, have a look at the links from this posting at the JD Edwards Advisor blog.

PeopleSoft

The PeopleSoft tipster has some good hands on postings of late, like this one on Migrating Navigation Collections and Pagelets. 

Javier's PeopleSoft blog has some good information on the pros/cons/howto of avoiding password expiration in PeopleSoft here.

The DBA

Application developers and DBAs are often at odds. I'm an ex-DBA, so I smiled when reading this item at I'm Just a Simple DBA recounting the rebellion of the developers...and its sad conclusion.

And on the subject of DBAs, Tanel Poder has a link to a great library of syntax here.

R12 Advisor Webcasts

Please note upcoming R12 Advisor Webcasts that will include the following topics:
12-Nov-2008: R12 Payables
19-Nov-2008: R12 Close Process & Reconciliation
10-Dec-2008: R12 Payments

For details on the schedule, please access Metalink Note: 744894.1

To see what other Advisor Webcasts are planned, access the Advisor Webcast Homepage, Note: 398877.1 Metalink > MyOracle Support UI > Dashboard > News, Events & Training > Product Related

For an archive list of past Advisor Webcasts, see Note: 398884.1

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne

Oracle Launches New Best Practice Center for JD Edwards Users

Check out the new JD Edwards Best Practice Center to start creating service-oriented architecture (SOA) with your JD Edwards EnterpriseOne applications today. The JD Edwards Best Practice Center is the newest member of the Oracle Fusion Middleware for Applications Best Practice Centers, providing you with self-paced, hands-on information for getting started.

JD Edwards World Training Update Podcast
Listen to a discussion of World customer training options.

PeopleSoft Enterprise

North American Payroll Tax Updates for PeopleSoft Enterprise
Advanced Customer Services will be extending North American Payroll Tax Updates (NAPTU) service for PeopleSoft HCM 8.0 for a third year, through May 2010! Please note that PeopleSoft HCM 8.8 is still covered by Extended Support through December 2010, thus ACS won't offer the updates before 2011. Send any updates on customer demand for an 8.8 NAPTU service to Marc Inclan, Product Management.

Advisor Webcasts
November 13 - PeopleSoft Enterprise 1099 Update for 2008 - Get your Copy B's Out on Time

PeopleSoft Podcast
Listen to a discussion of PeopleSoft strategy and the value of your user group participation.

New Downloads

Free Oracle Application Express Resource Kit
Learn how Oracle Application Express can help you address the manageability, security and scalability challenges associated with using spreadsheets and personal databases to store mission-critical data. Request your free Oracle Application Express Resource Kit containing the latest release of Oracle Application Express and a link to related free packaged applications, as well as analyst reports, white papers, and customer testimonials. Download.

Download Oracle Toplink 11g
Oracle TopLink 11g (11.1.1.0.0) is now available for download; it introduces seamless integration with Oracle Coherence, flexible Object-XML binding, and provides out-of-the-box compatibility with Oracle WebLogic Server and Java frameworks including Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) 11g. Download.

New Hands-On Tutorials from Oracle By Example

Check out these new additions to the Oracle by Example (OBE) library:

• 12 tutorials: Oracle WebLogic Server 10g Release 3 (10.3)
• 1 tutorial: Converting Relational Data into RDF Format
• 3 tutorials: Oracle Secure Backup 10.2
• 4 tutorials: Oracle Role Manager 10.1.4
• 1 tutorial: Oracle Data Integrator

Tech White Papers

Tech White Paper: Deploying Oracle Real Applications Clusters in Oracle VM Environments

Now that Oracle RAC is certified on Oracle VM (2.2), get an overview of Oracle RAC components ready to be deployed in Oracle VM, explore various deployment scenarios, and get best practices for optimized RAC deployments in Oracle VM environments. Read the white paper.

Hyperion, CPU, Support, Stats, R12, Sad Announcement, JDE, Links

Hyperion

Looking for the compatibility matrix for Hyperion? The Look Smarter Than You Are blog gives us a link to a new matrix.

October CPU

Security patch time again, and this brief posting at Musings on Database Security has some interesting thoughts, and a plug for something I'd never heard of before called virtual patching.

Oracle Support

When you're looking for some good advice on Oracle support you really can't go wrong with Chris Warticki's blog.

Statistics, Lies and Video Tapes

Well, not actually all of the words in the title, just statistics, Oracle statistics, and some words of caution and a link to other discussions of the same at the Structured Data blog. And another discussion of stats over at Vivek Sharma's Database/SQL Experience blog.

R12

Some good material on installing and cloning R12 over at the Oracle E-Business Suite Technology blog.

RIP Carl Backstrom

I'm very sad to report that one of our regular sources of blog posts and a member of the Oracle family, Carl Backstrom, died in a car accident. You can read more about it here.

JD Edwards

The time is almost upon us for the switch to Metalink 3 as your online interface to Oracle support fro JDE. Read about it in this posting at the JD Edwards Advisor blog.

Links

Links of note, from Eddie Awad, at his blog, on security and other happy subjects.

User Group Events

Quest Conferences:

Quest Southeast Conference, featuring the HCM & Beyond Forum presented by OHUG and Quest, Hilton Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia, November 12-14. Register now.

Quest Midwest Conference, Renaissance Hotel, Schaumburg, Illinois, December 3-5

Quest West Conference, Marriott Hotel and Marina, San Diego, California, February 11-13, 2009. Submit a Presentation.

Optimizer, Blog of Note, Linux, AIA, JDE, Internals, Oracle Mag

Optimizer at Open World

Did you not make it to Open World? Or if you were there, weren’t able to get all the optimizer wisdom you sought? The Inside the Oracle Optimizer blog has a good follow up posting to help fill in the gaps.

Blog of Note

Christian Antognini’s Striving for Optimal Performance blog was written up by Kevin Closson as a must read performance blog. So don’t wait, here’s the link to start reading it right away.

Exadata Back and Forth

Also at Kevin Closson’s blog is an exchange with an EMC blogger on Exadata. There seems to be some doubt on the part of some, about whether you should go out and buy an Exadata server. As an Oracle stockholder, I say go for it! Buy it, set it up, and then read the exchange. It’s only a couple of million dollars, for goodness’ sake. You’re not going to miss a couple of million dollars. All kidding aside, Exadata is a great concept, something a lot of our clients have been looking for now for many years. It will inevitably lead to reduced support costs because it gives you one vendor to yell at when something goes wrong. I will leave the technical benefits to Kevin and the other gurus who are letting us know the details of Exadata technology.

Linux Monitoring

Kevin Closson, in a record three links in one Infogram, also has some kind words for the collectl, a utility for Linux performance monitoring.

AIA

Using AIA? Read the blog: The official AIA blog has a posting on connecting engineering with manufacturing. Sounds like it would produce a loud metallic clashing sound as the two meet, but apparently AIA smooths things out.

JDE

Part two of a two-part article on Takeaways from Open World over at the JD Edwards Advisor blog.

Internals

Yet another great posting from Tanel Poder, one of my favorite bloggers on Oracle internals. This time it’s on Transportable Tablespaces and ROWID Uniqueness (or: Does your database have rowid collision insurance?)

Oracle Magazine

The November/December issue is on the virtual stands here.

Oracle News

New Agile PLM Solutions Lead Dramatic Growth in Oracle Accelerate Solutions
Led by more than 11 new Agile PLM solutions, the total number of Oracle Accelerate solutions continues to grow dramatically, with 200 solutions offered by 118 partners across 19 industry- and 62 sub-industry solutions in 32 countries. More...

Oracle Launches Its First Cloud Computing Products and Services
As the concept of cloud computing sweeps the industry, Oracle announced on September 22 that customers can license Oracle Database 11g, Oracle Fusion Middleware, and Oracle Enterprise Manager to run in a cloud computing environment. More...

Get the Best of Oracle OpenWorld 2008 for Midsize Organizations
Were you not able to attend? How can you be in more than one place at once? Subscribe to Oracle OpenWorld On Demand. More...

Compliance at Every Level
Companies need a systemic way to manage compliance requirements across their organization. By embedding compliance into the fabric of the organization, your approach will be more sustainable, cost-effective, and adaptable than ad-hoc approaches to governance and compliance. Learn how you can drive down the cost of regulatory compliance and strengthen your reputation for business transparency with Oracle solutions for midsize organizations. More...

Coming Soon: Oracle Develop Roadshow
Registration is now open for Oracle Develop, the premier Oracle developer event. Advance your skills and expand your knowledge in scores of expert-led, in-depth technical sessions and advanced how-tos. More than 130 events will be taking place in Beijing, Mumbai, Moscow, and Prague from December through February. More...

User Group Events

Quest Conferences:

Quest Southeast Conference, featuring the HCM & Beyond Forum presented by OHUG and Quest, Hilton Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia, November 12-14. Register now.

Quest Midwest Conference, Renaissance Hotel, Schaumburg, Illinois, December 3-5

Quest West Conference, Marriott Hotel and Marina, San Diego, California, February 11-13, 2009. Submit a Presentation.

CRM

Blog Watch: Creating Integrations with Oracle CRM On Demand

CRM On Demand Learning Blog: Do you want to integrate other applications with Oracle CRM On Demand? If so, you may have started investigating Web services. Whether you’re well on your way or just getting started, there are many resources to support you. Click here for more information


New Social CRM and iPhone CRM Applications
At last month's Oracle OpenWorld conference, Oracle announced new applications that extend Oracle's leadership in two of the most important trends in CRM: social CRM and mobile CRM.
More...

Security, BI Logs, HTTP Caching, SQL Developer, Manga, Character Sets, Exadata Server

Security + Laws = Expensive

Several states have already enacted laws governing encryption of customer data. Sounds reasonable enough, especially in view of the string of well-publicized losses of sensitive and personal data on laptops over the last few years, but every benefit comes with an expense, and this is no exception. Think of how much additional money it is going to require if every IT resource your employees use to work with consumer data needs to be encrypted. That pretty much covers all your servers, desktops, laptops and even some smart phones. The Coke machine may be exempt...unless it takes credit cards. 

The Wall Street Journal article I read about this is not openly available on the Web, but there are other articles to read about this, such as this one at the Washington Post, and this blog posting on a Massachusetts law. 

BI Logs

Another great posting from the Rittman Mead Consulting blog, this one on Digging into the Oracle BI Server Query Log File. This stuff is gold. Dig, and ye shall find.

HTTP Caching

A nice demo and some wise words on HTTP caching and why you still have to code for performance at the Service Architecture SOA blog.

SQL Developer Early Adopter Release

The SQL Developer team is pleased to announce their first Early Adopter release of Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeling.

• Use this page on OTN, for access to initial documentation and supporting collateral.
• Access the Early Adopter Download. This download link walks you through a brief one-time survey, before you can download the product. If you had done any of our internal early adopter releases, you will not be required to repeat the survey. 

Manga

Manga is a Japanese cartoon medium that isn't usually thought of in a database technology context. Well, now it is. If you have users with unreasonable expectations you can buy this book linked from the Oracle Alchemist blog. and use magic solutions. From the book's page on Amazon: 'Tico the fairy teaches the Princess how to simplify her data management'. I'm really trying not to crack a smile while typing this. Ok, I smiled.

Different Character Sets

You have two DBs, they are in different character sets, and you need a quick way to have one read the other. The Momen blog has a quick resolution. Ok, as he admits, this is not going to be a fast performance solution, but it's simple, and sometimes that's all you need in a pinch while you are evolving a more elegant solution.

Oracle Exadata Server

A good, detailed critique of Mike Ault's posting on the Exadata Storage product over at Kevin Closson's blog. Is Kevin an Oracle employee? Yes. Is he a straight shooter who bases his article on the technical facts, not any partison considerations? Yup. That too.