APEX, BI, OTN Forii, DIDW, HCM Users Group, Certmag Survey, EBS Bursting, ASM Bug

APEX

There is a new (well, nearly new) statement of direction on APEX out on OTN, as pointed out here by David Peake's APEX Blog. He also mentions the upcoming early testing of the Forms Converter program, a very useful sounding utility indeed.

BI Publisher

Been looking for XSLT Extensions at the local warehouse store? Mail order catalogs? Well, that's not the spot. You can find them here from the Oracle BI Publisher Blog.

OTN Forii

Okay, I don't really call them forii, they're forums, and they're improved. A batch of new features added recently, as described here.

DIDW

The Digital Identity World conference is coming up soon. More information at the Talking Identity blog.

Oracle HCM Users Group

Using HCM? Need a good reason/excuse to go to Vegas? Here's an announcement of interest for advanced planning:

OHUG Announces the 2009 Annual Conference

Join us at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas June 14-17, 2009.

Meetings, Presentations, Networking and Lots of Educational Opportunities

June 14 (Sunday) -- SIG Meetings & Payroll Training, Comp & Benefits Training and LOTS More!

Dynamic Keynotes and more than 100 sessions will be presented!

* Stay tuned for the call for presentation and details regarding early bird registration!

Hotel Details

OHUG rate of $169 per night only at Mirage Hotel, Las Vegas

Reserve a room today by contacting the Mirage
at 1-800-499-6311 or 702-971-7444
(Discount Code "Oracle HCM User Group")

You don't want to miss OHUG 2009 it is destined to be even better!

Certification Survey

Are you Oracle certified? How about taking the Certification Magazine Salary Survey?

EBS Bursting

Ok, I'll admit that I don't have the full EBS lingo down. In this technical posting at the In Depth Apps - Oracle eBusiness Suite blog, Gareth Roberts informs us of a problem that happens 'If you are attempting bursting'. The only time I deliberately attempt bursting is Thanksgiving, and it's still only late August.

ASM Bug

I don't usually link to specific bugs with solutions, but this is a worthy exception, because it's a sneaky one that could take time to track down. It's over at the Oracle At Work blog, and concerns an ASM bug that happens is found in 10.2.0.3 and 10.2.0.4.

Distributed Security, Performance, Whither Programming?, Internals, Discoverer and JRE, Siebel Templates, PeopleSoft

SOA and Security

To some people the concept of distributed security may seem like 'jumbo shrimp' a bit of an oxymoron. This post at the Confessions of a Database Geek blog is about just that, and should give pause to those building SOA systems. Have you considered security, or just business processes?

Time

Time and performance wait for no one. Another cliche is born. But the concept of DB time is interesting, and is discussed in this second posting on the subject over at Doug's Oracle Blog.

Programming the Future

If you're taking one computer language in college, or know someone who is, and it's Java, this article mentioned at the Scott Spendolini Blog may serve as a warning flare. To be really valuable, you need depth. You need to get as close to the hardware as possible without getting your fingers burned by the CPU. Java is a long way from that.

Oracle Internals

Tanel Poder comes up with yet another excellent item on internals, this time rowcache internals.

Discoverer and the JRE

A valuable article on troubleshooting Discoverer Plus not coming up after you download the Java applet over at In Depth Apps - Oracle eBusiness Suite.

Siebel Templates

Grey Sperling has warm words for the Oracle's Virtual Machine Templates for Oracle/Siebel applications over at the Grey Sperling's PeopleSoft Expert's Corner.

PeopleSoft and Calendars

I dont' think he's got a hookup for the Mayan calendar, but Jim Marion over at his PeopleSoft Journal blog has a great posting on connecting PeopleSoft and calendars, such as Outlook Calendar.

Windows Utilities

The Systems Engineering and RDBMS blog hooks us up with a couple of new utilities from the Sysinternals group at Microsoft. If you haven't found Sysinternals, and you're administering a DBA on Windows, you will find many valuable programs there.

Siebel

There have been some recent updates in IT ToolBox blog under Siebel Community > Answers for Siebel Developers blog. Some cool tips include:

* Automating Tasks (such as Siebel Environment Management) using AutoITScript
* Create a Drill Down Object on a Form Applet
* Spell Checking on a Siebel Form Applet Control Using an Image Button
* Reading an Attachment File Using Siebel eScript - GetFile Method
* Errors when Check Out with Siebel Tools

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne/World

Upcoming Advisor Webcasts

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne

Update: UPK Application Specific Content for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
August 26, 9:00 a.m. (MDT)
Troubleshooting Item Ledger/Item Balance Integrity Issues
September 17, 10:00 a.m. (MDT)
Server Package Deployment - Under the Covers
September 30, 10:00 a.m. (MDT)
INTRASTAT: Using Statistic Reporting for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Sales and Procurement
September 30, 1:00 p.m. (MDT)

JD Edwards World

Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO-1) Overview for JD Edwards World
August 26, 11:00 a.m. (MDT)
JD Edwards World: The Road to A9.1 - Upgrade Resources and Lessons Learned
September 16, 10:00 a.m. (MDT)

PeopleSoft Enterprise

Upcoming Advisor Webcasts

How eBill Payment Leverages Customer Self-Service to Improve Customer Service and Lower Costs
September 9, 2008, 10:00 a.m. (MDT)

Contributions By Angela Golla

Learn more about PeopleSoft Campus Solutions and Student Admin at these links:

http://www.oracle.com/corporate/press/2008_aug/saip.html?rssid=rss_ocom_pr

http://www.oracle.com/applications/peoplesoft/campus_solutions/ent/index.html



Find out how to prepare for Oracle Fusion Applications at this handy link: http://www.oracle.com/applications/fusion.html

Dynamic Sampling, Performance, BI, EBS, Cache Protect , Indexing, Agility, SOA

Dynamic Sampling

Two good items this week on dynamic sampling, one at the Momen blog on using dynamic sampling with partitions.

and another from the H.Tonguç Yılmaz - Oracle Blog on dynamic sampling and OLAP.

Performance in a Small Bundle

This single line script from Tanel Poder will get you a good start at seeing what's happening on performance for an Oracle instance:

select
event, state, count(*)
from
v$session_wait
group by
event, state
order by
3 desc;

Very neat, and there's a prettified version with some explanations here at Tanel's blog.

BI Publisher

There's a new BI Publisher Consulting Blog out there, and they have a useful article on RTF Template Development.

EBS Patching and 11.5.9

A very handy post nailing down some aspects of patching as it relates to the end of
Premium Support for 11.5.9 in June 2008 at the Oracle E-Business Suite Technology blog here.

Cache Protect

Since we just got done setting the _db_block_cache_protect parameter paramater for an AIX customer to prevent redo corruption, I found it an interesting coincidence to find a blog entry today on precisely that rather obscure underscore parameter CAUSING problems for a Linux user. You can read about it here.

Indexing

Like indexes? Richard Foote sure does. As I've said before he is Dr. Index. Here is his latest opus, on Indexes and NOT Equal.

Agility

A little Hyperion, a lot of business philosophy in this article by the Cubegeek.

SOA

I'll be highlighting several SOA blogs over the coming weeks. The first on is from Clemens Utschig - Utschig, one of the best SOA aces in the industry. Here's a link to his article on the 10.1.3.3 patchset.

Oracle Forms Systems

Advisor WebCast - Constructing a Highly Scalable, Resilient and Secure Application Server System (Note:435025.1)

This one-hour session with Rodger King the Author of the Note:435025.1 is recommended for technical users and system architects who are responsible for the design or installation of production quality Oracle Forms Systems and its integration with other Application Server products. This seminar is primarily directed towards all Forms developers, but all attendees are welcome. Here is the agenda:
- HA Requirements
- Secure Architectures
- AS Software Versions
- Build Strategy
- Installation Details

Event details:
22-August-2008 at 8:00 am GMT / 10:00 am CET/ 1:30 pm IST - Register
27-August-2008 at 4:00 pm GMT / 6:00 pm CET / 12 noon EST - Register

Management Excellence
Watch President Charles Phillips discuss Oracle's EPM strategy, read the first issue of a new publication targeting management excellence, and more.

Data Management
Get leaner, greener storage solutions with advice from data experts, including Oracle's own execs, who explain how recent releases improve efficiency.

Web 2.0 and Beyond
Find out how Oracle is delivering Web 2.0 technology, plus what experts are saying is going to be social networking's next applications.

Retail
Learn about the latest retail trends driving growth and innovation. Plus, find out what's new in Oracle Retail V13.

PeopleSoft Enterprise

Recent Appcasts - PeopleSoft HCM 9.0

Oracle's Human Capital Management-Employee 2.0 Solution (July 29, 2008)
Listen to Michelle Newell, Senior Director of Oracle's HCM Applications Marketing discuss Oracle's HCM Employee 2.0 solution and how organizations can increase employee engagement and accelerate benefits to the bottom-line by combining Web 2.0 capabilities securely with their existing Talent Management solution.

The Business Value of Global HCM (July 15, 2008)
Jay Richey, Director, HCM Product Marketing discusses the challenges that organizations are facing in managing a global workforce and how Oracle's HCM solutions can help customers get the most out of their investment.

E-Business, Systems Technology

Global Customer Support Publishes 2 New Alerts

The AS Integration Team has published a new alert Note 728366.1 Alert Notice For SOA Customers Planning to Upgrade to 10.1.3.4 on 29-Jul-2008. You can view this alert on MetaLink.

The Unbreakable Linux - Linux OS Team has published a new alert Note 729543.1 Linux Crashes when Enterprise Manager Agent Starts on RHEL 4 Update 6 and 7 on 31-Jul-2008. You can view this alert on MetaLink.

CPU July 2008 Patches Requiring Re-download

Certain versions of the July 2008 CPU require additional manual steps to be executed to install one patch file. Customers who previously downloaded the original version of the CPU for these combinations received emails notifying them that they need to execute additional manual steps to complete patching of the following affected product/platform combinations:

CPU which issue is found: CPUJul2008
CPU(s) impacted Oracle Database 10.1.0.5 for the following platforms:
-Windows 32-bit (Patch 7047034)
- Windows 64-bit (Patch 7047037)
Symptom: sdotopo.jar is not installed when the patch is installed.
Technical impact of issue: security vulnerability not fixed.
Root cause of issue: packaging problem.

Please refer to MetaLink Note 579285.1 “Critical Patch Update July 2008 Database Known Issues” for further information.

WebLogic Server Apps - SECURITY ALERT

Oracle released a revision of the July 28 Security Alert for CVE-2008-3257 on August 4, 2008. This advisory addresses an exploit that has become publicly available which may impact the availability, confidentiality or integrity of WebLogic Server applications which use the Apache web server configured with the WebLogic plug-in for Apache. We strongly suggest that you read the advisories posted here.
An email communication was sent to all customers announcing the Security Alert on August 4.
Information for downloading the patches was made available at https://support.bea.com/application_content/product_portlets/securityadvisories/2793.html.


Security Alert for this issue is also posted at “Oracle Critical Patch Updates and Security Alerts” page (under the “Security Alerts” section). Please note that Security Advisories Notifications page for BEA products is moved here

If you have any questions or have a need to verify the authenticity of this message, please contact your local Oracle Customer Support Center for BEA products or mail to: support@bea.com.

Additional CPU Program information is available here.
Security Alerts and Critical Patch Updates -- Frequently Asked Questions.

BPEL, OBI EE Plus, JD Edwards, SQL, Raw RAC, Support, Identity Management, SOA Survey, EBS 32 bit to 64, PeopleSoft

BPEL Dry Goods

I was researching something for a customer and ran across the term 'dehydration store'. That sent me to Google. Here's a link I found. at the often excellent Amis Technology Blog.

OBI EE Plus

Some good postings over at the OBI EE Plus blog, an announcement that 10.1.3.4 is available, and something new to do with it, connect it with Essbase.

Tim Dexter at the Oracle BI Publisher blog also has a good posting on the new release.


JD Edwards

The JD Edwards blog lets us know that the Web Services Gateway and XPI are going away, and now there is a date set for the event.

SQL from Jonathan Lewis

A simple question with a variety of answers: I want to update most of a table, what's the best way to go about it. Here are a variety of answers and discussions.

Raw

Remember the old parallel server days when the only way to go was use raw devices? Well, they're officially over. According to a Metalink note that the StartOracle blog found, raw devices will be desupported on 12G. Only "ASM, OCFS, NFS, or other cluster file systems" will be usable.

Support News

Two good articles at Chris Warticki's blog today: the release of RDA 4.10 and an awesome list of support tools, diagnostics and scripts.

New Blog: Identity Think

There's a new blog on the block from a very experienced expert in the realm of identify management, Identity Think, by Oracle VP Jeff Shukis.

SOA Survey

Anthony Reynolds' blog has links to a student in Ireland conducting a survey on SOA about "how SOA can influence the IT capability of a firm and to what extend this strategy can become a major initiative for changing the underlined business approach of an organization" Sounds pretty interesting. If you are using SOA your input would be very valuable.

Moving EBS to 64 Bits on Linux

Need to move from 32 bit to 64 bit? On Linux? The Oracle E-Business Suite Technology blog has the note for you.

R12 Certification

R12 is the cat's meow of EBS, so here's a page on R12 certification over at the Oracle Certification Blog.

PeopleSoft Performance Monitor

The The PeopleSoft DBA Blog has a posting on problems with the PeopleSoft Performance Monitor and news on the fix here.

Production, and Why It So Often Goes Astray

A good 10,000 foot view of why things often 'worked great on test and went nuts when in production' at CIO magazine, here.