As Published In
Oracle Magazine
July/August 2007

CHANNELS: Peer-to-Peer


No Looking Back

By Blair Campbell

Three peers see the future with Oracle Database, open standards, and a devotion to Java.

Lucas Jellema

Peer Specs

 

Company: AMIS, an IT consulting firm
Job title/description: Expertise manager, coordinating knowledge management for Oracle, service-oriented architecture, and Java technologies and managing AMIS' overall technological vision
Location: Nieuwegein, the Netherlands
Length of time using Oracle products: 13 years

 
In your work, you're often exploring new features and functionality of Oracle Database. Which features do you find most valuable? One area in Oracle Database 10g and beyond that I'm very interested in is PL/SQL-based data mining. To have a little fun with your colleagues, nothing beats DBMS_ADVANCED_REWRITE—it allows you to have the database interpret SELECT * FROM EMP as SELECT * FROM DEPT. Another personal favorite is fine-grained auditing on data manipulation language statements.

What technology has most changed your life? Blogging. I have a lot of ideas and an urge to explore them. Since mid-2004, blogging has been an ideal, and at times somewhat compulsive, way to do something with my ideas and experiences. It can be quite satisfying to Google for a solution to a problem and end up on my own blog entry—provided, of course, that it gives the correct answer. [See Jellema's blog.]

M.K. Rizwan

Peer Specs

 

Company: Infosys Technologies Limited, a provider of business consulting and outsourcing services
Job title/description: Principal architect, playing a leadership role in strategic initiatives and technology-critical projects
Location: Los Angeles, California
Oracle credentials: Oracle-certified DBA, with 12 years of experience using Oracle products
Oracle ACE
 
What's your favorite tool or technique on the job? In the Oracle8 days, I used to get a thrill out of using the Oracle decode function to eliminate columns in a table. Today I like TKPROF, for arriving at an exact plan of execution and uncovering various resource-usage details; SQL Profiler, for great insight; and the latest version of Oracle Enterprise Manager, for its excellent dashboard capabilities. Oracle BPEL Process Manager is also very sleek.

What advice do you have about how to get into Web and database development? Isolate data from Web pages as much as possible, validate every piece of data supplied by the user, build a secure access mechanism, and use model-view-controller development architecture for all your Web applications.

What would you like to see Oracle do more of? There's a big community out there that's been loyal to Oracle tools and technologies for many years. As Oracle moves into a standardized, open world with Java, it would be great if the company made sure to continue to build effective, efficient transition plans for that community.

Venkat Tipparam

Peer Specs

 

Company: Agile Software, a provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software
Job title/description: Director of engineering, providing hands-on leadership and technical guidance to the development team and defining an architectural road map for the PLM platform for current and future solutions
Location: Bangalore, India
Length of time using Oracle products: 10-plus years
 
How did you get started in IT? My real interest in IT began with a class project during college. We had to implement contour diagrams using a PLOT-10 graphics library on a legacy UNIX system called ORG. Halfway through the project, the system crashed, and it occurred to me: why not make a PLOT-10-like system on an IBM PC? I quickly built a PLOT-10-compatible graphics library using Turbo Pascal and was then able to complete the project. It was a great experience that marked the beginning of my IT career.

What's your favorite tool or technique on the job? I love working with the shell/command prompt inside GNU Emacs. I use Emacs for development, getting around the system, everything—once it's fired up, I never leave it.

What other technologies do you count among your favorites? Java. I was introduced to Java early on—in the era of the Java Development Kit 1.0 beta version—when I was working at Sun Microsystems. I was impressed by the power, simplicity, and elegance of the platform. Since then, there's been no looking back.