As Published In September/October 2004

Oracle Application Server 10g Adds Business Activity Monitoring

Users of Oracle Application Server 10g have a new way to stay on top of their business operations: business activity monitoring (BAM) capabilities. BAM complements the traditional data analysis capabilities of business intelligence, by letting users analyze real-time and historical information. "Because our customers receive information in real time, they can react more quickly and mitigate risk, instead of waiting several weeks for data and then taking action," says Ashish Mohindroo, product marketing director for Oracle Application Server 10g.

The BAM capabilities let users drill down into specific business processes and events and see how efficiently these processes are executing across the enterprise. Users can log and monitor processes and receive alerts when a business policy is broken. "If you have a policy that says that salespeople can't give discounts above 20 percent, you'll be alerted if someone tries to do so," says Mohindroo.

New 64-bit Developer Version of Database

In response to the rising demand for 64-bit computing technology, Oracle has released a developer version of Oracle Database 10g for Microsoft Windows 64-bit Extended Systems that supports AMD64 and Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology (EM64T) processors. Oracle is the first database vendor to release a developer version on Windows for these two platforms. This follows the 64-bit Oracle9i Database Release 2 for Windows Itanium, released at the same time as 64-bit Windows Server 2003. Oracle Database 10g is currently available for 64-bit Microsoft Windows on Itanium.

The biggest benefit of 64-bit platforms is that applications can go beyond the 4GB memory limit of 32-bit processors, says Christian Shay, principal product manager for Windows integration at Oracle. In addition, 64-bit processors offer twice the throughput of 32-bit processors. "With these new processors, 32-bit and 64-bit applications both run very well on the same hardware," says Shay. "You can easily migrate applications right when you need the extra horsepower of 64-bit."

Did You Know? Oracle Maintains Market Lead Oracle kept its lead in the worldwide relational and object-relational database management systems software market in 2003, with a 39.8 percent market share. IBM cornered 31.3 percent of the market, and Microsoft had 12.1 percent. Source: IDC Security Woes Hit Financial Institutions Hard External security attacks on IT systems at financial institutions more than doubled from a year ago, according to a survey conducted in early 2004. Eighty-three percent of survey respondents acknowledged that their systems had been compromised in the past year, compared to 39 percent in 2003. Source: Deloitte's 2004 Global Security Survey

A production database release will be available when Microsoft Windows Server 2003 for 64-bit Extended Systems ships.

TopLink Adds CMP Support and Expanded Data Access

Oracle Application Server TopLink 10g version 10.1.3, due later this year, includes several enhancements to increase J2EE developer productivity.

Oracle TopLink is a Java persistence architecture for rapid development and deployment of enterprise Java applications with relational databases. The new version includes Container Managed Persistence (CMP) support for OC4J as well as integrated management and diagnostic capabilities.

Earlier versions of Oracle TopLink provided access only to relational data. This version expands data source support to include Enterprise Information System (EIS) and XML. As part of this enhanced data access, Oracle TopLink has added Object-XML mapping capabilities with a Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB) implementation. Customers will have an object-XML and EIS mapping architecture and mapping tools based on the proven success of Oracle TopLink's object-relational capabilities.

Other improvements include advanced object-relational persistence features such as data isolation and security for Oracle Virtual Private Database, historical auditing and versioning, and XML DB support of XML-type columns.

"The 10.1.3 release of Oracle TopLink includes enhancements of interest to J2EE developers facing object-relational challenges as well as those requiring access to EIS and XML data," says Doug Clarke, principal product manager for Oracle TopLink. "This release exemplifies Oracle's commitment to continuing its leadership in the J2EE persistence space."

HTML DB Studio: Free Online Community

If you've developed a great HTML DB application or template and want to share it with the world, visit HTML DB Studio, a new feature of Oracle Technology Network (OTN). Oracle HTML DB Studio is an online site where you can share your HTML DB creations with others in the Oracle community.

"HTML DB Studio is for anyone who uses Oracle HTML DB, from business users to developers," says Scott Spendolini, Oracle HTML DB product manager. As the developer and administrator of HTML DB Studio, Spendolini not only manages it but also encourages people to contribute.

Launched in late May, HTML DB Studio reached almost 2,000 downloads of applications and templates in its first week. You can upload templates or applications to the studio; after they're reviewed and approved, OTN posts them for the community.

"Our goal is to provide a place where users can download ready-made applications for a specific task or to automate a business process," says Spendolini. "Business users will appreciate how these applications improve their productivity, and developers can tailor them to suit business users' needs."

HTML DB Studio is an extension of Oracle HTML DB and Oracle's hosted development site. You can evaluate most applications available on HTML DB Studio by using only a browser, without installing any software locally.

Web Locator Oracle Application Server 10g Business Activity Monitoring Oracle Database for Windows for AMD64 and Intel EM64T Oracle Application Server TopLink10g Download HTML DB Studio Oracle E-Business Suite 11i.10 Oracle Grid Computing Oracle and Sun SPECjAppServer2002 Record

Oracle E-Business Suite 11i.10 Enhances Integration Capabilities

Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i.10, scheduled to be available in late 2004, includes an enhanced integration layer and significantly increased industry and core business process functionality. The new version enables companies that run Oracle applications with other applications to automate business processes across the enterprise. The improved integration capabilities offer comprehensive support for business-to-business, enterprise application, and process integration. Additionally, Oracle is exposing hundreds of interfaces as Web services to facilitate low-cost integration projects.

Release 11i.10 also supports open-standard interfaces established by the Open Applications Group (OAG), which defines unifying standards for business applications. Oracle now natively supports more than 150 standards-based OAG business objects. The company is also expanding its support for industry-specific integration protocols, such as RosettaNet for high-tech manufacturing and Health Level 7 (HL7) for healthcare.

Real-World Grid: Oracle Tests on 32-Node Sun Blade Server

The power of grid computing starts right at Oracle headquarters in Redwood Shores, California, where Oracle taps a 32-node blade server from Sun Microsystems for development every day. Oracle uses the blades for development, installation, and stress/destructive testing of Oracle software such as Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM) and Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC).

"With Oracle Database 10g and Sun blades, we're demonstrating true grid computing in a real-world situation," says William Hardie, Oracle senior director of product marketing. "We're able to fully use the Sun blade computing resources for all sorts of data center activities—from development and testing to maintenance and more."

Testing activities on the 32 blades include cluster verification utility development, RAC Pack and customer issue resolution, Oracle ASM development and testing, Oracle RAC SE installation and stress/destructive testing, Oracle RAC performance testing, and Oracle RAC high-availability installation testing.

"Hardware reliability, cluster stability, and Network Attached Storage [NAS] are all performing well," says Hardie. "Scalability isn't a problem—we'll plug in more nodes as we add storage."

Oracle and Sun Set SPECjAppServer2002 Record

Oracle and Sun Microsystems took the top spot in the DualNode category of the SPECjAppServer2002 benchmark.* Sun's first AMD Opteron processor-based server, the Sun Fire V20z, running Oracle Application Server 10g, recently achieved a SPECjAppServer2002 price/performance world record. This combination offers customers a 37 percent better price/performance than previous DualNode results.

SPECjAppServer2002 is a client/server benchmark for measuring the performance of J2EE-based application servers using a subset of J2EE APIs in a complete end-to-end Java application. It's the only industry-accepted benchmark to measure J2EE platform performance connecting into a database and is designed to model a manufacturing, supply chain management, and order/inventory environment.

Sample Code: First and Last Days of Specified Month The following query can be created in a database as a view to help developers get start and end days for a specified month. Share Your Code Got good code? Submit it to OTN's code tip section. Submit code tips View code tips Find more code you can use -- Get first and last days for last and current month SELECT Trunc(Trunc(SYSDATE,'MONTH')-1,'MONTH') First_Day_Last_Month, Trunc(SYSDATE,'MONTH')-1/86400 Last_Day_Last_Month, Trunc(SYSDATE,'MONTH') First_Day_Cur_Month, LAST_DAY(Trunc(SYSDATE,'MONTH'))+1-1/86400 Last_Day_Cur_Month FROM dual ; -- Output ( rotated vertically for easy reading ) --------------------------------------------------- FIRST_DAY_LAST_MONTH 04/01/2004 12:00:00 AM LAST_DAY_LAST_MONTH 04/30/2004 11:59:59 PM FIRST_DAY_CUR_MONTH 05/01/2004 12:00:00 AM LAST_DAY_CUR_MONTH 05/31/2004 11:59:59 PM Galina Petrenko (galina.petrenko@towers.com) is a senior IT specialist with TPAS Systems Development, in Vorhees, New Jersey.