As Published In July/August 2006

OTN Community Bulletin

The Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 10g era begins.

Quite a Find

In his Oracle OpenWorld Tokyo keynote address in March, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison declared Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 10g—a new, standalone search product—one of the most important releases in Oracle's history. Based on Oracle's deployment of this core search technology on its external Web sites, Oracle Secure Enterprise Search will be among the highest-profile products released yet, that's for sure.

In the past, search functionality on Oracle Technology Network (OTN) was not always optimal. With Oracle Secure Enterprise Search, accuracy and user experience are improved and are now comparable to what one might see from a standalone Web-based search engine. (The Oracle.com deployment does not currently demonstrate some of the product's unique and most interesting capabilities for business intranets, such as secure crawling and Query Time Authorization. Oracle Secure Enterprise Search can be configured such that your search results include only those documents you have the authority to see, or that access to certain documents requires a login.)

As Karri Myles, Oracle.com project manager for the Oracle Secure Enterprise Search deployment project, puts it, "Web site users shouldn't have to think about search. It should be just another site tool they use to find what they're looking for, and it should work the way they expect it to. In fact, search should work so well that users choose it first, knowing they'll find what they're looking for."

We're confident that Oracle.com/OTN search now works this way—and this well. If you disagree, let us know why in the Member Feedback Discussion Forum.

For more information about the product, visit oracle.com/technology/products/oses (free Linux and Windows downloads are available) or listen to the podcast, "Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 10g Uncovered," at oracle.com/techcasts.

Start You Up

Developers interested in getting started with relatively new technologies such as Oracle Application Express and Oracle SQL Developer can now refer to new Getting Started pages on OTN. These new pages guide you through the learning process step-by-step, from downloading the right software to finding the best in-class training.

People who are new to Oracle itself or even to the DBA role can get a jump start using the DBA Core Tasks, Security, and Enterprise Management pages. And experienced developers investigating emerging standards such as BPEL, JavaServer Faces (JSF), and EJB 3.0 can access Getting Started materials in those areas as well.

You can view the full range of Getting Started options at oracle.com/technology/getting-started.

Congratulations, New Oracle ACEs

The following individuals were recently named Oracle ACEs:

• Chris Foot, senior database architect, Contemporary Technologies (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
• Hans Forbrich, principal, Forbrich Consulting (Alberta, Canada)
• Nicholas Goodman, business intelligence consultant (Seattle, Washington)
• Jeffrey Hunter, senior DBA, the DBA Zone (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
• Scott Spadafore, developer, Oracle Application Express, Oracle

Oracle ACEs are recognized as such by Oracle for their technical proficiency and eagerness to share their experiences, whether through writing books, articles, or blogs; speaking at events; participating in OTN Discussion Forums; or simply serving as Oracle advocates in their respective organizations. Read their full bios at oracle.com/technology/community/oracle_ace.

Candidates can be nominated by anyone in the Oracle technical community; nonemployees as well as employees are eligible. Know an Oracle ACE candidate yourself? Complete the nomination form at oracle.com/technology/community/oracle_ace/nominations.

Justin Kestelyn, OTN Editor in Chief
justin.kestelyn@oracle.com

Most Popular* Content on OTN For DBAs/Sysadmins: 1. "Installing Oracle Database 10g on Linux x86," by John Smiley 2. "Oracle Database 10g: Top 20 Features for DBAs" (series), by Arup Nanda 3. "An Introduction to Linux Shell Scripting for DBAs," by Casimir Saternos 4. "Build Your Own RAC Cluster on Linux and FireWire," by Jeffrey Hunter 5. "Oracle Database 10g Express Edition: Not Just for Learners" (series), by Lewis Cunningham For Developers: 1. "SOA Best Practices: The BPEL Cookbook," (series), by various authors 2. "Best Practice PL/SQL" (Q&A), with Steven Feuerstein 3. "Build a .NET Application on Oracle Database," by John Paul Cook 4. "Installing PHP and the Oracle 10g Instant Client for Linux and Windows," by Christopher Jones 5. "An Introduction to Java Map Classes," by Jack Shirazi *For the two-month period ending March 31, 2006

New Tech Articles, Columns, & Notes

For Developers
"Using Oracle's Built-in Security Features with PHP"
by Mikhail Seliverstov
Take advantage of Oracle's native security features to improve the security of your PHP Web applications.

"Developing Smart Web UIs with Ajax, JSF, and ADF Faces"
by Andrei Cioroianu
Learn how to build rich Web applications using Ajax techniques along with JSF and Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) Faces.

"Standardizing Service Endpoints"
by Thomas Erl
Learn how to design service interface definitions that will help you reap the benefits of standardized service-oriented architecture.

"Swing or JavaServer Faces: Which to Choose?"
by Frank Nimphius and Duncan Mills
Are Ajax and JSF the only future for UI development, or will Swing survive the Rich Internet Application hype?

"Wrapping Your Brain Around Oracle + Python"
by Catherine Devlin
Learn the aspects of Python most important for Oracle users.

"Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS): More Than a Mapping Tool "
by Stephan Holl, Helena Mitasova, and Markus Neteler
Connecting to an external database allows you to build sophisticated geospatial apps with the open source GRASS GIS tool.

For DBAs/Sysadmins
"Learning Oracle RAC with the NetApp Simulator"
by Sachin Garg
With the help of Network Appliance's Data ONTAP Simulator, any DBA or Linux enthusiast who is also a NetApp customer can evaluate Oracle Real Application Clusters on Linux with no up-front hardware investment.

"Oracle Database 10g Express Edition: Not Just for Learners"
by Lewis Cunningham
Oracle Database 10g Express Edition's value is not necessarily limited to novices, students, hobbyists, or small businesses—it also holds appeal for many other situations, such as testing "what if" scenarios in your database or trying new things.

"Querying, Constructing, and Transforming XML with Oracle XQuery"
by Yuli Vasiliev
Learn how to leverage the power of the full-featured native XQuery engine integrated with Oracle Database 10g Release 2 and find out why Oracle XML DB provides performance improvements when processing structured data.

New OTN TechCasts (Podcasts)
All OTN TechCasts (podcasts) are available at oracle.com/techcasts

"SQL Developer: Beyond the Command Line" (15 min.)
Director of Database Tools Research Kris Rice describes the origins and functionality of Oracle SQL Developer, Oracle's new (and free) graphical tool for database developers.

"Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 10g Uncovered" (18 min.)
Why is Oracle interested in search? How does internet search differ from intranet search? And what does "secure" search mean, exactly? Oracle Search Product Manager Omar Alonso provides some answers, as well as a technical description of Oracle Secure Enterprise Search architecture and capabilities.