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AT ORACLE: Briefs
PeopleSoft Applications Certified for Oracle Fusion Middleware
Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise applications are now certified for Oracle Fusion Middleware 10g Release 2, enabling customers to protect, extend, and evolve their existing investments in PeopleSoft applications using Oracle Fusion Middleware.
Oracle's certification of PeopleSoft Enterprise, Oracle E-Business Suite, and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne applications for Oracle Fusion Middleware makes it easier for organizations to use service-oriented architectures (SOAs) to integrate their PeopleSoft applications with other packaged and custom applications as well as legacy systems. Additionally, the common middleware platform makes it easier for customers to upgrade to new versions of Oracle's applications; to integrate applications via portal, data, and business process layers; and to define, manage, and change security policies across a collection of business services while laying the overall foundation for an SOA.
Quocirca Releases Third Oracle Grid Index Data
Quocirca, an independent business and IT analysis firm, recently released the third Oracle Grid Index, which measures global adoption of, and attitudes about, grid computing technologies. At a global level, the Oracle Grid Index has risen to 5.2 (on a scale of 0 to 10) from its previous value, in April 2005, of 4.4. As well as chronicling the grid computing journey, Quocirca's research illuminates strong links between business management and IT strategy.
Quocirca conducted thousands of interviews with senior IT influencers and decision-makers across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Respondents were from a mixture of large multinational and medium-to-large national organizations covering a broad variety of industries.
With a jump in the Oracle Grid Index from 4.6 to 6.1, the U.S. shows the biggest rise in index values, putting it on a par with the Nordic countries in having the highest index number. North America's Adoption Lifecycle Index rose considerably, from 2.7 to 3.9, showing that organizations in that region are taking action much more markedly than those in Europe (whose Adoption Lifecycle Index rose from 2.4 to 3.2) or Asia Pacific (1.5 to 2.0). The Nordics, Southeast Asia, and the U.S. continue to lead the rest of the world on the grid journey, with Oracle Grid Indexes of 6.1, 5.9, and 6.1, respectively.
Oracle Database 10g Release 2 Available for x86 64-bit Linux and IBM Power Linux
In response to the rising demand for technology on 64-bit Linux, Oracle has released Oracle Database 10g Release 2 for both x86 64-bit Linux and IBM's POWER-based Linux systems. The advent of 64-bit processors offers unprecedented levels of power and scalability for enterprise Linux, with faster performance and greater memory limits than 32-bit processors, says Wim Coekaerts, Oracle director, Linux kernel engineering.
"Since releasing the first commercial database on Linux in 1998, Oracle has led the industry with our support for Linux," says Coekaerts. "Now with the availability of Oracle Database 10g Release 2 for both x86 64-bit Linux and IBM's POWER-based Linux systems, Oracle further provides customers with flexibility in choosing, deploying, and integrating Oracle on Linux."
Coekaerts says that mission-critical systems have challenging requirements in terms of performance and scalability, which can only be met by operating systems that provide powerful scalability and high-quality memory, process, and I/O management. Running Oracle Database 10g Release 2 on 64-bit processors extends the performance of database servers running large workloads, because the platform offers unmatched performance, scalability, and reliability.
Technology Bundle Targets SMBs
Oracle is offering Oracle Database 10g Standard Edition One and Oracle Application Server 10g Standard Edition One as a bundle priced for small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs). Now SMBs can deliver improved productivity, operational efficiencies, and quality of service with the proven performance, reliability, and security that Oracle provides.
Oracle Database 10g Standard Edition One offers a scalable, reliable way to manage all types of data—from relational data to multimedia files. It also includes a Web application development tool, so you can quickly consolidate data from Microsoft Access databases and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets using a Web browser and give users the ability to access and update shared data in a secure database.
Oracle Application Server 10g Standard Edition One gives SMBs the ability to improve productivity by letting them host their own Web sites, easily deploy employee and B2B portals, and manage and protect their data through centralized content management. It also provides a comprehensive platform containing a J2EE container, Web server, Web cache, Web services, and development tools.
Packaged and priced for SMBs, both products are easy to install and manage and provide the reliability, security, performance, and scalability of Oracle's technology platform. Companies also have the ability to easily scale to other editions as their business grows.
The bundle is priced at US$238 per named user with a five-user minimum, or US$7,990 per processor with a two-processor maximum. It is available direct from Oracle or through Oracle partners and resellers.
Oracle Announces New SOA Suite
Oracle's new service-oriented architecture (SOA) platform, the Oracle SOA Suite, provides organizations with the tools and technologies needed to transition to an SOA and seamlessly connect, extend, and evolve their existing IT systems to rapidly deliver new business services. The suite includes hot-pluggable integration and SOA components of Oracle Fusion Middleware, meaning that customers can deploy them on any J2EE application server and messaging bus while avoiding IT investment loss or integration failures. Using the Oracle SOA Suite, organizations can easily extend and evolve their architectures rather than replace existing investments as new technologies develop. The suite is compatible with numerous platforms, including Oracle Fusion Middleware, IBM WebSphere, BEA WebLogic, and JBoss Application Server.
Components of Oracle SOA Suite include Oracle BPEL Process Manager, which allows organizations to design, define, and execute business processes; Oracle Enterprise Service Bus, which connects existing IT systems and business partners as a set of services; Oracle Web Services Manager, which provides a single console for defining and managing Web services policies; Oracle Business Rules Engine, which enables agile management of business rules; Oracle Business Activity Monitoring, which delivers real-time insight into business operations; and Oracle JDeveloper 10g, which provides an integrated development environment for creating and composing applications and also acts as a unified toolset for all components in the Oracle SOA Suite.
Oracle SOA Suite is available in two versions: Oracle SOA Suite for Oracle Application Server Enterprise Edition and Oracle SOA Suite for non-Oracle middleware, which includes support for IBM WebSphere, BEA WebLogic, and JBoss Application Server and other messaging middleware.
"Feedback from industry analysts, customers, and partners tells us our Oracle Fusion Middleware products make building SOAs simple and successful," says Chuck Rozwat, Oracle executive vice president, Server Technologies. "Given that Oracle already offers a combination of these best-in-class technologies, it makes sense to bundle them together to make the Oracle SOA Suite a standard package."
New Plug-in for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
A new version of Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio .NET will enable tight integration between Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and Oracle Database 10g. The free plug-in is planned to be available for download on Oracle Technology Network in mid 2006. Oracle also plans to offer a new version of the Oracle Data Provider for .NET that supports ADO.NET 2.0, Microsoft's standard for data access.
The current version of Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio .NET enables developers to use Visual Studio .NET 2003 to develop and deploy Oracle Database 10g applications. Supporting Visual Studio 2005 will increase productivity for developers building .NET Framework-based applications and will continue to enable developers to take full advantage of Oracle Database 10g.
Oracle Database 10g is also incorporating several capabilities in support of ADO.NET 2.0 that make it easier for developers to access information from the database. Features such as XML support, database change notification, and connection pool management application-programming interfaces are already included in Oracle Database 10g. Oracle plans to support objects, provider factories, metadata schema retrieval, and the connection string builder that are part of ADO.NET 2.0.
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Did You Know?
Most DBAs Recover Quickly
More than 60 percent of database developers say their company can recover mission-critical data systems in less than an hour. One in five said access to the data could be restored in less than five minutes. However, 8 percent said restoration would take more than 12 hours.
Source: Evans Data's Fall 2005 Database Development Survey
Mozilla on the March
As of November 2005, Mozilla's browsers, such as Firefox, have a total global usage share of 11.51 percent. The total usage share of Mozilla increased 2.82 percent from April to November of 2005. Microsoft Internet Explorer still dominates the global browser market with a usage share of 85.45 percent. Mozilla is strongest in Canada, where it is used by nearly 17 percent of Web surfers.
Source: OneStat.com
Developer Patterns Shift
Client/server application development in North America surged 30 percent in the last half of 2005 and is the most developed type of software after a three-year decline. Development for 64-bit architectures increased by 61 percent from fall 2004, and there was a 19 percent increase in developers spending a majority of their time writing new code. Forty-eight percent of developers write in Java.
Source: Evans Data's Fall 2005 North American Development Survey
Mobile Connectivity Is Everywhere
Eighty percent of the world's population lives within range of a cellular network. However, just 25 percent of the population subscribes to a mobile phone service. This leaves more than 3 billion potential customers for cellular.
Source: ABI Research
Open Source Developers Claim Speed
Open source software developers find and fix software bugs quickly. Seventeen percent find and repair severe bugs in less than four business hours on average. Another quarter say they can find and fix severe bugs in their software in four to eight business hours.
Source: Evans Data's Fall 2005 Open Source Software/Linux Development Survey
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