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AT ORACLE: Briefs
Oracle Identity Management 10g Release 3 Targets Compliance
Oracle's latest identity management product release includes capabilities that help enterprises automate compliance with legislative regulations in a cost-effective, sustainable way. Oracle Identity Management 10g Release 3 includes new features for compliance attestation that will enable organizations to capture users' current and historical privileges, automatically generate periodic certification of a defined identity-related data set, and execute corrective actions to help meet compliance demands. These automated process controls will help customers to conduct faster audits, lower compliance costs, and increase an enterprise's ability to successfully complete audits.
This release also marks the first integrated release of Oracle Identity Management products since the acquisition of Thor Technologies and OctetString. Some key updates include enhanced internationalization and localization support for 28 languages, advanced password management capabilities, support for Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0, comprehensive integration with Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g, and improved installation and configuration.
The release also includes updated integrations for BEA WebLogic 9.0, IBM WebSphere 6.0, and SAP Enterprise Portal 6.0, as well as advanced integration with Microsoft Active Directory, Novell eDirectory, and OpenLDAP.
Oracle Enterprise Manager Supports Microsoft .NET Framework and Windows Server System
Oracle has extended the capabilities of Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control (Oracle Grid Control) to enable joint Microsoft and Oracle customers to manage their systems, applications, and services with a single, integrated solution. Oracle Grid Control's support for the Microsoft .NET Framework and Windows Server System, including Microsoft SQL Server, reduces the cost and complexity of managing environments where Microsoft and Oracle coexist.
Seven new Management Plug-ins are available that give Oracle Grid Control monitoring, diagnostic, and configuration analysis capabilities for the Microsoft .NET Framework and Windows Server System. Plug-ins are available for Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft BizTalk Server, Microsoft Commerce Server, Microsoft Internet Information Services, Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server, Microsoft .NET Framework, and Microsoft SQL Server. The plug-ins are priced at US$1,500 per CPU where a Microsoft product is running.
Oracle Financial Consolidation Hub Integrated with Oracle Internal Controls Manager
New versions of Oracle Financial Consolidation Hub and Oracle Internal Controls Manager help to ensure the quality and transparency of financial information across the enterprise by integrating the preparation of financial statements with the periodic evaluation of a company's internal controls.
Finance teams have traditionally managed consolidation and reporting separately from compliance certification efforts, which meant they had to either report financial results without complete knowledge of the risks, mitigations, and audit tests behind each financial statement line item, or track these manually. Oracle Financial Consolidation Hub version 2 is fully integrated with Oracle Internal Controls Manager, enabling the convergence of financial reporting and compliance certification processes. Oracle's corporate performance and compliance management applications are built on a single analytic platform, which provides a framework for consistent processes and certification across disparate source systems. The single data model delivers greater visibility and presents consolidated global financial results with related risks and mitigations.
Oracle Financial Consolidation Hub version 2 is now available; Oracle Internal Controls Manager version 5 will be generally available in 2006.
Oracle Receives J.D. Power and Associates Certification
Oracle has become the first enterprise software provider to receive the J.D. Power and Associates Certified Technology Service and Support (CTSS) certification for providing outstanding customer service. Oracle's North American customer support operation was recognized based on cross-industry customer satisfaction research and an extensive audit conducted by the Service and Support Professionals Association (SSPA) and J.D. Power and Associates.
To earn the certification, Oracle outperformed on a rigorous set of standards across a variety of customer service criteria, including strategic management, marketing, sales, universal delivery processes, and additional service and support criteria covering both assisted support and nonassisted support. J.D. Power and Associates found that Oracle met or exceeded the standard for assessing customer satisfaction. CTSS, a new standard for excellence in technology service and support, is overseen by a standards board with more than 50 leading companies from all segments of the technology industry.
J.D. Power and Associates Certified Technology and Support ProgramSM, developed in conjunction with the Service and Support Professionals Association (SSPA). For more information, visit www.jdpower.com or www.thesspa.com.
New Industry Specifications for SOA Development
Oracle is working with BEA Systems, IBM, IONA Technologies, SAP AG, Sybase, Xcalia, and Zend Technologies to develop specifications and resulting collaborative technologies that simplify how organizations create and implement applications in a service-oriented architecture (SOA). Using the SOA Programming Model specifications, organizations can more easily create new assets, and transform existing IT assets, into reusable services that can be rapidly adapted to meet changing business requirements. The specifications also provide a way to unify services regardless of programming language or deployment platform, which reduces the complexity of application development.
The SOA Programming Model specifications include the Service Component Architecture (SCA) for simplifying business services development and the Service Data Objects (SDO) for accessing data residing in multiple locations and formats. SCA provides an open, technology-neutral model for implementing IT services that are defined in terms of business function and that make middleware functions more accessible to application developers.
SDO complements SCA by providing a common way to access many different kinds of data. It reduces the skill level and time required to access and manipulate business data. Today, many application-programming interfaces (APIs) are used to manipulate data. Because the APIs tend to tightly couple the source and target of the data, their use is error prone and subject to breaking as business requirements evolve. SDO makes it easier to use these APIs without having to code directly to them.
JD Edwards Enterprise 8.12 Ships
The latest release of Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne provides enhanced business functionality across the suite and offers greater usability and performance. The suite includes four new modules that help lower costs and drive new levels of revenue for customers.
JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.12 includes enhancements to Human Capital Management, Financial Management, and Customer Relationship Management, from specific shipping sequence requirements to control inquiry and approval processes associated with employee leave.
Operational Sourcing is a new module that aids customers in management and control of Request for Proposals and Request for Quotes processes. Three other new modules—Grower Management, Grower Pricing and Payments, and Blend Management—address the production and supply management needs of food and beverage industries with a particular focus for companies involved with wine, juice, and distilled spirits production.
Oracle Acquires 360Commerce, HotSip, and Sleepycat
Oracle has made acquisitions in the areas of retail management, telecommunications, and embedded databases.
360Commerce develops Java-based point-of-sale, inventory management, returns management, and workforce management software for retailers. Oracle and 360Commerce share joint customers, including Circuit City Stores and Gap.
HotSip AB provides telecommunications infrastructure software and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-enabled applications for IP telephony, presence, messaging, and conferencing.
Sleepycat Software's Berkeley DB is a widely used open source database, with deployments estimated at more than 200 million, according to the company. Berkeley DB joins Oracle's embedded database product line, which includes Oracle Lite and Oracle TimesTen.
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Did You Know?
Tech Workers Choose, and Pay for, Training and Education
In a survey of 462 IT professionals in the U.S. and Canada, 85 percent said they choose IT training and education they need based on their own career plans, while 8 percent base the decision on their employer's requirements or recommendations. More than 88 percent said they pay in full or in part for their career training and education, and 20.5 percent said their employer provides paid time away from work for training and education.
Source: CompTIA
CIOs Say IT Transformation Is Necessary—and Difficult
In a global survey of 1,400 CIOs, 70 percent of respondents recognized the need to build new business skills in IT to deliver business results. But the challenges aren't solely their own: Two out of three see the business itself as the barrier to IT increasing its business contribution.
Source: Gartner
Enterprise Developers Like Sans, Clustering, Mobile, Java, and UNIX
Almost 60 percent of enterprise developers are expecting to increase the use of storage area networks (SANs) and clustering in 2006 through 2007, according to a survey of 386 enterprise developers. In the same survey, 52 percent indicated that they're increasing development of mobile applications, and more than 60 percent said they're using J2EE—an 11 percent increase over the last six months of 2005. The use of UNIX (all flavors, including Mac OS X, but not including Linux) in the enterprise grew by almost 40 percent in 2005, while Windows use (all versions) dropped by 18 percent.
Source: Evans Data Corporation
Open Source Knowledge Still Lacking
In a recent survey of IT decision-makers, 55 percent reported that their organizations currently have limited internal knowledge of open source, and 44 percent ranked their organization's ability to use open source to build business software on the lower half of a five-point scale. Forty percent said that their organization's lack of knowledge about open source was the top impediment to adoption.
Source: Exadel
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