Oracle software powers the Internet.  It is a technology change with a new development model using industry standards and a new server-based deployment architecture where the application complexity is moved off the desktop onto scalable, professionally managed servers.  The Internet is also changing the way we do business as it expands market opportunities, improves the efficiencies of business processes, and offers new way to retain customers. 

Oracle Forms Developer and Oracle Forms Services provide a complete application framework for optimal deployment of Oracle Forms applications on the Internet. Together they deliver a Rapid Application Development (RAD) environment and application infrastructure to ensure that your Internet applications automatically scale and perform over any network.
With Oracle Forms Developer and Forms Services, the application framework infrastructure is provided for you, yet you still have the flexibility to leverage the latest technologies within your applications. This allows you to focus on the application business logic and functionality rather than worrying about the application infrastructure.
 

Native services and out-of-the-box functionality
With Oracle Forms Services, the scalability and high performance of Internet deployment don't rely on the quality of the application or on developers' skills; applications developed with Oracle Forms automatically scale and perform via the built-in services that Oracle Forms provides. These services natively deliver the building blocks and the infrastructure of an e-business solution.  Business developers don't have to implement complex low-level infrastructure code and therefore can focus on implementing business requirements.  Examples for these native services include: record caching and record locking, database management, exception handling, data-aware components, Web reporting and publishing, and load balancing.

Network traffic optimizations
Oracle Forms Services is highly optimized to reduce network traffic and to minimize database response time.  For example, Oracle Forms Services renders application interfaces as a highly optimized generic Java applet and uses mechanisms such as message diff-ng, message bundling and Jar file caching to reduce the number of roundtrips between the client and the middle tier.  At the same time, Oracle Forms Services leverages the unprecedented capabilities of Oracle8i (such as array fetch processing and stored procedures) to minimize the interaction with the database server.

HTTP/HTTPS support 
The deployment with Oracle Forms Services is optimized for corporate intranets, extranets, and for the Internet using socket connections or HTTP/HTTPS communications between the client and the middle tier.  The support for HTTP/HTTPS allows Oracle Forms applications to be deployed across industry firewalls in a highly secure and optimized fashion.

Load management
The load management feature of Oracle Forms Services supports a distributed environment with no single point of failure, and promotes the most efficient use of hardware and system resources by enabling system administrators to control and manage the user load on their application servers. With Forms Services systems administrators can dynamically balance the load across systems, allocating resources based on a configurable least-loaded host algorithm. 

Ease of administration and manageability
Oracle Forms Services integrates with Oracle Enterprise Manager so that system administrators can use a single point of control to start, shutdown, monitor, trace and diagnose Forms Services processes, Oracle9i Application Server and Oracle Database Servers.
 

OPEN ACCESS TO INTERNET STANDARDS: LEVERAGING JAVA AND XML
Through code-based integration, Oracle Forms Services gives you the flexibility to leverage emerging standards, including Java and XML, within your Oracle Forms applications. This gives you the best of both worlds: the application framework and built-in scalability and performance of the Forms Services along with the flexibility to leverage Java and XML to extend your applications. 

Server-Side openess
Forms Services gives you the ability to access components wittten in Java and make use of them from Forms applications on the middle tier. Using this feature, Forms Services is able to easily communicate and integrate with other applications or technologies such as XML, Enterprise Java Beans, non standard devices.

Client-Side openness
The Forms Services component of Oracle9i Application Server renders the application presentation as a generic and optimized Java applet.  This applet can be extended using Java components (such as JavaBeans and Pluggable Java Components - PJCs) so that business developers can very quickly and very easily deliver rich and sophisticated interfaces that maximizes end users productivity. The Java client extensibility along with the New Look and Feel leverages the strengths of Java without the need for business developers to learn the language.

Figure 1 - New Look  and Feel and Java client extensibility
 
 

RAPID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT (RAD) FOR THE WEB
The rapid growth of e-Commerce and the Internet is accelerating expansion of user communities and driving a resulting demand for higher levels of application performance, reliability, and availability. Business environments are more dynamic than ever before, requiring that applications be adapted to changing business requirements in shorter amounts of time. More than ever before, businesses need tools that enable rapid response to changing requirements and rapid and seamless application deployment.
Oracle Forms Developer meets this need. Both novice and expert developers benefit from Oracle Forms Developer's declarative RAD environment. Forms Developer enables business developers to build Java applications that are optimized for the Internet without writing any Java code. The tool set includes many wizards and utilities to speed application development

Tight integration with Oracle Database Server
 Oracle Forms Developer is specifically designed and optimized to build  transactional database applications. Oracle Forms Developer is designed for the Oracle8i/9i database. It delivers services for you natively; services you would otherwise have to code by hand such as database connection, powerful query by example mechanism, automatic insert, delete, update management.

Unprecedented productivity
Oracle Forms Developer's tight integration with Oracle Designer provides the most compelling tool-set available for supporting the full application development life-cycle. The modeling tools in Oracle Designer allow you to visually capture business requirements and transform them into physical designs. The design tools and application generators lead business developers through the process of quickly converting physical specifications into fully functional Oracle Forms Developer applications. The client generators are fully integrated with Oracle Forms Developer for both forward- and reverse-engineering. You can model what you build and build what you model. Switch smoothly between tools for iterative, rapid development and prototyping.

Extend Oracle Applications
Oracle Applications Release 11i and Oracle Business OnLine were built with Oracle Forms Developer and deploy with Oracle Forms Services.
Using Oracle Forms Developer you can extend and enhance Oracle's pre-packaged applications, tailoring them to the unique needs of your organization. With over 300 partner products worldwide based on Oracle Forms Developer technology,  Oracle Forms Developer is a solid bet for protecting and efficiently exploiting your applications investment.