Welcome to 5 Minute Briefing: Oracle an information resource prepared by Database Trends and Applications Magazine and published in cooperation with the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG). To subscribe, click here.

COLLABORATE 08 Opens with Great Expectations

COLLABORATE 08, the Oracle user community conference and exposition, opened in Denver this week amid great expectations. Despite the move out of Las Vegas and the downturn in the economy, final attendance was expected to meet or exceed last year’s mark. At the top of the list of attendees’ agenda is learning about enterprises’ real-world experiences with Oracle Database 11g, which was unveiled last year. “It is at an inflection point,” Ari Kaplan, outgoing president of the IOUG, told 5 Minute Briefing in an exclusive interview. “And with 400 new features, it has something for everybody.”

Tracking the progress of Oracle’s Fusion strategy also has people’s attention. “People want to see what is out there now and what there is going to be in the future,” Kaplan said.

COLLABORATE 08 reflects real change in the Oracle user community over the past three years, Kaplan added. In addition to bringing together the Oracle database and applications users community, Oracle has purchased around 40 companies in the recent past, Kaplan noted. The users of those technologies have also found a place at the conference. “We have been able to forge an alliance,” Kaplan said.

At the same time, Oracle’s participation with the user event has increased. “They are leveraging their relationship with the user groups,” he added. More about COLLABORATE 08 is below.

Back to top

Oracle Launches Universal Online Archive: Database Vault for Siebel at COLLABORATE 08

Oracle continues to expand its enterprise content management offering with the launch of Oracle Universal Online Archive and Oracle E-mail Archive Service, components of Oracle Fusion Middleware. Oracle Universal Online Archive provides a highly scalable and manageable archiving system that combines the infrastructure of the Oracle Database and the standards-based, hot-pluggability of Oracle Fusion Middleware with a high-volume data ingestion engine to simplify archiving, management and rapid retrieval of multiple content types. “This leverages the functionality of the Oracle 11g database,” Michelle Huff, a director of product management at Oracle, told 5 Minute Briefing. “We think this is a killer application to create secure files for unstructured content.”

Intended to serve as a unified platform for all unstructured data, Oracle Online Storage is “a strategy as well as a product,” Huff said. Used in conjunction with Oracle’s Universal Records Manager, archive policies can be established centrally and then applied in a federation fashion. Although Universal Online Archive can be applied to all unstructured data, archiving email is the most pressing concern in many enterprises, Huff said. Oracle’s E-mail Archive Service, which was announced in conjunction with Oracle Online Archive, provides an optimized email archiving interface for Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Notes, and SMTP-based mail systems.

According to Huff, Universal Online Archive addresses a pressing need. “Enterprises have content everywhere but no one place to hold it and discover it,” she said. Being able to actually store content in the database - as opposed to just storing metadata - is a huge breakthrough, she added.

Oracle also announced the certification of Oracle Database Vault for use with Oracle's Siebel CRM, providing extensible, out-of-the-box policies that prevent unauthorized access to critical application data by privileged users. Oracle Database Vault prevents ad hoc access by Siebel business users to Siebel CRM application data, protecting against application bypass and enforcing access through the Siebel application account. Oracle Database Vault separation of duty enables the Siebel CRM application database administrator to onboard new business users without having the ability to view application data.

"Oracle Database Vault enforces real-time preventive controls and extensible out-of-the box policies for Siebel CRM, PeopleSoft Enterprise and the Oracle E-Business Suite applications to transparently safeguard access to sensitive data within the database and help ensure regulatory compliance," said Vipin Samar, vice president of Database Security, Oracle.

For more information about Oracle content management software, visit here. For more information about the Oracle Database Vault, go here.

Back to top

MENTISoftware Announces GRC 6.0

At COLLABORATE 08, MENTISoftware, a solutions provider for Oracle databases and applications, unveiled GRC Suite 6.0 with enhanced intelligence. A new wizard-driven interface has been added and the interconnections between each module of the governance, risk and compliance product have been streamlined. Different templates can been customized and applied for use with different database types and business uses. Finally, the data classification engine automatically translates the technical table and column names into simple business terms, allowing business and technical teams to close serious security gaps.

“What differentiates this product from other rules-based approaches is that we not only provide preventive and detective controls, we provide a framework and intelligence,” said Rajesh Parthasarathy, president and CEO of MENTIS. “The architecture itself guides the user to making informed and successful decisions.” For more information, go here.

Back to top

Oracle Unveils Database and Identity Products in Lead Up to COLLABORATE 08

In the lead up to COLLABORATE 08, Oracle unveiled a new in-memory cache option for its Enterprise Edition database as well as Oracle Role Management, a part of its Fusion Middleware product offering. Oracle In-Memory Database Cache, a new option for Oracle Database Enterprise Edition is based on the Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database, and delivers a real-time, dynamic, updatable cache for frequently accessed data in the Oracle Database. By caching performance-critical subsets of an Oracle Database in main memory in the application tier, the software dramatically reduces application response times and increases throughput by relying on memory-optimized algorithms and avoiding communication delays between computers and processes.

"Oracle Database customers can expect to benefit from the increased performance and throughput of real-time applications with the use of the Oracle In-Memory Database Cache," said Willie Hardie, vice president of Database Product Marketing, Oracle. "This new option is well integrated with the Oracle Database and will help Oracle Database customers meet their extreme application performance needs as well as reduce development time." For performance-critical applications in industries such as communications, financial services, and defense, the Oracle In-Memory Database Cache option delivers application response times in the microseconds by bringing the frequently accessed data closer to the application, and by executing SQL requests in the TimesTen In-Memory Database. It is compatible and integrated with Oracle Database Enterprise Edition, including Oracle Real Application Clusters, and also supports Oracle Enterprise Manager, Oracle SQL Developer, and components of Oracle Fusion Middleware such as Oracle Application Server, Oracle JDeveloper and Oracle TopLink.

At the RSA conference, Oracle announced the immediate availability of Oracle Role Manager, an offering within Oracle Identity Management, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware that helps customers define and manage organizational relationships, roles, and associated privileges for improved security and regulatory compliance. Oracle Role Manager lays the foundation for service-oriented security and includes an enterprise role governance framework that delivers a comprehensive framework consisting of business roles, IT roles and privileges and associated ownership and delegation models for complete identity lifecycle management. It also has a modern interface that empowers business users to define roles and ownership structure through simplified navigation and a flexible data model and supports multi-dimensional hierarchies (polyarchies) that reflect real-world organizational structures. Finally, application-centric identity management provides role and approver information to heterogeneous applications and automates business process transaction approvals across the enterprise.

“Historically, organizations have struggled to easily define and manage enterprise user roles that reflect their business structure and are typically left with an overpopulation of roles dispersed across their various enterprise systems," said Hasan Rizvi, vice president, Identity Management and Security Products, Oracle. "The new release of Oracle Role Manager provides customers with automated tools to mine and model roles and to efficiently manage multiple interrelated hierarchies across diverse IT systems on an ongoing basis."

For an overview of Oracle In-Memory Database Cache option, go here. To learn more about Oracle role management, visit here.

Back to top

Application Users Remain Loyal

At COLLABORATE 08, Oracle announced that its Global Relationship Survey, conducted September-October 2007 with over 14,000 respondents, showed that the company’s "Applications Unlimited" program customers are satisfied with Oracle's commitment and support for its application product lines. According to the survey, customers plan to increase their investments by upgrading to and expanding their Oracle deployments with the latest releases of Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle's Siebel CRM, PeopleSoft Enterprise, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and JD Edwards World. Announced two years ago at COLLABORATE 2006, "Applications Unlimited" is a long-term plan that protects customers' current investments by providing continued development of Oracle applications. Unisphere Research, our research arm, conducts proprietary studies of IT trends. To read abstracts of these studies, go here. Are you interested in having proprietary research conducted for your company about issues of concern to you? For more information, send an email to Tom@dbta.com.

Back to top

The Pace of Technology Adoption

While the press usually focuses on new releases, COLLABORATE 08 shows that actual adoption works at a different pace. This year, conference attendees are focused on the early experiences companies are having with Oracle Database 11g and Oracle E-Business Suite 12. Enterprises do not just jump into something new. They generally move at a deliberate pace. And the experience of their colleagues is essential. That is why COLLABORATE 08 is such a valuable venue. To follow trends in the industry, read the e-edition of Database Trends and Applications magazine here.

Back to top

Drive in to Receive Half-day Oracle Training TOMORROW

Live near the Denver area? Why not drive in to receive half-day training on a specific topic?

COLLABORATE 08 – IOUG Forum, April 13-17 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, CO, may have already started, but there’s still time for you to register for tomorrow, April 17’s, half-day University Seminars:

• U20: Hands-on Security Policies
  
• U21: Core DBA to Apps DBA: What You Need to Know to Transition
  
• U22: Compliance from Test to Production
  
• U23: Oracle Database 11g/10g New Features for Developers
  
• U24: Oracle Database 11g: New Features for DBAs

Register for one of these seminars by simply visiting the registration desk located in the Colorado Convention Center.

Back to top

View IOUG’s New Fusion Middleware Portal

With the explosion of middleware technologies like Application Servers, J2EE, Web Services, SOA, BPEL, Business Rules, XML, etc., there’s going to be a strong need for Oracle Fusion Middleware professionals. Now, IOUG members have a resource for enhancing their Fusion Middleware knowledge: the IOUG Fusion Middleware portal. Log on to this new portal today to:

• Learn the importance of supporting Oracle Fusion Application environments and understand its four pillars
  
• Have your most pressing Fusion Middleware questions answered via its blogs and discussion forums
  
• Listen to podcasts of roundtable discussions, conference sessions and much more with Fusion Middleware users
  
• Access numerous Fusion Middleware resources like a glossary, Oracle links and much more through its repository

Back to top

Submit Your Technical Tips for the IOUG’s Best Practices Booklet

The IOUG is currently accepting submissions for its third annual Best Practices Booklet of technical tips for Oracle professionals. If you have any best practices and tips for managing an Oracle Database, geared toward developers and DBAs, consider submitting today!

Share the tips and best practices you use in your work all the time—the code snippets and favorite queries you keep within easy reach. “Best practices” include acknowledged and sensible ways of carrying out an activity; “tips” illustrate how some activity could be done in a better way or reveal some undocumented or not-so-well-known feature.

Submissions should be 500-1,000 words long; due to space constraints, we ask that your submission have a specific focus, opposed to any overarching database principles. Submissions can range from beginning to advanced-level skills and should include the actual code and queries used (screenshots and other small graphics are also acceptable).

The submission deadline is May 15, 2008. This ever-popular booklet will mail with the Quarter 4 issue of SELECT Journal and will be distributed at Oracle OpenWorld in September 2008.
If you have any questions about submitting, please feel free to contact our Best Practices Booklet Coordinator, Theresa Rubinas, at select@ioug.org.

Back to top

About the BeyeNETWORK™

The BeyeNETWORK™ focuses on business intelligence, performance management, data warehousing, data integration and data quality, serving these communities with unparalleled industry coverage and resources. Content hosted by domain experts and industry leaders is delivered through articles, white papers, blogs, podcasts, research and more. For the most up to date information in the industry, register for a free newsletter today!

Back to top

Download the Latest Tools from Oracle

Get your FREE CIO Magazine Applications Strategy Guide, along with other resources, including a FREE online SOA assessment, white papers, interactive tools, case studies and Podcast featuring executive insight. Find out why leading organizations are changing the way they think about their business, strategic applications, and going-forward IT strategies.

Check out Oracle at the Web 2.0 Conference & Expo in San Francisco April 22-25 to take the pulse of the Web ecosystem and look to its future! This combined conference and tradeshow for the technology and business community. Oracle is Gold Sponsor this year and will be offering a micro-unconference in its booth. Learn more about Oracle's participation.

Corporate Finance – Get the full financial impact of alternative business strategies FAST
Register for this exceptional webcast series featuring customers Anglo American and Valora Group who have reduced their financial plan simulation time from days to minutes through the Integration of long-term planning, treasury strategies and corporate development.

FREE Oracle Coherence Webcast: Get Improved Performance Across the Grid
If you develop and deploy service-oriented architectures; Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE); or .NET applications, don’t miss this informative Webcast. Click here to register and learn how to predictably scale mission-critical applications.

Automate the Masking of Sensitive Data for Secure, Scalable Data Sharing
Register now to view this technical presentation on how Oracle Enterprise Manager Data Masking Pack can help you protect sensitive data. You'll learn how Oracle helps you use data masking rules to replace confidential or sensitive production information with realistic but scrubbed data. Click here to view this FREE Webcast today.

FREE Enterprise Manager Webcasts: Optimize Service, Minimize Downtime, and Better Utilize Resources
Please join us for a series of FREE Web conferences and discover why IT departments choose Oracle Enterprise Manager to optimize service, minimize downtime, and better utilize resources. Each Web conference features technical presentations and live demos that showcase the full range of Oracle Enterprise Manger capabilities—plus opportunities for you to ask your most pressing questions. Register today!

Get SOA Expertise On Demand
Watch an incredible lineup of leading companies and industry experts share their experiences designing and implementing SOA solutions. Find out why these organizations chose an SOA approach, how they secured management approval and addressed the challenges and lessons learned during implementation. View the webcast!

SOA Management with Oracle Enterprise Manager
View the new Webcast, "SOA Management with Oracle Enterprise Manager" to get the latest on Oracle Enterprise Manager's hot new SOA and middleware management capabilities, including Oracle Application Diagnostics for Java and enhanced runtime governance for SOA.

Receive Your Complimentary BPM Whitepaper
Oracle's innovative approach to business process management (BPM) promotes closed-loop business optimization facilitating an iterative business process development effort allowing for continuous collaboration between business managers' process models and IT's implementation details. Register now and receive your copy of Oracle Empowers Business Process Excellence through Business and IT Collaboration.

Get Started with Oracle on Windows DVD
Learn how Oracle gives you the power to grow by providing a scalable, easy-to-use platform for running your business at a price you can afford. Request your free copy of this DVD, containing Oracle Database 11g software, whitepapers, tutorials, etc.

Content Management Resource Kit CD
Develop a strategy for managing unstructured content- start with the Content Management Resource Kit CD. This free CD is full of valuable information for anyone evaluating or interested in content management technologies. Learn more about content management through white papers, customer videos, product demos and more.
Order your CD today!

Reduce financial operations costs, free-up resources for more strategic tasks, and accelerate your processes into overdrive. Integrate Oracle Imaging and Process Management (IPM) with your current Oracle Financial Management Solution. Click here to view an on-demand Webcast and learn more!

What kind of ROI is possible with content management technologies?
Attend on online seminar and read an independent study written by Forrester Consulting and learn how Oracle customer, Emerson Process Management, achieved a 177% risk-adjusted ROI and payback within 12 months of deploying Oracle Universal Content Management. Register Now!

"The Promise of Enterprise 2.0: Make it Real"
View this On Demand event featuring Andrew McAfee, Associate Professor, Harvard Business School to learn how your organization can successfully deploy Enterprise 2.0.

Oracle On-Demand Event
"The Trust Factor: Secure Enterprise Search for High-Value Content" The Gilbane Group joins with Oracle to discuss how Secure Enterprise search can connect disparate resources and integrate your business.

Drive Better Results with Top-Down Application Management
Get your FREE Oracle Enterprise Manager DVD kit, containing database, middleware, applications and other typical data center components. Oracle Enterprise Manager helps organizations increase IT insight and reduce resolution times with integrated management.

Get Your Free 2-Disc DVD Kit: Oracle Unbreakable Linux
Oracle Unbreakable Linux delivers enterprise-class support for Linux with premier backports, lifetime support, comprehensive management, and extensive testing, all at significantly lower costs. Discover how your organization can realize the full potential of Linux. Order your free 2-disc DVD kit today.

Maximize your organization's efficiencies with Oracle WebCenter from Oracle Fusion Middleware Oracle
WebCenter is certified with Oracle E-Business Suite, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Peoplesoft Enterprise, and Siebel Customer Relationship Management, providing a single-vendor solution that will enable you to easily integrate your enterprise applications with Web 2.0 services and enhance user experience. Register now to view the on demand webcast, "Maximize Your Users' Application Experience!"

Find What You Are Searching For? Begin with Oracle Secure Enterprise Search Two-Disc Resource Kit
This kit is full of valuable information for anyone evaluating or interested in enterprise search technologies, including complimentary product. Click here to receive your free copy!

Back to top

Founded in 1993, the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) (formerly International Oracle Users Group) is a user-driven membership organization for Oracle technology and database professionals serving more than 15,000 database administrators, developers, architects, technical managers and other Oracle professionals throughout North America and worldwide. The IOUG empowers its members and the broader Oracle community through their technical publication, SELECT Journal, Web site resources including more than 3000 papers, tips and articles and networking with other users through online discussion forums, Special Interest Groups and a network of regional Oracle user groups. For more information about the IOUG, please visit the IOUG Web site.

Database Trends and Applications, published by Unisphere Media, provides timely coverage of the technology and intelligence needed to conceptualize, plan, initiate, implement and manage large-scale integrated information projects. Unisphere Media also publishes 5 Minute Briefing: Data Integration, a summary of news, trends, and insights addressing crucial data integration challenges and 5 Minute Briefing: MultiValue, a review of news, technical tips and insights for the MultiValue database community. Visit our Web site here.

Keep Getting This Newsletter

Don't let future editions of 5 Minute Briefing: Oracle get lost. Take a moment to add the newsletter's address to your anti-spam white list: Oracle@dbta.com. If you're not sure how to do that, ask your administrator or ISP. Or check your anti-spam utility's documentation. Thanks.

Back to top