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Oracle Updates Oracle Berkeley DB Embeddable Databases

Oracle has announced new releases of Oracle Berkeley DB, Oracle Berkeley DB XML and Oracle Berkeley DB Java Edition, open source, embeddable databases which developers at ISVs, OEMs and enterprises can integrate directly into their software applications, devices, and equipment.

“Oracle is continuing to innovate the Berkeley DB family. There is a roadmap for each product and we continue to improve upon the products. We continue to support developers, both open source developers as well as commercial developers who work for other companies – and our support continues to be high quality, world-class, giving you very direct access to some of our deep product experts,” Rex Wang, vice president, Embedded Systems Marketing, Oracle, told 5 Minute Briefing. The products also continue be under an open source dual license model, which is unchanged, added Wang. “All these things indicate Oracle's continued commitment to these products.” Oracle acquired the Berkeley DB products in 2006.

The three products have been updated with features aimed at improving performance, said Wang. “The primary reason people choose Berkeley DB is that they need a very high performance embeddable database so the more we can do to improve efficiency, improve throughput, reduce latency, the better. That has always been a design goal for the entire family of products.” The other key focus for the new releases was ease of use for developers, Wang added. “We build functionality that allows them to create their products faster, more simply and with fewer mistakes.”

The Oracle Berkeley DB Release 4.7 features improved caching efficiency, faster database recovery, a cycling master feature for replicated environments, support for the Java Direct Persistence Layer (DPL) API, and QNX RTOS support. Oracle Berkeley DB XML Release 2.4 includes support for XQuery update, cost-based query optimization for improved performance, and XQilla for XQuery processing. Oracle Berkeley DB Java Edition Release 3.3 offers improved scalability, caching improvements, more efficient in-memory and on disk storage, and support for Google Android and Apache Maven.

Oracle has certified all three members of the Berkeley DB family with Oracle VM. Additionally, JasperSoft Business Intelligence Suite has been integrated with all three Oracle Berkeley DB products. The Oracle Berkeley DB products are generally available under a dual license. A no-cost open source license permits redistribution if the application using Oracle Berkeley DB is open source. A commercial license is available for redistribution of proprietary applications. Berkeley DB is available for download here.

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HP Unveils HP BladeSystem for Oracle Optimized Warehouse

HP has introduced a new blade offering for the one-to-four-terabyte market segment within the Oracle Optimized Warehouse initiative. The HP BladeSystem for Oracle Optimized Warehouse builds on current reference configuration solutions available from HP and Oracle for data warehousing.

Composed of HP BladeSystem and Oracle Database, the pre-configured, the appliance-like offering is intended to offer customers faster implementation times and better performance, as well as improved energy efficiencies.

“This product is really tailored to a segment of the marketplace that Oracle and HP have collaboratively focused on for a long time – data warehousing and data marts,” Rich Ghiossi, director of business intelligence at HP, told 5 Minute Briefing. “There has been a need in the marketplace to accelerate the installation and bring-up time of a data warehouses so that users could actually start using the technology faster. That is the focus of the appliance-like technology that we brought to market.”

With the new offering targeted at medium- to large-size businesses, Ghiossi said, users could be able to take advantage of a data warehouse in 60 to 90 days rather than having to wait three to six months.

HP worked closely with Oracle to create the joint offering. According to tests, for products in this category of one-to-four terabytes, the offering provides customers with up to 2.5 times higher performance, “which gives us, we believe, a significant advantage in terms of getting information to users,” Ghiossi said. "And then second, because we have implemented this with blades technology, it provides us some capabilities to package it small, capitalize on the performance of blades technologies and at the same time also leverage the power efficiency built into typical blades implementations."

HP BladeSystem, the foundation for this offering, brings the essential elements of a data warehouse infrastructure - compute, storage, interconnect and management - together into a modular, self-optimizing unit. The Oracle Optimized Warehouse initiative is designed to deliver data warehousing solutions based on Oracle Database pre-installed on hardware that is configured and optimized for high-performance data warehousing.

HP BladeSystem for Oracle Optimized Warehouse is available through global technology distributor Avnet Technology Solutions and its select network of value-added resellers and system integrators. It is expected to begin shipping in July.

More information about the HP BladeSystem for Oracle Optimized Warehouse is available here. More information about HP Business Intelligence solutions for Oracle is available here.

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Oracle BIWA Summit 2008 Call for Presentations and Early Bird Registration Going on Now

The call for presentations for the Oracle BIWA (Business Intelligence, Warehousing and Analytics) Summit 2008, which aims to provide a forum for sharing information and best practices, discovering innovative practices, and exposing issues and limitations concerning Oracle products, is going on now. Abstracts for presentations (50 minutes) or hands-on technical workshops (110 minutes) may be submitted.

The conference will be held December 2-3 at the Oracle World Headquarters, Redwood Shores, CA. The conference will focus on Oracle Database-centric BIWA topics through a range of approaches, including industry leader keynotes, workshops, and discussion panels, and three tracks of technical talks with more than 75 sessions running in six-plus parallel rooms. Ray Roccaforte, vice president of Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence Platform, Oracle, is scheduled as a keynote speaker, with additional speakers to be announced.

The BIWA Summit grew out of customer demand for and interest in hearing about “novel and interesting” use cases of the features and functions in the Oracle Database with the focus of data warehousing, and business intelligence and analytics, Charlie Berger, senior director of product management, Oracle Data Mining & Health Sciences, told 5 Minute Briefing, The idea is to get together knowledgeable and articulate users, and development and product managers “and do a lot of show and tell,” Berger said. As part of the Summit this year there will be hands-on workshops on the latest release of Oracle Database and BIWA-related software. “We will have two rooms with laptops with the 11g Database on them and have product experts teaching in two-hour hands-on workshops to let people get experience in the products,” said Berger.

This is the second BIWA Summit, Berger said. The first was held in Reston, VA, in October last year. With about 350 people in attendance, it was “a pretty good turnout” for an inaugural event, he said, but a much larger attendance is expected for the upcoming Summit in December. BIWA, the Oracle Business Intelligence, Warehousing and Analytics Special Interest Group (SIG), is part of the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG).

Oracle Database BIWA platform includes, but is not limited to Oracle Database, Oracle OLAP Option, Oracle Data Mining Option, Oracle Partitioning Option, Oracle Spatial Option, Oracle Warehouse Builder, SQL Statistical functions, SQL Analytics, Oracle Text, Oracle interMedia, regular expression searches, text mining, BI Publisher; as well as query and reporting tools, BI tools and BI dashboards including Oracle Business Intelligence SE, Oracle Business Intelligence EE, and similar tools from Oracle partners and ISVs. For information on submitting an abstract and details on early bird registration, go here.

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Oracle Buys Skywire Software

Oracle has agreed to acquire Skywire Software's application software business. Skywire Software is a leading provider of insurance software and document management business applications. Its insurance software assists insurers in managing the lifecycle of an insurance policy, including insurance policy creation, rating, insurance agent/broker management and information exchange solutions. The acquisition will add Skywire Software's 1,450 insurance customers to Oracle's existing base of over 1,000 insurers. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2008. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

"Insurance is a strategic industry for Oracle with growth focused on integrated packaged applications. Insurance applications, such as Skywire Software's for insurance policy life cycle management, help insurers navigate an increasingly complex business environment," said Oracle president, Charles Phillips, in making the announcement. "Adding Skywire Software to our growing portfolio of insurance software products further accelerates our investment in and commitment to providing the most modern and complete software solutions for this industry."

With Skywire Software and the pending acquisition of AdminServer, Oracle said it expects to accelerate to accelerate the formation of a complete software suite for the insurance sector to include Oracle's database and middleware for technical infrastructure, Oracle applications to support general business, insurance-specific functionality in Oracle Billing, Siebel Claims, Siebel CRM and Insure3, plus Skywire Software and AdminServer to further support insurance policy life cycle management.

The addition of Skywire Software will also expand Oracle's Enterprise Content Management solution with customer communication management and document automation capabilities, enabling Oracle to provide an end-to-end, multi-channel content capability spanning multiple industries including financial services, legal and utilities, according to the company.
Skywire Software employees and management are expected to join the Oracle Insurance Global Business Unit together with the pending acquisition of AdminServer. For more information, go here.

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IOUG Establishes New Essbase SIG

With the recent acquisition of Hyperion by Oracle, the IOUG has established a new Essbase SIG that will provide a resource for sharing information and best practices, learning more about the full spectrum of Oracle business intelligence technologies and networking opportunities.

Volunteer for the IOUG Essbase SIG
Help us drive the direction of the Essbase SIG and provide relevant, informative content to our members by becoming a volunteer today. If you're interested, please e-mail our Director of SIGs, Michelle Malcher, at michelle_malcher@ioug.org, or contact ioug@ioug.org for more information.

Download Podcasts on Essbase from COLLABORATE 08 – IOUG Forum
Whether you’re new to Essbase or an expert, you can learn more on this product by downloading podcasts of various sessions from COLLABORATE 08 – IOUG Forum. You must be an IOUG member to access these podcasts.

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Register Today for IOUG RAC Attack!

Enhance your knowledge on Real Application Clusters (RAC) by attending IOUG RAC Attack!, taking place August 4-5 in Chicago, IL.

Co-hosted by the IOUG and RAC SIG, this two-day workshop will focus on various issues, ranging from building to installing to backup/recovery to performance tuning.

You can even choose to attend the one-day hands-on lab, focusing on cluster installation prerequisites on Linux, installing Oracle clusterware, installing Oracle RDBMS, creating RAC databases (for beginners), failure testing and backup/recovery testing.

Register today* for this event! And, stay tuned for more information, as speakers will be announced shortly.

*Registration price includes education, course materials and breakfast and lunch for each day.

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Share Your Knowledge at BIWA Summit 2008

The call for speakers is open for the only conference exclusively for Oracle-based Business Intelligence, Warehousing and Analytics – BIWA Summit 2008, taking place December 2-3, 2008 at Oracle World Headquarters in Redwood Shores, California.

Submitting a presentation proposal will provide you the chance to share your experiences and best practices with more than 300 attendees, not to mention, enhance your own knowledge through the teaching of others.

Submit your proposal today to be considered!

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Submit Your Nomination for the 2008 Oracle Excellence Award

Oracle recently announced that it is accepting nominations for its 2008 Oracle Excellence Award . If you or someone you know is creatively using Oracle Fusion Middleware or BEA with Oracle Applications, such as Oracle’s E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Siebel, JD Edwards and vertical industry applications, submit a nomination for this award.

All nominations are due Friday, August 8. Submit yours today!

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The IOUG Launches its New Corporate Membership Option

Recognizing your unique business and employee needs, the IOUG has created new corporate membership options so that your company gets the highest return on your investment.

New Corporate Membership Options
Determine the option that makes the most sense to your organization:

• IOUG Corporate Standard Membership

• Up to 5 delegates allowed
• All delegates receive full IOUG member benefits
  
• One- or two-year renewal option ($495 and $895 respectively)

Savings starting at $200

• IOUG Corporate Enterprise Membership – best value!
  

• Unlimited delegates allowed
  
  • 10 priority delegates receive full IOUG member benefits
    
  • Unlimited ‘Online Delegates’ receive online member benefits and the conference discount price
    
  • Priority delegates
    
• One- or two-year renewal option ($795 and $1,395 respectively)
  
• Add Extra Priority Delegates ($60 per person per year)
  

Savings starting at $700

What Your Company Gets
As an IOUG Corporate Member company, each individual under the corporate umbrella will get access to:

• SELECT Journal, the quarterly technical publication produced by leading industry authorities representing vendor and end user perspectives. (Corporate Standard Membership delegates and Corporate Enterprise Priority Delegates only)
  
• Key IT research findings from the IOUG ResearchWire reports.
  
• Tested tips, techniques and best practices from the IOUG’s Library of Oracle Knowledge (LoOK).
  
• Timely industry news, organization updates, technical content and special member offers from vendors in the IOUG’s twice monthly e-newsletter, 5 Minute Briefing: Oracle.
  
• Member discounts including savings on registration to COLLABORATE 09.
  
• Real-life solutions by joining an IOUG Special Interest Group (SIG) or Regional User Group (RUG).
  
• The premier network of Oracle technology professionals!
  

How to Renew or Upgrade Your Membership

Current Corporate Members: Your Corporate Membership will remain as is until your membership expires. At that time, a renewal notice detailing the new corporate membership options will be sent to you for consideration.

Individual Members: If either of the above Corporate Member options suits your company’s business needs, visit www.ioug.org/about/join.cfm to join as a Corporate Member.

If you have questions about the new Corporate Membership options, contact the IOUG at ioug@ioug.org or 1.312.245.1579.

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Mark Your Calendar for IOUG Regional Education

Take advantage of expert education from the IOUG in collaboration with local groups. Mark your calendar for these educational events:

• October 27, 2008 in partnership with Utah Oracle Users Group in Salt Lake City, UT
  
• November 6, 2008 in partnership with National Capitol Oracle Users Group in Reston, VA
  
• November 7, 2008 in partnership with Ohio Oracle Users Group in Dublin, OH
  
• November 14, 2008 in partnership with Dallas Oracle Users Group in Plano, TX
  
• March 2009 in partnership with Northern California Oracle Users Group

Continue to visit www.ioug.org for updated information on these events.

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Download the Latest Tools from Oracle

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Be the First to Know with Oracle Real User Experience Insight
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Deploy Higher Quality Applications in Less Time with Comprehensive Testing
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Are you looking for a way to manage unstructured content in your organization?
Do you also need to justify a content management project to upper management? Read these commissioned Total Economic Impact (TEI) studies, conducted by Forrester Consulting, on behalf of Oracle to learn how to achieve success! Click here.

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.

Make Sure You’re Kept Up-to-Date and In-the-Know

Join the Oracle email community and receive:

• Notifications of exclusive offers, hot new downloads and upcoming live events
• Details of informational webcasts and on demand events featuring customer case studies, key industry experts and thought leaders as well as influential Oracle Executives
• Latest information on Oracle products and services including those from our key partners

Subscribe to Oracle Newsletters

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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.

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