Weblog for the AMIS Technology corner
Oracle E-Business Suite
2 dagen seminar door Steven Feuerstein: Best of Oracle PL/SQL (8 en 9 december)
Oct 13th
Steven Feuerstein
In dit tweedaagse seminar neemt Steven Feuerstein je mee ver voorbij de basismogelijkheden van PL/SQL. Steven zal tijdens dit seminar de best practices behandelen die hij op tientallen plekken in de wereld heeft verzameld en die hij ook mede door zijn nauwe samenwerking met het PL/SQL product team van Oracle kan verifiëren en aanscherpen. Hij laat via code-voorbeelden en interactieve sessies zien hoe je als ontwikkelaar in staat bent om snel, hoogwaardige, goed onderhoudbare en uitbreidbare applicaties kunt maken.
Er is tijdens dit seminar voldoende ruimte om vragen te stellen en ideeën met Steven Feurestein uit te wisselen.
Bij dit seminar zijn de volgende zaken inbegrepen:
- Een exemplaar van het boek Oracle PL/SQL Programming (5th edition) van Steven Feuerstein (twv €71,-).
- Een PL/SQL quiz onder leiding van Steven Feuerstein met leuke prijzen.
- Ook ontvang je een gratis jaarabonnement op het PL/SQL Channel. Hiermee heb je toegang tot 27 uur videotraining (normaal $395).
Dit is de kans om in Nederland in een select gezelschap met één van de experts op PL/SQL gebied kennis te maken en je expertise in Oracle PL/SQL verder te vergroten. Meer informatie of inschrijven kan via deze link.
(NB: Deelname voor deze twee dagen kost 1050 euro)
Being Mr. Ellison…
Dec 23rd
Its almost Christmas and the end of this 2010 year and I keep wondering what will happen, Oracle wise, in 2011. I have, had, my idea’s about what might happen, will happen, if I would be Mr. Larry Ellison. Being “in the trade”, a Oracle geek, since 1993, I have seen some movements like, “the raw iron project”, Mr. Ellison buying nCube, Oracle Powerbrowser, the Oracle network computer, the arrival of InterOffice, Collaboration Suite, Beehive, buying data connector and security service and product companies, building Oracle Fusion from scratch. Most impressive are those fully optimized hardware machines like Exadata and ExaLogic, and the supporting OS Oracle Linux. But hold your horses wasn’t Oracle the “data company”…
Does Oracle still fit in the internet age? Stuff is going fast. ROI, Time to Market are most important. If you miss the change, the new trend, it can kill your company almost instantly (iPhone, Android, Oops: Symbian…). Whatever you think of Oracle, Mr. Ellison’s strategies, IMHO I think that he has vision but sometimes is to fast regarding its implementation. Just like “Google Wave”, you can have a hell of a app/idea, but if it is too early, no one will jump after you in the water, to get it on shore… The nerds will like it, but if it doesn’t sell, you’re betting on a dead horse. So what makes Oracle tick, money wise? I think that its mostly licenses regarding their main products like the database and Oracle E-Business Suite, but the “old arena” for those products don’t show that much growth. The solution to this, IMHO, is the internet and this much buzzed hype called “Cloud” (in all its variations). The internet has the ability to reach everyone at any time and everywhere…
So if I where Mr. Ellison, why wouldn’t I make use of this enormous huge market out there that is internet enabled?
More than five years later – we are finally there: Larry Elison announcing Fusion Applications
Sep 20th
Larry Ellison: We set out to deliver the next generation of business applications. Our task: Take all of the best features from Oracle’s major application products – including E Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Siebel and JDEdwards. Rebuild them, on top of modern middleware infrasructure, all written in Java. It took us five years of engineering. Now, we are finally there.
First we had to build the middleware. Then we rebuilt all the applications. We will start to deliver at the end of this year. In Q1 2011 there will be general availability of all modules.
I want to make it very clear that it runs on exactly the same existing Fusion Middleware technology that is available to all out customers. We use what you (can) use too.
It took some effort. Originally the Applications development teams said that the existing middleware was deficient in 75 ways. They had all sorts of internal workarounds. Then the mandate for the FMW teams became: Fix that (those 75 deficiencies). We have merged the teams together [under Thomas Kurian].
Automatic testing Oracle Service Bus using Hudson, maven and SoapUI
Feb 23rd
A lot of current projects are implementing some sort of service based architecture. Testing in this architecture becomes more complex. When implementing an OSB project with Scrum you test-automation is imperative. Scrum will require more frequent testing of your system. This is only feasible (in time and money) when you automate as much as possible.
Using soapUI you are able to create visually SOAP tests on your OSB implementation and running them against the defined infrastructure (develop, test, acceptance). SoapUI enables with easy tools to implements verification and validation of the responses of your OSB implementation. When running the test you are also able to set limits in SLA response times on all the calls. This way you are able to monitor depreciation of performance in older parts of your OSB implementation when adding new services.
You can record and edit your SOAP test easy with the soapUI interface and edit it later. When you maven-enable your project it is quite easy running your tests when you implement the “maven-soapui-plugin” (see my other posting http://technology.amis.nl/blog/3061/automated-soap-testing-with-maven). In the meantime version 3.0 of this plugin is released.
When implementing this with Hudson you do not have to convert the results.xml into a Surefire report. Hudson will manage this for you. Hudson will also enable you with an historical overview of all your test results.
Oracle Enhances XBRL Reporting Capabilities with UBmatrix, Inc.
Jun 27th
Oracle posted a press release about their involvement and commitment for UBMatrix XBRL technologies last Wednesday saying (among others):
"To help publicly held companies facilitate the preparation, publishing and automatic exchange of financial statements in XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language), Oracle will embed UBmatrix, Inc.’s leading XBRL technology into Oracle’s Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) System, Oracle announced today."
"Oracle and UBmatrix are also working together to provide enterprise class storage and management for XBRL-based information in Oracle® Database 11g. Using Oracle Database’s XML DB feature, organizations can easily and quickly store, access and query their XBRL data."
A lot of you might ask themselves: "Who are or what is UBMatrix?" and "How does it all fit in…?"
UBMatrix is one of those small but cool companies that have an idea and drive that idea to bigger heights. Their ideas about how to deal with XBRL and how to make it more succes full are very innovative. XBRL is an open standard to exchange and/or embed business and financial related data via XML. "Nothing more and nothing less…", but applying it has a great impact to other systems, sometimes called "the ripple effect".
XBRL is becoming the standard for financial information exchange and reporting demonstrated by the XBRL programs being driven by the SEC, FDIC, and the European Central Bank Supervisors. My Dutch Tax Office has embraced it and among others setup a taxonomy for XBRL (The Dutch Taxonomy Project). This "central hub" (the Dutch Tax Office) will eventually cause more and more organizations to exchange their data via XBRL (therefore the "ripple effect").
The setup for the Dutch Taxonomy project background is simple…
Oracle Fusion Applications – it is for real! (and impressive too)
Jun 23rd
When Oracle started acquiring companies in the ERP space, they unfolded (the outline of) the Fusion strategy. With three aspects to it as I understood it: the Fusion Middleware stack, the integration of the acquired companies into the Oracle fold and the development of the next generation of Enterprise applications, duped Fusion Applications.
After some intial excitement and quite high expectations, the buzz subsided and Oracle became somewhat quiet. They did embed PeopleSoft, Siebel, Retek, JDEdwards and many others. They also went on developing and releasing Fusion Middleware. But the Fusion Applications were never heard about again. Or so it seemed. People even started to wonder whether they were for real. With the Applications Unlimited program – that guarantuess virtual everlasting support on all of the Oracle Apps products – and the AIA (Application Integration Architecture) that makes all Oracle Apps products work together, the necessity for Fusion Applications seemed somewhat less urgent. And indeed, no serious progress (or anything at all really) was visible at Oracle Open World 2008, even though in 2007 Larry had announced the first modules shipping in the Spring of 2008.
Here at the ODTUG 2009 conference, I have learned that Fusion Applications are for real. And I have seen them as well. And I was impressed. After several years of hearing, interpreting and to some extent telling the Fusion stories, now it all seems to come together. Next week (July 1st) we will have the big launch of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g – with among other things the SOA Suite 11g, WebCenter 11g (Spaces, Framework, Services, Composer), WebLogic Server 10.3.1 and the next level of ADF 11g – and the Fusion Applications products are coming together rapidly as well. Oracle also has started to expose the Fusion Apps, recently at the Collaborate conference and this week also at ODTUG.
Oracle Workflow, a brief introduction – Part 2 Building a simple workflow
Dec 24th
In this blog I will show you how easy it is to build a process with Oracle Workflow. This demo consist of an automatic step (plsql function) and a FYI notification. The process will be deployed in the workflow environment described in my previous blog (Part 1).
Workflow Builder
To build a process you need Oracle Workflow Builder 2.6.3.5. The install file can be downloaded from the following url: www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/workflow/index.html
Personalizations in CRM foundation
Dec 8th
The Case
At the customer we use Oracle Incentive Compensation (OIC). OIC is used to compensate external partners. These partners are maintained in CRM foundation. The partners are set up as salesperson. Salespersons can be used inside OIC.
The customer has two operating units. In CRM for each operating unit, the salesperson must be set up. So if you had setup the salesperson in operating unit A, then there’s not yet a salesperson in operating unit B.
The problem in CRM foundation is that it is possible to change information of operating unit B, while you’re using a responsibility that is assigned to operating unit A. If you change information of operating unit B, using the responsibility for operating unit A, the relation in the database will be made with operating unit A. So for example you changed a role that is used in operating unit B this will be related to the salesperson of operating unit A. This causes inexplicable errors. On screen everything seems ok, but somewhere hidden in the database there is a wrong relation.
Some sql scripts for analyzing Oracle eBS
Nov 11th
While working in Oracle eBS it can sometimes be very helpful to have a quick overview of how and/or what is setup. Sometimes it is enough to just use what was made available to you and by clicking through the available setup screens you will simply find what you are looking for. However, in some cases you end up not having the right responsibilities to see these details or you just want to prevent scrolling and clicking through these windows or combine details from different screens. Read the rest of this entry »
The AMIS team reports from Oracle Open World – big and small announcements, guidance and tips
Oct 4th
Last night, the AMIS crew that visited the Oracle Open World conference reported their findings in a 3.5 hour session. In segments on SOA & BPM, Middleware, Database, Oracle Applications (AIA) and Development technology, we presented the highlights from close to 1900 sessions – no small feat. And utterly incomplete of course. However, all in all, for people who did not attend the "red party" the evening gave a very useful overview of what Oracle is doing and where it is heading.
