Kevin O’Brien Blog

Partners interested in Cloud Computing will want to attend this Worldwide series of events - click below to see when Oracle will be in a city near you.

Take Advantage of Cloud Computing Today

Ready to break through the haze around cloud computing? In this full-day event for IT professionals, Oracle experts clarify how organizations can take advantage of enterprise cloud computing. You'll learn the what, why, and how of cloud computing, so you can develop your organization's own cloud strategy and roadmap.

You'll see real-world solutions in action and learn how Oracle is helping enterprises achieve breakthrough agility, quality of service, and efficiency, while controlling security, compliance, and cost.

Attend the Cloud Computing Forum to learn:

• How IT can become a private cloud service provider for your users
• How to evolve existing enterprise architectures to a cloud model
• How to leverage public clouds from providers like Amazon Web Services

Don't miss this opportunity to learn how your organization can break through with cloud computing. Register today for the Cloud Computing Forum.

Oracle Validated Integration
Attend the Live Webcast
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
1:00PM EST / 10:00AM PST

Does your company develop and sell a complementary solution that integrates with Oracle Applications? If so, Oracle Validated Integration can help maximize your partnership with Oracle!

Register now to attend this webcast to learn more about Oracle Validated Integration and how your company can gain important access to technical resources, integration best practices, and market awareness.

Oracle Validated Integration is an Oracle PartnerNetwork program that allows partners to formally document and demonstrate integration between your company's complementary solution and an Oracle Application. Oracle Validated Integration is the main programmatic way by which Oracle recognizes partner integrations with Oracle Applications.

Oracle Validated Integration provides partners with:

• Valuable integration development guidance, tools and resources.
• Key go-to-market deliverables, including collateral and press release, that result in increased credibility and visibility with Oracle Applications customers.
• Access to important OPN program-related benefits and exposure - including Specialization.

Oracle Validated Integration provides Oracle Applications customers with confidence that your integration has been tested and validated as functionally and technically sound, that your solution is integrated with Oracle Applications in a reliable, standards-based way, and that the integration operates and performs as documented.

Register for a must see webcast where Larry Ellison unveils the Oracle + Sun Strategy.

Wrote a guest blog on the VAR Guy over the holidays.

I wanted to give partners ideas to leverage their Oracle skills with 6 SaaS & Cloud plays. Read the full posting here: http://www.thevarguy.com/2009/12/28/six-saas-and-cloud-plays-for-oracle-partners/

One great way for ISVs to get customer visibility is to utilize the OPN Solution Catalog. There are new capabilities to the Solution Catalog including posting YouTube videos. Watch the video below with Lydia Smyers to learn more.

Register for the live launch of OPN Specialized:

Join us for a one-hour virtual event as Judson Althoff, Penny Philpot and Nick Kritikos discuss the OPN Specialized program, its benefits and how you can specialize. In addition, you will hear from regional OPN leaders on the impact OPN Specialized will have on you.

Partners or anyone else looking to hear Oracle's official thoughts on cloud computing should read this recent interview with Richard Sarwal, SVP Product Development for Oracle Enterprise Manager. It is a quick and insightful read.

For those looking to go into more depth on the private clouds - take a look at the whitepaper: Platform-as-a-Service Private Cloud with Oracle Fusion Middleware.

3 recent SOA topics for partners to take a look at.

1) Check out the recently published SOA Manifesto. David Chappell, vice president and chief technologist for SOA at Oracle, has great coverage on his blog.

2) SOA Suite recently became available on Amazon EC2. For more info, take a look at the SOA Suite Team Blog.

3) Watch Oracle SOA ACE Mark Simpson with UK partner Griffiths Waite talk about the benefits of the new OPN Specialized program while at OpenWorld.

Matt Chivers caught up with Bret Piatt from Rackspace at OpenWorld. Brett provides his perspective on utility computing. And likens corporate datacenter build outs to building your own power plant rather buying off the utility's grid. He also speaks to the opportunity for SaaS ISVs running Oracle Platform for SaaS within Rackspace's managed hosting or cloud environments.

Rackspace had a busy week at OpenWorld including: a demo of Oracle Database and Oracle WebLogic running on a Rackspace Cloud Server™ during the keynote of Hasan Rizvi, SVP of Oracle Fusion Middleware, exibiting in the SaaS and Cloud pavilion, and Lew Moorman's participation in a cloud panel at the Oracle Leader's Circle.

Lydia Smyers had a chance at Oracle OpenWorld to connect with Jesse Gunder, VP Sales & Marketing at Kaba Workforce Solutions. Check out their conversation from the OOW exhibit hall floor. Jesse talks about Kaba's Validated Integration to E-Business Suite 12, PeopleSoft Enterprise HCM 9.0, and PeopleSoft Enterprise Time and Labor 8.9.

Jesse also gives a quick demo of how an employee would use their ID to "punch the timeclock" with a B-COMM terminal. And of course in the background that data flows through the Validated Integration to PeopleSoft Time and Labor.