Appstech

I was browsing the net for public articles on the technical features of Enterprise software packages. Theis link gives the best comparison I have seen out there. All in all- a very useful reference.

Announcing the release of the Unofficial Documentation Search page for Oracle Applications. This page allows you to search for terms across the following Applications from Oracle
E-Business Suite
PeopleSoft Enterprise
JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
Oracle Retail
Siebel Applications
Oracle Transportation Management (OTM) 5.5
Oracle Transportation Management (G-Log GC3) 5.0
Pharmaceutical
Oracle Demantra
Oracle Workforce Scheduling
Oracle Agile
Oracle Agile eSeries
Oracle AutoVue
Governance Risk and Compliance Applications Suite
Oracle Social CRM Applications

This page uses the familiar Google search engine. Every term you type in, refines the search. Happy searching. Drop me a line if you find this useful.

A quick and short addemdeum to the Chrome for Applications Post:
Chrome for OBIEE
Chrome seems to work well with OBIEE - If you want to view information. The dashboards and Alerts in OBIEE rendered beautifully.
The problem I faced was when I tried to create an Answers request. The Catalog folders did not show up in the left pane and so there was nothing with which I could create a new request. There might be a setting that I might have missed, but Answers works well with IE and Firefox right out of the box. So I would hold off using Chrome for OBIEE for now.

The High Interactivity mode of Siebel is supported only on IE. So I am not evalutaing Siebel on Chrome- IE is clearly the best browser for Siebel.

Google released the Chrome browser this week and the overall response seems pretty positive. I downloaded the browser and tried it out. It seems like an excellent product that is going to give IE and Firefox a run for their money.
Chroma's interface is simple and clean. The page rendering is fast and the display is bigger than in IE or firefox. You simply type in the URL or the search terms in the address bar and Google throws up suggestions which are refined with every letter you type. Chrome is able to import bookmarks from IE. I have'nt found a way to move my Firefox bookmarks into Chrome yet.
Its going to take a while for Chrome to appear as a certified browser for Oracle's applications. I tried Chrome against the E-Business Suite and PeopleSoft and here's what I found:

1) Oracle Applications : Login Succeeded. Apps Navigator displayed successfully. There are two types of links on the Apps Navigator - Html Pages and Java forms. Chrome navigates to the Html pages successfully, but Java forms did not load on my machine. I guess we have to wait for Oracle to certify Jinitiator on Chrome

2) PeopleSoft: Login succeeded. Landing page displays successfully. I am able to create transactions, trigger processes and open logs successfully. No problems that I can see for the basic operations on PeopleSoft
One problem that I did encounter after spending some time is the conflict of shortcuts- PeopleSoft developers often use CTRL-J to view page information. Chrome has allocated CTRL-J for viewing the Chrome Downloads page. Chrome priorties its allocation to the shortcut over the PeopleSOft allocation.Therefore CTRL-J takes me to the downloads tab. I could not bring up the PeopleSoft page information on Chrome at all. This is not a very widely used PeopleSoft feature for end-users, but it is very important for PeopleSoft developers. So I guess you will need to keep the IE/ Firefox browsers for now, if you are a PeopleSoft techie.

Any other experiences out there ? Do leave in your comments about what you find out.

Thomas Kurian had announced Oracle's middleware strategy on July 1. His message is rolling out in a number of cities across the world. I attended the 'Oracle welcomes BEA customers' event in Bombay today. It was a very well-attended session. I have summarized the strategic products in the Oracle Middleware for the benefit of those of you who cannot not attend one of these sessions:

Development Tools
Oracle Jdeveloper: Development Tool for the middleware suite
Oracle ADF: MVC Framework
Oracle Eclipse Pack: Eclipse Add-ins

Application Server and Transaction Processing
BEA Tuxedo: High Volume Transaction Processing
BEA Jrockit, Real time, liquid VM: Java Virtual Machine
BEA Weblogic Server : J2EE Application Server
Oracle Toplink: JPA & EJB provider ( Database representation on the Middleware)
Oracle Coherance: In-memory application data grid (http://wiki.tangosol.com/display/COH33UG/Defining+a+Data+Grid)

SOA
Oracle Data Integrator: Data Integration and ETL tool
Oracle Service Bus: Unified Aqualogic and Oracle ESB
Oracle BPEL Process Manager: Services Orchestration
Oracle Complex Event Processor: In-memory Event computation engine
Oracle Business Activity Monitoring: Business Events and KPI Dashboard

Business Process Management
Oracle BPA Designer : Structured BPM designer for Rigorous Process modelling and simulation
BEA Aqualogic BPM Designer: Agile BPM designer for Iterative Process modelling
Oracle BPM : Converged Aqualogic BPM and BPEL Process Manager in single BPEL and BPMN runtime
Oracle Document Capture and Imaging: Document capture and workflow
Oracle Business Rules : Declarative Rules Engine
Oracle Business Activity Monitoring: Business Events and KPI Dashboard
Oracle Webcenter : Portal

Portals and Enterprise 2.0
Oracle Universal Content Management: Content Management
Oracle Webcenter Framework: Portal Development framework and Enterprise 2.0 services
Oracle Webcenter Spaces and Suite: Self-Service Portal development and Social Computing services
BEA Ensemble and pathways: Lighweight Portal Assembly and Social Interaction Analytics

Identity Management
Oracle Directory Services : LDAP Directory , Meta Directory and Virtual Directory
Oracle Identity Manager: Physical Asset and User Account Provisioning
Oracle Role Manager: Business Role Analysis and Provisioing
Oracle Access Manager: Single Sign on
Oracle Adaptive Access Manager: Risk-based strong authentication and access management
BEA Aqualogic : Centralized Management of Entitlement or Authorization Privileges
Oracle Identity Federation: Cross Domain Identity Federation

Systems Management
EM Provisioning pack for middleware: Provision middleware
EM configuration pack for middleware: Configure and change-manage middleware
EM Diagnostics pack for middleware: Application Diagnostics for Java and Jrockit mission control
EM Management pack for SOA suite: Manage SOA Suite
EM management pack for Identity Management: Manage Identity Management Suite
EM Management pack for Business Intelligence: Manage BI suite

SOA Governance
BEA Aqualogic Enterprise Repository: Repository for SOA artifacts across lifecycle
Oracle Service Registry: UDDI registry
Oracle Web Services Manager: Security and QOS policies
EM Service Level Management pack: Service level response times and availability
EM SOA Management pack: Monitor, trace and Change-manage SOA

Service Delivery platform
BEA weblogic SIP Server: Communications Converged Application server
BEA Weblogic Network Gatekeeper: Expose Network services
Oracle Presence: SIP-based Presence application
Oracle virtual PBX: Packaged VOIP-based virtual PBX application
Oracle Telephony: Residential Telephony application
Oracle Unified User profile : Unified User profile Management across operator systems

One common reason to call in an Applications Architect is to get them to perform sizing for you. Usually the architect surveys the existing IT deployment and then request information about the planned applications. Many factors contribute to the final recommendation - as depicted below:

You can then go about estimating the server configurations yourself or you can present the above information to the Hardware vendor. Most Hardware vendors request you to fill out the information on a questionnaire that you mail out to them. They then revert back with a sizing proposal within 3-4 days.

All of Oracle's Enterprise applications have technology underneath them. Most developers work on the technology to build modules and enhancements that deliver functionality to the business user. This blog explains whats new in the technology and how the business user benefits. The focus will be on the technology in the Enterprise Applications - viz. PeopleSoft , Siebel and e-biz. There is a lot going on and the journey promises to get more exciting by the day. Tighten your seatbelts!