David Chappell Blog

In case you're wondering, this is the Dave Chappell formerly of Sonic Software.  I'm getting a lot of curious inquiries about why I chose to go to Oracle.  I departed Sonic/Progress in December, and I have been doing some consulting while I made the interview rounds with all the usual suspects of SOA infrastructure vendors large and small.  Oracle seemed to be the right fit because they're well fitted with the right technology, and I like the entrepreneurial spirit of Thomas Kurian's team.  Its kind of like the Sonic/Progress relationship but on a much larger scale.

I'm going to remain Boston based but I'll be traveling to Redwood Shores quite a bit.  I'm already getting deeply involved with the product teams on architectural direction, which is a tremendously gratifying experience.  In addition I will be traveling around the world doing conferences, seminars, customer visits, etc just as before.  I'll probably start the next book sometime this year.

I did my first public speaking gig as an Oracle guy yesterday at JavaOne.  I was on an SCA panel with Mike Edwards from IBM, Mike Rowley frorm BEA, Sanjay Patel from SAP, Mark Hapner from Sun, and Tibco.  It was moderated by the other David Chappell (the Microsoftie).  How cool is that!?  A few of us went out to dinner afterwards and then came back for an 8:00PM SCA BoF.

So anyway, back to the "Why Oracle" question.  Earlier this year I spent some time as a consultant at a Boston based financial services firm, helping them with their SOA strategy.  I came in at the tail end of their evaluation of SOA infrastructure vendors and discovered that they had chosen to go with Oracle.  Their decision was based on a fairly thorough RFI and PoC process to prove out the technology, and then backed up by the knowledge that Oracle had the strength and size to be a long term partner should any issues come up during their multi-year SOA initiative.

Oracle had always been in my top 3 candidates of places I wanted  to land, and witnessing this unbiased view from an end-user just made the decision to join them all the more easier.  Here are some additional points -

1 - Market Momentum.  As seen during my time as a consultant, watching customers do independent evaluations and select Oracle.  It's clear Oracle is a leader in this space.

2 - Unified Architecture.  The SOA infrastructure vision at Oracle is a strong one.  Oracle has assembled a number of components that provide a comprehensive SOA infrastructure, which they have combined into a well-designed, unified architecture.  Oracle went through the bulk of its acquisition of the necessary pieces and the subsequent integration pains over two years ago.  Other companies in this space are just now trying to figure that out, and the result is apparent to the customers who are evaluating the products. 

3 - Scalability.  Oracle has a focus and a set of unique capabilities to address the scalability requirements for true enterprise SOA deployments.  And that capability has just been strengthened by the Tangosol acquisition.  Scalability has always been an Oracle strength, and I have had plenty of experiences where I witnessed first hand how important that is for enterprise-scale SOA.

Dave