John Aylward's Blog

Oracle Buys Sun

Everyone seems so surprised about Oracle announcing its acquisition of Sun today, but I have to say that I predicted this marriage some 18 months' ago.  And why?  Well, the favourite home of Oracle's database is Solaris and Oracle Fusion Middleware is built on Java.  Need I say more?

How will this affect Oracle's Enterprise 2.0 strategy.  Not a great deal at first glance, but I am excited about the possibilities that OpenOffice (StarOffice) will bring to the portfolio.

The good news is that I have been too busy with Oracle Enterprise 2.0 to keep this blog up to date.  The bad news is that I have been too busy with Oracle Enterprise 2.0 to keep this blog up to date!

Anyway, this blog is back in town.  This entry is a short test using a Firefox plugin called ScribeFire.  Seems to work pretty well.

Next time I will give my thoughts on Cloud computing ...

Thought I would add new blog to mark the momentous move to a new platform here. On top of that, I am editing this post using Ecto on my Macbook Pro. So cool ...

The team that I work in has changed its name from ECM to Enterprise 2.0 which really reflects where we are going here at Oracle. The "face" of Enterprise 2.0 is WebCenter and there is now a whole host of WebCenter services (including some new ones from the BEA portfolio) that I want to blog about in the near future.

If you want a good look at Oracle's Enterprise 2.0 offering, you should start with this excellent demo by Vince Casarez, VP Product Management.

In the meantime, here is a view from the famous tower in Pisa ..

No, not a discourse on traveling in time, just some thoughts on Oracle's Webcenter Suite.

At the moment Oracle has Oracle Portal as a portal and Oracle WebCenter
Suite as a framework for developing portal-type applications.  Many of
the portal features in Oracle Portal are not available out of the box
with the current version of WebCenter Suite, although as time goes by
this is the direction I am sure the product will go.



In basic terms Oracle Portal is for business users and WebCenter is for
Java developers.



The following is an extract from the WebCenter FAQ:



"Oracle WebCenter addresses user interaction requirements holistically
by introducing new capabilities directly into the JavaServer Faces
application environment and providing Web 2.0 services that take
advantage of those capabilities to allow developers to create next
generation, context-centric applications. In essence, with WebCenter,
we have injected portal capabilities directly into the application
architecture rather than requiring a distinct and separate portal
framework. This provides developers focused on 100%
standards-development a complete solution to build any type of user
interaction they require.



In contrast, Oracle Portal is specifically targeted at the enterprise
portal use case, is built on top of a database-centric design-time
architecture, and incorporates a dedicated, portal-specific runtime
framework. It is designed to provide a simple wizard-based experience
to building portals that is targeted at the business developer rather
than the Java developer.



From a pricing and packaging point of view, Oracle Portal is part of
Oracle Application Server Standard and Enterprise Editions while Oracle
WebCenter is a separately priced option on top of Enterprise Edition."



What they are saying ... and I agree with them 100%... is that the
applications of tomorrow are not going to be constrained by a portal
framework and they will use Web 2.0 features to make them more
accessible to end users.  Currently, portals provide users with windows
into existing applications by the use of portlets.  In the future,
users will not see a distinction between different back end
applications because WebCenter will thread everything together with SOA
and present an interface for carrying out a specific task.  In other
words the user will not have immediate access to ALL the functionality
that a back end application makes available, only those parts required
for a particular task.  As far as the developer is concerned, he is not
constrained by the functionality that an application deems to make
available (e.g. a JSR 168 portlet) but will be able to pick and chooses
the services that are required for the task in hand.



So it is true that Portal is the SOA entry
point but ... WebCenter Suite will COMPLETELY change this.  And this
change is happening now.  It will make Oracle the clear leader in the
SOA field.

Content management is a vital part of all businesses, but if there is one sector that could particularly benefit from managing their unstructured data it is the Financial Services Industry.

I have lost count of the number of financial services companies that I have visited which have vast armies of personnel re-keying data. A typical example is where application forms are manually completed in branches and sent by snail mail to the HQ. These may well be accompanied by supporting documentation such as photocopies of driving licences, passports etc. A sensible solution involving ECM would enable forms to be completed online via a web interface in branches so that the data is captured once and does not need re-keying. The same interface would also permit supporting documents to be scanned and uploaded along with the application data. Upon receipt of an application the ECM system would automatically start a workflow to enable the efficient processing of the application in the HQ. Such a system would also enable the building of dossiers for customers so that they do not have to provide exactly the same information the next time they apply for credit/loan/mortgage etc. In addition, branch representatives (and customers) can track the progress of applications without having to telephone the HQ.

Another segment of the financial services industry that could benefit from having an integrated ECM solution are those departments who deal with the application of anti-money laundering regulations. From 'Know your customer' applications through to integration with IMOLIN and databases provided by Finance Intelligence Units. AML is not just about structured data, it is also about the unstructured data held in electronic and paper documents. A case management solution based on ECM enables ALL data to be brought together to provide the whole truth that is required for AML staff.

The bottom line is that SERVICE is a key differentiator in the Financial Services marketplace. Introducing effective ECM solutions will empower organisations to improve their efficiency and levels of service to customers. Those who don't will get left behind ...

Managing structured data is so easy nowadays.  Construct an Oracle
database, populate it and query it.  A piece of cake!  Even if the data
is in another database all you need to do is to connect to it and run a
query.  So all your business problems are solved if all your
information is in the form of structured data!  But, wait a minute,
what about all those invoices, letters, emails, contracts ...?  Oh,
that's OK they are on the file system ... somewhere ... and in my Inbox
... or someone else's ... and in my filing cabinet ... but I can't
search them there.  Hmmm!  Maybe I do have a problem with my
unstructured data.

The answer is Enterprise Content Management
(ECM).  I can store all my documents in one repository and search for
anything I want.  Case closed then!  Well, not quite.  How come I
always get hundreds of results back when I do a search, when all I want
to find is just the invoices for ACME Corp?  OK, so I need to add
metadata ... my ECM system lets me do that.  Cool!  Now I can sort my
documents into places where I can find them.  But, it's a real pain
having to leave my Financials system and open a new system to do a
query to find the documents.  Can't I link them together .....?

Welcome to the world of ECM solutions!

The
ECM market has matured in the last few years to the extent that there
are many vendors with ECM systems that allow you to store documents,
categorise them and then retrieve them.  Smaller companies with
software offering extra bits of ECM functionality have been acquired
and now larger ECM companies are themselves being acquired.  So,
several companies have all the functionality you could possibly need,
but do all the component parts fully integrate?  Are they scalable? 
Are they efficient to deploy?  Can you integrate easily with other
business systems?

The answer to all these questions is usually
"yes!" - if you look at the marketing material.  But what about
actually deploying the software?  I think you will find all sorts of
scare stories.  Of course you can have anything you want ... if you pay
for it!  So, we need easily deployable ECM solutions that integrate
with business processes and systems without costing the earth.  That's
where I come in!  I will explore potential solutions in future blogs. 
Watch this space!