This is one of my favorite holiday traditions: offering a list of the most popular technical articles and how-tos published by OTN in 2008. (Note: this list contains 2008-datestamped content only.)
You will note that in every case -- and this is nothing new or exceptional -- that the authors involved are end-users, not employees.
1. "Oracle Database 11g: The Top New Features for DBAs and Developers", by Arup Nanda (Oracle ACE Director - Database)
No surprise here; Arup, as is his custom with Oracle Database releases, provided a series of technical how-tos in 2008 focusing specifically on his favorite new Oracle Database 11g features for DBAs as well as developers. The real value of this series lies with Arup's emphasis on simple, actionable examples that get users up to speed on new features very quickly.
2. "Filtering and Grouping: A Comparison of SQL, Linux Scripting, and Ruby", by Casimir Saternos
This one was a surprise. In this rather nuanced article, Cas describes some common data management concepts across SQL, Linux, and Ruby, in order to help DBA/admins understand and apply set-oriented concepts to their daily tasks - providing "a repertoire of basic algorithms" for such tasks. A good one for old dogs who want to learn new tricks.
3. "Guide to Linux Find Command Mastery", by Sheryl Calish
Educating newbies about the Linux OS has been one of our staples for several years now, and Sheryl has been a big part of that effort - her "Linux Command Mastery" articles are consistently popular. The find command installment was her principal contribution to that cause this year, and you'll see more such content next year.
4. "Build a .NET Application on the Oracle Database with Visual Studio 2005 or 2008", by John Paul Cook
There will always, always be members of the .NET dev community who look to OTN for guidance about using the Oracle Database platform. You can't get more instrumental to addressing that need than John does in this case.
5. "Basic Java Persistence API Best Practices", by Dustin Marx
It is only natural that Oracle would play a large, influential role in the engineering of industry standards for achieving data persistence in Java apps (eg via the Java Persistence API), and it is only natural that visitors to the OTN Website would be interested in basic best practices in that area. Dustin pretty much "writes the book" in that area with this article.
6. "Integrating Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Plus with SOA", by Mark Rittman (Oracle ACE Director - Middleware)
BI content in this Top 10? That says a lot about how important this area is becoming for members of the Oracle technical end-user community.
7. "Integrating Oracle's Hyperion Essbase with Oracle Business Intelligence", by Mark Rittman (Oracle ACE Director - Middleware)
What, two BI-related items in the Top 10? Again, with Hyperion users coming into the OTN fold, it's not as surprising as it may seem at first blush. In some ways, Essbase is the ultimate "killer app" for the OLTP database.
8. "Build Your Own Oracle Extended RAC Cluster on Oracle VM and Oracle Enterprise Linux", by Jakub Wartak
Virtualization crossed the chasm in 2008, with the introduction of Oracle VM playing no small part in that jump. Although this extremely detailed guide -- provided by a then-CS student in Poland (now a junior DBA) -- is fairly specific to a certain use case (evaluation of Extended RAC architecture), it contains loads of configuration information for anyone interested in virtualizing an Oracle RAC cluster for educational or eval purposes.
9. "Build a Google Talk Client Using Oracle ADF Faces Rich Client and the Active Data Service", by Lucas Jellema (Oracle ACE Director - Middleware)
Oracle ADF Faces Rich Client, although introduced late in the year (just in the last couple of months, in the Oracle JDeveloper 11g production release), will be a very popular subject in 2009 as people get their hands on the technology (as well as see it in action). Lucas, always the early adopter, found time to play with what was at the time of writing a technology preview of these powerful rich enterprise application (REA) components.
10. "Invoice Processing in a Service-Oriented Environment", by Ronald van Luttikhuizen (Oracle ACE - Middleware)
Amidst the hype and theory that is so common in the SOA area, there is more than plenty of room for real-world use cases. This article, in which Ronald documents a process integration scenario implemented via Oracle Enterprise Service Bus (now Oracle Service Bus), provides such a use case.
Many, many thanks to all these authors - steadfast members of the OTN community, all.
If you have any favorites not included in this list, sound off in comments. The rest of us want to hear about them, amigos.
