FROM THE ISV RESOURCE CENTRE TEAM...

We extend a warm welcome to all new members who have joined us over the past few months and look forward to welcoming more in the months ahead.  Please pass this newsletter and details about the ISV Resource Centre to any of your colleagues and encourage them to sign up and support us. 

Moving forward
Since the last newsletter, we have enhanced the structure of the Resource Centre and added a community area where members can interact with us to seek and provide assistance.  The recent upgrades will allow us to add forums and blogs for this purpose.  The Resource Centre is also able to provide assistance with managed evaluations, licensing and helping to connect ISVs looking to work with other partners.  Registered members are invited to provide details of their expertise, services and applications which we will hold in a central directory.  Likewise, we can assist ISVs looking for a partner to fill a skills gap or meet tight deadlines by making introductions.  On both accounts, please contact me to discuss.  We are also working with certain software publishers to provide information about third party developer and project orientated tools that complement or extend the use of Oracle technologies. 

Please make a point of visiting the portal to view the new features and provide feedback.

Can you help?
Are you a developer working with Oracle technology or an Oracle database expert with relevant knowledge and experience you can share?  If so, we would like to hear from you.  Please contact me if you're able to contribute articles, a case study or can help in any other way.

NEWS

May 12th:  Infosys Technologies and Oracle help Weatherford International Ltd to transform its operations
Infosys Technologies Limited and Oracle have announced the completion of the implementation of a global human capital management (HCM) system, based on Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise, at Weatherford International Ltd.  This program has effectively transformed the company’s processes by streamlining its HCM operations and reducing administration costs while enabling it to accelerate business decisions.  Weatherford, one of the largest global providers of innovative mechanical solutions, technology and services for the drilling and production sectors of the oil and gas industry, launched the program as part of “One Weatherford,” a vision aimed at doubling the company’s size within the next four years.  Click here to read the press release...

May 6th:  Oracle WebLogic Server selected by industry-leading customers worldwide
Customers around the globe are selecting Oracle WebLogic Server 10g, the world’s number one application server, to help ensure superior manageability and continuous operation of their critical business applications and services.  Examples include Alibris, InterCall and Université Laval.  Click here to read the press release...

May 4:  Oracle extends support value for customers
During his keynote today at the COLLABORATE conference, Oracle President Charles Phillips announced the company has waived Extended Support fees for a number of major product lines through to 2010 and 2011.  The company has waived the first year of Extended Support fees for the following products:
Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i10 - through November 2011
JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.11- through December 2010
Siebel CRM 7.8 - through May 2011
Oracle Database 10g R2 - through July 2011
Click here to read the press release...

Apr 28:  Oracle and LSI deliver breakthrough benchmark performance utilising Oracle Database 11g for file system storage
Oracle and LSI Corporation have achieved breakthrough performance for Oracle Database 11g SecureFiles utilising the LSI Engenio 7900 Storage System.  Oracle and LSI developed a clustered file system benchmark to demonstrate that Oracle SecureFiles delivers comparable file-system-like performance with increased scalability using a database for storing and managing structured and unstructured data.  Oracle SecureFiles, a key feature of Oracle Database 11g, enables customers to store unstructured file content such as images, audio, video, PDFs and spreadsheets. Oracle SecureFiles is engineered to deliver high performance for file data comparable to that of traditional file systems while retaining the reliability, scalability and security advantages of Oracle Database 11g.  Breakthrough performance of 4.5GB/sec was achieved running Oracle SecureFiles BLOBs (binary large objects) on an LSI Engenio 7900 storage system. This data throughput is comparable to an application streaming large files, like images, audio or video content.  Click here to read the press release...

Apr 20:  Oracle buys Sun Microsystems    
Oracle and Sun Microsystems announced today that they have entered into a definitive acquisition agreement.  According to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, this "....transforms the IT industry, combining best-in-class enterprise software and mission critical computing systems.  Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system – applications to disk – where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves. Our customers benefit as their systems integration costs go down while system performance, reliability and security go up.”

There are substantial long term strategic customer advantages to Oracle owning two key Sun software assets: Java and Solaris. Java is one of the computer industry’s best known brands and most widely deployed technologies. Oracle Fusion Middleware is built on top of Sun’s Java language and software.  The Sun Solaris operating system is the leading platform for the Oracle database and the acquisition will enable Oracle to optimise the Oracle database for some of the unique, high-end features of Solaris. At the same time, Oracle remains committed to Linux and other open platforms and will continue to support and enhance strong industry partnerships in those areas too.  Click here to read the press release...

Apr 15:  Oracle opens registration for Oracle OpenWorld 2009, San Francisco
Oracle OpenWorld San Francisco 2009 registration is now open.  Oracle OpenWorld is one of the world's largest events dedicated to helping businesses understand and harness the power of information and will be held October 11 - 15 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.  Designed to provide an inclusive and content sharing environment, Oracle OpenWorld will integrate collaboration elements such as Oracle Mix, Oracle's social networking environment, schedule builder, online planner and blogs.  The event will offer more than 1,800 educational sessions on Applications, Database, Industries, Management and Infrastructure and Middleware presented by Oracle product management, partners and customers.  Click here to read the press release...

Mar 31:  More organisations worldwide are relying on Oracle Database 11g 
Oracle provides details of more organisations within varied industries across the globe that are turning to Oracle Database 11g as the foundation for their business applications.  Examples are given of companies that have upgraded to Oracle Database 11g to help meet business application performance, scalability, security and availability needs.  These include Luminex, Metcash, Where 2 Get It and Yuntaa.  Click here to read the press release...

Mar 30:  Oracle Fusion Middleware delivers world record
Oracle WebLogic Server, a strategic component of Oracle Fusion Middleware, together with Oracle JRockit, Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle Database 11g running on a Dell PowerEdge server, set a world record two-socket, single-node result with the SPECjAppServer2004 industry standard benchmark. The superior performance and scalability of Oracle Fusion Middleware with Oracle WebLogic Server’s advanced application grid capabilities, delivered the highest performance per core of any result ever published.  Click here to read the press release...

Mar 18:  Oracle breaks three more world records with JRockit (JVM)
Oracle breaks more performance world records, this time with their Java Virtual Machine (JVM), JRockit.  Using an industry standard benchmark that measures Java-based server-side performance, Oracle now holds the world record for this performance category on Windows, Linux and using an Intel based 4-socket system.

Mar 4:   Oracle announces general availability of Oracle Application Express release 3.2
The latest release of Oracle Application Express (APEX) introduces new Oracle Forms conversion capabilities and enhanced security features.  APEX is an easy to use rapid web application development tool which can be used by ISVs and end-users.  This latest release allows organisations to convert their Oracle Forms-based applications to HTML applications running within an Oracle Database.  APEX is a free download from the Oracle Technology Network (OTN).  Click here to read the press release...

Mar 4:   Oracle Database 11g on Windows sets another performance world record
Oracle has announced a new world record TPC-C benchmark for Oracle Database 11g running on Windows.  With this result, Oracle now holds the top four record benchmark positions in the Top Ten TPC-C price/performance category.  Achieving 104,492 transactions per minute with a price/performance of $.60/tpmC, Oracle Database 11g Standard Edition One running on a Windows-based Dell server with one Intel Quad-Core Xeon 2.83 GHz processor, delivered the best price-per-transaction-per-minute ever achieved with the TPC-C benchmark.  Oracle continues to lead in the TPC-C Price/Performance category with the top results on Windows and Linux.  TPC-C is an OLTP (online transaction processing) benchmark developed by the Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC).  Click here to read the press release...

EVENTS

Open events

2009 May 28:  Developer Day Online - Fusion Developer Experience
In three on-line sessions designed for developers, project managers and architects, you will be brought up to speed on the development platform Oracle uses for its Fusion enterprise applications. The sessions will cover Oracle ADF 11g, developing reusable business components and creating Rich Internet Applications.   For further details, please click here...

2009 June (various topics and dates) Oracle Developer Days

Oracle is holding a series of FREE Oracle Technology Network 'hands-on' workshops during June.  These workshops are a must for anyone wanting to improve their business and drive their systems forward.  They will be held at both Oracle City Office, London and Thames Valley Park, Reading.  The sessions include Manageability, Database 11g, Security and Vault Management, Maximum Availability Architecture, SOA Integration with Oracle SOA Suite and Data Integration in SOA.  For further details and to register please click here...

2009 Oct 11 - 15:  Oracle OpenWorld 2009.  San Francisco, USA
Oracle OpenWorld 2009 brings you more than 1,800 sessions, 400 partner exhibits, keynotes from the world’s technology leaders, hands-on labs, several special networking events and more.  The conference will help you get the most business benefit from your technology, today and in the future.  Register by Aug 14th for low early bird rates.  To register, please click here...   The agenda is here...

Oracle partner events

2009 May 19 - 21:  Oracle Hyperion Data Relationship Management Hands-On Training - Oracle Reading Office. Please click here for details.

Oracle Partner Technology Centre (PTC) events
Events are held regularly at Oracle's PTC facility, Hatfield.  For details of the location, please click here...

2009 Jun 9 - 10:  Oracle ADF Workshop
This 2-day workshop is designed to allow participants to gain practical experience of Oracle's Application Development Framework (ADF). It includes an introduction to the framework and a detailed insight into its technology stack. Hands-on labs enable the attendee to get practical experience of ADF and demonstrate the power of the framework.  To register, please click here...

2009 Jun 16 - 18:  Oracle RAC Adoption - Do It Live 3-Day Workshop
Oracle invites you to attend a FREE RAC Adoption - Do It Live Workshop. This workshop and the PTC environment will allow ISVs to validate their application against Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC).  ISV end customers are demanding more and more high availability and scalability.  Oracle RAC is a solution that helps address this.  To book your place, please email lisa.renals@oracle.com


UK Oracle User Group events
These events are generally for UKOUG members only.   For a full schedule, please click here...


MANAGED EVALUATIONS PROGRAM

Is your interest in Oracle related to a requirement to complete a formal, managed evaluation or perhaps a development and deployment project? If so, the articles, tutorials and downloads provided by the Resource Centre will assist with this. In addition, we can allocate an 'account manager' to help manage the provision of the resources you need. This could involve answering questions, pointing you in the right direction or helping to enlist assistance from Oracle or third parties.  If you have a serious Oracle requirement or would like to find out more, please contact me

 
Regards

Graham Keitch