JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

Converged Hardware Management Oracle

Enterprise Manager Ops Center 11g simplifies
hardware management / 19 Kernel of Truth Chris
Mason on Oracle’s Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel
/ 21 Simplicity by Design Leverage new Java
EE 6 features to build simple and maintainable
applications / 51 Simulation Demonstrates
Performance Use SQL Performance Analyzer to
help predict performance on Oracle Exadata / 61
On History, Invisibility, and Moving Our
technologist counts on histograms, proves hash
tables by example, and moves CLOBs / 65

OPEN FOR BUSINESS

MySQL community wins with
better innovation, support,
and integration
Positive
Identification
How ING and SUNY
increase compliance and
decrease risk with Oracle
Identity Management 11g

Oracle Excellence
Awards
Customers and partners excel at
driving business value and innovation
with Oracle technology
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2 FEATURED CONTENT VOLUME XXV - ISSUE 1 CONTENTS

Open for Business

/ 30
First released in 1995 and purchased by Sun in
2008, MySQL has rapidly graduated from the realm
of hobbyists to the world of business, becoming
the leading open source database for many Web
applications and an integral part of the LAMP
(Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) Web application
stack. Almost a year after Oracle’s acquisition of
Sun, MySQL plays an even bigger role in enterprises
of all sizes worldwide, including the Bank of Finland,
Clickability, and Gorilla Nation Media. Discover the
secrets to their success. —By David A. Kelly
Cover: I-Hua Chen, Jaime Ferrand

Positive Identification / 38 Celebrating Excellence / 45

IT security is not so much about creating Oracle’s customers

stronger walls as it is about creating better-
functioning doors and windows. And when
deploying identity management solutions,
those better doors and windows equate
to more-comprehensive provisioning,
management, and authorization. Learn how
the State University of New York (SUNY)
and global financial institution ING are
increasing compliance and decreasing risk
with Oracle Identity Management 11g.
–By David Baum
and partners
continue to
demonstrate
innovation,
excellence,
and leadership
across scores of applications and
technologies worldwide. In 2010, Oracle
honored customers and partners through
the Oracle Excellence Awards, with
categories ranging from sustainability to
application deployment, cutting-edge Java
development, implementation expertise,
and beyond. –By Rich Schwerin

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE

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4 DEPARTMENTS VOLUME XXV - ISSUE 1
Up Front / 6
FROM OUR FROM THE
READERS / 6 EDITOR / 7
Readers tell us what Developing for Java
they think. —Tom Haunert
At Oracle / 11
EVENTS / 11 RESOURCES / 13
Find out about upcoming Your guide to Oracle
technology and industry Webcasts, podcasts, blogs,
events. and more
BRIEFS / 16
The latest product news
Community / 22
PARTNER NEWS / 22 ARCHITECT / 27
BOOK BEAT / 22 Enterprise Architecture
in Interesting Times
COMMUNITY Business and technology
BULLETIN / 25 continue to shape enterprise
Java Evolves
architecture. —Bob Rhubart
At JavaOne, Oracle details a
roadmap for JDK 7, JDK 8,
and beyond.
—Justin Kestelyn
Technology / 51
JAVA EE 6 / 51 BUSINESS
Simplicity by Design INTELLIGENCE / 56
Leverage new Java EE 6 Quickly Define KPIs
features to build simple and and Scorecards That
maintainable applications. Use Them
—Adam Bien Build key performance
indicators and scorecards in
your business intelligence
metadata with Oracle
Business Intelligence
Enterprise Edition 11g.
—Mark Rittman
Comment / 69
IN THE FIELD / 69 IN THE FIELD / 70
Are You Change Enabled? Build Better Data
Iterate and inculcate change Warehouses
along with its disruption. Oracle Exadata Database
—David Ferguson Machine’s processing
capability means fewer
physical structures and
better BI. —Andy Flower
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE
MASHUP / 8
News, views, trends, tools
NEWS / 19
Converged Hardware
Management
Oracle Enterprise Manager
Ops Center 11g simplifies
hardware management in
Oracle’s Sun environments.
—Caroline Kvitka
UP CLOSE / 28
French Connection
Common business practices
and language bring far-flung
Oracle users to AUFO.
—Jeff Erickson
BROWSER-BASED
/ 59
Extend Your Applications
Use plug-ins with Oracle
Application Express 4.0
to add custom components.
—David Peake
ANALYST’S CORNER
/ 72
The Case for Integrated
Systems Management
Efficient and cost-effective
systems management must
also do more. —David Baum
INTERVIEW / 21
A Kernel of Truth
Oracle’s Unbreakable
Enterprise Kernel for Oracle
Linux delivers support
for new hardware, new
features, and better data
management. —Tom Haunert
PEER-TO-PEER / 29
Hack, Tweet, Repeat
Chet Justice, Oded Raz,
Simon Haslam
—Blair Campbell
ORACLE EXADATA / 61 ASK TOM / 65
Simulation Demonstrates On History, Invisibility,
Performance and Moving
Use Oracle Exadata Our technologist counts on
simulation in SQL histograms, proves hash
Performance Analyzer tables by example, and
to help predict how your moves CLOBs. —Tom Kyte
application will perform on
Oracle Exadata.
—Arup Nanda
 5

Editorial Publishing
Editor in Chief Publisher
Tom Haunert  tom.haunert@oracle.com Jeff Spicer  jeff.spicer@oracle.com
Senior Managing Editor Production Director and Associate Publisher
Caroline Kvitka  caroline.kvitka@oracle.com Jennifer Hamilton  jennifer.hamilton@oracle.com  +1.650.506.3794
Features Editor Senior Manager, Audience Development and Operations
Rich Schwerin  rich.schwerin@oracle.com Karin Kinnear  karin.kinnear@oracle.com  +1.650.506.1985
Contributing Editor and Writer
Blair Campbell Advertising sales
Associate Publisher
Editor in Chief, Oracle Technology Network
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Justin Kestelyn  justin.kestelyn@oracle.com
Northwest & Central U.S.
Technology Advisor
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PRODUCT INDEX
Product Name Page Product Name Page
Java 45 Oracle Forms 16
Java Development Kit 25 Oracle Fusion Applications 13
Java Enterprise Edition 51 Oracle Fusion Middleware 45
Java Standard Edition 16 Oracle Hyperion Planning 13
MySQL 14, 30 Oracle Identity Analytics 38
Oracle Access Manager 38 Oracle Identity Federation 38
Oracle Application Express 59 Oracle Identity Management 38
Oracle Application Testing Suite 18 Oracle Identity Manager 38
Oracle Business Intelligence 14 Oracle On Demand 13
Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 16, 56 Oracle Real Application Clusters 13
Oracle Cloud Resource Model API 13, 17 Oracle Secure Global Desktop 13
Oracle CRM On Demand 17 Oracle Solaris 11 Express 16
Oracle Crystal Ball 13 Oracle Unified Business Process Management Suite 13
Oracle Data Integration Suite 13 Oracle User Productivity Kit 14
Oracle Data Integrator 14 Oracle VM 13, 16
Oracle Database 65 Oracle VM Server for SPARC 16
Oracle Enterprise Manager 19 Oracle WebCenter Suite 13
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 19 Oracle’s Unbreakable Linux Kernel for Oracle Linux 21
Oracle Essbase 14 StorageTek Virtual Library Extension 17
Oracle Exadata 14, 19 StorageTek Virtual Storage Manager 17
Oracle Exadata Database Machine 14, 70 Sun Ray 3 Series Clients 13
Oracle Exadata Storage Server 61 Sun Ray Software 17
Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud 13, 19 Sun ZFS Storage Appliance 18

oracle magazine January/February 2011

6 FROM OUR READERS
E-MAIL THE EDITORS
Send your opinions about what you read in Oracle
Magazine, and suggestions for possible technical
articles, to opubedit_us@oracle.com. Letters
may be edited for length and clarity and may be
published in any medium. We consider any com-
munications we receive publishable.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE
Your corrections, your opinions, and your requests:
Here’s your forum for telling us what’s right and
wrong in each issue of Oracle Magazine, and for
letting us know what you want to read.
WE WANT OUR PDFS
I can’t get Oracle Magazine on my iPad. I’d like
to download the PDF version to my iPad, and I
can’t see any indication of a download selector.
Any instructions available?
Paul Peaslee
I’m a subscriber to Oracle Magazine. Is there a
PDF version or an online version that would be
viewable on the iPad (no Adobe Flash)?
Sébastien Pouillet
The editors reply: Oracle Magazine is now
available in multiple formats: a traditional print
format; a digital replica of the print magazine;
plain HTML at oracle.com/oramag; and iPad
and iPhone versions, available at the Apple App
Store. Subscribers to the digital issue can down-
load a PDF from the top navigation bar of the
digital issue.
WE WANT OUR ARCHIVE
In a recent issue of Oracle Magazine, there was a
question from Marco Pinzuti (From Our Readers,
September/October 2010) about why Oracle
Magazine articles are available for the past five
years only. The editors responded that they do
not host old articles because technology moves
quite fast. Although I agree with this fact—
Oracle Database indeed moves pretty fast—I
do not agree with the approach of removing
older content from the Oracle Website, because
I don’t like broken links and there’s a lot more
“suspect” content out there, which is sometimes
completely wrong.
CONNECT: bit.ly/orclmagfb twitter.com/magazineoracle
So, I’d like to ask you to keep old content on
the Oracle Website.
Timur Akhmadeev
I’d like to express my opinions about an Oracle
Magazine archive. An Oracle Magazine archive
would be very helpful because
1. Many articles contain fundamentals that are
valid for more than five years
2. It is helpful to check the development of
some past features
Andreas Buckenhofer
JAVA JUSTIFICATION NEEDED
What is the point of the article “Customize
Your Application Layout” by James L. Weaver
(November/December 2010, bit.ly/dnTLaY),
since JavaFX Script has been phased out
by Oracle?
Thomas Auzinger
I’m not sure if the article “Customize Your
Application Layout” is outdated or if it was
a mistake. I think people could be confused
because of the split of JavaFX and JavaFX
Script.
Vanessa Aybar
The Java Development Group at Oracle
responds: JavaFX continues to be an important
platform for Oracle, and this article reflects
current best practices. Even though JavaFX
Script will not be directly supported in future
JavaFX releases, there are no immediate plans
to retire the JavaFX 1.3.1 runtime.
linkd.in/orclmag

Developing for Java
Java development has always been
about more than using Java.
I n the late 1990s, I attended an Oracle
development departmental meeting for
which the key agenda item was an update on
plans for Java development in department-
specific projects. I took this to mean that
each department lead or manager would talk
about how his or her team was planning to
use the latest—and future—Java technology
to do things in product development.
More than Using
Several department representatives out-
lined their groups’ planned use of Java
in current and upcoming projects. But
the meeting discussion evolved into an
exploration of what Java could do now for
various projects and what it needed to do
as soon as possible for current and future
projects. Then it evolved again into details
of how teams could extend Java to do
more and then contribute that work to Java
itself. I remember one particular manager
describing—with passion, it seemed to
me—the importance of some needed
functionality in Java at the time, details on
his team’s solution to address it, and the
schedule and resources associated with
developing the technology and contrib-
uting it to Java. I also remember thinking
that this particular Java contribution
project, probably the biggest Java project
discussed at that meeting, had the poten-
Next Steps
tial to be much bigger than the product
development project supported by all the
READ about
OpenJDK teams in that room.
openjdk.java.net
the Java Community Process More than Development
jcp.org Oracle’s commitment to Java has grown, of
FOLLOW @java course, and the drive to use Java in enter-
twitter.com/java
prise products and technologies and to
CONNECT: bit.ly/aVgo69 bit.ly/orclmagfb twitter.com/magazineoracle linkd.in/orclmag
From The Editor 7
contribute directly to Java technology has
grown well beyond departmental initia-
tives. Oracle is working with partners and
industry stakeholders on contributions to
OpenJDK and the Java Community Process,
while at the same time providing roadmap
information, technology releases, and
support to the Java community. And, even
in light of all the passion for Java I saw in
that departmental meeting more than a
decade ago, everything I see today demon-
strates that Oracle, Java partners, and the
Java community are more passionate about
the technology than ever before.
community: Get Connected
In this issue of Oracle Magazine, if you’re
looking at the print or digital edition (free
subscriptions to qualified subscribers
are available at bit.ly/bBE6bf), you’ll see
CONNECT links in the footnotes of many
pages (including this one). These links
provide contextual connections to social
media sites, including Facebook, LinkedIn,
and Twitter.
We’ve also updated the Oracle
Magazine Communities page at bit.ly/
aVgo69 with the latest magazine-related
social media connections, as well as the
latest podcast and video channels. The
video channels now include content about
Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud created
by Oracle Publishing Senior Editor Jeff
Erickson at Oracle OpenWorld 2010 in
San Francisco.
Get connected, take a look, and let us
know what you think.
Tom Haunert, Editor in Chief
tom.haunert@oracle.com
oracle magazine JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011
8
MashUp News. Views. Trends. Tools.

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“If your team cannot

take full advantage of
SCRIBE SMARTER technology with gusto
and verve, [it] will lie
Tired of a leaving meetings with scribbled, nonsensical notes?
With the Livescribe Echo Smart Pen and special paper, you’ll fallow—and you will fail
capture the most-important points by taking notes and as a leader.”
recording audio simultaneously. The same size as a ballpoint —Scott Klososky, author of The Velocity
pen, the Echo has a micro USB connector, headphone jack, Manifesto (Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2011)
microphone, built-in speaker, organic light-emitting-diode
display, and memory storage. Tapping the Echo anywhere in
your notes triggers the related audio playback. Connect the
pen to your PC or Mac running the Java-based Livescribe
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digitally. Several apps, such as dictionaries and PII RARELY ENCRYPTED
translators, are available—or write your own Fewer than 30 percent of 430 Independent
with Livescribe’s Java-based development Oracle Users Group (IOUG) members surveyed
encrypt personally identifiable information (PII)
environment. US$169.95 (4 GB storage),
in all their databases.
$199.95 (8 GB storage). livescribe.com
Source: 2010 IOUG Data Security Survey, ioug.org

WHO’S USING THE CLOUD?

SPEEDY TABLET
Small companies
36%
Midmarket
64 % If you’re shopping for a tech-
Large companies
nology companion (aka a tablet),
58% consider the A7 Internet Tablet
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Midmarket: US$10–$99 million annual revenue)
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40% NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 dual-core 1 Ghz
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35% tions for Android 2.2, but you can choose from tens of thousands of apps—from
Storage mapping and social networking to office productivity—that are available for
35% that platform. The A7 also features connectivity with 802.11 b/g wireless and
LINDY GROENING

The survey of 542 U.S.-based IT end users was conducted online Bluetooth, and monitoring connections is easy with a wireless status screen
in June and July 2010. and an airplane mode that lets you disable all wireless connections in one place
Source: CompTIA, comptia.org US$369.99. elocitynow.com

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Copyright © 2010, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
 Events 11

Technology Events Oracle User Groups

Conferences and sessions to help you stay Boston MySQL Monthly Meetups
January 10 and February 14,
on the cutting edge Boston, Massachusetts
meetup.com/mysqlbos

Houston User Group for Sun (HUGS)

Monthly Meetups
Mobile World Congress January 11 and February 8, Houston, Texas
meetup.com/opensource-67
February 14–17, Barcelona, Spain
This global conference focusing on mobile technology PackerLand Users Group Meeting
and business includes keynotes and action-provoking January 12, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin
panel discussions; an exhibition featuring more than wi-plug.org
1,300 vendors; App Planet, an application-focused Silicon Valley JavaFX User
gathering; an awards program highlighting innova- Group Meetings
tive mobile solutions and initiatives; and plentiful January 12 and February 9,
Redwood Shores, California
networking opportunities. Get details and sign up at svjugfx.org
mobileworldcongress.com.
Northern California OAUG Training Day
January 13, Santa Clara, California
norcaloaug.com
National Retail Federation priate ICT building blocks and delivery models
Annual Conference without creating data silos or bottlenecks. Georgia Oracle Users Group Meetings
January 9–12, New York, New York January 13 and February 10,
Dunwoody, Georgia
fevents.nrf.com/annual2011 Oracle University Enterprise gouser.org
“Retail’s BIG Show” marks its 100th anni- Business Intelligence Seminar with
versary with keynote speeches; more than 60 Mark Rittman New England Java Users Group Meetings
January 13 and February 10,
educational sessions covering topics including January 24–25, Geneva, Switzerland Burlington, Massachusetts
information technology, online retailing, supply January 27–28, Zurich, Switzerland nejug.org
chain, and sustainability; a 150,000-square- February 14–15, Oslo, Norway
Western Washington Oracle Users
foot exposition with more than 500 vendors; and frittmanmead.com Group Meetings
several networking events. Oracle ACE Director Mark Rittman leads this January 13 and February 10,
class on the architecture and capabilities of Seattle, Washington
wwoug.org
Construction CPM Conference Oracle Business Intelligence 11g. Topics include
January 12–15, Orlando, Florida enhancements to the software’s semantic UKOUG UNIX SIG Meeting
fconstructioncpm.com model to support Oracle Essbase and Oracle January 19, London, England
ukoug.org
This inaugural conference explores critical OLAP, enhancements to Oracle Dashboards and
path method (CPM) scheduling concepts and Oracle Answers, Oracle Application Development Twin Cities Oracle Users Group
software solutions, and features 100 sessions Framework development, and more. Quarterly Meeting
January 20, Golden Valley, Minnesota
covering CPM software, theory, and project man-
tcoug.org
agement. Sessions on Oracle’s Primavera P3 and Global Services Conference
P6, as well as a Primavera special interest group January 27, New York, New York Central Florida Oracle Users
meeting, are planned. Group Meetings
fbit.ly/cv1EfO January 24 and February 28, Orlando, Florida
This conference includes a full day of sessions cfoug.org
IDC’s Optimizing Sourcing on global outsourcing, featuring parallel tracks
Strategy Conference on sourcing leadership and best practices. Topics Suncoast Oracle Users Group Meetings
January 27 and February 24, Tampa, Florida
January 19, Paris, France include cloud-based delivery models, the conver- soug.acomp.usf.edu
fbit.ly/cAB5i2 gence of IT and business process outsourcing,
This French-language event, sponsored by and emerging destinations. Boston Java Meetup
February 7, Boston, Massachusetts
International Data Corporation (IDC), will cover meetup.com/boston-java
insourcing and outsourcing, onshoring and off- Gartner Business Intelligence
shoring, cloud computing, and other information Summit Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group
Training Days
and communications technology (ICT) sourcing January 31–February 1, London, England
Getty Images

February 15–17, Denver, Colorado

strategies available to today’s CIOs. Participants fbit.ly/atYllA rmoug.org
will discuss how to select and implement appro- Learn to leverage business intelligence (BI)

oracle magazine January/February 2011

12 Events
Talk Java at Jfokus in Stockholm, Sweden, February 14–16.
and performance management to get broader
adoption of BI tools, gain more return on invest-
ment from their use, and make better decisions.
Topics include advanced analytics, cost optimi-
zation, data quality and integration, and frame-
works and metrics.
DistribuTECH Conference
and Exhibition
February 1–3, San Diego, California
fdistributech.com
This event is the utility industry’s leading smart
grid conference and exposition. Topics include
automation and control systems, energy effi-
ciency, demand response, renewable energy
integration, advanced metering, test and diag-
nostic system operation and reliability, power
delivery equipment, and water utility technology.
ARC World Industry Forum
February 7–10, Orlando, Florida
fbit.ly/c1jWbe
With the theme “driving innovation, sustainability,
and performance,” this gathering focuses on
industrial collaboration across key functional areas
such as IT, engineering, operations, and mainte-
nance. Topics include sustainability, project man-
agement, and asset performance management.
CalConnect XX
February 7–11, Berkeley, California
fcalconnect.org/calconnect20.shtml
The Calendaring & Scheduling Consortium will
hold two days of interoperability test events and
mobile calendaring interoperability test events,
followed by two days of technical committee
sessions, birds-of-a-feather sessions, and a
plenary meeting.
January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine
LogiMAT 2011
February 8–10, Stuttgart, Germany
flogimat-messe.de
The leading international trade fair for the intra-
logistics sector in Europe features forums and
displays on topics including distribution, mate-
rials handling, and information flow. More than
750 exhibitors from 20 countries are expected in
the 560,000-square-foot exhibition hall.
Jfokus
February 14–16, Stockholm, Sweden
fjfokus.se
Organized in cooperation with Java Forum
Stockholm, this conference has grown steadily
since its founding in 2007. It features speakers
from Sweden and around the world focusing on
Java and related techniques such as dynamic
languages and agile development. New topics
this year include cloud computing, Java perfor-
mance antipatterns, and pair programming.
RSA Conference
February 14–18, San Francisco, California
frsaconference.com/2011/usa
This annual security conference explores topics
including cryptography, legislation, and govern-
ment and policy mandates. Keynotes, breakout
sessions, and tutorials will cover all facets of
information security, IT management, program-
ming, development, and executive management.
Forrester’s Enterprise Architecture
Forum 2011
February 17–18, San Francisco, California
fbit.ly/c18NEP
Through keynotes and four tracks of ses-
sions, this forum provides an integrated
understanding of business, information, and
technology architecture, as well as the benefits
that can be realized when these domains are
harnessed together.
HIMSS11 Annual Conference
and Exhibition
February 20–24, Orlando, Florida
fhimssconference.org
The Healthcare Information and Management
Systems Society (HIMSS) conference covers
solutions and technologies for patient safety and
quality, regulatory compliance, and business best
practices. Topics include the American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), business intel-
ligence, healthcare reform, human-computer
interfaces, interactive health communications,
and workforce development.
SCALE 9x: Southern California
Linux Expo
February 25–27, Los Angeles, California
fsocallinuxexpo.org/scale9x
At this annual Linux expo, choose from tech-
nical seminars across five tracks, including a
beginners’ track, a developers’ track, and a
new system administration track for attendees
interested in using open source alternatives
for system administration tasks. The expo also
includes displays and demos from commercial
software and hardware vendors. In addition,
local nonprofit organizations such as
Linux user groups will offer tutorials on
open source software.
EnergyBiz Leadership Forum
February 27–March 1, Washington DC
fenergybizforum.com
This forum brings together energy industry
executives, policymakers, regulators, con-
sumers, financiers, and the legal community
to tackle issues that the energy industry faces
over the next five years. Attendees will discuss
changes in technology, regulation, economics,
and politics.
Events locator
Oracle Events
oracle.com/events
Getty Images
Locate User Groups
oracle.com/technetwork/community
 Resources 13

What’s New at Oracle

The latest videos, podcasts, blogs, and more

VIDEOS Oracle Software as a Service Business Practices for a More Accurate

Introduction to Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud fbit.ly/bZuLch Forecast with Oracle Crystal Ball
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Adam Messinger, vice president of development ings via Oracle On Demand. Accuracy in forecasting at all levels of the organi-
at Oracle, introduces Oracle Exalogic Elastic zation results in fewer surprises, more credibility,
Cloud—hardware and software engineered to work Canadian Partnership Against Cancer and greater profits. Find out how your organization
together for extreme Java performance. fbit.ly/bi4tfT can deliver the most accurate forecast possible,
See why Canadian Partnership Against Cancer even when historical data is limited.
TechCast Live: Inside the Oracle Cloud chose Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g to deploy its
Resource Model API partner portal. Oracle Unified Business Process
fbit.ly/bQrBVQ Management Suite 11g: The Unified,
Learn how Oracle’s collaboration with standards WEBCASTS Complete, and Social Solution to Tactical
bodies enables customers and partners to build Deploy a Highly Available Virtualized and Strategic Business Challenges
open and standards-based private clouds. Infrastructure with Oracle VM and Oracle fbit.ly/9UZTnT
Real Application Clusters Find out how Oracle Unified Business Process
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The New Standard for Business Learn how to use and deploy Oracle Real
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Customers, analysts, and partners describe how and create a production-ready multinode virtual For Oracle product information, call the number for your region.
Oracle Fusion Applications set the new standard environment in a fully automated way. Country Phone Number
U.S. and Canada 1.800.367.8674
for how people work, how enterprises innovate, Australia 1800.735.467
and how IT organizations adopt applications. Easy Access to Oracle Applications with Austria 0800.29.7626
Oracle Secure Global Desktop Belgium 0800.73280
Brazil 0800.901.985
Oracle On Demand: fbit.ly/bYcXvW China 800.810.0161
An Interview with Mike Beck Learn about Oracle Secure Global Desktop Denmark 8088.1068
fbit.ly/9DJAcR architecture and how Oracle applications can be Finland 0800.113.573
France 0800.905.805
Mike Beck, senior vice president of Oracle On installed on a small number of server systems and
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Demand global operations, discusses how orga- published to thousands of users, providing high Greece 00800.353.12020
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On Demand cloud services. India 1600.44.6725
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Enabling Private Clouds with Oracle VM Ireland 1850.672253
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Miranda Nash, vice president of product ering complete services on demand rather than The Netherlands 0800.0827
management at Oracle, discusses how Oracle piecemeal technology. New Zealand 0508.555.215
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data integration products make data continuously
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accessible and reliable. Improve Security and Accessibility for Portugal 800.853.021
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Stampa and Partners Achieves High Series Clients
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tomer financial reporting challenges with Oracle using a smart card, allow for long refresh cycles, Turkey 00800.353.90014
Hyperion Planning. and reduce power consumption. U.K. 0870.5.332200

oracle magazine January/February 2011

14 Resources
overHEARD
“What became clear from the start . . . was that Oracle’s
claims regarding Exadata’s speed, efficiency, and scalability
were not hype; if anything, they proved modest when com-
pared with actual experience.”
—Carl Olofson, IDC Analyst, in the Messages from Oracle OpenWorld 2010: Exadata Exceeds
Expectation and MySQL Thrives white paper (bit.ly/9weZ8w)
manage tactical and strategic business change.
Oracle On Demand Cloud Security
fbit.ly/95sY1H
Gail Coury, vice president of risk management at
Oracle, discusses how Oracle On Demand cloud
services address security concerns.
MySQL Essentials Webinar Series
fbit.ly/djroSo
This series covers everything you need to know
to successfully install, develop, deploy, scale,
manage, and secure your MySQL databases and
applications.
Get a Detailed Look at the New Oracle Data
Integrator 11g
fbit.ly/ccHrWe
See how Oracle GoldenGate 11g and Oracle
Data Quality for Data Integrator 11g provide the
industry’s most complete, open, and integrated
solution for managing enterprise data–centric
architectures.
Oracle Business Intelligence 11g and
Oracle Essbase
fbit.ly/9Bemaf
Find out how Oracle Business Intelligence Suite,
Enterprise Edition 11g and Oracle Essbase work
together to meet business intelligence challenges.
BLOG
SOA Governance@work
fblogs.oracle.com/governance
Get news from Oracle’s SOA governance team.
WHITE PAPERS
Messages from Oracle OpenWorld 2010:
Exadata Exceeds Expectation and
MySQL Thrives
fbit.ly/9weZ8w
International Data Corporation (IDC) analyst Carl
Olofson weighs in on Oracle Exadata and MySQL.
January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine
Introducing Exadata Database Machine
X2-8
fbit.ly/cDDH9E
Hear why Oracle’s Exadata Database Machine
X2-8 offers an ideal consolidation platform for
very large online transaction processing and data
warehousing applications.
Oracle’s New SPARC T3 Servers
fbit.ly/bTIPqo
Worldwide Embedded DBMS 2010–2014 Find out about the scalability, security, and afford-
Forecast and 2009 Vendor Shares ability advantages of the SPARC T3 processor
fbit.ly/cWcfO5 and the four new servers based on it.
This IDC report discusses why more independent
software vendors and original equipment manu- RESOURCE CENTER
facturers are choosing Oracle embedded data- Oracle Cloud Computing Center
bases, making Oracle the market leader for a third fbit.ly/bncDK4
consecutive year. Visit this information-packed center to increase
your knowledge of public and private clouds.
The Most Complete and Integrated
Virtualization: From Desktop to Datacenter TRAINING
fbit.ly/ctbPAz Siebel 8.1.x Training
Find out why virtualization at the operating foracle.com/education/siebel
system level alone is no longer sufficient. Oracle University offers dozens of training courses
covering the architecture, functionality, and data
Distributed Caching: Why It Matters for model of Oracle’s Siebel applications; integrating
Predictable Scalability on the Web, and Siebel CRM into an organization’s existing appli-
Where It’s Proving Its Value cations; and installing and configuring Siebel
fbit.ly/99y1Sx applications. Featured classes include Siebel 8.1.x
Read how distributed caching can provide Web- Installation and System Administration, Siebel
based organizations with almost unlimited scal- 8.1.x Tools, Siebel 8.1.x Business Analyst, and
ability in their data tiers. Siebel 8.1.x Core Consultant Course.
Magic Quadrant for Web Content web locator
Management
fbit.ly/9SKqVG Oracle Blog Center
Find out why Gartner places Oracle in the leaders oracle.com/blogs
quadrant for Web content management. Oracle Consulting
oracle.com/consulting
Oracle Events and Webcasts
MySQL Replication: Enhancing Scalability oracle.com/events
and Availability with MySQL 5.5 Oracle Podcast Center
fbit.ly/9swCgv oracle.com/podcasts
Learn about the benefits of MySQL Replication. Oracle Newsletters
oracle.com/newsletters
PODCASTS Oracle University
oracle.com/education
Enable Seamless Transformation and
Oracle on Twitter
Effective Adoption of Change with Oracle twitter.com/oracle
User Productivity Kit Oracle Support
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Hear how Oracle User Productivity Kit can help My Oracle Support
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successful change adoption.
 Partner
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or call 1.800.323.SELL

Copyright © 2010, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
16 Product Resources
DEMOS
Accelerating Application
Deployment with Oracle VM
See how Oracle VM enables enterprise
application deployment in minutes or hours,
not days or weeks.
Oracle’s Content Management and
Sun Tiered Storage Solution
Find out how you can manage all your data,
from application to archive, with maximum
efficiency using Oracle’s complete, open,
and integrated enterprise content manage-
ment solutions.
foracle.com/demos
TUTORIALS
Creating a Repository Using the
Oracle Business Intelligence
Administration Tool
This tutorial covers using Oracle
Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition’s
Administration Tool to build, modify,
enhance, and manage an Oracle business
intelligence repository.
Calling a Web Service from Oracle
Forms 10.1.2
Learn how to call a Web service from Oracle
Forms by using Oracle JDeveloper and
Oracle Application Development Framework
to build the interface to the Web service
with minimum coding.
fbit.ly/bXJyha
DOWNLOADS
New Downloads
Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler
Release 3 Early Adopter
fbit.ly/9v1kVx
Oracle Berkeley DB 11g Release 2
fbit.ly/beQN47
Oracle Linux JeOS
fbit.ly/97aIJl
Top Downloads
fbit.ly/cazuFb
Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control 11g
Oracle Database 11g Release 2
Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse 11g
Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g
Oracle GlassFish Server
Java Platform, Standard Edition
Oracle JDeveloper
MySQL
NetBeans
Oracle Solaris
January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine
Oracle Unveils Oracle Solaris 11 Express
Now available, Oracle Solaris 11 Express
delivers advanced Oracle Solaris features
that have been in development over the
past five years. Oracle Solaris 11 Express
provides availability features that greatly
reduce planned downtime by eliminating
traditional patching- and maintenance-
related reboots and vastly improving system
boot time. It also adds network virtualization
and resource management to the complete,
built-in virtualization capabilities of Oracle
Solaris, providing high-performance virtual-
ization with low overhead.
Oracle Solaris 11 Express also powers
Oracle’s Exadata Database Machine X2-2
and Exadata Database Machine X2-8 and
Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud.
“We are excited to announce the release
Oracle and Apple Collaborate on Java SE 7 for Mac
Oracle and Apple have announced the
OpenJDK project for Mac OS X. Apple will
contribute most of the key components,
tools, and technology required for a Java
Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) 7
implementation on Mac OS X, including a
32-bit and 64-bit HotSpot-based Java virtual
machine, class libraries, a networking stack,
and the foundation for a new graphical client.
OpenJDK will make Apple’s Java technology
Oracle VM Server for SPARC 2.0 Released
Oracle VM Server for SPARC 2.0, a server
virtualization solution, is now preinstalled
on Oracle’s SPARC T-Series servers. Oracle
VM Server for SPARC 2.0 (previously called
Logical Domains) allows as many as 128
virtual servers on one system by taking
advantage of the massive thread scale
offered by SPARC T-Series servers, including
the new SPARC T3 servers, enabling organi-
zations to benefit from increased flexibility
and improved server utilization.
Oracle VM Server for SPARC 2.0 includes
performance, resource management, flex-
ibility, power management, and availability
enhancements. It can support highly sophis-
ticated enterprise workloads, including
Oracle Real Application Clusters environ-
ments. With Oracle VM Server for SPARC,
organizations can run multiple separate
of Oracle Solaris 11 Express to enable our
customers to deploy the new advanced fea-
tures of Oracle Solaris 11 across a broad set
of platforms and our engineered systems:
Oracle Exadata and Oracle Exalogic Elastic
Cloud,” says John Fowler, executive vice
president, Oracle Hardware. “Through the
same engineering disciplines that achieved
a legendary mission-critical reputation
for Oracle Solaris, we are expecting Oracle
Solaris 11 to further reduce any downtime by
being quicker and easier to deploy, main-
tain, and update and to deliver a highly effi-
cient virtualized operating system to meet
the scale and performance requirements
of immediate and future virtualization and
cloud-based deployments.”
oracle.com/solaris
available to open source developers so they
can access and contribute to the effort.
“The availability of Java on Mac OS X plays
a key role in the cross-platform promise of
the Java platform,” says Hasan Rizvi, senior
vice president of development at Oracle. “The
Java developer community can rest assured
that the leading-edge Java environment will
continue to be available on Mac OS X.”
openjdk.java.net
operating system environments, including
both Oracle Solaris 10 and Oracle Solaris
11 Express, on SPARC T-Series servers. This
allows rapid consolidation of separate kernel
environments with sharing and dynamic
reallocation of CPU, network, storage, and
other resources.
“With advanced performance, manage-
ment, and availability features, Oracle VM
Server for SPARC 2.0 delivers unrivaled
enterprise-class virtualization capabilities,”
says Wim Coekaerts, senior vice president
of Linux and virtualization engineering at
Oracle. “What’s more, it clearly demon-
strates that Oracle is committed to con-
tinuing its investment in Oracle Solaris and
SPARC and offering fully optimized and inte-
grated solutions to our customers.”
bit.ly/bdH9QD

StorageTek Virtual Library Extension Available
Oracle has unveiled the StorageTek Virtual
Library Extension, the industry’s first
highly scalable second tier of disk
storage that optimizes tape processing in
mainframe environments. The StorageTek
Virtual Library Extension expands the
disk capacity of the StorageTek Virtual
Storage Manager virtual tape environment
to enable a secondary tier of disk-
based performance while maintaining
streamlined management. This addition
provides as much as 3.5
PB of additional effective
disk storage space, giving
customers more-seamless
disk buffer scalability
to manage growth and
increase performance
while reducing costs.
The integrated
StorageTek Virtual
Storage Manager/
StorageTek Virtual Library
Extension environment
is the only mainframe
virtual tape solution to
Oracle Cloud Resource Model API Unveiled
Oracle has released the Oracle Cloud
Resource Model Application Programming
Interface (Oracle Cloud API) for managing
cloud computing infrastructures. Oracle has
also contributed the Oracle Cloud Elemental
Resource Model API, a subset of the Oracle
Cloud API, to the Distributed Management
Task Force (DMTF) for consideration in
DMTF’s proposed infrastructure-as-a-
service (IaaS) cloud API standard.
The Oracle Cloud API follows the repre-
sentational state transfer (REST) architec-
ture style and uses HTTP methods to interact
with resources to achieve provisioning, asso-
ciating, modifying, and retiring of entities. As
a full resource model, the Oracle Cloud API
also includes composite entities to facilitate
system deployments and management,
including assemblies, deployment, and scal-
ability groups.
By leveraging virtualization, clustering,
and dynamic provisioning across all layers
of the stack, the Oracle Cloud API lets users
easily and efficiently manage their cloud-
provide a single, policy-based management
interface that migrates data between high-
performance disk, high-capacity disk, and
tape tiers.
The StorageTek Virtual Library Extension
maximizes data protection and availability
by leveraging the unique StorageTek
Virtual Storage Manager architecture that
enables data to be dynamically stored and
protected in multiple tiers of storage and
at multiple locations without involving the
mainframe. The product uses Oracle Solaris
ZFS technology to provide higher reliability
with triple-parity RAID-Z3, which delivers
five times more data reliability than IBM
systems using RAID-6.
“Oracle continues to address the needs
of mainframe virtual tape customers,” says
Robert Amatruda, research director of data
protection and recovery at International
Data Corporation (IDC). “Oracle’s StorageTek
Virtual Library Extension provides an innova-
tive and cost-effective approach by adding a
second tier of disk to its StorageTek Virtual
Storage Manager products.”
bit.ly/dgrPZE
based resources to deliver better business
agility and flexibility, high utilization, and
reduced costs.
The Oracle Cloud Elemental Resource
Model API encompasses the common ele-
ments that make up a cloud by specifying
machines, storage volumes, and networks.
The specification submitted to the DMTF
describes how a machine can be provi-
sioned from an image; how a volume can be
attached to a machine; and how a machine
can connect to a network.
“Enterprises are continuing to look to
cloud computing to extend the value of their
IT investments and better service users,”
says Sushil Kumar, vice president of product
strategy and business development at
Oracle. “With the Oracle Cloud API, Oracle
is further enabling customers and partners
to build and manage cloud environments—
based on an open, application-aware IaaS
platform—to improve service levels and the
overall end-user experience.”
bit.ly/dpY1Na
BRIEFS 17
Sun Ray Software 5.1 Released
Oracle has delivered Sun Ray Software 5.1,
the latest release of its software for reducing
the maintenance, upgrade, and operational
costs and complexity associated with tradi-
tional desktop environments and providing
users access to their virtual desktops from
nearly any location.
Sun Ray Software 5.1 includes enhance-
ments to media, Adobe Flash, audio, USB
support, and multidisplay capabilities,
providing organizations with a highly secure
and rich virtual desktop experience through
Oracle’s Sun Ray Clients, PCs, and laptops.
Sun Ray Software also provides enhanced
support for Microsoft Windows 7, Windows
XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows
Server 2008 R2 operating systems.
The new release takes full advantage of
the new Sun Ray 3 Series Clients to reduce
server workloads and provide a highly secure
virtual desktop solution, while continuing to
support a variety of other client devices.
“Oracle continues to enhance its desktop
virtualization portfolio and deliver new and
improved capabilities that provide customers
a highly secure, low-cost, and easy-to-use
remote desktop experience,” says Wim
Coekaerts, senior vice president of Linux and
virtualization engineering at Oracle. “The
Sun Ray Software 5.1 release delivers on
Oracle’s commitment to rapidly advancing
our desktop virtualization products.”
bit.ly/cjEX2q
Oracle CRM On Demand 18
Now Available
Oracle CRM On Demand 18, the newest
release of Oracle’s on-demand customer rela-
tionship management (CRM) product, intro-
duces industry-leading capabilities designed
to drive revenue and reduce costs. It delivers
qualified leads at lower cost, enables better
business planning regardless of market con-
ditions, and includes enterprise-grade cloud
security and network and access control.
“The latest release [of Oracle CRM On
Demand] brings needed integration between
the all-too-often-misaligned roles of mar-
keting and sales in the leads management
process,” says Mary Wardley, vice president of
CRM and enterprise applications at IDC.
oracle.com/crmondemand
ORACLE MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011
18 BRIEFS
Oracle Buys Art Technology Group
Oracle has agreed to acquire Art Technology
Group (ATG), a leading provider of e-
commerce software. ATG’s solutions enable
enterprises to provide a cohesive online
customer experience with sophisticated mer-
chandising, marketing, content personaliza-
tion, and live-help services. ATG also offers on-
demand commerce optimization applications
for providing immediate service response.
“Driven by the convergence of online
and traditional commerce and the need to
increase revenue and improve customer
Oracle Releases Sun ZFS Storage Appliance Product Line
Oracle has introduced its next-generation
Sun ZFS Storage Appliance product line.
These storage appliances boast 50 percent
more performance, two times more storage
capacity, and nearly three times more pro-
cessing power than the previous generation
of Oracle storage products.
Three new tightly integrated data protec-
tion solutions for Oracle Applications are
available for the Sun ZFS Storage Appliance
product line: Oracle Recovery Manager
backup optimizes backup with Sun ZFS
Storage Appliances; Oracle Database
cloning increases database performance
by integrating Sun ZFS Storage Appliances
with Oracle Data Guard; and Oracle Fusion
Middleware simplifies disaster recovery with
Sun ZFS Storage Appliances. These offerings
extend Oracle’s list of more than 70 qualified
software solutions with the Sun ZFS Storage
Oracle Invests in Mellanox Technologies
Oracle has acquired 10.2 percent of
ordinary-open-market shares of Mellanox
Technologies, a supplier of end-to-end
connectivity solutions for servers and
storage systems. Mellanox’ InfiniBand is
the premier switch fabric for enterprise
datacenters and high-performance
computing, providing superior scalability,
higher throughput, and lower latency
in comparison to alternative communica-
tions technologies.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE
loyalty, organizations across many indus-
tries are looking for a unified commerce and
CRM [customer relationship management]
platform to provide a seamless experience
across all commerce channels,” says Thomas
Kurian, executive vice president of product
development at Oracle. “Bringing together
the complementary technologies and prod-
ucts from Oracle and ATG will enable the
delivery of next-generation, unified cross-
channel commerce and CRM.”
oracle.com/atg
Appliance product line.
The product line combines a flash hybrid
storage pool architecture for file and block
workloads with DTrace Analytics for storage
and Web-based management, enabling
organizations to deploy new applications
faster and cut administrative costs in half.
The new Sun ZFS Storage Appliance
product line ranges from entry-level con-
figurations starting at 12 TB to high-end
systems that support more than 1 PB of
storage capacity.
“Oracle’s Sun ZFS Storage Appliances
have gained strong industry recognition with
an innovative architecture that enables cus-
tomers to cut their enterprise storage costs
in half and speed application deployment,”
says John Fowler, executive vice president,
Oracle Hardware. “The next-generation Sun
ZFS Storage Appliance product line delivers
more than two times the scale of the previous
generation and increases integration with
Oracle’s business-critical applications.”
oracle.com/goto/unified-storage
Oracle and Mellanox have had a long-
term strategic partnership that allows Oracle
to leverage Mellanox’ InfiniBand products to
create differentiated Oracle solutions such
as Oracle Exadata and Oracle Exalogic Elastic
Cloud machines.
“InfiniBand is by far the fastest and most
efficient switch fabric for running enterprise
datacenters,” says Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.
“We are a big supporter of the company.”
mellanox.com
Oracle Buys Passlogix
Oracle has agreed to acquire Passlogix,
a leading provider of enterprise single-
sign-on solutions. With Passlogix products,
organizations can improve and simplify
security by enabling single sign-on for a
broad range of client/server, mainframe,
and Web-based applications.
“Driven by regulatory mandates, orga-
nizations are being pressured to provide
stronger authentication mechanisms
while reducing the number of passwords
required,” says Amit Jasuja, vice president
of development, identity management, and
security products at Oracle. “Passlogix and
Oracle have had a successful OEM [original
equipment manufacturer] relationship for
more than three years and have many of
the same customers. With the addition of
Passlogix, we expect to provide a complete
enterprise-scale identity management solu-
tion and be able to provide more global reach
and support resources to customers.”
oracle.com/passlogix
Oracle Application Testing Suite
9.2 Delivered
Oracle has released Oracle Application
Testing Suite 9.2, the industry’s most com-
plete, open, and integrated application
testing solution for Web, SOA, and packaged
Oracle applications.
Oracle Application Testing Suite 9.2
extends support for automated functional
testing and load testing for Oracle Database,
Oracle Application Development Framework,
and Adobe Flex–based applications and
expands integration with Oracle Real User
Experience Insight, Oracle Real Application
Testing, and Oracle Diagnostics Pack for Oracle
Database. It also integrates key templates
from Capgemini Group’s Test Management
Approach, a business-driven, risk-based
approach for structured software testing that
helps organizations manage test processes.
“With Oracle Application Testing Suite
9.2, our customers can speed up the applica-
tion testing process, helping them consis-
tently deploy high-quality applications that
support their critical business processes,”
says Richard Sarwal, senior vice president of
product development at Oracle.
bit.ly/cYcnhK

Converged Hardware
Management
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 11g simplifies
hardware management in Oracle’s Sun environments and
reduces costs by as much as 90 percent.
O racle has streamlined systems and
virtualization management with the
release of Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops
Center 11g, a solution for managing systems
across traditional, virtualized, and cloud-
based datacenter environments. Through a
converged hardware management approach,
the new release simplifies management
tasks for all infrastructure assets. It delivers
infrastructure and lifecycle management, as
well as integrated support. And while Oracle
Enterprise Manager Ops Center 11g works as
a standalone console, when combined with
Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g it delivers
complete applications-to-disk management.
“By making hardware and OS manage-
ment more efficient, Oracle Enterprise
Manager Ops Center 11g can reduce manage-
ment overhead by as much as 90 percent,”
says Steve Wilson, vice president of systems
management at Oracle.
Infrastructure Management
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center
11g gives organizations the capability to
maximize the value of their investments in
Oracle’s Sun systems by managing across
Sun virtual machines, operating systems,
firmware, servers, clusters, storage, and
network fabrics. (Management of storage
devices, network switches, and clusters
is new in this release.) Oracle Enterprise
Manager Ops Center 11g further simplifies
IT operations by supporting management
across heterogeneous operating system
environments, including Oracle Solaris,
Oracle Linux, Red Hat Linux, and SUSE
Peter Stember
Linux. It also manages Oracle’s engineered
systems, Oracle Exadata and Oracle Exalogic
Elastic Cloud.
“We cover complete hardware monitoring
for Oracle Exadata and Oracle Exalogic
Elastic Cloud, giving you detailed hardware
health monitoring and fault detection and
helping you proactively drive up the avail-
ability on those systems,” says Wilson.
Lifecycle Management
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 11g
delivers a range of lifecycle management
capabilities, including end-to-end server
deployment, advanced discovery and inven-
tory, centralized alarm management, inte-
grated virtualization management, energy
performance management, and compliance
management. In terms of deployment,
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 11g
provides a complete solution for provi-
sioning and patch automation for physical
and virtual servers by providing end-to-end
Steve Wilson, Vice President of Systems
Management at Oracle
News by Caroline Kvitka 19
automated deployment plans.
“Patching is a huge headache,” says
Wilson. “Regardless of what platform you’re
using, new patches come out all the time.
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 11g
simplifies the patching process dramatically.
Our advanced analysis engine determines
which patches are needed by which systems
and then helps you safely roll them out
across hundreds or thousands of servers.”
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 11g
also manages the security and compliance
side of patching, from deploying security
patches to proving to an auditor that you are
in compliance with a vendor’s latest recom-
mended patches, Wilson explains.
In addition, Oracle Enterprise Manager
Ops Center 11g integrates virtualization
management, with a centralized interface for
lifecycle management of dynamic domains,
Oracle VM Server for SPARC, and Oracle
Solaris Containers. It also manages virtual
storage and networks. “Oracle Enterprise
Manager Ops Center 11g provides a rich
set of capabilities for creating new virtual
machines, monitoring them throughout
their lifecycle, and even doing complex oper-
ations like migrating them from one physical
host to another,” says Wilson.
Integrated Support
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center
11g is integrated with My Oracle Support,
Oracle’s suite of online support tools, to
provide integrated knowledge management,
service request management, and configura-
tion management. Now Oracle Enterprise
Manager Ops Center 11g users will be able to
easily track warranty and support contract
status on their servers. In addition, these new
oracle magazine January/February 2011
20 NEWS

features make it fast and easy for users to
manage their interactions with Oracle support
when they need help or replacement parts.
“We’ve integrated Oracle Enterprise
Manager Ops Center with My Oracle Support
so that if Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops
Center detects a fault in your hardware
systems, it can automatically collect all the
details on the fault and all the debugging
information that Oracle will need to fix the
problem and allows you to log a service
request to Oracle so that you can get the help
you need as quickly as possible,” Wilson says.
APPLICATIONS-TO-DISK MANAGEMENT
While Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center
11g functions as a standalone console, it
also works in concert with Oracle Enterprise
DOWNLOAD Oracle Enterprise Manager
Ops Center 11g
bit.ly/9jdw7x
Manager 11g to identify and resolve problems Oracle’s hardware and software. “By pro-
across the entire stack. A set of integrations viding a single, intuitive management console
between the two products enables real-time that spans a broad range of infrastructure and
information on hardware status and alarms software assets, we are enabling customers to
and integrated applications-to-disk compli- streamline operations, improve productivity,
ance. These integrations also support an and dramatically reduce management costs,”
applications-to-disk management capability Wilson concludes. 
to deliver infrastructure awareness for appli-
cation managers and application awareness Caroline Kvitka is
for system administrators. senior managing editor
“The people who manage servers and of Oracle Magazine and
storage will get visibility into what’s hap- Profit. She has been at
pening in the applications that they’ve never Oracle since 2001.
had before,” Wilson says. “And by the same
token, the people who are administering
NEXT STEPS
applications, middleware, and databases
now get visibility into what’s going on down
LEARN more about Oracle Enterprise
in the virtualization and hardware layers.” Manager Ops Center 11g
With the extensive integration work bit.ly/aybggT
included in Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops WATCH the Oracle Enterprise Manager
Center 11g, organizations will benefit from Ops Center 11g launch Webcast
bit.ly/aO2XSG
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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE


A Kernel of Truth
Oracle’s Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for Oracle Linux
delivers support for new hardware, new features, and
better data management.
O racle recently announced the
Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for
Oracle Linux. Tom Haunert, Oracle Magazine
editor in chief, sat down with Chris Mason,
director of Linux Kernel Engineering at
Oracle, to get the details. The following is an
excerpt from that interview. Download the
full podcast at oracle.com/magcasts.
Oracle Magazine: What is the Unbreakable
Enterprise Kernel for Oracle Linux?
Mason: The Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for
Oracle Linux is a new kernel for Oracle Linux
5.5. The new kernel is compatible with every-
thing existing in Oracle Linux 5.5 now, but it
also adds new features, hardware support,
and better performance on top of all that.
The Linux kernel interfaces with hardware,
so it’s key to performance of the system
because it controls the memory and the I/O
resources and all the things that the applica-
tions use to actually talk to the hardware. With
the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for Oracle
Linux, we’ve packaged up a more recent, more
mainline Linux kernel, and we’re offering it
with the existing Oracle Linux 5.5 stack.
Oracle Magazine: What are some of the key
hardware support features of the Unbreakable
Enterprise Kernel for Oracle Linux?
Mason: The Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel
for Oracle Linux adds support for a broad
range of new hardware. We have newer
drivers. We have better support for high-end
storage subsystems. We’ve spent a lot of
time in the mainline community developing
improved support for these things. We have
more support for a larger number of CPUs
and more RAM on the system. Basically, the
Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel provides a
complete hardware refresh in terms of what
Catherine Gibbons
the Oracle Linux distribution is able to handle.
There are a number of changes in the
Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel that allow
networking processing to scale across all
the CPUs on the system. The Unbreakable
Enterprise Kernel includes support that very
effectively spreads the network processing
load across all the CPUs on the system.
The 2.6.18 Linux kernel is showing its
age in terms of how efficiently it can access
Chris Mason, Director of Linux Kernel Engineering
at Oracle
solid-state storage. We did a benchmark
where the 2.6.18 kernel was only running
at around 4 GBs per second accessing a
number of high-end solid-state storage
drives. When we did the benchmark with the
new Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel, we got
it up to around 9.5 GBs per second. Most of
the improvement came from reduced lock
contention and spreading the I/O processing
across all the CPUs.
Oracle Magazine: What’s new in the
Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for Oracle
Linux in terms of availability?
Mason: One of the biggest new features in
Interview By Tom Haunert 21
that area is improved hardware fault man-
agement. We have more tools now to detect
errors in the hardware and report them back
up to the administrator before they actually
end up impacting the application. We have
the ability to take memory offline as it goes
bad without taking down the whole system.
The same carries through to individual
CPUs and individual components of the
CPUs, so that as we start noticing hardware
going bad, the system has the ability to do
something about it proactively and take that
hardware offline.
Oracle Magazine: What’s your favorite
administration feature in the Unbreakable
Enterprise Kernel for Oracle Linux?
Mason: One of my favorite new features is a
tool we’ve integrated called Latencytop. This
was originally developed by Intel, and it allows
administrators to very quickly find out what
the system is currently waiting on. It’s a very
easy way to answer the old question of, “Am
I bottlenecked on the disk, or am I waiting on
the network, or am I waiting for CPU?”
Oracle Magazine: What’s involved in running
applications on the new Unbreakable
Enterprise Kernel for Oracle Linux?
Mason: Any existing application should work
properly on the new Unbreakable Enterprise
Kernel. The kernel community dedicates a
great deal of resources to maintain stability,
and we did a great deal of testing as we were
developing the new kernel to make sure that
the applications would continue working. 
Next Steps
LEARN more about Oracle’s Unbreakable
Enterprise Kernel for Oracle Linux
oracle.com/us/technologies/linux
LISTEN to the podcast
oracle.com/magcasts
oracle magazine January/February 2011
22 Book Beat
Pro Oracle Database 11g
Administration
By Darl Kuhn
Apress
apress.com
Pro Oracle Database 11g
Administration is a task-
oriented, best-practices
approach to database
administration using Oracle Database 11g. It
helps you break down the Oracle Database
feature set and its documentation set.
Author Darl Kuhn condenses and organizes
the core job of a DBA and gives you a foun-
dation on which to achieve a senior level of
expertise. He provides clear explanations
on how to perform critical tasks. He weaves
in theory where necessary but doesn’t bog
you down in unnecessary detail. Kuhn is not
afraid to take a stand on how things should
be done, and he provides readers with clear
recommendations for database administra-
tion tasks.
Pro Oracle SQL
By Karen Morton,
Robyn Sands, Jared Still,
Riyaj Shamsudeen,
Kerry Osborne
Apress
apress.com
In Pro Oracle SQL, Karen
Morton and her team of OakTable Network
experts take you beyond Oracle SQL syntax
by showing you how to write successful
queries and data manipulation that perform
well and deliver correct results.
The book also helps you master pow-
erful aspects of Oracle SQL not found in
competing databases. You’ll learn analytic
functions, the MODEL clause, and advanced
grouping syntax—features that help in
creating good queries for reporting and
business intelligence applications. You’ll
learn when to create indexes, how to verify
that they make a difference, how to use SQL
Profiles to optimize SQL in packaged appli-
cations, and much more.
Oracle CRM On Demand
Combined Analyses
By Michael D. Lairson
Oracle Press
mhprofessional.com
Oracle CRM On Demand
Combined Analyses
provides a detailed, step-
by-step guide to using
combined analyses to develop reports
within Oracle CRM On Demand. Author
Michael D. Lairson provides a detailed and
methodical explanation of how and when
to use combined analyses, which provide a
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE
mechanism by which outer joins between
tables can be created virtually. The book
highlights real-world business cases where
a combined analysis is critical to devel-
oping an accurate and meaningful report.
These case studies for different types of
report unions provide a framework for
tested and proven usage of the set opera-
tors in developing combined reports.
Joe Celko’s SQL for Smarties,
4th Edition
By Joe Celko
Morgan Kaufmann
elsevierdirect.com
Published in 1995, Joe
Celko’s SQL for Smarties
was hailed as the first
book devoted explicitly
to the advanced techniques needed to
transform an experienced SQL programmer
into an expert. Now in its fourth edition,
this book remains a classic reference that
teaches programmers and practitioners
how to become SQL masters.
Author and SQL expert Joe Celko offers
the best solutions to old and new challenges
and explains the way you need to think in
order to get the most out of SQL program-
ming efforts for both correctness and per-
formance. The fourth edition features new
examples to reflect the ANSI/ISO standards
and includes updates to data element
names to meet new ISO-11179 rules. Celko
also expands his coverage of solid-state
drives, parallel processors, and how new
hardware will change how SQL works.
The Practitioner’s Guide to Data
Quality Improvement
By David Loshin
Morgan Kaufmann
elsevierdirect.com
Many business problems
and flawed information
production processes
can be mitigated through
data quality management and control.
The Practitioner’s Guide to Data Quality
Improvement covers the fundamentals for
understanding the impacts of poor data
quality and looks at data quality in terms of
people, processes, and technology.
Author David Loshin guides practitioners
and managers alike in socializing and gaining
sponsorship for, planning, and establishing
a data quality program. This book shares
templates and processes for business impact
analysis, defining data quality metrics,
inspection and monitoring, remediation, and
using data quality tools.
Look for other Oracle books at oracle.com/
technetwork/community/bookstore.
Accenture and Infosys Achieve
Diamond Partner Level
Oracle has expanded its specialization
partner program and created the highest
level in the Oracle PartnerNetwork:
Diamond. The first partners to achieve
Diamond status are Accenture and Infosys
Technologies.
Accenture is a global management con-
sulting, technology services, and outsourcing
company with comprehensive experience
and capabilities across all industries and
business functions. With more than 50,000
Oracle professionals, Accenture serves
clients in more than 120 countries.
Infosys, with 25,000 Oracle consultants
worldwide, boasts 20 specializations across
the Oracle product portfolio. It recently
opened the Infosys-Oracle Solution Center
at Oracle’s global headquarters, where it
conceptualizes, showcases, and demon-
strates solutions that benefit the specific
environments and business requirements
of the two companies’ joint clients.
Oracle Diamond Partners have broad and
deep expertise across core Oracle technolo-
gies, as demonstrated by at least 20 Oracle
specializations. Diamond Partners must also
have at least five advanced specializations,
each of which requires at least 50 certified
implementation specialists.
accenture.com
infosys.com
InQuira Becomes Oracle CRM On
Demand Inner Circle Partner
Gold Partner InQuira has joined the Oracle
CRM On Demand Inner Circle, which show-
cases partners with proven customer success
and a solution that is synergistic with Oracle
CRM On Demand—in InQuira’s case, its
InQuira On Demand cloud-based Web self-
service and contact center solution.
The InQuira solution provides customer
service agents with one-click access to
answers from across the enterprise. The
combination of Oracle CRM On Demand and
InQuira On Demand provides an integrated,
multichannel customer service experience
that optimizes call center operations, pro-
vides online case deflections, and delivers a
differentiated online experience.
inquira.com

Simba Technologies Announces MDX Provider for Oracle OLAP
Oracle partner Simba Technologies has features of MDX Provider include visual
released MDX Provider for Oracle OLAP 2.0, slicers for improved dimensional filtering
a product that natively and securely con- of complex data sets, and sparklines that
nects Microsoft Excel PivotTable cross-tab enable cell-level formatting with embedded
and dashboard functionality with Oracle microcharts. MDX Provider for Oracle OLAP
OLAP data. 2.0 integrates with Excel Services 2010 and
MDX Provider for Oracle OLAP 2.0 sup- Excel Services 2007 to store and share work-
ports 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Microsoft books on Microsoft SharePoint. It supports
Excel 2010 and permits drillthroughs within Oracle Database 11g Releases 1 and 2.
Excel to the originating Oracle data. Other simba.com
HCL and Oracle Improve Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Integrity
Oracle Platinum Partner HCL Technologies, drug product serial data and e-pedigree
an IT services company, is working with data as pharmaceutical products move
Oracle to help pharmaceutical organizations across the supply chain. The partnership
comply with regulatory requirements using will leverage HCL’s multiservice capabilities,
Oracle Pedigree and Serialization Manager including domain consulting, design
and Oracle E-Business Suite. collaboration and manufacturing, IT ser-
This partnership will help customers in vices, business process optimization,
HCL’s Life Science, Healthcare, and Chemical and infrastructure.
Practice to comply with emerging electronic Although it is designed to address the
pedigree (e-pedigree) initiatives and regu- product identification needs of pharma-
latory requirements designed to reduce ceutical companies, Oracle Pedigree and
drug counterfeiting Serialization Manager as provided by HCL
and product diversion. Technologies can be used in any industry
Oracle Pedigree and with high-value products at risk of counter-
Serialization Manager feiting and piracy, such as medical devices,
generates, stores, trans- high technology, and luxury goods.
mits, and authenticates hcltech.com
Pythian Completes Oracle PartnerNetwork Specializations
The Pythian Group, an Oracle Platinum tions, and demonstrated experience, exper-
Partner, has achieved four specializations tise, and success with planning, deploying,
under the Oracle PartnerNetwork Specialized and managing Oracle products in complex,
Program: Oracle Database 11g, Oracle Real large-scale environments.
Application Clusters, Oracle Database per- Pythian has been an Oracle partner since
formance tuning, and Oracle Linux. Pythian 1999 and has provided services across the
met rigorous business and technical com- entire Oracle technology stack.
petency criteria to achieve these specializa- pythian.com
Oracle and Capgemini Group Team Up for Application Testing
Oracle and Platinum Partner Capgemini The Oracle Software Testing Center of
Group have expanded their testing rela- Excellence will use the Capgemini Group’s
tionship by creating a new global initiative structured testing methodology, called Test
called the Oracle Software Testing Center of Management Approach (TMap), together
Excellence. Established within the Capgemini with Oracle’s application quality manage-
Group in India and its local professional ser- ment solutions, including Oracle Application
LINDY GROENING
vices subsidiary, Sogeti, the center will help Testing Suite, Oracle Real Application
customers deliver higher-quality applications Testing, and Oracle Data Masking Pack.
in less time and at lower cost. capgemini.com/testing
Partner News 23
Partners Go Platinum
Four Oracle partners achieved Platinum
Partner status or announced Oracle special-
izations within their Platinum status:
New Platinum Partner Birlasoft has
Centers of Excellence in Oracle E-Business
Suite, Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise and
Siebel Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) applications, and Oracle CRM On
Demand solutions. The company runs global
delivery centers in China and Mexico and
serves clients in banking and financial ser-
vices, insurance, and manufacturing with
industry-specific application development
and management, quality assurance, and
managed infrastructure services.
Enkitec is one of the first Oracle part-
ners in North America to achieve Platinum
specialization status within multiple
categories. Enkitec now holds specializa-
tions in Oracle Exadata, Oracle Database
11g, Oracle Database security, Oracle data
warehousing, Oracle Linux, Oracle Database
performance tuning, and Oracle Real
Application Clusters.
Systems integrator Hexaware
Technologies achieved the Platinum
Partner level in recognition for the more
than 500 projects it has delivered across
Oracle product lines including Oracle’s
PeopleSoft Enterprise and Siebel CRM,
Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle Business
Intelligence Enterprise Edition, and Oracle’s
Hyperion performance management appli-
cations. The company’s core expertise
includes development support, integration,
implementation, and testing services.
New Platinum Partner Mitel, a provider
of unified communications software solu-
tions, was recognized for its expertise and
excellence in delivering integrated voice and
data virtualized desktop solutions. The Mitel
Unified IP Client for Sun Ray voice-enables
Oracle’s Sun Ray clients, providing access
to telephony and desktop applications via a
Java card. Mitel Communications Director,
the company’s core call-control software,
runs on Oracle Sun Fire x86 clustered
systems and StorageTek tape and library
storage solutions.
birlasoft.com
enkitec.com
hexaware.com
mitel.com
oracle magazine January/February 2011
24 Partner News
Oracle Validates Partner Integrations
Seven Oracle partners have achieved vali-
dated integrations between their products
and Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.
Oracle partner @hand’s Field Mobility
System (FMS) version 5.4.3 product connects
mobile workflows, such as work order man-
agement and asset tracking, with the equiva-
lent functions in Oracle E-Business Suite.
@hand FMS is standards-based, supports
disconnected mobile data capture and
complex mobile transaction processing,
and can run on a variety of handheld, tablet,
laptop, and smartphone platforms.
ShipConsole 5, from Platinum Partner
Apps Associates, integrates Oracle
E-Business Suite with parcel and freight car-
riers such as UPS and FedEx. ShipConsole
facilitates online shipping, label printing,
ship confirmation, and real-time shipment
tracking through Oracle Shipping Execution.
It transmits shipping information from
Oracle E-Business Suite
to carriers and saves
tracking information and
freight costs retrieved
from carriers. It enables
shipping of complete,
partial, and back-order
items and allows users to enter and validate
item serial numbers at the time of shipping.
InFlight, from Platinum Partner Business
& Technology Resource Group (BTRG),
enables integration between Oracle’s
PeopleSoft Enterprise applications and
Microsoft SharePoint 2007. InFlight, a
proprietary SharePoint Web Part combined
with a custom HTTP handler, requires no
customization of the PeopleSoft applica-
tion. With InFlight, users can view and edit
PeopleSoft information within a SharePoint
portal as defined by their PeopleSoft access
privileges; the content can adopt the look
and feel of the SharePoint portal or retain its
native PeopleSoft interface.
GL Wand 4.1, from Oracle partner
Excel4apps, provides Microsoft Excel–based
reporting and budget-loading software for
use with Oracle applications. GL Wand allows
Excel-based report creation and queries
against Oracle data, enabling accountants
and other users with minimal Oracle training
to do data analysis and ad hoc reporting.
GL Wand requires no data replication, has
January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine
centralized application management, and
utilizes the Oracle applications’ sign-on.
AppDirector version 2.11 is an intelligent
application delivery controller from Oracle
partner Radware. AppDirector optimizes
server utilization and improves application
performance for Oracle E-Business Suite
transactions. It offloads resource-intensive
processing, provides advanced health moni-
toring, eliminates network disruptions, and
manages enterprise traffic. It also enables
fine-tuning of network behavior based
on granular, application-specific packet
classification.
Gold Partner Solix Technologies’ Solix
Enterprise Data Management Suite 4.5.1
(Solix EDMS) automates enterprise data-
base archiving, application migration,
and application upgrades, and is used to
relocate historical transactional business
objects from a production database to an
active archive. Solix EDMS provides data
referential integrity and secure archiving and
eliminates the need to synchronize proce-
dures when patches are applied. Solix EDMS
archiving also improves application perfor-
mance, makes backup faster, and improves
disaster recovery. Solix EDMS is integrated
with Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 modules
including general ledger, accounts receiv-
able, accounts payable, purchasing, order
management, and inventory.
Sabrix Application Suite, from the Tax
and Accounting business of Gold Partner
Thomson Reuters, employs standard Oracle
integration techniques to add tax determina-
tion and calculation to the order-to-cash and
procure-to-pay business processes in Oracle
E-Business Suite. Sabrix eliminates the need
for sales and accounting personnel to make
tax decisions and eliminates manual jurisdic-
tion code or tax code assignments during
transaction processing. It has robust, vendor-
charged tax and accrual functionality and
eliminates the need to store and maintain tax
rates within Oracle applications.
hand.com
appsassociates.com
btrgroup.com
excel4apps.com/oracle
radware.com
solix.com
thomsonreuters.com
Oracle and IBM Collaborate
Through OpenJDK
Oracle and IBM will collaborate to support
OpenJDK, the leading open source Java devel-
opment environment, to help developers and
organizations build and innovate based on
existing Java investments and the OpenJDK
reference implementation.
Both companies will support the recently
announced OpenJDK development roadmap,
which accelerates the availability of Java
Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) across the
open source community. The OpenJDK com-
munity will be the primary location for open
source Java SE development, and the Java
Community Process will continue to be the
primary standards body for Java specifications.
ibm.com/java
Partners Develop Solutions for
Oracle Fusion Applications
Two partners are working with Oracle on
Oracle Fusion Applications–based solutions.
Cognizant, an Oracle Platinum Partner, is
now an Oracle Fusion Applications codevel-
opment partner for customer relationship
management (CRM). Cognizant and Oracle
will codevelop CRM software tools to enable
seamless, secure, and rapid integration and
migration of customer data from Oracle’s
Siebel CRM to Oracle Fusion CRM applica-
tions. Cognizant is also assisting in Oracle
Fusion CRM application testing and pro-
viding its teams worldwide with training in
Oracle Fusion Applications and technology.
Oracle Platinum Partner Wipro
Technologies and Oracle have launched
a joint development initiative for next-
generation Oracle Fusion Applications.
Wipro’s investments around Oracle Fusion
Applications include embedded product
development and strategy initiatives and in-
depth, structured product training in func-
tional business applications and technical
foundation architecture. Codevelopment
with Oracle allows Wipro to engage and
deliver Oracle Fusion Applications in stand-
alone situations, upgrades, or coexistence
with existing applications investments
such as Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle’s
LINDY GROENING
PeopleSoft, and Oracle’s CRM applications.
cognizant.com
wipro.com

Java Evolves
At JavaOne, Oracle details a roadmap
for JDK 7, JDK 8, and beyond.
C onferences have many worthwhile
purposes. For attendees, they offer the
opportunity for immersion in content that
ideally leads to better job performance,
as well as the chance to meet peers and
colleagues with similar interests. For the
conference organizer, the ability to interact
with end users face-to-face and to focus
employees around a particular set of goals
and messages can be very useful.
The JavaOne 2010 conference delivered
all those things. And for Oracle Technology
Network, it served another crucial purpose:
to galvanize the Java community around the
common goal of the progressive evolution of
the Java platform and ecosystem.
Plan B: The Path Forward for Java
The most important Java-related news to
emerge from JavaOne was Oracle’s unveiling
of the proposed schedule and contents of
Oracle’s commercial Java Development Kit
7 (JDK 7)—and by extension, JDK 8. Getting
this schedule clarified and on track had been
a major goal across the Java community.
As Mark Reinhold, chief architect in the
Java Platform Group at Oracle, explained
in a September 2010 (pre-JavaOne) blog
post, “It’s been clear for some time that the
most recent JDK 7 development schedule
[the one originally proposed by Sun] is, to
put it mildly, unrealistic.” Instead, Reinhold
proposed a choice between a “Plan A” and
“Plan B,” with Plan A being to adhere to the
Sun vision of JDK 7 and thus a 2012 release
and Plan B being “to take everything we have
now, test and stabilize it, and ship that as
JDK 7 [in 2011].” Reinhold also wrote that
his team could then finish other features in
a JDK 8 release that could ship “fairly soon
thereafter,” presumably in 2012.
After gathering feedback on these options
from the community—where there was
a very clear preference for Plan B—that
CONNECT: blogs.oracle.com/otn on.fb.me/otnfb
plan was formally anointed by Thomas
Kurian, executive vice president of product
development at Oracle, in his JavaOne
keynote address as the plan of record for
the JDK. With that issue settled, Oracle
also announced that Java Specification
Requests (JSRs) for JDK 7 and JDK 8 would be
forthcoming in the Java Community Process;
the status of these JSRs had also been a
matter for speculation.
With the details of Plan B laid out, book
authors can plan their next projects with
publishers, speakers can update their
presentations for accuracy, trainers can plan
for education needs—and overall, people can
refer to a concrete plan for Java’s future. That
is more than what could be said three years,
two years, or even one year ago.
Java Champions, Activate!
Even when you’re armed with the right
information, it’s still very important to
know the “right” people to help make
this information widely known. In the
case of Java, those people are the Java
Champions—a self-governed group of
independent Java technology evangelists
who preach the Java gospel around the
globe—and the leaders of Java User Groups
(JUGs) worldwide.
For the first time, Oracle Technology
Network was able to help host those groups
at JavaOne, superseding many months of
virtual interaction with irreplaceable face
time. Working with Oracle’s Java evangelist
team, the Oracle Technology Network team
helped bring those groups into the loop
and get their feedback about the above
developments (and many other things,
including the JavaOne conference itself).
Java Champions and JUG leaders joined
scores of Oracle ACEs, who made their
annual pilgrimages to Oracle OpenWorld at
various Oracle Technology Network–hosted
twitter.com/oracletechnet linkd.in/otnli
Community Bulletin by Justin Kestelyn 25
events. It was fascinating to see the Java
leaders and Oracle ACEs, who have a
surprising amount in common, begin to get
to know each other—and we look forward to
seeing more of the same at future meetings.
A Clear Road Ahead
A stable, realistic roadmap is required for
broad adoption of any technology. While Java
may have lacked such a roadmap in recent
years, times have changed. With community
leaders on board, hopefully we’ll see that
adoption not only continue at historic levels
but even expand.
Here are my recommendations for getting
more information on Java-related topics:
• Re-Thinking JDK 7, by Mark Reinhold:
blogs.sun.com/mr/entry/rethinking_jdk7
• Plan B: The Details, by Mark Reinhold:
blogs.sun.com/mr/entry/plan_b_details
• Highlights from Thomas Kurian’s JavaOne
keynote: bit.ly/cNT9Qi
• The Java Champions Project:
java-champions.dev.java.net 
Justin Kestelyn
(justin.kestelyn@oracle
.com) is senior director,
Oracle Technology
Network and developer
programs, as well as
Oracle Technology Network editor in chief.
Web Locator
Oracle Technology Network Home Page
oracle.com/technetwork
Java Home Page
oracle.com/technetwork/java
Database Admins and Developers Home Page
oracle.com/technetwork/dbadev
System Admins and Developers Home Page
oracle.com/technetwork/systems
Architect Home Page
oracle.com/technetwork/architect
oracle magazine January/February 2011
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Enterprise Architecture
in Interesting Times
Business and technology continue to shape
enterprise architecture.
M ay you live in interesting times,” says
the old curse. Enterprise architects
who have plied their trade over the last 10
years know too well just how interesting
the first decade of the twenty-first century
has been. Enterprise architects are in the
business of adaptation, and the rapid
evolution of information technology and
the level to which that technology has
permeated the human experience have
kept enterprise architects very busy trying
to hit a moving target that shows no signs
of standing still. What factors had the
greatest impact on enterprise architecture
in the last decade? I put that question to a
number of people who spent the decade in
the architecture trenches.
“I clearly see the evolution of Web
services and subsequently SOA as
having the biggest impact on enterprise
architecture,” says Oracle ACE Director Ron
Batra, director of product development at
AT&T. “Web services and SOA have enabled
a high level of interoperability, accelerating
time to market and reducing complexity
and software development costs.”
Oracle ACE Director Lonneke Dikmans,
an enterprise architect at Approach
Alliance, offers a different angle on SOA’s
impact on enterprise architecture.
“The whole world is now your
competitor,” Dikmans says. “This means
you must be more cost effective and
flexible. This has led to SOA as a concept.
But to achieve a SOA, you need some form
of enterprise architecture or planning
across the enterprise. That realization
started with large international companies
but has been picked up by smaller
organizations as well.”
That trend—the growing recognition of
the value of enterprise architecture—has
CONNECT: blogs.oracle.com/archbeat facebook.com/brhubart
had a significant impact. “Enterprise
architecture has emerged in the last 10
years as a real, respected, and matured area
of interest and expertise,” says Oracle ACE
Director Ronald van Luttikhuizen. “People
take it more seriously.”
But according to Mans Bhuller, senior
director with Oracle’s Enterprise Solutions
Group, that would not have happened
without the emergence and maturity of
architecture standards and specifications.
“Without these standards, there would
be no agreed-upon methods to specify,
document, and communicate architectural
patterns among the enterprise architecture
community,” Bhuller says. “Now we have
common tools and taxonomy to talk among
ourselves and to our customers.”
Talk itself—in the form of social
computing—was another factor that helped
to shape enterprise architecture. “The
rise of social networking and the focus on
collaboration have been very important,”
says Oracle ACE Director Mike van Alst, an
independent architect. “They will play an
important role in the next decade as well.”
Other factors will continue to shape
enterprise architecture over the next
10 years.
“We’ll see more of the big shift already
underway,” says Oracle ACE Director
Floyd Teter. “Moving away from federated
hardware joined by ad hoc network designs
and moving to centralized datacenters—
both local and cloud configurations—that
leverage virtualization to meet the varied
needs of a multitude of users.”
Batra also sees a major role for
cloud computing. “Besides shrinking
geographical boundaries,” he says, “cloud
computing will usher in an entirely new
level of sophistication for procuring,
twitter.com/brhubart linkedin.com/in/bobrhubart
Architect By Bob Rhubart 27
managing, deploying, and administering
software and hardware subsystems.”
Bhuller sees new tools in the future for
enterprise architects. “The emergence of
lightweight introspective and design tools
will help the enterprise architect reverse-
engineer current state architectures and
formulate future state architectures.”
Dikmans predicts a technology-
driven cultural shift, what she calls the
“emancipation of consumers.”
“People will become coproducers rather
than just being consumers of products
and services,” says Dikmans. “A company’s
strategy will no longer be determined
just by the management but also by its
customers and employees.”
One thing is certain: the enterprise
architecture target isn’t about to stop
moving. It’s going to be another interesting
decade. 
Bob Rhubart
(bob.rhubart@oracle.com)
is manager of the
architect community
on Oracle Technology
Network, the host of the
Oracle Technology Network Arch2Arch podcast
series, and the author of the ArchBeat blog
(blogs.oracle.com/archbeat).
Next Steps
GET more architect information
oracle.com/technetwork/architect
READ more about enterprise architecture
oracle.com/technetwork/architect/entarch
LISTEN to ArchBeat podcasts
feeds2.feedburner.com/OtnArch2Arch
bit.ly/9X6j2T
oracle magazine January/February 2011
28
French Connection
Common business practices and language bring
far-flung Oracle users to AUFO.
Y ou need a few basics to fashion a
successful user group, says Jean-Jacques
Camps of the Association of French-Speaking
Oracle Users (l’Association des Utilisateurs
Francophones d’Oracle, also known as AUFO).
“You need common business practices, you
need to be close enough to attend meetings,
and you need a common language,” says
Camps, a longtime AUFO president. So it
makes perfect sense, he continues, for his
Paris, France–based user group to draw
contacts from Switzerland and Algeria.
“In northern Africa, we share common
language and practices with much of the
business community, and it’s just a couple
of hours away by plane,” says Camps. AUFO
has established active contacts in Algeria
and is currently working with Moroccan
and Tunisian businesses to activate new
members there.
A Valuable Resource
French-speaking Oracle users have many
good reasons to join AUFO. The group hosts
a range of special interest groups, runs
contests to help users show off their Oracle-
based projects, and provides as many as
30 miniconferences, called commissions,
throughout the year. Each commission
is formed around a single theme such as
database monitoring, paperless invoices, or
managing support services. AUFO invites an
expert from Oracle or a consulting company
to provide a lecture; the lecture is followed
by testimonials from group members, which
are then followed by an open debate. The
member testimonials are key. “No testi-
mony, no commission,” says Camps. “I don’t
want these to be marketing events; they are
to be an exchange of practices and lessons.”
The commissions seem to be a natural
extension of Camps’ user group philosophy.
“It’s about real life,” he says. “It’s about what
works for you or doesn’t work, your failures,
January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine
Jean-Jacques Camps, President, Association of
French-Speaking Oracle Users (l’Association des
Utilisateurs Francophones d’Oracle)
your ideas, the clever things you have done
that you can show and use for networking.”
During his career, Camps has worked on
projects that have pushed him to reach out
to fellow AUFO members for help. His first
Oracle E-Business Suite implementation,
in 1996, encompassed 30 manufacturing
plants in four countries using two lan-
guages. In 2003 Camps was elected to the
AUFO board of directors. Later that year, he
missed a board meeting and was elected
president in his absence.
“That was seven years ago, and I am
still going,” says Camps, who adds that his
leadership position helps him meet people
and learn things he would not otherwise
be exposed to. “Nothing beats firsthand
knowledge from a fellow member,” he
says. “I like to be in this user group world
because real life is much more painful and
much more clever than marketing mate-
rials. You learn more.” Camps’ current
project for his employer makes the perfect
case for user group involvement. He and
Up Close By Jeff Erickson
his team are implementing a common
instance of Oracle E-Business Suite at sites
around the world using four languages:
Chinese, English, French, and Japanese. “I
used to think that Belgian fiscal laws were
the world’s most complicated, but I am
discovering that they are child’s play next to
India’s,” he says.
Clever Projects
Camps likes the creativity that technical
and cultural challenges provoke. So AUFO
designed a contest to allow its members to
show off their projects. Called the Oracle
Trophées, the contest is open to any Oracle
technology or application but requires the
technology to have been in production for
more than three months. A jury made up of
an industry journalist (if available), two uni-
versity professors, three Oracle employees,
three AUFO members, and the previous
year’s winner judges the Oracle Trophées.
“We bring people from the outside to give
us a neutral view of the competitors,”
says Camps. The competition is extremely
popular and draws submissions from
many French-speaking nations. “Helping
members shine is an important function of
our user group,” he says. 
Jeff Erickson
(jeffrey.x.erickson@
oracle.com) is a senior
editor with Oracle
Publishing.
Next Steps
LEARN more about AUFO
aufo.fr
Nora Stratton
WATCH the Up Close interview with
Jean-Jacques Camps
oracle.com/oramag/upclose

Hack, Tweet, Repeat
Three peers on the tools and techniques that are making their lives easier.
Chet Justice
Company: BI Wizards, a business intelligence
and application development consultancy
Job title/description: Consultant, responsible
primarily for metadata development
Location: Tampa, Florida
Length of time using Oracle products:
More than 8 years
How did you get started in IT? I was working
as a data entry clerk for a university that sent
out thank-you notes to donors, and when
I noticed the same names and addresses
coming through over and over, I created a
Microsoft Access database to store much
of the information. I then hooked that
database up with Microsoft Word templates
to make my job even easier. Pretty soon I was
managing our five department databases,
and I began taking programming classes at
the local community college.
What advice do you have about how to get
into application development? Download
software and start playing with it. This is one
of my absolute favorite things about Oracle:
the ability to download enterprise-class
software and use it on your own machine.
How are you using social media in your work
today? Thanks to Twitter and my blog, I’ve
been able to have technical conversations
with some industry heavyweights: Cary
Millsap, Christian Berg, Alex Gorbachev,
Eddie Awad, Chen Shapira, Jake Kuramoto,
Matt Topper, Lewis Cunningham, John Scott,
Dimitri Gielis . . . I could go on and on. I
encourage other Oracle people to add these
tools to their repertoire.
Learn more about the Oracle ACE program at oracle.com/technetwork/community/oracle-ace.
Oded Raz
Company: Brillix, a database consulting
company
Job title/description: CEO and founder,
responsible for business development and
research and serving as lead consultant on
Oracle Database and Oracle security projects
Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
Length of time using Oracle products: 8 years
What are your favorite processes or
techniques on the job? Troubleshooting—the
ability to understand a problem and isolate
its origin. I’m also interested in hacking
techniques—investigating and finding holes
in application and database implementations
using techniques such as SQL injection,
cross-site scripting, and impersonation.
Which new features in Oracle Database are
you currently finding most valuable? One
feature I find highly valuable is Oracle
Database Vault. Until now, strong users
such as DBAs and those with a SELECT ANY
TABLE role had no limitations to seeing
all the data inside the database. Oracle
Database Vault introduced a new security
admin feature that can prevent other
users—even those in a DBA role—from
seeing sensitive data and manipulating it
or its base objects. Now organizations can
safely protect sensitive data from strong
users without compromising their ability to
perform their jobs.
How are you using cloud computing in your
work today? We’re using Google apps for our
central mail and calendar system, and we’re
using cloud-based applications for customer
relationship management and time sheets.
Peer-To-Peer by Blair Campbell 29
Simon Haslam
Company: Veriton, a specialist consultancy in
Oracle middleware and end-to-end application
performance tuning
Job title/description: Principal consultant and
founder, responsible for designing architectures
and troubleshooting as necessary
Location: Sherborne, Dorset, England
Length of time using Oracle products:
16 years
What’s your favorite tool or technique on the
job? Even now with multitiered systems, most
performance problems tend to be a result of
how an application is using—or abusing—the
database. The Active Session History feature
introduced in Oracle Database 10g helps
identify rogue statements and track down
where the application is going wrong.
Which new features in Oracle Fusion
Middleware are you finding most valuable? A
recent discovery has been Oracle JRockit’s new
Flight Recorder tool. It’s a circular diagnostics
buffer, which in the event of a serious JVM
[Java Virtual Machine] problem allows you to
replay recent method calls and help diagnose
what went wrong.
If you were going to the International Space
Station for six months and could only take
one Oracle reference book, what would it
be? As a bit of an Oracle polymath, I’d want to
cover all bases. So I’d take e-books, including
Professional Oracle WebLogic Server [Wrox,
2009], Oracle JRockit: The Definitive Guide
[Packt Publishing, 2010], Oracle Fusion
Developer Guide [McGraw-Hill Osborne
Media, 2009], and Pro Oracle Database 11g
RAC on Linux [Apress, 2010]. 
oracle magazine January/February 2011
 open for
business
MySQL community wins
with better innovation, support,
and integration. by David A. Kelly

Sometimes, relatively small things can make a big impact. Take the case
of the MySQL database. First released in 1995 and purchased by Sun in 2008, MySQL has quickly
graduated from the realm of hobbyists to the world of business, becoming the leading open source
database for many Web applications and an integral part of the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP)
Web application stack. Almost a year after Oracle’s acquisition of Sun, MySQL plays an even bigger
role in enterprises of all sizes worldwide.
“I think that MySQL, and all the experimenting that people are doing with it, helps to advance
database technology in general,” says Carl Olofson, research vice president of database manage-
ment and data integration software research at International Data Corporation (IDC). “It’s a type
of ‘rising tide that lifts all boats’ phenomenon in which even people in the commercial database
world can benefit from products like MySQL that get adopted, adjusted, and extended to work
effectively in different problem spaces.”
Olofson goes on to explain that MySQL has become a popular solution across a variety of applica-
tions and services with varying business requirements. “A lot of people using MySQL to create Web
applications and online services choose to use MySQL because it enables them to scale up their
environment in a fairly low-cost way,” says Olofson. “We’re also seeing a lot of companies using

January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine

I-hua Chen

oracle magazine January/February 2011

32

“From a
performance
perspective,
MySQL is
great. We’re
actually
running
MySQL on
standard
commodity
servers, so we
have plenty of
room to grow.”
—Jeff Freund, CEO and Founding
CTO, Clickability

Jeff Freund, CEO and founding chief technology officer of Clickability, speaks highly of Oracle’s commitment to MySQL. “There are places where Oracle Database is
the right solution, and there are places where MySQL is the right solution, and the fact that Oracle is acknowledging that is a real sign of maturity,” he says.

MySQL for reporting databases, databases out, adding that in addition to its open source
for departmental servers, and databases for snapshot heritage, MySQL complements Oracle’s
business-critical systems.” Clickability traditional enterprise database solutions by
When it comes to databases and database clickability.com targeting scenarios ranging from Web 2.0 and
applications, Olofson doesn’t necessarily Location: San Francisco, California hosting service providers to read-intensive
think that there’s a one-size-fits-all solution. Industry: Technology applications and departmental projects.
Revenue: US$20 million
In fact, he often sees organizations using
Employees: 50
a combination of database solutions, such Oracle products: MySQL Enterprise Edition, Enterprise-class MySQL
as MySQL and Oracle Database. “You’ll MySQL Enterprise Monitor, MySQL Enterprise One person who is winning with the
frequently see MySQL being used in Backup, MySQL Query Analyzer combination of Oracle and MySQL is Jeff
specialized roles, such as for Web presence, Freund, CEO and founding chief technology
while a company’s back-office systems might be driven by Oracle officer of San Francisco, California­–based Clickability, a leader in
Database,” says Olofson. on-demand, cloud-based Web content management. Clickability’s
It’s a synergy that’s not lost on Tomas Ulin, vice president of solution enables companies to deploy sophisticated, dynamic
MySQL development at Oracle. “We see the combination of Oracle Websites and Web content without investing directly in hardware or
and MySQL as a win-win, not only for commercial customers but for IT infrastructure. Freund was one of thousands of MySQL users who
the entire MySQL community,” says Ulin. attended the MySQL Sunday event at Oracle OpenWorld 2010.
Bob Adler

The dedication to MySQL is a strong example of Oracle’s drive to “One of the good things about the MySQL Sunday event at Oracle
deliver both a complete stack and integrated solutions, Ulin points OpenWorld 2010 was seeing how many Oracle users were showing

January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine

 33

MySQL 5.5: Enhanced Performance, Availability, and Usability

A key ingredient to the success of
MySQL has been the involvement
of the open source process and the
MySQL community. Oracle continues
to provide both a source and a binary
release of the MySQL database via the
MySQL Community Server, which also
includes the InnoDB storage engine.
It is still licensed under the GPL, the
most widely adopted open source
license, so that anyone can continue
to use the current versions of MySQL
for free, including MySQL 5.5.
MySQL 5.5 provides new enhancements to per-
formance and scalability, availability, and usability
across all supported operating systems and
architectures. “The initial benchmarks for MySQL
5.5 demonstrating increased throughput and
performance, along with the addition of MySQL
5.5’s InnoDB plug-in, enable us to get more
throughput performance out of our existing hard-
ware infrastructure,” says Jeff Freund, CEO and
founding chief technology officer of Clickability,
a San Francisco, California–based company that
provides on-demand, cloud-based Web content
management. “That’s a big deal for us from both a
manageability and financial perspective.”
The addition of MySQL to the Oracle family is
paying off for both MySQL and Oracle Database
users in a number of ways. “We’ve aligned the
MySQL database and the InnoDB storage engine
development efforts to improve performance
and deliver enhancements earlier and more
often on those two technologies,” says Rob
Young, technical product manager for the MySQL
database at Oracle. “We can also now provide
MySQL users and Oracle customers with a
unified support experience. The MySQL database
is now part of a much larger organization that is
committed to investing in its future.”
According to Young, MySQL 5.5 delivers a
range of new benefits, including
Improved performance and scalability. MySQL
5.5 features significantly improved performance
and scalability on all supported platforms and
modern architectures. In addition, InnoDB is
now the default storage engine and has been
optimized to fully leverage the computing power
of today’s multithreaded operating systems and
multi-CPU/multicore systems.
Improved availability. New semisynchronous
replication capabilities improve failover reliability
and data integrity.
Improved usability. A range of enhanced diag-
nostics, administrative changes, and enhanced
partitioning features mean developers and
administrators can do more with less effort.
“Right off the bat, users will notice that
MySQL 5.5 is simply faster on their multicore
systems, regardless of the operating system,”
says Young. “For example, our read/write bench-
marks for MySQL 5.5 on Microsoft Windows
running on a 4-CPU dual-core server show an
eye-popping 1,500 percent sustained perfor-
mance gain over the same test run for MySQL
5.1. It’s pretty amazing. It’s a real testimony to
the investment and commitment that Oracle is
bringing to the product.”

interest in MySQL,” says Freund. “The inclusion of MySQL Sunday as
part of OpenWorld speaks highly of Oracle’s commitment to MySQL
in terms of promoting it across their entire customer base. There
are places where Oracle Database is the right solution, and there are
places where MySQL is the right solution, and the fact that Oracle is
acknowledging that is a real sign of maturity.”
Since its founding in 1999, Clickability has grown from a startup
company with one customer to an organization that’s currently
serving hundreds of Websites managed by thousands of users on a
daily basis. “Since we host our customers’ public-facing Websites,
we’re a mission-critical component,” says Freund. “That’s why
we’re always very focused on reliability, availability, performance,
and everything else that goes hand in hand with running a mission-
critical infrastructure service for enterprise customers.”
Clickability has built its solution on a technology stack based
on Linux, Apache, MySQL, and Java. It has more than 40 MySQL
database servers performing multiple functions, from reporting and
data aggregation to core transactional processing, deployed in two
datacenters. Both datacenters are fully redundant, and Clickability
uses MySQL to do real-time data replication between them.
“We moved from a commercial [non-Oracle] enterprise database
to MySQL in 2003, and it was a great move for us,” says Freund.
“MySQL requires lower overhead to manage and a lower cost for team
and support resources, and it just fit much better with our scaling
architecture and need to run a SaaS [software-as-a-service] platform.”
In addition, Freund doesn’t have any dedicated DBAs on his
operations team. Instead, he’s found that senior-level operations
engineers are able, with MySQL certification, to deploy and manage
MySQL instances effectively.
“With MySQL it’s easy to find the right skill sets and even
experienced people,” he says. “There are great community resources
and online documentation. Those really add up to a rapid ramp-up for
people to gain experience and expertise in managing MySQL.”
But given Clickability’s business model, bottom-line performance
and scalability are perhaps even more important than management
of the technology. “From a performance perspective, MySQL is great.
We’re actually running MySQL on standard commodity servers, so
we have plenty of room to grow when we need to,” says Freund. “It
also means that our overall infrastructure management overhead is
lower, because it fits in with the standard hardware profile, rather
than requiring specialized database servers.”
MySQL on Windows
While companies such as Clickability deploy MySQL databases on
LAMP platforms, those aren’t the only options. MySQL is available
for many other platforms, from HP-UX to Oracle Solaris and
Microsoft Windows. That’s one of the reasons the Bank of Finland
chose MySQL as the basis for a versatile Microsoft Windows–based
payment and settlement simulator application it developed for use
by central bankers and economic experts.
“We’ve been very satisfied with our experience using MySQL
on Windows,” says Matti Hellqvist, an economist on the Bank
of Finland’s Simulator Development Team. Hellqvist notes
that flexibility and ease of use were particularly important
criteria, because the bank wanted to encourage broad adoption
by economic experts. “MySQL integrated seamlessly into our
environment and supported our software development effort well,”
Hellqvist adds. “It has also been efficient to use and compatible
with both 32- and 64-bit OS environments.”
The simulator application helps experts analyze liquidity needs,
risk issues, settlement algorithms, changes in behavioral patterns,
and other issues critical to the central bankers and economic experts

oracle magazine January/February 2011

34

Matti Hellqvist, an economist with the Bank of Finland, explains that the bank chose MySQL to power a Microsoft Windows–based payment and settlement simulator
it developed for central bankers and economic experts. “We’ve been very satisfied with our experience using MySQL on Windows,” he says.

at the Bank of Finland.
“We selected MySQL in 2003 based
on its good track record as an efficient
SQL database that had low cost and was
usable for both Windows- and Linux-based
applications,” says Hellqvist. “The simulator
works on large numerical data sets, and it
needs capability to handle parallel sets of
data as well as large data streams. The data
is efficiently organized and handled with
MySQL. MySQL represents a very reliable
and strong foundation for a computational
analysis application like ours and has been a
key to the application’s success.”
community has grown up around it, and the
snapshots community meets annually for a seminar in
Bank of Finland Helsinki. The application was also selected
bof.fi as the foundation of the Trans-European
Location: Helsinki, Finland Automated Real-time Gross settlement
Industry: Financial Express Transfer system (TARGET2)
Employees: 500
simulator, which allows Eurosystem
Oracle product: MySQL
central bankers to do quantitative analysis
Gorilla Nation Media, an Evolve Media and simulations of European large-value
Company payment systems.
gorillanation.com   For Hellqvist, the foundation of MySQL
Location: Headquartered in Los Angeles,
is paying additional benefits beyond simply
California, with offices worldwide
Industry: Online media marketing effectively managing his application’s
Employees: More than 350 data. “The relatively low cost of the tool
Juliana Harkki/getty Images

In fact, the simulator has been so Oracle products: MySQL
successful that it has been used by more
than 50 central banks worldwide, plus other financial and research
institutions for risk analysis, as well as development and research
related to payment and settlement systems. An active user
was important to us, as well as the wide
support of data analysis tools that can
connect to MySQL,” says Hellqvist. “Our analysis and research
application showcases the versatility, scalability, and efficiency of
the database.”

January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine

 35

“One of the great beauties of MySQL is that it’s backed by

an amazing company like Oracle, which has deep pockets
and basically wrote the book on databases.”
—Veronika Burnett, Manager of Database Engineering, Gorilla Nation Media

MySQL for Business Intelligence

MySQL is particularly powerful when it comes
to Web applications, but companies are putting
the open source database to plenty of other
uses as well. Take, for example, the Los Angeles,
California–based global online ad sales firm
Gorilla Nation Media.
“Gorilla Nation relies on MySQL to power
its advertising network business intelligence
platform,” says Alex Godelman, chief technology
officer for Gorilla Nation. “As a fast-growing
company, we need strong technology so we can
operate quickly and efficiently. MySQL is truly in
a league of its own.”
Gorilla Nation, part of Evolve Media, provides
integrated media and promotional programs
to Fortune 500 brand advertisers, including
clients such as Fox Television, Best Buy, and
more. Its customers demand advanced business
intelligence (BI) and targeting methods to reach
the perfect online audience for their advertising or
brand campaigns. Reaching more than 66 million
unique visitors per month—as Gorilla Nation
does—requires Websites and an IT infrastructure
that can scale effectively and efficiently.
That’s why Gorilla Nation chose MySQL as the
foundation of its BI platform. The organization
has more than 500 servers running MySQL, 20 of
which are replicated. Its sites get approximately
a quarter-billion page views per month, and
MySQL manages more than 1 TB of data for
Gorilla Nation while providing near-real-time
traffic and advertising campaign performance
information to Gorilla Nation’s publishers and
advertisers. In addition, Gorilla Nation uses
MySQL to capture all the clickstream data and
transactions required for back-office accounting
and billing functions.
“One of the great beauties of MySQL is
that it’s backed by an amazing company like
Oracle, which has deep pockets and basically
wrote the book on databases,” says Veronika
Burnett, manager of database engineering at
Phil Saltonstall

Gorilla Nation. “Also, unlike other open source

Veronika Burnett and Alex Godelman of Gorilla Nation Media rely on MySQL to serve 66 million unique
databases, MySQL is highly scalable. That visitors monthly. “As a fast-growing company, we need strong technology so we can operate quickly and
allows us to do things in our business that are efficiently. MySQL is truly in a league of its own,” says Godelman.

CONNECT: oracle.com/mysql facebook.com/mysql twitter.com/mysql linkd.in/MySQLPros

oracle magazine January/February 2011

36
absolutely critical, such as having the same database running on
multiple physical servers in multiple geographic regions and having
near-real-time replication.”
Burnett says Gorilla Nation also benefits from MySQL’s
management features. “MySQL’s enterprise manager tool allows
us to track performance on hundreds of MySQL servers from a
single console, which allows one database engineer to be extremely
efficient and effective,” she says.
Like other fast-growing companies, Gorilla Nation has to balance
the trade-offs between creating an enterprise-class infrastructure
to support customer needs reliably and efficiently with the need to
scale up quickly, dynamically, and in a cost-effective manner. At the
same time, Gorilla Nation needs to keep its eye on the bottom line
and avoid large up-front licensing investments. That’s why MySQL
has turned out to be such a good choice for Gorilla Nation, according
to Godelman.
“All our technical and business requirements were satisfied and
exceeded by MySQL,” says Godelman.
A BRIGHT FUTURE
While MySQL continues to power a great many Websites and
applications, it’s likely that more and more organizations will
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deploy MySQL for a wide range of departmental, transactional, and
BI–oriented needs as well.
“MySQL is a popular product, and I think its importance is
increasing because we’re starting to see all the different ways
it’s being used,” says IDC’s Olofson. “It’s also an avenue through
which database technologists can experiment, try out things,
and distribute them easily because MySQL is so readily available
and widespread.” 
David A. Kelly (dkelly@upsideresearch.com) is a business, technology,
and travel writer who lives in West Newton, Massachusetts.
NEXT STEPS
LEARN more about MySQL
oracle.com/mysql
READ Oracle’s MySQL Blog
blogs.oracle.com/mysql
WATCH the MySQL Sunday keynote from Oracle OpenWorld 2010
bit.ly/MySQLSunEd
DOWNLOAD MySQL
dev.mysql.com/downloads
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38

Positive Identification
How SUNY and ING increase compliance and decrease risk with Oracle Identity Management 11g

BY DAVID BAUM

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE

 39

IT SECURITY IS NOT SO MUCH ABOUT CREATING STRONGER WALLS AS IT IS ABOUT CREATING BETTER-FUNCTIONING
doors and windows. And when deploying identity management solutions, those better doors and windows equate
to more-complete provisioning operations, more-comprehensive ways to manage identity, and greater flexibility for
authorizing people to access enterprise information assets. These are a few of the reasons why the State University of
New York (SUNY) and global financial institution ING deployed Oracle Identity Management 11g—which consists of a
variety of solutions, ranging from single sign-on and access control to directory services, toolkits, and more. SUNY and ING
use these solutions to manage user identities, provision IT resources, and enable trusted online business partnerships
I-HUA CHEN

while simplifying access procedures for end users and improving governance and compliance activities for auditors.

ORACLE MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

40

Federated Identity Management

SUNY is the largest comprehensive system of public higher education in the United States, with 64
geographically dispersed campuses, more than 88,000 faculty and staff members, and 465,000 students.
Since 1980, SUNY has relied on distributed identity management and user authentication processes at
each institution. When the State of New York asked SUNY to also define each of SUNY’s 88,000 employees
in the state’s own user directory, SUNY worked with Oracle to devise a federated identity management
solution that would leverage SUNY’s existing security architecture, user IDs, and passwords for each staff
member to permit access to New York State’s services.
Identity
Dave Powalyk, chief technology officer (CTO) in the SUNY Office of Information and Technology (OIT), says
Management
the goal was to permit campus employees to access both SUNY and state resources with their existing security
Glossary
credentials by connecting SUNY’s identity management system to the state’s identity management system.
SUNY succeeded by using Oracle Identity Federation 11g, a complete solution for securely exchanging identity Attestation
Compliance mandates
information between two independent entities. This flexible, multiprotocol federation server works with existing often require periodic
identity and access management systems, reducing the need to manage multiple accounts for each user. attestation—or confirmation/
“Oracle Identity Federation 11g gave us an out-of-the-box solution for interacting with the New York authentication—of users’
access to critical applications.
State Office for Technology as both an identity provider and a service provider via SAML [Security Assertion Attestation requires that a
Markup Language] 2,” says Powalyk. “This was a first-ever federation between a New York State government defined approval workflow
entity and the university, and it clearly demonstrated the power of the Oracle approach. In addition to Oracle periodically reauthorizes
access to sensitive information
Identity Federation 11g, we are evaluating Oracle Access Manager 11g and Oracle Identity Manager 11g for (typically financial data)
upcoming projects.” that falls within a particular
SAML is an XML-based standard for exchanging authentication and authorization information among compliance mandate such as
the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX).
security domains. Oracle supports both SAML and Shibboleth, a popular federation standard in the higher
education arena. Adherence to these standards ensures that SUNY can securely share identities with other federated identity
campus systems without having to manage, maintain, and administer additional identities and credentials. The technologies and standards
that provide portability of
“With Oracle Identity Federation 11g, Oracle has created an effective and efficient way of deploying a
identity information across
federation model,” continues Powalyk. “This release reflects some of the specific features we requested from security domains to enable
Oracle. Oracle took the time to understand exactly what we needed, and it developed this software with its users of one domain to securely
access data or systems of
customers’ needs in mind. This is just another great example of a true partnership between Oracle and SUNY.”
another domain seamlessly, and
SUNY extended the default Oracle Identity Federation 11g behaviors by using the supplied third-party without the need for completely
extension classes to leverage SUNY’s existing Java entitlements, access services, and LDAP directories. redundant user administration.
Paul Lienhard, a programmer/analyst at SUNY and the lead Java architect for this project, says the process
Resource Access Control
took only eight weeks from start to finish. “We have 64 campuses with their own LDAP directories, and we Facility (RACF)
needed to access all of them,” he explains. “Now users log in to the familiar identity management portal, An IBM security system that pro-
and Oracle Identity Federation 11g brokers the exchange with the outside SAML service provider.” vides access control and auditing
functionality for the z/OS and
“Oracle Identity Federation 11g enabled us to take advantage of our existing infrastructure and wrap it z/VM operating systems.
within an SAML identity provider,” adds Ken Runyon, the program manager for identity management at
SUNY OIT. “Tens of thousands of campus employees can access resources from the State, even though the Security Assertion
Markup Language (SAML)
campus and the State use two completely different federation technologies. Oracle’s standards-based, An XML-based standard for
SAML 2.x approach enabled us to easily establish secure communications and pass all requested and exchanging authentication and
required attributes between these two independent entities.” authorization data between
security domains—for example,
SUNY now provides federated access to New York State’s online training classes to faculty and staff at between an identity provider
every SUNY campus in a seamless and integrated manner. Other online resources will be available from the (a producer of assertions) and
State in the future. “The best part of the whole process is that we provided these services quickly and in a a service provider (a consumer
of assertions).
manner that was best suited for our community,” Runyon says.

Adhering to Standards
Integration with Oracle Identity Federation 11g enables the SUNY community to seamlessly access federated
services provided by other higher education institutions as well. According to Lienhard, as long as it is a SAML
2–compliant identity management solution, Oracle Identity Federation 11g can work with that solution in a
straightforward fashion without any modifications to the SAML federation and communication architecture.
“Support for several industry federation standards in Oracle Identity Federation 11g enables SUNY to continue
its support of its custom ‘federation-like’ infrastructure as well as other federation technologies, such as
Shibboleth, within its existing federated identity infrastructure,” he says. “We were able to link the 64 campuses
that currently use our custom solution relatively easily, using the software Oracle provided, right out of the box.”

January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine

 41

The State University of New York Office of Information and Technology’s Paul Lienhard (left), Dave Powalyk, and Ken Runyon have deployed Oracle Identity Federation
11g to allow more than 88,000 faculty and staff members to securely access New York State’s services.

SUNY worked closely with Oracle to develop the identity management solution. “The Oracle Identity
Federation 11g production team was very helpful and supportive,” says Runyon. “They provided a specific snapshot
implementation that we could leverage, including a robust API for integrating our custom Java security layer, The State University of
which includes a fine-grained entitlement system and access management solution.” New York
According to Amit Jasuja, vice president of development, identity management, and security products suny.edu
at Oracle, SUNY is confronting a common problem that leads many organizations to federated identity Headquarters: Albany,
New York
management solutions. “As organizations request business services from partners outside of their firewalls, or
Industry: Higher education
attempt to offer a cohesive set of information resources to dispersed user communities, a federated identity Number of users: 553,000
management solution simplifies the information landscape for users and streamlines administration for students and faculty
IT professionals,” he explains. “They might be outsourcing payroll and benefits functions, or perhaps they Oracle products and
are making their business applications available to nonemployees. In addition, some companies need to services: Oracle Identity
Management 11g solutions,
aggregate services from multiple sources and present them to consumers as a single cohesive offering.”
including Oracle Identity
In all these scenarios, Oracle Identity Management 11g provides single-sign-on access to applications Federation, Oracle Access
and services across disparate security domains—without forcing IT pros to add large numbers of users to an Manager, and Oracle Identity
enterprise directory or requiring people to manage multiple identities online. Manager; Oracle Consulting
Ken Gabrielsen/Getty Images

“Ideally there should be an established trust mechanism that allows people who have been
authenticated in one domain to be trusted in a second domain,” adds Jasuja. “Yet without an effective
federation strategy, organizations confront delays adopting applications, they must contend with runaway
costs for onboarding and management, and they lack a cohesive strategy for addressing new security
threats. SUNY is solving these issues with Oracle software.”

oracle magazine January/February 2011

42

Investing in Security and Compliance

With Oracle Identity Management 11g, Oracle has devised the industry’s first service-oriented security
architecture, simplifying application security by making identity functions available as discrete, reusable
Web services. According to Jasuja, this unique approach enables developers to create a centralized security
infrastructure for multiple applications, resulting in faster development cycles, greater deployment
flexibility, and lower integration costs.
“Oracle uses the term service-oriented security to refer to externalization—for example, handling the
administration, authentication, authorization, and auditing outside of applications by providing well-defined
external identity management services and a standardized, centralized infrastructure to deliver these services,
which might sound pretty simple at first glance,” explains analyst Martin Kuppinger, cofounder of Kuppinger
Cole, a leading Europe-based analyst company for identity-focused information security. “However,”
Kuppinger continues, “it involves changing how security is implemented in applications. The advantages are
obvious: standardized, consistent security; quicker implementation of security; reduction of security holes;
faster time to market for secure applications; easier testing of applications; and so on.”
It’s partly as a result of this flexibility that identity management software is gaining momentum in the
financial services industry, where increasingly stringent regulatory compliance issues are driving many
companies to bolster their user provisioning and access management processes. ING, a global financial
institution that offers banking, investments, life insurance, and retirement services, is staying ahead of
the regulatory curve with an identity management solution based on Oracle Identity Manager and Oracle
Identity Analytics.
“The increased cost of managing our heterogeneous environment, coupled with security concerns and
reliance on manual processes, has generated the need for a centralized identity management solution,” says
Mark Robison, enterprise architect at ING U.S. Financial Services (USFS). “Our goal is to automate the current
ID request and approval processes and the access change and termination processes for ING employees, as well
as to simplify our entitlement attestation processes to meet various regulatory compliance requirements.”
ING USFS has a vast array of systems and applications accessed by approximately 10,000 employees.
Previously these people relied on cumbersome manual processes for identity management, access request,
and attestation activities, frustrating users and negatively affecting productivity. When ING employees
requested identity services, such as permission to use a new set of applications, it took as long as 10 days to
complete the request, mainly because the organization’s identity management processes were not capable of
reconciling user identities across applications and did not offer effective controls for regulatory compliance. snapshot
“Our business community was frustrated by a confusing set of procedures,” admits Robison. “Every manager
ING
was responsible for reviewing each entitlement. Not only was it time consuming, but it was not effective.” ing.us
ING currently has 96 IT professionals supporting provisioning, deprovisioning, compliance checking, Headquarters: Amsterdam,
approvals, and attestation. “The provisioning alone entails about 20,000 transactions per month,” adds the Netherlands
Brian Cox, a security manager in ING’s access management organization. “Now we are leveraging the Oracle Industry: Financial services
Number of internal users:
Identity Management suite to automate a lot of the manual approvals.”
10,000
Oracle products and
Earning High Yields on User Provisioning services: Oracle Identity
ING deployed Oracle Identity Manager and Oracle Identity Analytics after evaluating other identity Management 11g solutions,
management solutions from CA Technologies and IBM. Robison says ING chose the Oracle Identity including Oracle Identity
Manager and Oracle Identity
Management suite because Oracle had a well-integrated toolset that is easy to use with both Oracle and
Analytics; PeopleSoft Human
non-Oracle applications. Resources; PeopleSoft
“Our plan was to automate the provisioning of users, including adds, changes, and revokes, with access Financials; Hyperion appli-
approvals facilitated via automated workflow processes,” says Robison. “We especially like Oracle’s open cations; Oracle Database;
and extensible architecture. Oracle Identity Management 11g includes a lot of out-of-the-box connectors, Oracle Consulting
Partner services: Deloitte,
along with a connector factory where you can build your own.”
Tata Consultancy, Infosys
ING worked with consultants from Deloitte to devise 16 use cases for integrating the new software with
third-party access management solutions from Passlogix (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Oracle), along
with Oracle’s PeopleSoft applications and custom ING applications.
“Our first deliverable was to replace a manual perimeter revoke process with automatic perimeter revokes
from Oracle Identity Manager, which was quick and easy to complete,” says Robison. “Now when someone
is terminated in our HR system, we instantly terminate them from all the perimeter systems to keep them
from accessing our Microsoft Exchange Server, Active Directory, and several layers of RACF [Resource Access

January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine

 43

“Oracle has the best

integrated suite of
identity management
tools in the industry, and
it is just getting better.”
—Mark Robison, Enterprise Architect, ING

Mark Robison, enterprise architect at ING, says his company is improving business efficiency and reducing costs with Oracle Identity Management 11g. “Oracle is
really moving us forward with our risk and ID management strategy.”

Control Facility] security on our mainframe systems. We have improved business efficiency by automating Next Steps
ID request processes, approval processes, access change processes, and termination processes.”
Next the team implemented Oracle Identity Analytics for handling quarterly attestation processes in LEARN more about Oracle
more than 500 information systems. Attestation is a quarterly review process in which managers verify that Identity Management 11g
oracle.com/identity
their employees can only access certain information systems.
WATCH the Oracle Identity
“Oracle Identity Analytics works hand in hand with Oracle Identity Manager to define the roles and Management Webcast
handle the attestation,” says Cox. “It feeds that information to Oracle Identity Manager, which is the bit.ly/oidmag
provisioning engine, setting up accounts and access-control requirements for each information system.” READ the Oracle Identity
Cox believes the Oracle software could cut the manual efforts expended by ING’s 96-person access Management 11g data sheet
bit.ly/OIDMDS
management organization by 75 percent. “We can’t fully get away from some manual processes, but the
Download Oracle
Oracle software will help us reduce the effort significantly,” Cox says. “It will also help us increase productivity Identity Management
for the business community, since people won’t have to wait to have their access requests fulfilled. More bit.ly/ODIDW
importantly, when somebody is terminated from ING, we can instantly revoke their access privileges and keep
them out of the system. The potential payback in terms of risk avoidance is huge.”
As ING deploys the solution into wide production, it is improving business efficiency and reducing costs
by systematically automating manual access processes—including granting users access based on their
ever-changing roles and responsibilities within the organization.
“Oracle has the best integrated suite of identity management tools in the industry, and it is just getting
better,” says Robison. “Oracle is really moving us forward with our risk and ID management strategy. They
have delivered a good product with a good process right out of the box.” 
Bill Adler

David Baum (david@dbaumcomm.com) is a freelance business writer based in Santa Barbara, California.

CONNECT: oracle.com/identity facebook.com/oracleidm twitter.com/oracleidm linkd.in/oracleidm

oracle magazine January/February 2011

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 45

By Rich Schwerin

Customers and partners excel at driving business

value and innovation with Oracle technology.

Celebrating Oracle’s customers

and partners continue {
Excellence
to demonstrate
innovation, excellence,
and leadership across
scores of applications
and technologies worldwide. In 2010, Oracle honored these customers and
partners with the Oracle Excellence Awards, covering categories ranging from
sustainability and application deployment to cutting-edge Java development,
implementation expertise, and beyond. The Oracle Excellence Awards include
the Duke’s Choice Awards, for companies making innovative use of Java
technology; the Enable the Eco-Enterprise Awards, for customers and their
partners who are using Oracle products to reduce their environmental footprint
while reducing costs; the Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation Awards, for
customers creatively using Oracle Fusion Middleware to offer unique business
value; the Oracle Magazine Editors’ Choice Awards (see the November/December
2010 issue); the Oracle North America Titan Awards, for partners that help
deliver outstanding Oracle technology solutions; and the Oracle PartnerNetwork
Specialized Global Awards, for global partner excellence in several categories,
including technology, applications, industry, and midsize.

Duke’s Choice Awards • Innovative End-to-End Consumer Software

The Duke’s Choice Awards celebrate extreme
innovation in the world of Java technology
and are granted to companies with the most-
innovative projects using the Java platform.
The 2010 award categories and winners are
• Innovative Automotive/Transportation:
Case Systems
Application: MLB Advanced Media
• Innovative Government and Public Works:
Perrone Robotics
• Innovative Healthcare and Human
Services: Pulse
• Innovative Java Building Block: Cinterion
• Innovative Java for Developers: Wabi Sabi
• Innovative Java for Education: Rolling
Thunder
• Innovative Technical Data Visualization:
Gephi
• Innovative User Experience: Effective UI
• Innovative Visualization and Data
Intelligence: Visual Mining

oracle magazine January/February 2011

 46
Netcentric Systems won the Oracle North America
Titan Award for Sun SPARC Server. From left to right:
Netcentric’s Robert Pope and Michelle Agul with
Oracle Senior Vice President of Sales Ted Bereswill.

The U.S. Senate won an Oracle Fusion Middleware

Innovation Award for Enterprise 2.0. From left to
right: U.S. Senate’s Senior Software Specialist
Andy Le and Senior IT Specialist James Pierce;
Oracle Vice President of Product Management
Amit Zavery; and Business Intelligence Application
Solutions’ Hasan Zaidi.

Oracle President Safra Catz (center) with Oracle

PartnerNetwork Specialized Global Award winners.
From left to right: Tom Colleary, Arrow Electronics;
Robert Forman, TriCore Solutions; Deborah Arnold,
DAZ Systems; Michelle Agul, Netcentric Systems;
Nidal Haddad, Deloitte Consulting; Geoffrey O’Connell,
Accenture; Juhani Hintikka, Nokia Siemens Networks;
Noriyuki Toyoki, Fujitsu; and Joerg Sinning, SIV AG.

Enable the Eco-Enterprise Awards
The third annual Enable the Eco-Enterprise
Awards honor Oracle customers and their
partners for their environmental leadership.
Winners hail from a wide range of industries
that are using Oracle products to support their
green business practices and sustainability
initiatives to reduce their environmental
impact, cut costs, and improve business
efficiencies. Winners were selected by a panel
of six judges, including four Oracle green
experts; Adam Werbach, chief sustainability
officer at Saatchi & Saatchi; and Kathleen
Schwille, director of program development
for National Geographic Education. The 2010
Partners LLC) Services), Credit Suisse, Northern Trust,
• Interpark OpenLink, Rakuten, UBank backed by
• Intertek National Australia Bank (partner: Oracle
• MercadoLibre Financial Services), Verizon
• Northern Arizona University (partner: • Data Integration and Availability: Avea
Oracle Hardware Sales Consulting) (partner: Intellica), Herbalife
• Sandia National Labs (partner: National • Enterprise 2.0: Balfour Beatty, Education
Renewable Energy Laboratory) Management Corporation, ING Bank Turkey
• University of Massachusetts (partner: (partner: MSU), SunGard (partner: Keste),
Fujitsu) Texas A&M University System (partner:
• Verizon Wireless Red Samurai Consulting), the U.S. Senate
(partner: Business Intelligence Application
Oracle Fusion Middleware Solutions)
Innovation Awards • Identity Management: NetApp,
The Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation Schneider National (partner:
photography by hartmann studios, saul lewis, Robert Shiverts

award winners (and their respective partners,
if applicable) are
• Agência Nacional de Águas (partner:
UNIMIX Tecnologia)
• Alcatel-Lucent
• Cisco
• Costco Wholesale (partner: ImageSource)
• Essex County Council (partner: Oracle On
Demand)
• Farmers Insurance (partner: Capgemini)
• Fitness First (partner: Knowledge Global)
• Iberdola Renewables (partner: Project
Awards honor customers for their cutting-edge
solutions using Oracle Fusion Middleware
products. Winners were selected based on
the uniqueness of their business case, the
project ROI and level of impact relative to
the size of the organization, the complexity
and magnitude of implementation, and the
originality of architecture. The 2010 award
categories and winners (and their respective
partners, if applicable) are
• Application Grid: Amgen, Ascent Media,
Avocent, CalWIN (partner: HP Enterprise
PricewaterhouseCoopers), the State
University of New York, Telenor (partner:
Skyworth TTG)
• Oracle Fusion Middleware for Applications:
Avon (partner: Ranzal, an Edgewater
Company), Crocs (partner: Wipro),
Motorola (partner: Business Intelligence
Consulting Group), Premium Wine Brands
Pernod Ricard (partner: Rubicon Red),
University of Adelaide (partner: Groundhog
Software), University of Virginia (partners:
EMS Consulting and Intelligent Chaos)

January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF11_awards_R2.indd 46 12/8/10 9:33:05 AM

 47

Duke’s Choice Award winners, from left to right:

Armin Dimai, Cinterion; James Skinner, Case Systems;
Mathieu Bastian, Gephi; Osama Oransa, Pulse;
Michael Ahern and William Dean, MLB Advanced
Media; and Tony Anecito, Rolling Thunder.

Winners of the Enable the Eco-Enterprise Award with

Oracle Chairman of the Board Jeff Henley (center).

• SOA/BPM/Governance: Amylin (partner: • Technology Momentum: Innowave • Public Sector: Accenture

the Carrera Agency), FN Herstal (partner:
eProseed), Freddie Mac, Ingersoll Rand,
OnStar (partner: Wipro), Queensland
Courts Services, Department of Justice,
and Attorney General (partners: Intelligent
Pathways and Leonardo Consulting),
Sempra Utilities (partners: Southern
California Gas Company and SDGE)
Oracle North America Titan Awards
In its seventh year, the Oracle North America
Titan Awards recognize partner solutions and
best practices developed or delivered in fiscal
year 2010. Honorees demonstrate excellence
in categories including sales, marketing, and
solution development and are selected by a
panel of 76 judges that includes IDC analysts;
Everything Channel journalists; and Oracle
sales, marketing, and development executives.
The 2010 award categories and winners are
Momentum Categories and • Energy: Rolta TUSC
Award Recipients
• Global SI Apps Momentum: Deloitte
Consulting
• Regional SI/Reseller Apps Momentum:
DAZ Systems
Technology
Solution Categories and Award Recipients
• Accelerate: IBM Global Business Services
• BI and Data Warehousing: Accenture
• CRM: InQuira
• Database, Grid, and Oracle Real Application
Clusters: TriCore Solutions
• Enterprise 2.0: Keste
• Financial Management: eVerge Group
• Human Capital Management: Wipro
• Integration and SOA: CedarCrestone
• Oracle Red Stack: Deloitte Consulting
• Security and Identity Management:
PricewaterhouseCoopers
• Sun SPARC Server: Netcentric Systems
• Supply Chain Management: Infosys
Technologies
Industry-Specific Solution Categories and
Award Recipients
• Consumer: Deloitte Consulting
• Financial Services: eVerge Group
• Healthcare and Education: IBM Global
Business Services
• Manufacturing and Distribution: Deloitte
Consulting
• Services: CSS International
Oracle PartnerNetwork
Specialized Global Awards
The Oracle PartnerNetwork Specialized
Global Awards recognizes partner excellence
in a number of categories, including
technology, applications, industry, and
midsize. The 2010 award categories and
winners are
• Applications Partner of the Year: Deloitte
Consulting
• Database Partner of the Year: TriCore
Solutions
• Embedded Partner of the Year: Nokia
Siemens Networks
• Independent Software Vendor of the Year:
SIV AG
• Industry Partner of the Year: Fujitsu
• Middleware Partner of the Year:
Accenture
• Midsize Partner of the Year: DAZ Systems
• Server and Storage Partner of the Year:
Netcentric Systems
• Value-Added Distributor of the Year: Arrow
Electronics 

oracle magazine January/February 2011

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 Java Developer JAVA EE 6 BY ADAM BIEN 51

JAVA EE 6

Simplicity by Design
Leverage new Java EE 6 features to build simple and
maintainable applications.

T he introduction of Java Platform,

Enterprise Edition (Java EE) 5, in 2006,
did a lot to simplify enterprise application
Injection (CDI) with Java Persistence API
(JPA) 2.0 and the Bean Validation model to
implement transactions.
(Plain Old Java Object) beans and uses a
type-safe mechanism for dependency injec-
tion. CDI also introduces many powerful
development. Java EE 6, released in 2009, With a pragmatic mix of available Java EE features such as events, interceptors, deco-
simplifies design and architecture tasks 6 APIs, you can entirely eliminate the need rators, standardized extension points, and
even further. Java EE 6 is a good choice to implement infrastructure services such as the service provider interface.
for building small situational applications transactions, threading, throttling, or moni- Because CDI is new and designed to be
quickly and without any overhead. This toring in your application. The real challenge an integration layer, there is some overlap
article discusses various Java EE 6 archi- is in selecting the right subset of APIs that with older technologies. Although you can
tectures and design approaches that help minimizes overhead and complexity while continue to use EJB 3.1 injection or JSF
developers build efficient, simple, and making sure you don’t have to reinvent the managed beans directly, you should con-
maintainable apps. wheel with custom code. As a general rule, sider using CDI wherever possible. CDI is
Java EE 6 consists of a set of independent you should strive to use existing Java SE more powerful, and you can simplify your
APIs released together under the Java EE and Java EE services before expanding your application by using a single API.
name. Although these APIs are independent, search to find alternatives. CDI uses annotations to perform depen-
they fit together surprisingly well. For a given dency injection. The most important anno-
application, you could use only JavaServer CDI: THE STANDARD GLUE tation is javax.inject.Inject. The example
Faces (JSF) 2.0, you could use Enterprise CDI, introduced with Java EE 6 to act as a in Listing 1 shows how this annotation can
JavaBeans (EJB) 3.1 for transactional services, glue for the different parts of the Java EE 6 be used to inject a POJO into a servlet. All
or you could use Contexts and Dependency specification, manages the lifecycle of POJO you need to do is to declare a field and
annotate it with @Inject. When that code is
Code Listing 1: POJO injection into a servlet with @Inject executed, the container automatically ini-
tializes fields annotated with the @Inject
@WebServlet(name="HelloWorldService", urlPatterns={"/HelloWorldService"}) annotation before the execution of any
public class HelloWorldHTTPService extends HttpServlet { business methods.
There are no specific requirements for the
@Inject
private Hello hello; injected class, beyond having to contain a
default constructor:
@Override
protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
throws ServletException, IOException { public class Hello {
PrintWriter out = response.getWriter(); public String helloWorld(){
out.println(hello.helloWorld());
return "Hello World";
out.flush();
out.close(); }
} }
}

To make the above example work, you

Code Listing 2: index.xhtml: binding the values to a CDI backing bean would also need an empty beans.xml
deployment descriptor with the following
<h:body> content: <beans></beans>. The existence
<h:form> of this configuration file in the WEB-INF
Content:<h:inputText value="#{index.message.content}"/>
<br/> folder activates CDI capabilities.
<h:commandButton value="Save" action="#{index.save}"/> Note that the Hello class is a POJO and
I-HUA CHEN

</h:form> not an EJB. It doesn’t have to be declared

</h:body>
or configured—the @Inject annotation

ORACLE MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

52 Java EE 6
ensures proper creation and lifecycle man-
agement. In the real world, you would rarely
inject POJOs into a servlet; you would prob-
ably use a UI framework (such as JSF 2) or
expose your service via representational
state transfer (REST). In such cases, the use
of CDI is even more beneficial.
To illustrate, consider a simple
MessageMe application that stores a
message string in a database. The JSF 2
markup consists of two components:
inputText and commandButton. As shown
in Listing 2, inputText is value-bound to a
class with the name index with a property
message, which has, in turn, a content attri-
bute. commandButtons’s action attribute
is bound to the save method of the backing
bean with the name index.
Listing 3 shows the backing bean imple-
mented as a request-scoped CDI bean,
using the @RequestScoped annotation for
request handling. A JSF 2 managed bean
(using the @ManagedBean annotation)
could also work, but CDI is just as powerful.
And using CDI everywhere simplifies the
architecture, with a single glue API across
all application layers.
The annotation @Named (as specified
in the JSR 330 specification and imple-
mented in Guice and Spring) makes the
index backing bean visible in all expression
language (EL) markup. It works according to
the “convention over configuration” prin-
ciple: the name of the backing bean in JSF
2 is derived from the class name. The first
letter is not capitalized.
The Message class is implemented as a
JPA 2 entity, as shown in Listing 4.
The next class in this example is the
Messaging class, which is implemented
as an EJB 3.1 session bean. This class rep-
resents a pragmatic exception to the “CDI
everywhere” rule. EJBs provide many capa-
bilities, such as transactions, pooling, Java
Management Extensions (JMX) monitoring,
and asynchronous execution—all for the
price of a single additional @Stateless
annotation. In future Java EE releases,
these aspects are likely to be extracted from
EJBs and made available in CDI as well. In
Java EE 6, however, a boundary or facade of
a business component is most effectively
implemented as a stateless session bean.
January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine
The @Asynchronous annotation in ECB: A Pragmatic Separation
Listing 5 is particularly interesting. It of Concerns
enables the asynchronous but transactional If you review the packaging of the application
execution of methods and is available only described above, you will notice separate
for EJBs. Note that the Messaging EJB is boundary, control, and entity packages. This
injected with @Inject and not @EJB. In packaging approach is an implementation of
practice, either annotation would work, with the Entity Control Boundary (ECB) pattern.
virtually no difference. The use of @Inject is The boundary layer is the facade, the control
slightly more powerful and supports inheri- layer is responsible for the implementation of
tance. The @EJB annotation, on the other process- and entity-independent logic, and
hand, works only with EJBs. the entity layer contains rich domain objects.
The MessageStore class in Listing 6 is a With Java EE 6 and especially the avail-
Data Access Object (DAO) that encapsulates ability of JPA 2, CDI, and EJB, the implemen-
access to the EntityManager. tation of all three layers can lead to empty
Code Listing 3: A CDI backing bean with injected EJB
package com.abien.messageme.presentation;
import com.abien.messageme.business.messaging.boundary.Messaging;
import com.abien.messageme.business.messaging.entity.Message;
import javax.enterprise.context.RequestScoped;
import javax.inject.Inject;
import javax.inject.Named;
@Named
@RequestScoped
public class Index {
@Inject
Messaging ms;
private Message message = new Message();
public Message getMessage() {
return message;
}
public void save(){
ms.store(message);
}
}
Code Listing 4: JPA 2 entity validated with Bean Validation
package com.abien.messageme.business.messaging.entity;
@Entity
public class Message {
@Id
@GeneratedValue
private Long id;
@Size(min=2,max=140)
private String content;
public Message(String content) {
this.content = content;
}
public Message() { /*required by JPA */}
public String getContent() {
return content;
}
public void setContent(String content) {
this.content = content;
}
public Long getId() {
return id;
}
}

delegate code. For example, many CRUD-
based use cases can be implemented very
efficiently with a single boundary acting as a
facade for accessing multiple entities.
However, a direct one-to-one relationship
between the concepts in the ECB pattern and
packages inside a component can still be
beneficial. When packages are kept separate,
static analysis tools can be used more easily
to measure dependencies between pack-
ages. Furthermore, frameworks such as OSGi
and Jigsaw rely on the existence of separate
packages to expose public APIs.
In Java EE 6, the boundary is always real-
ized with EJBs. The control layer can contain
either CDIs or EJBs, and the entity layer can
contain either JPA 2 entities or transient,
unmanaged entities. The final decision of
whether to use a CDI or an EJB in the control
layer does not have to be made up front. You
can start with a CDI and convert it into an
EJB down the road by using the @Stateless
annotation. You may need to use an EJB in
some cases, such as when you need to start a
subsequent transaction with @RequiresNew,
when you need to execute a method
asynchronously, or when you need to roll
back the current transaction by invoking
SessionContext.setRollbackOnly().
CDI, on the other hand, is more suitable
for integrating legacy code or implementing
Strategy, Factory, or Observer software
design patterns. All of these capabilities are
already built in and result in far less code
than with the Java SE counterpart.
When you are developing applications
with the ECB pattern, the ECB layering
should evolve iteratively and not be forced
in a top-down way. You should start with
the persistence (Entity) layer, perform
unit testing, and then implement the
boundary layer. For building the unit test,
the EntityManager and the associated trans-
actions need to be created and managed
manually (as shown in Listing 7).
The persistence.xml file must also be
adjusted to handle standalone execution.
Specifically, the transaction type should be
changed to RESOURCE_LOCAL and a JDBC
connection (instead of a datasource) must be
configured explicitly, as shown in Listing 8.
When building the control layer, note that
its content will be the product of entity and
53
boundary layer refactoring. The reusable and pendent of presentation logic. Even with the
noncohesive parts of the boundary layer, many compromises you may make in your
such as queries, algorithms, or validations, architecture, a clear separation between
along with cross-cutting concerns from the business and UI technology is a must.
the entity layer, will be extracted into CDI In practice, UI logic tends to vary more fre-
managed beans in the control layer. quently than business logic. It is common to
produce business logic that can be accessed
Using the CEC Pattern by a Web client (such as JSF 2), a rich client
The main purpose of the boundary in the (such as Swing or Eclipse RCP), and REST at
ECB pattern is to provide a clear separation the same time.
between business and presentation logic. By In the case of JSF 2, CDI is again the
definition, the boundary needs to be inde- easiest choice for implementing a controller
Code Listing 5: A boundary implemented as an EJB session bean
package com.abien.messageme.business.messaging.boundary;
import com.abien.messageme.business.messaging.control.MessageStore;
import com.abien.messageme.business.messaging.entity.Message;
import javax.ejb.Asynchronous;
import javax.ejb.Stateless;
import javax.inject.Inject;
@Stateless
public class Messaging {
@Inject
MessageStore messageStore;
@Asynchronous
public void store(Message message){
messageStore.store(message);
}
}
Code Listing 6: A CDI bean from the control layer
package com.abien.messageme.business.messaging.control;
import com.abien.messageme.business.messaging.entity.Message;
import javax.persistence.EntityManager;
import javax.persistence.PersistenceContext;
public class MessageStore {
@PersistenceContext
EntityManager em;
public void store(Message message){
em.persist(message);
}
}
Code Listing 7: Standalone JPA unit tests
package com.abien.messageme.business.messaging.entity;
import javax.persistence.*;
import org.junit.Test;
@Test
public void mappingSmokeTest() {
EntityManagerFactory emf = Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory("test");
EntityManager em = emf.createEntityManager();
EntityTransaction tx = em.getTransaction();
tx.begin();
em.persist(new Message("duke"));
tx.commit();
}
oracle magazine January/February 2011
54 Java EE 6
or a presenter. CDI managed beans can
be directly bound to the JSF 2 view via EL,
and the boundary (EJB 3.1) can be directly
injected into the presenter. The presenter (or
a controller) can be directly captured with
an @Stereotype annotation. It works like a
macro—you can place in it CDI annotations
that get expanded with the annotation. A
stereotype is a regular Java annotation repre-
sented by @Stereotype:
@Named
@RequestScoped
@Stereotype
@Retention(RUNTIME)
@Target(TYPE)
public @interface Presenter {}
This custom stereotype can be applied
instead of @Named and @RequestScoped—
just like a macro. All CDI annotations iden-
tifying the presenter pattern can then be
replaced with
@Presenter
public class Index {
//
} store gets invoked exactly once with the
The purpose of the presenter is to imple-
ment presentation logic. The structure of
the presenter is tightly coupled with the
view, in that the state of a JSF component
in the view is mapped to a property inside
the presenter. The property can be either a
value (with value binding) or the component
instance itself (with component binding). In
trivial cases, there is a one-to-one relation-
ship between the view and the presenter.
The presenter contains the view’s data as
well as all the presentation logic. Injecting
the boundary into the presenter involves
using the @Inject annotation.
As the amount of presentation logic
grows inside the presenter, the code can
become harder to maintain and test. With
CDI, it is fairly easy to split the monolithic
presenter into separate data and presenta-
tion logic parts. For example, the following
code shows how to refactor the backing
bean from the earlier example by moving
the save method into a newly created
IndexPresenter bean. The presenter annota-
January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine
Code Listing 8: persistence.xml for standalone JPA unit tests
<persistence>
<persistence-unit name="test" transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL">
<provider>org.eclipse.persistence.jpa.PersistenceProvider</provider>
<class>com.abien.messageme.business.messaging.entity.Message</class>
<exclude-unlisted-classes>true</exclude-unlisted-classes>
<properties>
<property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.url" value="jdbc:derby:
./sample;create=true"/>
<property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.password" value="app"/>
<property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.driver" value="org.apache.derby
.jdbc.EmbeddedDriver"/>
<property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.user" value="app"/>
<property name="eclipselink.ddl-generation" value="drop-and-create-tables"/>
</properties>
</persistence-unit>
</Persistence>
tion is duplicated and renamed @View, and Because the unit test and the IndexPresenter
the bean is renamed IndexView: reside in the same package, the default
visible fields can be set directly. Private
@View fields with public setters can be used, but
public class IndexView { packagewide fields are good enough in most
private Message message = new cases and can reduce code size.
Message(); Listing 9 shows how to test the presenta-
public Message getMessage() { tion logic by mocking out the IndexView as
return message; well as the boundary Messaging class. The
} test, which invokes the IndexPresenter
} .save() method, is successful if the method
The IndexPresenter bean gets the old Message-Instance being returned by the
@Presenter annotation. As the following IndexView. Verifying the invocation means
code shows, the only purpose of the passing the mock to the Mockito.verify()
IndexPresenter bean in this case is to imple- method. The IndexView is mocked out to
ment the presentation logic. manipulate the return value without inter-
acting with the JSF rendering.
@Presenter The Messaging boundary is mocked
public class IndexPresenter { out for a different reason: to verify that the
@Inject expected method actually gets invoked:
Messaging boundary;
@Inject public void save(){
IndexView indexView; boundary.store(indexView
public void save(){ .getMessage());
boundary.store(indexView }
.getMessage());
} The design of the JSF 2 presentation is
} similar to that of a rich Swing application.
Common patterns such as Model-View-
Because the boundary and the view are Controller and their refinements—Supervising
injected into the IndexPresenter, they can Controller and Passive View—can be applied
be easily mocked out. In a unit test envi- to JSF 2 as well. The main difference between
ronment, both fields would be set directly JSF and a rich client technology is the way
with the mock, whereas in a production the view is rendered. In Swing the developer
environment, the container would perform implements the view in Java, whereas in
the injection and set the actual dependency. JSF 2 the developer uses XHTML markup.
 55

Code Listing 9: IndexPresenterTest—with mocked-out view and boundary tation and business logic. The EntityManager
is already a good enough abstraction of the
package com.abien.messageme.presentation; underlying persistence, so there is no need
//...other imports for additional indirections.
import org.junit.Before;
Maintainable Java EE 6 applications are
import org.junit.Test;
import static org.mockito.Mockito.*; written according to the YAGNI (You Ain’t
Gonna Need It), DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself),
public class IndexPresenterTest {
and KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principles.
private IndexPresenter cut;
@Before Design patterns and best practices are intro-
public void initialize(){ duced in a bottom-up—not a top-down—
this.cut = new IndexPresenter();
fashion. The patterns are always motivated
}
@Test by functional and nonfunctional require-
public void save() { ments, not by the shortcomings of the plat-
this.cut.boundary = mock(Messaging.class);
form. This approach represents the biggest
this.cut.indexView = mock(IndexView.class);
Message expected = new Message("duke"); difference between Java EE 6 and previous
when(this.cut.indexView.getMessage()).thenReturn(expected); J2EE releases. In J2EE many of the design
cut.save();
decisions were made up front, driven by the
verify(this.cut.boundary,times(1)).store(expected);
} J2EE platform dependencies.
} By contrast, the Java EE 6 development
process focuses on function:
In JSF 2 the values of the component can collisions, developers often had to resort to 1. Write simple code that directly solves the
be directly bound to a corresponding class, well-defined naming conventions such as business problem.
whereas in Swing they are usually stored in XyzLocal/XyzRemote and XyzBean. In Java 2. Verify the business logic with unit tests.
the view itself or in the model. EE 6, interfaces for EJBs and CDIs are now 3. Cut redundancies and improve the design
For the implementation of data-driven optional. Public EJB or CDI methods can with refactoring.
use cases such as CRUD, the Supervising now expose a “no interface” view, with no 4. Stress-test your application.
Controller is a better choice than the loss of functionality. 5. Go back to 1.
Passive View. In the Supervising Controller This new functionality makes interfaces Design and architecture are driven by
pattern, a single backing bean (IndexView) meaningful again. As opposed to the obliga- concrete requirements rather than generic
is responsible for managing both the pre- tory, nondescript use of interfaces with earlier and architectural best practices. By continu-
sentation logic and the state of the view. In releases, interfaces in Java EE 6 can be used ally stress-testing your application (at least
more-sophisticated use cases, the Passive for the implementation of the Strategy once per week), you can more easily justify a
View variant may be more applicable. In the pattern; implementation of a public API; or simple design with hard facts to gain insight
Passive View pattern, the backing bean is strict separation of modules, which makes the into system behavior under stress. 
split into the view and presentation logic, code more expressive. An interface can also
and the presentation logic is extracted from signal the “protected variations” of a system,
the IndexView to the IndexPresenter. and direct dependencies between classes can Adam Bien (blog.adam-bien.com) is a Java
CDI is best suited for the implementa- be used for code that is less likely to vary. Champion, consultant, lecturer, speaker,
tion of the presentation layer. Because of You can safely start without any interfaces software architect, developer, and author of
the built-in cross-cutting concerns (such as and introduce them later as the need arises. Java books and articles including Real World
transactions, concurrency, asynchronous This approach is fundamentally different Java EE Patterns: Rethinking Best Practices
execution, monitoring, and throttling), the from that in Java EE 5. Compared to Java 2 (lulu.com, 2009). He was Oracle Magazine’s
boundary of the business logic is realized as Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) from 2010 Java Developer of the Year.
an EJB. The business component can be real- 2003, Java EE 6 code is simpler, in terms of
ized either as EJBs or CDIs. In general, you the elimination of several layers, indirec- Next Steps
can start with CDIs and, over time, replace tions, and abstractions. Unlike J2EE, Java
managed beans in special cases with EJBs. EE 6 consists of annotated classes without READ more about
CDI
The CDI-EJB-CDI (CEC) pattern is the simplest any dependencies on the platform. This bit.ly/9JKUdp
and most pragmatic choice for Java EE 6. approach eliminates the need to separate Protected Variations pattern
business logic from the infrastructure and bit.ly/cGueFJ
Making Interfaces Useful makes the majority of J2EE patterns and best Supervising Controller and Passive View
EJB 3.0 (in Java EE 5) required separate practices superfluous. In Java EE 6, simple patterns
martinfowler.com/eaaDev
interfaces for bean classes. To avoid naming cases can be solved with two layers: presen-

oracle magazine January/February 2011

56 Database Developer

Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g

Quickly Define KPIs and

Scorecards That Use Them
Build key performance indicators and scorecards in your
business intelligence metadata with Oracle Business
Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g.

O rganizations seeking to manage and

improve performance often define key
performance indicators (KPIs) to measure
Middleware’s Control feature in your envi-
ronment. (See “Using Fusion Middleware
Control to Upload a Repository and Set the
Creating KPIs
Begin the process of meeting your organiza-
tion’s goals by defining KPIs for monitoring
their progress. Comprising a measure and a Oracle BI Presentation Catalog Location” sales and margins. To create the KPIs, take
target and usually analyzed by dimensions in Oracle Fusion Middleware System the following steps:
such as organization, customer, product, Administrator’s Guide for Oracle Business 1. Log in to Oracle Business Intelligence
and geography, KPIs can help organizations Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g Release 1 Enterprise Edition 11g, using your
quickly focus on activities that have the [11.1.1]—at bit.ly/c4s39M—for information username and password. From the
greatest impact on business performance. about how to perform this installation.) home page, select New -> KPI from the
Another significant trend in corporate For this column, suppose your organiza- common header area. When prompted to
performance management is the introduc- tion has the following goals: improve perfor- select a subject area, select Sales History.
tion of scorecards. Scorecards help organi- mance by increasing sales, and improve the 2. The KPI Entry screen will then appear.
zations define overall goals—to improve profit on those sales. These goals require This screen enables you to define the
corporate profitability or increase customer monitoring performance against the targets actual value and target value measures
satisfaction, for example—and break those for both sales and the margins on those for the KPI, as well as an optional time
goals down into a series of objectives that sales, defining these as KPIs, and managing offset to show performance as a trend. In
will enable them to meet the goals. Each of them through a scorecard. You will use this example, enter "Sales and Costs
these objectives and initiatives is associ- Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Fact"."Amount Sold" as the Actual
ated with one or more of an organization’s Edition 11g to monitor these goals. Value measure and "Sales and Costs
KPIs, so progress toward each objective can
be measured.
The recent release of Oracle Business
Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g provides
a means of defining KPIs within your busi-
ness intelligence (BI) metadata and of
defining scorecards that make use of those
KPIs. This column shows how KPIs are
defined in this release and how they can be
used to create a basic scorecard that mea-
sures progress toward a corporate goal.
The example in this column uses Oracle
Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
11g with the sample sales (SH) schema that
comes with Oracle9i Database and later
releases. If you want to walk through the
steps and practice the techniques described
in this column, download KPI_ORAMAG
.rpd from oracle.com/technetwork/issue-
archive/2010/10-nov/o60bi-170650
.zip and install it, using Oracle Fusion Figure 1: Defining the actual and target values for a KPI

January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine

 Business Intelligence by Mark Rittman 57

Fact"."Amount Sold Target" as the

Target Value measure, and leave the
Enable trending checkbox unchecked, as
shown in Figure 1. Click Next to proceed
to the Dimensionality screen.
Now that you have chosen the actual
and target value measures for the KPI, the
next step enables you to select the dimen-
sions by which this KPI can be analyzed.
3. In this example, you want users to be
able to switch the product category
for which the KPI is displayed but you
want the year, 2001, to stay constant
(or “pinned”). To do this, click the
Add button on the Dimensionality
screen, select the “Times”.”Calendar
Year” attribute, and select 2001 for
Value. Then click Add again to add the
“Products”.”Product Category” attribute
Figure 2: Defining the high and low thresholds for a KPI
column, but leave Value as Not Pinned.
Click Next to proceed to the next step in
the process: defining the thresholds.
4. On the Thresholds screen, you can
specify values that will determine
whether the performance achieved war-
rants an OK, Warning, or Critical indi-
cation. In this example, performance
will be considered OK if it is within 90
percent of the target and critical if it
falls below 70 percent. To define these
thresholds, enter "Sales and Costs
Fact"."Amount Sold Target" *
.90 as the first threshold value and
"Sales and Costs Fact"."Amount Figure 3: The KPI watchlist, showing performance across all product categories
Sold Target" * .70 as the second, as
shown in Figure 2. ensure that sales have a target margin two KPIs you created previously onto the
5. Click Next to proceed to the next step, of 40 percent). Use the same attribute watchlist on the right. The selected KPIs
where you can define related docu- columns for the KPI dimensionality, and will then be displayed in a grid format,
ments for the KPI. This enables users enter the values 25 and 10 as the two showing the actual and target values,
to reference other analyses, external thresholds. Once complete, save the along with the variance and the per-
Web pages, and documents that can KPI to the Web catalog, using the name centage variance, as shown in Figure 3.
be used to support the KPI. For this Margin Maintenance. 3. The KPI watchlist will be pinned to the
example, however, there are no related year 2001, per your KPI definitions, but
documents, so click Finish to move to Displaying KPIs, Using a KPI Watchlist it will enable users to select the product
the final steps, where you can name and Now that you have defined two KPIs, you category. To select a specific product
save the KPI. can give users a means of displaying these category, use the list next to the “Sales
6. Now repeat this process to create the on a dashboard through a KPI watchlist. To History”.”Products”.”Product Category”
second KPI, which will be used to monitor create a KPI watchlist, take the following label above the KPI watchlist and select
the margin made on sales. Enter the steps: a category such as Photo or Peripherals
"Sales and Costs Fact"."% Unit 1. From the Oracle Business Intelligence and Accessories. Note how the KPI
Margin" measure for Actual Value, home page, select New -> KPI Watchlist. values are recalculated in response to
but this time enter the literal value 40 2. From the Catalog view on the left-hand your product category changes in this
for Target Value (because you want to side of the screen, drag and drop the dimension and how the status changes

oracle magazine January/February 2011

58 Business Intelligence
to reflect the values compared to the
thresholds you chose earlier.
Creating a Scorecard
Now that you have defined your KPIs, you
can arrange them into a simple scorecard
to help achieve your organization’s goals.
Using this scorecard, you will define an
objective, “Improve Performance,” that
breaks down into two contributing objec-
tives, “Increase Sales” and “Maintain
Margins.” Users will be able to use this
scorecard to view progress toward the orga-
nization’s goal, either for all product cat-
egories or for any one category in particular.
To create the scorecard, take the fol-
lowing steps:
1. Log in to Oracle Business Intelligence
Enterprise Edition 11g using your
username and password, and select
New -> Scorecard. When prompted,
name the scorecard Organizational
Performance and click OK to accept the
default scorecard settings.
2. With the new scorecard open, navigate to
the Strategy panel at the top left corner of
the screen and click the Create Objective
button. Name the new objective Improve
Performance, and click the Save button
just above the text box to save the new
objective to the scorecard definition.
3. With the objective you just created
selected in the Strategy panel, repeat
this process to create another objective,
naming it Increase Sales (this
new objective should be located under
the Improve Performance objective,
to indicate that it contributes to the
broader objective).
When adding this new objective,
assign a KPI to it. To do so, use the
Catalog panel on the bottom left of
the screen and drag and drop the Sales
Performance KPI onto the Objectives
and KPIs list for the objective. Click OK to
save this objective.
4. Now repeat the previous step, with the
Improve Performance objective initially
Download Oracle Business
Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g
oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/
bi-enterprise-edition/downloads
January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine
Figure 4: Displaying scorecard objectives in a strategy tree
selected—but this time creating a third
objective, Maintain Margins—and
associate the Margin Maintenance KPI
with it.
Your Strategy panel within the score-
card should now have a primary objective,
Improve Performance, with two con-
tributing objectives, Increase Sales and
Maintain Margins, under it. To complete
the initial scorecard, you will now create a
strategy tree to show how these objectives
are related.
To create a new strategy tree, navigate
to the Strategy panel at the top left of
the screen and this time click the View
Strategy Tree button. When the strategy
tree appears, expand the entries under the
objectives to see the KPIs and their values,
as shown in Figure 4.
This strategy tree shows that the Sales
Performance objective is being met across
all product categories but the Maintain
Margin objective is not, contributing to a
warning about the overall objective. Use
the dimension selector above the strategy
tree to focus on individual product catego-
ries to see how each of them is performing
against the targets and the thresholds you
defined earlier.
Summary
Organizations often use KPIs and score-
cards to measure their performance in
terms of reaching an objective, setting
targets and thresholds to enable them to
measure progress across the organization.
Oracle ss Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g
gives you the ability to define these objec-
tives and strategies within your BI environ-
ment, bringing this important measure of
corporate performance to the desktops of
everyone on your team. 
Mark Rittman is an
Oracle ACE director and
cofounder of Rittman
Mead Consulting, a U.K.-
based Oracle partner
providing specialized
BI, data warehousing, and performance
management solutions.
Next Steps
DOWNLOAD sample code for this column
oracle.com/technetwork/issue-archive/
2010/10-nov/o60bi-170650.zip
READ more about
Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise
Edition 11g
oracle.com/us/solutions/ent-performance-bi/
enterprise-edition-066546.html
business intelligence administration
Oracle Fusion Middleware System Administrator’s
Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise
Edition 11g Release 1 (11.1.1)
download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E14571_01/
bi.1111/e10541/toc.htm
 Database Developer BROWSER-BASED BY DAVID PEAKE 59

ORACLE APPLICATION EXPRESS 4.0

Extend Your Applications

Use plug-ins with Oracle Application Express 4.0
to add custom components.

O racle Application Express 4.0 intro-

duced a plug-in architecture that
enables developers to extend their applica-
tions with custom item and region types,
processes, and dynamic actions. Several
plug-ins are free for downloading from
Oracle Technology Network, and more than
40 plug-ins developed by members of the
Oracle Application Express community are
available from an external Website.
This column walks you through building
an application that implements and uses
three existing plug-ins. You can run through
these steps on the hosted instance of Oracle
Application Express 4.0 at apex.oracle.com.
(You must request a free workspace to use
this hosted instance.) You can also use a
local instance of Oracle Application Express
4.0. This exercise is based on the EMP table,
which is available by default in the database.
MODIFYING THE EMP TABLE
You’ll build a database application that
enables users to view and edit employee data.
Before you create the application, you need to
add two new columns to the EMP table and
change some user interface defaults. Log in to
Oracle Application Express, and follow these
steps to add PHONE_NUMBER and RATING
columns to the EMP table:
1. From the Oracle Application Express
home page, select SQL Workshop ->
appeal to the demonstration application.
With the EMP table still open in the Object
Browser, follow these steps:
1. Click UI Defaults on the menu.
2. Click Edit.
3. Click EMPNO in the table to open the
Column Defaults page for the EMPNO
column.
4. Under General Defaults, replace EMPNO
in the Label field with Employee Number
and then click Apply Changes.
5. Repeat the preceding step to change the
labels for the ENAME, MGR, HIREDATE,
SAL, COMM, and DEPTNO columns to,
respectively, Employee Name, Manager,
Hire Date, Salary, Commission, and
Department.
CREATING THE DEMONSTRATION
APPLICATION
To create the demonstration application,
follow these steps:
1. From the Oracle Application Express
home page, select Application Builder.
2. Click Create. For Application Type, select
Database and From Scratch.
3. For Name, enter Employees, and then
click Next.
Organization Chart
4. For Page Type, select Report and Form.
Enter EMP for Table Name, click Add Page,
and click Create.
5. On the summary page, click Create.
Next you’ll install two plug-ins into the
Employees application that will help users
input data easily into the application’s
Phone Number and Rating fields. You’ll also
install a plug-in that generates an employee
organization chart and adds it to the applica-
tion’s report page.
DOWNLOADING AND INSTALLING
PLUG-INS
Download the following plug-ins from Oracle
Technology Network at oracle.com/
technetwork/developer-tools/apex/
plugins-155231.html, and unzip them to a
convenient location on your system:
• Masked Text. This item-type plug-in makes
it easy for users to enter fixed-width,
formatted data (such as dates, phone
numbers, and Social Security numbers).
• Star Rating. This item-type plug-in enables
your application’s users to rate something
by clicking a star icon representing a rating
in any range from 0 to 99, inclusive.
Next, download and unzip the Google
KING
7839

Object Browser. President

2. Select the EMP table from the list.

BLAKE CLARK JONES
3. Click Add Column. Enter PHONE_NUMBER 7698 7782 7566

for Add Column, change its Datatype to Manager Manager Manager

VARCHAR2, enter 14 for Length, click

ALLEN WARD MARTIN TURNER JAMES MILLER SCOTT FORD
Next, and click Finish. 7499 7521 7654 7844 7900 7934 7788 7902

4. Select the EMP table from the list again. Salesman Salesman Salesman Salesman Clerk Clerk Analyst Analyst

5. Click Add Column, enter RATING for Add

ADAMS SMITH
Column, enter 1 for Precision, click Next, 7876 7369

and click Finish. Clerk Clerk

Now you’ll change some of the EMP

table’s column labels to add some visual Figure 1: Organization chart generated by the Google OrgChart plug-in

ORACLE MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

60 Browser-based
Visualizations plug-ins from apex-plugin
.com, the community plug-in site. This set
of dynamic-action, region-type plug-ins
includes one that generates an organization
chart from the EMP table.
To install the plug-ins, follow these steps:
1. From Application Builder, select the
Employees application.
2. Click Shared Components. Under User
Interface, click Plug-Ins.
3. Click Import, click Browse, navigate to the
location where you unzipped the Masked
Text plug-in, and select item_type_
plugin_com_oracle_apex_masked_field
.sql. Click Next, click Next, click Install
Plug-In, and then click Apply Changes.
4. Click Import, click Browse, navigate to
the location where you unzipped the Star
Rating plug-in, and select item_type_
plugin_com_oracle_apex_star_rating
.sql. Click Next, click Next, click Install
Plug-In, and click Apply Changes.
5. Click Import, click Browse, navigate
to where you unzipped the Google
Visualizations plug-ins, and select
region_type_plugin_com_logica_apex_
googlevis_orgchart.sql. Click Next, click
Next, click Install Plug-In, and click
Apply Changes.
Using Plug-Ins
Now you’ll replace standard Oracle
Application Express components with the
item-type plug-ins and define a plug-in
region. To implement the item-type
plug-ins, follow these steps:
1. Click the Employees application in
Application Builder, and click 2-Emp to
navigate to Page 2.
2. In the Page Rendering section, double-
click the P2_PHONE_NUMBER item.
3. Under Name, change the Display As
value to Masked Field [Plug-in]. Note
that the Settings section changes to show
custom attributes for Input Mask and
Placeholder. Click Apply Changes.
4. Double-click the P2_RATING item.
5. Under Name, change the Display As value
to Star Rating [Plug-in]. Under Settings,
DOWNLOAD Oracle Application Express
oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/apex/
downloads
January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine
Figure 2: Data entry assisted by plug-ins
enter 5 for Number of Stars, and then number you entered appears as Allen’s
click Apply Changes. phone number.
To implement the region-type plug-in,
follow these steps: Conclusion
1. From Application Builder, click the Oracle Application Express plug-ins enable
Employees application and navigate to you to extend your applications easily with
Page 1. customizable components. Once you’ve
2. Click Create, and select Region on this imported and installed plug-ins, you use
page. them in much the same way as you use stan-
3. Select Plug-ins, select Google OrgChart, dard Oracle Application Express components.
and then click Next. You can choose among plug-ins developed
4. Enter Organization Chart for Title, by the Oracle Application Express team or
and click Next. the community. And you can build your own
5. Select Small for Size, select Yes for Allow plug-ins by using PL/SQL. For information
HTML, and click Next. on building plug-ins, see Patrick Wolf’s blog
Click Examples. Copy the second block of posting “Oracle APEX 4.0: How to create a
SQL code, paste it into Region Source, and Plug-in” at bit.ly/cJapC2. 
then click Create Region.
Click the Run button to run the application.
David Peake (david
You can see the organization chart, shown in
.peake@oracle.com)
Figure 1, at the bottom of the report page.
is a principal product
In the tabular portion of the report page,
manager in Oracle’s
click the edit link (the pencil icon) for the
Server Technologies
employee named Allen to modify his record.
division. He has been
Click in the Phone Number field in the form,
with Oracle since 1993.
and enter a phone number (including area
code) by typing its 10 digits. Note that the field
Next Steps
will not accept any nonnumeric characters;
the parentheses that surround the area code
READ more Browser-Based
and the hyphen that separates the phone bit.ly/b4rudD
number’s first three digits from the last four GET plug-ins
are supplied by the plug-in. Now hover the bit.ly/cov4Lv
cursor over the star icons in the Rating field apex-plugin.com
and click the fourth icon from the left to give LEARN how to create an Oracle Application
Express plug-in
Allen a four-star rating. Figure 2 shows data “Oracle APEX 4.0: How to create a Plug-in”
being entered into the Phone Number field bit.ly/cJapC2
and a star being selected from the star icons. VISIT the Oracle Application Express
Click Apply Changes. In the report, you can discussion forum
bit.ly/cfken4
now see 4 as Allen’s rating, and the phone
 DBA
Oracle Exadata Storage server
Simulation Demonstrates
Performance
Use Oracle Exadata simulation in SQL Performance
Analyzer to help predict how your application will
perform on Oracle Exadata.
T he newest disrupter in the database
market is Oracle Exadata, which
improves the performance of any type of
application. But for those considering the
move to Oracle Exadata, the big question is
probably how your existing applications—
running on a traditional database—will
perform on Oracle Exadata. How can you
know the answer before you actually take
the leap to Oracle Exadata? In Oracle
Database 11g Release 2, there is a new
addition that allows you to simulate and
measure the activities of your database
under Oracle Exadata without actually
investing in an Oracle Exadata appliance. In
this article, I will show you how to use this
capability to predict the performance you
can expect for your applications running on
Oracle Exadata.
Basis for Simulation
Oracle Database 11g Release 1 introduced a
new tool—SQL Performance Analyzer—as a
part of the Oracle Real Application Testing
suite (see my Oracle Magazine March/
April 2008 article “Performing Through
Changes,” at bit.ly/ckWiG1). This tool allows
you to capture SQL statements from any
database and replay them in a new environ-
ment to uncover potential issues and predict
behavior in the new target environment.
The target environment may be structur-
ally different from the current production
environment, with more or fewer indexes
and materialized views, using different
infrastructures, or running under different
session parameters. In Oracle Database 11g
Release 2, the scope of SQL Performance
Analyzer is extended to simulate the func-
tionality of Oracle Exadata.
Code Listing 1: Creating a SQL tuning set
begin
dbms_sqltune.create_sqlset(
sqlset_name => 'ExadataSimul1',
description => 'SQL Tuning Set for Exadata Simulation');
end;
Code Listing 2: Adding SQL statements to the SQL tuning set from the cursor cache
begin
dbms_sqltune.capture_cursor_cache_sqlset (
sqlset_name => 'ExadataSimul1',
time_limit => 120,
repeat_interval => 10
);
end;
Where’s the Performance?
Of the many ingredients in the secret sauce
that makes Oracle Exadata so fast, it’s the
intelligence in the storage cells—where the
Oracle Exadata storage is located—that has
the largest impact. The storage cells know
the pattern of the data they store, so they can
intelligently return only relevant data, rather
than all data. Here is a simple query that
illustrates the point:
select sum(order_qty)
from sales
where cust_id = 1000
In a traditional Oracle database, the server
process issues the command to retrieve all
blocks from the SALES table to the buffer
cache (located in the system global area), if
they are not there already. Then the session
sifts through the accumulated data to identify
rows where CUST_ID = 1000. Those rows
are copied to the program global area of the
server process, the sum of another column—
Oracle Exadata By Arup Nanda 61
ORDER_QTY—is computed, and, finally,
the result is returned to the user. The table
could potentially have 1 billion rows, and the
number of rows where CUST_ID = 1000 could
be just 100, so the database has to get all 1
billion rows to sort through them to find the
matching rows. The I/O subsystem will still
need to return all the blocks of the table to the
server process. The storage in this case does
not know the underlying data structure, so it
can’t differentiate relevant data from the rest.
In an Oracle Real Application Clusters
(Oracle RAC) system, there is yet another
issue. Parallel query slaves could be spun off
on multiple instances. They send the data
they gather to the query coordinator in a
different instance for collation over the inter-
connect, saturating the interconnect hard-
ware with this traffic. In addition, the process
of transferring blocks over the interconnect
also consumes CPU and requires latches,
which in turn requires further CPU cycles.
Therefore, the greater the demand for blocks
from the storage system, the greater the load
oracle magazine January/February 2011
62 Oracle exadata
on CPU and I/O and the interconnect band-
width—and the worse the query performance.
This is exactly where Oracle Exadata
works its wonders—it knows the general
distribution of data in table columns at the
storage cells. When the aforementioned
query is issued, the storage cells do not just
return all the data from the table—they filter
data at the storage level. The server process
does not get all the blocks, but rather only
those blocks that could potentially satisfy
the condition, and then computes the sum
from the relevant rows from those blocks.
The demand on the storage is reduced from
1 billion rows—the total number of rows in
the table—to just 100—the number of rows
where CUST_ID = 1000. The I/O waits are
reduced, enabling the storage subsystem to
service more clients without putting them
in queues. But the reduced load on storage
is not the only Oracle Exadata benefit: the
reduced number of buffers in the buffer cache
means less contention for latches and sub-
sequently less CPU consumption as well. In a
typically busy system, Oracle Exadata could
deliver several orders of magnitude difference
in performance for this query and data.
Now that you know how Oracle Exadata
speeds up the queries, the next natural ques-
tion may be, does it work for your application?
If your application does a lot of reads, then it
exerts pressure on the storage and pushes a
lot of buffers through the cluster interconnect.
Oracle Exadata will reduce that pressure with
significantly fewer reads (because the storage
returns fewer blocks to the database nodes),
so you can expect a dramatic performance
difference. On the other hand, an application
that does few reads may see a lesser perfor-
mance gain. Instead of guessing about your
application’s performance change following
a move to Oracle Exadata, you can use Oracle
Exadata simulation in SQL Performance
Analyzer to help you predict performance
gains. Note that in this initial offering, only
a data warehouse decision-support system
workload is simulated.
Simulating Oracle Exadata
You can perform the Oracle Exadata simula-
tion in SQL Performance Analyzer in two
ways—using Oracle Enterprise Manager and
using APIs provided with Oracle Database. I
January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine
Code Listing 3: Running an example query
select prod_name, cust_state_province, channel_desc, sum(amount_sold)
from sales s, customers c, products p, channels c
where s.cust_id = c.cust_id
and s.prod_id = p.prod_id
and s.channel_id = c.channel_id
and c.cust_year_of_birth between 1960 and 1970
group by prod_name, cust_state_province, channel_desc
Code Listing 4: Creating an analysis task
variable ret clob
set long 999999
begin
:ret :=
dbms_sqlpa.create_analysis_task(
sqlset_name => 'ExadataSimul1',
task_name => 'ExadataSimulSPA1');
end;
/
print ret
Code Listing 5: Executing a task without Oracle Exadata storage simulation
begin
dbms_sqlpa.set_analysis_task_parameter ('ExadataSimulSPA1',
'TIME_LIMIT','UNLIMITED');
dbms_sqlpa.set_analysis_task_parameter ('ExadataSimulSPA1',
'LOCAL_TIME_LIMIT',300);
:ret := dbms_sqlpa.execute_analysis_task (
task_name => 'ExadataSimulSPA1',
execution_type => 'test execute',
execution_name => 'INITIAL',
execution_params => DBMS_ADVISOR.arglist ('cell_simulation_
enabled','FALSE'),
execution_desc => 'Exadata simulation disabled'
);
end;
am going to show the process using APIs. (For workload that can be captured in the
steps on using Oracle Enterprise Manager, STS. Listing 3 shows a query that per-
see the Oracle By Example tutorial at bit.ly/ forms a considerable amount of I/O and
bFaV7r.) Here are the steps: is perfect for this demo. This query is
1. Create a SQL tuning set (STS). Listing based on the SH sample schema. When
1 shows how to create an STS named this query runs, it will be captured in the
ExadataSimul1. ExadataSimul1 STS automatically.
2. With the STS created, add the relevant 4. Create an analysis task named
SQL statements to it. There are several ExadataSimulSPA1 to subject the SQL
ways to do this. The simplest approach statements in the ExadataSimul1 STS to
is to create a job that scours the cursor Oracle Exadata simulation, as shown in
cache in the shared pool and adds the Listing 4.
SQL statements found to the STS. Listing 5. With the STS created and populated, start
2 shows how to do that every 10 seconds the simulations. First, execute the analysis
for 120 seconds. The execution of this task with Oracle Exadata simulation dis-
command will wait on the screen for 120 abled—with the cell_simulation_enabled
seconds, so you will have to create a dif- parameter set to false—as shown in
ferent session for the next step. Listing 5. The task will run the SQL state-
3. In a different session, run some example ments inside the STS.
 63

Execution Statistics: differences in performance clearly.

Impact on Value Value Impact Figure 1 shows a partial output from the
Stat Name Workload Before After on SQL report that compares the execution statistics.
elapsed_time 2.178138 The report clearly shows the predicted impact
parse_time .023518 of Oracle Exadata on I/O interconnect bytes.
cpu_time .812998 In the first run—with Oracle Exadata simu-
user_io_time 3.603555 lation disabled—the number of bytes was
buffer_gets 3295 25,174,016. In the second run—with Oracle
Cost 0% 529 529 0% Exadata simulation enabled—the number
Reads 3073 of bytes was only 2,763,712, or about a tenth
Writes 0 of the bytes in the first run—a significant
io_interconnect_bytes 88.99% 25174016 2763712 89.02% improvement by any count.
Rows 13803 13803 The online version of this article, at bit.ly/
Figure 1: Partial output of comparison report cwvuPq, concludes with additional analysis
of the Oracle Exadata simulation results.
Code Listing 6: Executing a task with Oracle Exadata storage simulation
Conclusion
begin One of the key ingredients of the superior
:ret := dbms_sqlpa.execute_analysis_task ( performance of the Oracle Exadata appli-
task_name => 'ExadataSimulSPA1',
ance is the ability of the storage to return
execution_type => 'test execute',
execution_name => 'EXASIMUL', only the relevant data blocks—not the entire
execution_params => dbms_advisor.arglist ('cell_simulation_ table. This minimizes the I/O at the data-
enabled','TRUE'), base servers and results in less I/O across
execution_desc => 'Exadata simulation enabled'
the interconnect and fewer CPU cycles. But
);
end; if you want to predict how much I/O is saved
on specific SQL statements from your actual
Code Listing 7: Executing a comparison task production database, you can perform the
Oracle Exadata simulation on any Oracle
Database 11g Release 2 database with tradi-
begin
:ret := dbms_sqlpa.execute_analysis_task ( tional storage and get a fairly accurate esti-
task_name => 'ExadataSimulSPA1', mate of the I/O savings in Oracle Exadata. 
execution_type => 'compare performance',
execution_params=> dbms_advisor.arglist('comparison_metric',
'io_interconnect_bytes')
Arup Nanda (arup@
);
end; proligence.com) has been
an Oracle DBA for more
than 14 years, handling
Code Listing 8: Getting the comparison report
all aspects of database
administration. He was
set lines 300 pages 0 trimspool on long 9999
spool exasimul1_rep.html
Oracle Magazine’s DBA of the Year in 2003.
select dbms_sqlpa.report_analysis_task ('ExadataSimulSPA1','HTML','TYPICAL','ALL')
from dual Next Steps
/
spool off
READ online-only article content
bit.ly/cwvuPq
6. Next, run the same execution with Oracle how to execute a comparison task where LEARN more about
Exadata simulation enabled—with the the metric to be compared is the I/O SQL Performance Analyzer
cell_simulation_enabled parameter set interconnect bytes from each execution. Oracle Database PL/SQL Packages and
Types Reference
to true—as shown in Listing 6. The task 8. Finally, it’s time to generate the com- bit.ly/dyIbAQ
will run the SQL statements inside the parison report. The best way to visualize “Performing Through Changes”
STS and simulate the process of running the report is in HTML output. Listing 8 bit.ly/ckWiG1
the statements on Oracle Exadata. outputs the report to an HTML file named EXPLORE the Oracle by Example on
7. After both executions, it’s time to exasimul1_rep.html. Now you can open Exadata Simulation
bit.ly/bFaV7r
perform the comparison. Listing 7 shows the report in a browser and examine the

oracle magazine January/February 2011

Help Us Help the Polar Bear

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voice focused on funding scientific
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Conservation through Research and Education

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Photo © R&C Buchanan
 Database Application Developer and DBA Ask Tom by Tom Kyte 65

OraclE DATABASE

On History, Invisibility,
and Moving
Our technologist counts on histograms, proves
hash tables by example, and moves CLOBs.

I have a question about using histograms

with character data. I’m trying to improve
performance on a set of very large tables. My
database doesn’t store more than 254 rows of
information for a single histogram.
That aside, yes, you are correct that for
15
16
17
end ) len31,
rpad( 'x', 32, 'x' ) ||
chr( ascii('A')+
table T1 has more than 120 million rows and varchar2 data, only so many bytes of informa- 18 case when rownum < 20000
is not partitioned, and it is representative tion are stored in the histogram for each of 19 then 0
of the other tables in my schema. The data the 254 values. That is, the leading edge of 20 else mod(rownum,12)
is such that now a couple of key varchar2 the varchar2 string, not necessarily the entire 21 end ) len32,
columns have very skewed data. string, is stored in the histogram. I stress the 22 rpad( 'x', 33, 'x' ) ||
I’ve gathered histograms on this informa- word bytes here because in many cases, bytes 23 chr( ascii('A')+
tion and have been pleased with the results. are not the same as characters in a varchar2 24 case when rownum < 20000
The optimizer is better able to gauge the esti- string. If you are using a multibyte character 25 then 0
mated cardinalities during optimization and set, it is quite possible that 32 bytes is able to 26 else mod(rownum,12)
has been coming up with better plans. store far fewer than 32 characters. 27 end ) len33
I’m concerned about the future, however. I can show you this 32-byte limit rather 28 from all_objects
I’ve heard that histograms gathered easily by running a small test. First I’ll create 29 /
against varchar2 columns have limitations. a table containing various varchar2 strings. Table created.
Specifically, I’ve heard that only the first few These strings will be of different fixed lengths,
characters are considered when the histo- and their leading edge will be constant. I’ll As I’ve generated the data, I’ve also
grams are being generated, so that as my var- create four columns—one with 30 characters introduced some skew to it. If you look at
char2 data gets longer and longer, I might see of ‘x’ followed by a single character of A-L, the function for assigning the last letter—
a decrease in the efficiency of my histograms. the next with 31 characters of ‘x’ followed by a after all of the ‘x’s—you’ll see that the first
Is this true, and what are the limits? single character A–L, then 32 ‘x’s, and finally 20,000 rows (out of about 72,000) will have
Before I address the question, let’s first 33 ‘x’s—all followed by a single character, the letter ‘A’ assigned to them. After the first
define what a histogram is. A histogram—in A–L. This will create strings of 31, 32, 33, and 20,000 rows, I’ll get an even distribution of
the context of statistics—contains informa- 34 bytes in length (I am using a single-byte A–L values. That means that strings that end
tion that gives the optimizer a clear picture character set, so I know that a byte is the in ‘A’ happen often and that strings that end
of the data in a column. In many cases, the same as a character in my system). in B–L do not happen often.
histogram on a column will tell the optimizer Next I’ll gather statistics and ensure that
precisely how many rows in the table have SQL> create table t I have histograms that provide a perfect
a certain value, so that when the optimizer 2 as picture of the data:
parses a query in the form “where column_ 3 select
with_histogram = ‘some value’,” the opti- 4 rpad( 'x', 30, 'x' ) || SQL> begin
mizer will be able to very accurately estimate 5 chr( ascii('A')+ 2 dbms_stats.gather_table_stats
how many rows that predicate will return. 6 case when rownum < 20000 3 ( user, 'T',
When the column with a histogram generated 7 then 0 4 method_opt =>
against it has fewer than 255 distinct values, 8 else mod(rownum,12) 'for all columns size 12',
the histogram will contain a complete picture 9 end ) len30, 5 estimate_percent=> 100
of the values in the column. When the column 10 rpad( 'x', 31, 'x' ) || 6 );
has more than 254 distinct values, the histo- 11 chr( ascii('A')+ 7 end;
gram will become less accurate but will still 12 case when rownum < 20000 8 /
paint a good picture of the data in the column. 13 then 0
This 255-distinct-value limit is because the 14 else mod(rownum,12) PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

oracle magazine January/February 2011

66 Ask Tom

The method_opt parameter here is key Code Listing 1: Checking the optimizer’s use of histograms on “long” columns
for this example, and I used it to gather his-
tograms for all the columns in the table. The SQL> set autotrace on explain
resulting histograms will contain 12 rows of SQL> select 'len30', count(*) from t where len30 = rpad('x',30,'x')||'A'
2 union all
information for each column—for each of
3 select 'len30', count(*) from t where len30 = rpad('x',30,'x')||'B'
the distinct A–L values I loaded. Because I 4 union all
have 12 distinct values in each column, this 5 select 'len31', count(*) from t where len31 = rpad('x',31,'x')||'A'
6 union all
will provide a perfect picture of the count of
7 select 'len31', count(*) from t where len31 = rpad('x',31,'x')||'B'
rows for each value. 8 union all
Now I can use explain plan on a simple 9 select 'len32', count(*) from t where len32 = rpad('x',32,'x')||'A'
10 union all
query to see how many rows the optimizer
11 select 'len32', count(*) from t where len32 = rpad('x',32,'x')||'B'
believes would be returned, given a predi- 12 union all
cate on each of the columns, as shown in 13 select 'len33', count(*) from t where len33 = rpad('x',33,'x')||'A'
14 union all
Listing 1.
15 select 'len33', count(*) from t where len33 = rpad('x',33,'x')||'B'
As you can see, the optimizer is able to 16 /
very accurately estimate the cardinality
'LEN3 COUNT(*)
of each predicate as long as the string is
——————— ———————————————
32 bytes or less. So in steps 3, 5, 7, and len30 24307
9 in Listing 1, the estimated cardinality len30 4308
len31 24307
is very exact: the estimate matches the
len31 4308
actual count(*) values. However, when the len32 24307
optimizer gets to step 11, the estimated len32 4308
len33 24307
cardinality goes awry. All of a sudden, the
len33 4308
optimizer starts guessing “every row will 8 rows selected.
be returned,” regardless of what the string
Execution Plan
ends in. This is because the histogram
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
contains only the first 32 bytes of string Plan hash value: 2994643399
data, and when the optimizer gets to steps
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
11 through 17, the strings all start with 32 or | Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time |
more ‘x’s. In the histogram, they all appear —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
to have the same value. | 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 8 | 268 | 3079 (88)| 00:00:37 |
| 1 | UNION-ALL | | | | | |
This does not render histograms useless. | 2 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 32 | | |
They are very useful on most data you tend to |* 3 | TABLE ACCESS FULL| T | 24307 | 759K| 385 (1)| 00:00:05 |
search on: numbers, dates, and strings less | 4 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 32 | | |
|* 5 | TABLE ACCESS FULL| T | 4308 | 134K| 385 (1)| 00:00:05 |
than 33 bytes in length. If you have longer | 6 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 33 | | |
strings, you will typically be performing a |* 7 | TABLE ACCESS FULL| T | 24307 | 783K| 385 (1)| 00:00:05 |
text search on them with Oracle Text and the | 8 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 33 | | |
|* 9 | TABLE ACCESS FULL| T | 4308 | 138K| 385 (1)| 00:00:05 |
CONTAINS operator. | 10 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 34 | | |
You should be aware of this histogram |* 11 | TABLE ACCESS FULL| T | 71696 | 2380K| 385 (1)| 00:00:05 |
implementation, however, because it could | 12 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 34 | | |
|* 13 | TABLE ACCESS FULL| T | 71696 | 2380K| 385 (1)| 00:00:05 |
prompt you to store some data attributes | 14 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 35 | | |
differently. For example, suppose you have a |* 15 | TABLE ACCESS FULL| T | 71696 | 2450K| 385 (1)| 00:00:05 |
system that stores URLs in a table—an audit | 16 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 35 | | |
|* 17 | TABLE ACCESS FULL| T | 71696 | 2450K| 385 (1)| 00:00:05 |
trail, for example. If you look at a URL such —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
as the ones you see on asktom.oracle.com,
you’ll discover that the first 39 characters of Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
my URL are constant— 3 - filter("LEN30"='xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxA')
5 - filter("LEN30"='xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxB')
http://asktom.oracle.com/pls/asktom/f?p 7 - filter("LEN31"='xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxA')
9 - filter("LEN31"='xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxB')
11 - filter("LEN32"='xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxA')
—regardless of what page you end up on 13 - filter("LEN32"='xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxB')
in my site. Having a histogram on that data 15 - filter("LEN33"='xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxA')
17 - filter("LEN33"='xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxB')
would not be very useful.

January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine


However, what if I stored the data in
a more meaningful way, such as storing
the URL in a series of fields—specifically,
using the fields PROTOCOL, HOST, PORT,
and PATH? In this case, the PROTOCOL
field would contain values such as HTTP or
HTTPS, the HOST field would store asktom
.oracle.com (and other host names), the
PORT field would contain one of the stan-
dard port numbers used by typical HTTP,
and the PATH field would be the unique
bit. You have the ability to render the
original URL in its entirety, so you haven’t
lost any data. And you have the new ability
to provide even better searching capabili-
ties, because you have the components all
split out. You also gain the ability to com-
press this data in the database very easily.
(Oracle’s basic and advanced compression
for tables works by removing repetitive
attributes in a block. PROTOCOL, HOST,
and PORT values would all repeat often.)
And you would now have an attribute
(PATH) that would be able to support a his-
togram nicely.
This is just another case where knowing
how things work enables you to implement
a solution more efficiently or at least justify
why you have chosen to do something in a
particular fashion.
I encourage you to take a look at what
a colleague of mine, Jonathan Lewis, has
written on this subject recently as well. See
the Next Steps box at the end of this column
for links to his excellent series of articles on
histograms and the 32-byte limit.
Scalar Subquery Caching
Reading the posting at bit.ly/cSqDc6, I won-
dered about this part of Jonathan Lewis’
reply: “If so, the cache is probably a hash
table of 256 rows in 8i and 9i, and 1,024 rows
in 10g.” What is this hash table? Where can I
see it in Oracle Database?
For readers who might not be able to see
the posting in question: it was an article
referring to an internal optimization called
scalar subquery caching implemented in the
database. If you execute a scalar subquery
in the context of a larger query, the database
will attempt to cache the output of that
subquery in hopes of reusing it over and over
again during the larger query’s execution
67
Code Listing 2: Function f counts calls and stores information
SQL> create or replace function f( x in varchar2 ) return number
2 as
3 begin
4 dbms_application_info.set_client_info(userenv('client_info')+1 );
5 return length(x);
6 end;
7 /
Function created.
Code Listing 3: Calling function f and measuring CPU consumed
SQL> exec :cpu := dbms_utility.get_cpu_time;
SQL> exec dbms_application_info.set_client_info(0);
SQL> set autotrace traceonly statistics;
SQL> select owner, f(owner) from stage;
71653 rows selected.
Statistics
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
...
71653 rows processed
SQL> set autotrace off
SQL> select dbms_utility.get_cpu_time-:cpu cpu_hsecs,
userenv('client_info') from dual;
CPU_HSECS USERENV('CLIENT_INFO')
——————————————
— —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
164 71653
rather than having to re-evaluate the sub- call into a scalar subquery, and I rerun the
query many times. example, as shown in Listing 4. The scalar
In answer to the question, however, you subquery was called only 69 times (over 0.25
cannot “see” the hash table anywhere. It CPU seconds). The effect of this scalar sub-
is an internal data structure that lives in query caching is now apparent.
your session memory for the duration of
the query. Once the query is finished, it Direct Access to Partition
goes away. It is a cache associated with your We have set up some list-partitioned tables.
query—nothing more, nothing less. My developers want to run direct statements
You can, however, “see” the hash table in (inserts, updates, selects) against partitions,
action by measuring how many times your not against the tables. For example, they
function is called. In Listing 2, I start by cre- would like to use this:
ating a function that counts how many times
it has been called and stores the results in INSERT INTO status_delta_stg
CLIENT_INFO in V$SESSION. PARTITION (status_delta_stg_company1).
Now, in Listing 3, I can call that function UPDATE status_fact
from a SQL query and see how much CPU the PARTITION (job_status_fact_company1)
query consumed and how many times the
function was called. Are there any benefits of doing it this way?
The STAGE table is a copy of ALL_ (The optimizer should be able to do partition
OBJECTS, and, as you can see in the Listing 3 elimination if we provide the field we parti-
statistics, function f was called once per row tioned on in the queries.)
(71,653 times). And the function processing My main problem with this approach
used 1.64 CPU seconds. is that I lose the ability to do partition
Now I simply convert the PL/SQL function exchanges, drops, merges, and so on without
oracle magazine January/February 2011
68 Ask Tom
having an impact on their code (if I decide to
use a different partition name).
The only time I can see a benefit would be
during a direct path load. Direct path loads—
using INSERT /*+ APPEND */, for example—
lock the entire segment they are targeting,
so if you do
insert /*+ APPEND */ into t
select ...
the entire table T will get locked until you
commit. If, however, you are loading
data for just one partition and you specify
the partition
insert /*+ APPEND */ into t
partition (p1) select ...
only partition P1 will get locked. Note that
this insert will fail, of course, if you attempt
to load any data that doesn’t actually belong
in partition P1.
Otherwise, running statements against
partitions generally would not help your
developers improve performance. (Note that
the inserts, updates, and deletes will figure
out what partitions they must hit and will hit
only those partitions.)
In addition to the negatives of running
statements against partitions you’ve
pointed out, there’s at least one more issue
I foresee. I can easily envision developers
writing WHERE clauses they think resolve
to a certain partition and then including
the PARTITION clause in the DML and
having it hit only that one partition they
think the WHERE clause targets—only to
be disappointed that they were wrong (and
have just caused logical data corruption on
a huge scale).
Unless your developers have a specific
technical, sound, and logical reason, I would
not want this in the code at all.
Better with clob
We are currently upgrading from Oracle9i
Database to Oracle Database 10g
DOWNLOAD Oracle Database 11g
Release 2
oracle.com/technetwork/database/
enterprise-edition/downloads
January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine
Code Listing 4: Replacing function f with a scalar subquery
SQL> exec :cpu := dbms_utility.get_cpu_time;
SQL> dbms_application_info.set_client_info(0);
SQL> set autotrace traceonly statistics;
SQL> select owner, (select f(owner) from dual) f from stage;
71653 rows selected.
Statistics
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
71653 rows processed
SQL> set autotrace off
SQL> select dbms_utility.get_cpu_time-:cpu cpu_hsecs,
userenv('client_info') from dual;
CPU_HSECS USERENV('CLIENT_INFO')
——————————————
— —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
25 69
Release 2. One of our Oracle9i Database where field1=<something>
scripts moved data from one table to another and field2=<something else>;
when certain conditions applied. The script
that copied the data in Oracle9i Database is in PL/SQL or any program will accomplish your
as follows: task. You can just use straightforward SQL.
Now, if I could only convince you to
copy from username/password@dbase upgrade to Oracle Database 11g Release 2.
to username/password@dbase append Oracle Database 10g Release 2 will reach end
target_table using of life a lot sooner than Oracle Database 11g
select * from source_table Release 2 will. 
where field1=condition1
and field2=condition2; Tom Kyte is a database
evangelist in Oracle’s
But with the database upgrade, a field Server Technologies
that was type LONG in Oracle9i Database division and has worked
is now type CLOB in Oracle Database 10g for Oracle since 1993. He
Release 2. How do I achieve the old script’s is the author of Expert
results in Oracle Database 10g Release 2 Oracle Database Architecture (Apress, 2005,
for a record where one of the fields is a 2010) and Effective Oracle by Design (Oracle
CLOB datatype? Press, 2003), among other books.
Congratulations on migrating to the LOB
Next Steps
datatype—you will be much happier once
you discover how much more flexible large
ASK Tom
objects are than LONGs. In the past, you Tom Kyte answers your most difficult technology
had to use this deprecated SQL*Plus COPY questions. Highlights from that forum appear in
command to copy LONG types from place this column.
asktom.oracle.com
to place, or you had to write a program
READ more Tom
outside of the database to do it. You cannot Oracle Database Concepts 11g Release 2 (11.2)
use INSERT as SELECT with LONG types, bit.ly/aonqPP
and PL/SQL can handle only LONGs that Expert Oracle Database Architecture,
are 32 K or less in size. Second Edition
amzn.to/ckGXaR
With the CLOB type, you will find that
READ more about histograms and the
a simple 32-byte limit
bit.ly/awJg5H
insert into target_table bit.ly/duT7UR
bit.ly/dD3CZc
select * from source_table

Are You Change Enabled?
Iterate and inculcate change along with its disruption.
I marvel at organizations claiming to
operate in a change-enabled culture. I
have seen my share of enterprise resource
planning (ERP) application implementa-
tions with tumultuous change baked in, but
I have yet to see an operating environment
that could be described as conducive to
change. Regretfully for most organizations,
pending application changes are not given
the thoughtful consideration they deserve,
and when planning does occur, it comes way
too late in the game.
The idea that a work environment stands
ready for change in advance of any and all
destabilizing/restabilizing events required
under the banner of process reform is a
heroic one. The assertion, however, runs
contrary to the natural tendency we all share
toward normalcy.
In the absence of unusual influencing
factors, a process will approximate a steady
operating state. This is due in part to human
behavior. Generally speaking, people protect
the expected outcome of their work and wish
to avoid the unexpected results brought about
when changes are made. The unexpected
can put an individual into an uncomfortable
position. Equally, people are generally more
satisfied when things remain relatively stable.
Stability suggests that actions and events are
somewhat predictable. Associates under-
stand their roles and their responsibilities to
the effort at hand. Interactions with others
working within the system are well under-
stood. Throughput is manageable. We draw
a certain amount of strength and confidence
from the routine, and it is less stressful.
In contrast, change-enabled organizations
have figured out how to iterate and inculcate
change along with the disruption it can bring
into their culture. They assume a higher
level of risk to the business in exchange for a
higher level of reward. They are less likely to
hold onto conventional or historical practice
for the sake of stability. They work to remove
the stoic mechanisms that serve to maintain
the status quo. They also strive to reduce the
impact change has on their people.
The people working in change-enabled
organizations share distinguishing traits as
well. They are more open minded. They are
willing to take calculated risks and, more
importantly, to discuss their successes and
failures without reservation or fear of retribu-
tion. And they share the belief that a perfect
plan is rare—that any plan will need to adapt
over time to deliver results. Honest feedback
and fair appraisal are essential to keep things
moving on time and on track.
In change-enabled organizations, trans-
parency is requisite within the context of
failure. Mistakes often produce revela-
tions—in fact, they are important learning
experiences. In talking about a configuration
problem related to an Oracle E-Business
Suite implementation, an executive sponsor
at an Oracle Applications Users Group
(OAUG) member company once told me, “If
we had not made the original mistake, we
never would have fully explored the available
profile options for the feature in question.
We would not have found a better fit to our
desired operation. And we would not be
where we are today.” Change-enabled orga-
nizations actively look for an upside in every
learning experience.
To make change stick, change-enabled
companies ensure that all the methods and
practices inherent to the previous oper-
ating procedure are permanently retired.
Associates will gravitate to the old way of
doing business if the opportunity exists
and the preexisting tool remains in play.
Regression returns stability to their work
environment but forestalls proper adoption.
I have seen associates take on activist
roles to preserve their current environment.
Usually, it is the same people who had been
complaining about the very application they
are now fighting to preserve. Faced with the
In the Field By David Ferguson 69
uncertainty of change, the resistive forces
are convinced that the old way of working is
inextricably linked to future success. They are
energetic in support of their position.
Driving the resistance is a perception of
increasing complexity—a new skill to learn,
a new tool to master, and a new way to
accomplish the work, all of which can be very
unsettling. Understandably, most people are
drawn to the familiar ways of the past. You
have to be willing to assume a reasonable
level of discomfort for progress to be made.
Remember, too, that organizations have
a limited capacity for change. Change needs
to be managed at the highest levels. Too
many competing initiatives will quickly
overwhelm the absorption rate of those
affected by change, and the anticipated
benefits will be lost. Establish a threshold
for the organization’s perceived ability to
destabilize/restabilize relative to the opera-
tional challenges you are facing.
I applaud those of you who truly under-
stand the dynamics involved in change
enablement and who have incorporated the
concepts into your culture. You are breaking
ground in areas beneficial to all. For the rest,
I hope you’ll consider moving change man-
agement up on your company’s—and your
own—priority list. 
David Ferguson is the
immediate past president
of OAUG. Ferguson is a
business process manager
with more than 25 years
of experience working
with enterprise technologies and applications
within customer service and sales operations.
Next Steps
JOIN OAUG
oaug.com
oracle magazine January/February 2011
70
Build Better
Data Warehouses
The processing capacity of the Oracle Exadata
Database Machine means fewer physical structures
and better business intelligence.
A s a colleague of mine used to say, “If
we had infinite processing capacity, we
wouldn’t need data warehouses.” Having one
machine with infinite processing capacity
would allow our organization to handle both
online transaction processing (OLTP) and our
business intelligence (BI) and analytic needs.
All the things needed to produce metrics in
an analytic space could be done on demand:
integration, computation, and aggregation.
Enter the Oracle Exadata
Database Machine
No, the Oracle Exadata Database Machine
is not the infinite machine that will make
integration, computation, and aggregation
all on-demand functions. But the Oracle
Exadata Database Machine helps us to start
thinking about simplifying some of the pro-
cessing and gyrations we have to do to build
and deliver an efficient data warehouse
solution. With Oracle Exadata, we can more
quickly read the data we need to satisfy our
queries. Without Oracle Exadata, we need
to build separate structures—such as mate-
rialized views—in our data warehouses to
boost performance. With Oracle Exadata, we
don’t need to build as many physical struc-
tures, freeing up more time for using the
data instead of processing it.
In general terms, there are two reasons
for building additional data structures, or
even databases, above an integrated data
warehouse. The first is to make the data
easier to consume by our end users and their
reporting and analytic applications. To get
better usability and to focus our analytic
applications, we create a new subset of our
data in snapshots or data marts to support a
specific analytic or reporting application, and
January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine
We can do more with
Oracle Exadata with
fewer datacenter
tiles occupied.
that subset is just another physical projec-
tion, or movement, of the same data. With
Oracle Exadata, however, we create fewer
physical projections and can create more
logical projections of the data in our BI tool
of choice in our integrated data warehouse
for the same purpose.
The second and probably more common
reason we build additional structures above
an integrated data warehouse is to improve
query performance. Because users of data
seem to change how and why they use the
data in the data warehouse, good data
warehousing teams monitor the usage of
their data warehouses so that they can pro-
actively manage usability and performance
of the database and add performance- and
usability-enhancing objects such as indexes,
materialized views, and OLAP cubes.
Even with Oracle Exadata, it is still a good
idea to actively monitor how the data ware-
house is being used. And we will still need
to build objects in the database that provide
better usability and performance, such as
OLAP cubes and materialized views. Yet with
the efficiencies of the database machine,
we do not have to begin our BI application
design with the assumption that we will be
building yet another new database. We can
be more dynamic in satisfying changing user
needs because there is one integrated ware-
house with fewer physical projections that
we must also manage and change.
In the Field By Andy Flower
Efficient, Integrated, and Green
With Oracle Exadata, fewer copies and
reprojections of the same data also mean
fewer database servers, fewer disks, less
hardware, and reduced power consumption
and datacenter floor space. And with Oracle
Exadata, we get more in a single rack of the
integrated server and storage platform than
we get in other racks. Plain and simple,
we can do more with Oracle Exadata with
fewer datacenter tiles occupied and less
energy consumed.
There are many other aspects of Oracle
Exadata that are compelling, and as the
number of Oracle Exadata users grows,
so does the activity in the user com-
munity. The Independent Oracle Users
Group (IOUG) has an increasingly active
Oracle Exadata Special Interest Group
(SIG). If you want to know more about the
Oracle Exadata Database Machine and
other Oracle Exadata solutions, the Oracle
Exadata SIG is a great place to learn and
share with some of the Oracle community’s
best and brightest. 
Andy Flower
(andy_flower@ioug.org)
is president of IOUG
and has been an active
volunteer with IOUG since
1998. In his day job, he is
an information management and BI consultant.
Next Steps
LEARN more about
Oracle Exadata SIG and COLLABORATE 11
ioug.org
20 of the 20
Top Manufacturers
ve r 36,000
And O nufacturers
id si ze M a
M

Get Better Results With Oracle

oracle.com/goto/manufacturing
or call 1.800.ORACLE.1

Source: IndustryWeek list of largest publicly held manufacturing companies based on revenue,
and internal analysis of midsize manufacturers.

Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates.
Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
72
The Case for Integrated
Systems Management
Efficient and cost-effective systems management
must also do more.
O racle Magazine spoke with Tim
Grieser, program vice president of
enterprise system management software at
International Data Corporation (IDC), about
managing enterprise information systems
in an era of outsourcing, virtualization, and
cloud computing.
Oracle Magazine: What is driving IT organiza-
tions to adopt integrated systems manage-
ment solutions?
Grieser: Reducing the cost of operations is the
#1 concern of today’s IT managers. Improving
customer satisfaction levels is a close second.
IT departments face a dichotomy between
trying to simplify operations while continually
improving service levels. Systems manage-
ment software can increase the efficiency of
the IT staff and also reduce operational costs.
Traditionally, IT departments have relied on
a variety of tools from multiple vendors to
manage various parts of the IT infrastruc-
ture. Third-party tools are not intrinsically
integrated, which means IT must manually
integrate them or hire a service organization
to do it for them. It’s not easy to monitor the
entire infrastructure when you have to start
with different components, interfaces, man-
agement agents, philosophies, and so forth
and then pool it all into a common frame-
work or manually combine the information.
Having a preintegrated toolset with common
interfaces and common views saves the IT
organization the time and expense of making
the tools work together.
Oracle Magazine: What are the key goals
and challenges in enterprisewide systems
monitoring?
Grieser: It’s important to have an end-to-end
picture of the IT infrastructure in order to
make sure that end users are receiving the
overall services they need. But doing this reli-
ably becomes more difficult as information
January/February 2011 Oracle.com/oraclemagazine
systems and IT functions get distributed,
virtualized, and outsourced.
In a virtualized environment, an applica-
tion or business process can span many dif-
ferent servers, some of which may be hosted
by third parties. This is especially the case
when you have a multitier or composite appli-
cation in which the database is on one server,
You need to be
able to monitor and
manage service
levels from end
to end.
the applications are somewhere else, the Web
server is somewhere else, and so on. Even if
each tier appears to be functioning well, there
is no guarantee that users will receive ade-
quate service levels when their transactions
cross tiers. You need to be able to monitor
and manage service levels from end to end.
Oracle Magazine: How do you measure the
results of integrated systems management?
Grieser: You need to be able to see business
metrics in addition to IT metrics so you can
relate what’s going on in the infrastructure
to the actual response time users experi-
ence. That means having a set of systems
management tools that monitors the entire
IT environment from the disk drive all the
way up to the user interface, sometimes
called “application-to-disk management.”
The objective is to understand not just the
technical transactions that are going on but
also the service levels that people are getting.
Isolated IT metrics don’t really tell you much
about the overall health of an application
or the business impact of certain problems.
If the IT staff can’t judge performance and
Analyst’s Corner by DAVID BAUM
troubleshoot problems at the business level,
then they won’t have the correct business
context for addressing issues and prioritizing
their management activities. For example,
a line-of-business owner is concerned
with fulfilling orders on time, while IT is
concerned about technical metrics such as
application uptime and server utilization.
Oracle Magazine: Why is it important to inte-
grate systems management and customer
support functions?
Grieser: When system administrators resolve
application issues, IT operations staff may
need to route service requests to their IT
vendors. Many of today’s systems manage-
ment tools don’t supply basic information
such as version numbers, configuration
settings, and applied patches. Thus it takes
longer to resolve problems because you have
to wait for the vendor to gather those specs.
Some vendors provide automated channels
for providing software patches and updates,
and the information is accessible from
within the enterprise systems management
console. It’s much easier to resolve problems
if you can integrate the systems manage-
ment and support functions in this way. 
David Baum (david@dbaumcomm.com) is
a freelance business writer based in Santa
Barbara, California.
IDC (idc.com) is a global provider of market
intelligence, advisory services, and events for
the information technology, telecommunications,
and consumer technology markets.
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