Oracle OpenWorld Delivers for Key Technology Trends

SummaryThe Oracle OpenWorld 2011 event continues to grow with more than 45,000 attendees this year. Several topic areas caught ARC Advisory Group's attention at OpenWorld:

• Oracle Fusion Applications
• Cloud Computing
• Mobility
• Social Networking for Business
• Enterprise Asset Management
  
  
  
  
  
  Fusion Applications Seven Oracle Fusion Applications have moved from an "early adopter" program to "generally available." The early adopter program showcased over 100 customers implementing one or more Oracle Fusion Applications modules. As part of the program, Oracle provided these customers high levels of support — sometimes including direct access to the software development engineers, which allowed them to influence the products' features. This "high touch" approach helped ensure customer success and the company says that all the customers are good references.

  Users can adopt Oracle Fusion Applications in a modular fashion as needed. These can co-exist with other Oracle applications. Oracle Fusion Applications offer a standards-based platform using common components. The following seven Oracle Fusion Application Suite components, which include over 100 modules, are now generally available:

  • Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
  • Oracle Fusion Financials
  • Oracle Fusion Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC)
  • Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management (HCM)
  • Oracle Fusion Procurement
  • Oracle Fusion Project Portfolio Management (PPM)
  • Oracle Fusion Supply Chain Management

  
  

  Mobility Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF) Mobile extends enterprise applications to mobile clients with tools, services, and infrastructure. An application built with ADF Mobile framework installs on a smart device, renders user screens via HTML5, and has access to device services. The programming model is web-based, providing consistency with other enterprise applications as well as easier migration to new platforms. The application also has access to device services, enabling a richer experience for users than a browser alone can offer.

  Developers write an application once and can deploy it across multiple leading smartphone platforms, such as Apple iOS (first) and Android (near future). Integration with native device services allows mobile developers to create rich enterprise mobile applications that include calendars, cameras, GPS, and orientation.

  Oracle ADF Mobile is a new product with a targeted release in calendar year 2012. Oracle demonstrated several business intelligence applications targeted for supervisors and managers on the Apple iPad.

  Cloud Computing For a private cloud, the company offers Oracle Exadata and Oracle Exalogic as a "cloud in a box." Oracle Exalogic combines hardware and software engineered together to provide optimized performance for Java applications, Oracle Applications, and other enterprise applications. The Oracle Exadata is a "database machine" focused on performance for data warehousing and online transaction processing (OLTP) applications.

  Oracle Public Cloud provides on-demand access to a shared pool of computing resources hosted by Oracle in its global data centers. Oracle Public Cloud runs on its engineered systems, Oracle Exadata and Oracle Exalogic. A self-service, scalable, and metered approach provides advantages in speed of implementation, agility, and efficiency. Oracle uses grid computing, clustering, server virtualization, SOA shared services, and large-scale management automation. Each module in Oracle's extensive portfolio of horizontal and industry applications can be hosted. Oracle Public Cloud has three offerings: 1) Applications Unlimited, 2) Oracle CRM On Demand available as a SaaS service, and 3) the newly announced application services, Oracle Fusion CRM Cloud Service and Oracle Fusion HCM Cloud Service.

  Social Networking for Business Oracle Social Network is an enterprise collaboration and social networking tool for business. It enables users to find and collaborate with other stakeholders with common interests within their organization and across enterprises as well as with suppliers, partners, and customers. Oracle Social Network provides a range of collaboration tools, including personal profiles, groups, activity feeds, status updates, discussion forums, document sharing, co-browsing and editing, instant messaging, email, and web conferencing. Oracle Social Network is integrated with Oracle Fusion Applications. Users can receive information feeds from these systems in real time, and collaborate to resolve business issues quickly. Oracle Social Network provides personalized and configurable alerts that enable users to stay informed of actions, but filter out superfluous chatter. Supported mobile devices include iPhones, iPads, and Android devices.

  Enterprise Asset Management A presentation on Oracle eAM previewed two additions for mobility planned for calendar year 2012.

  • Native mobility solution built using Oracle ADF Mobile, targeted at technicians. When processing a work order, it will support the disconnected state (which ARC's research strongly recommends).
  • Mobility business intelligence running on an Apple iPad, targeted at supervisors, managers, and other select users. The application will include pre-built status and reporting displays.

  
  

  Chuck Armbruster, Corporate Reliability Engineering Manager, The J.M. Smucker Company, reviewed the benefits of an integrated ERP and EAM solution. His rapid-fire list of benefits included:

  • Linking to the supply chain for purchasing and inventory management
  • Accurate data in master tables, vs. syncing up to obtain current state
  • Single data source, vs. re-entering the same data multiple times
  • Easier to keep current version, vs. sync to separate applications
  • Exception handling and management
  • Leverage data across the enterprise
  • More economical: license, learn, train, support, upgrade, etc.

  
  

  Nuklearna elektrarna Krsko (NEK) — a nuclear power plant in Slovenia — has gone live with its Oracle eAM application. During an interview, a company representative told ARC that the installation was moving forward successfully. As one would expect with a significant new set of functionality that crosses into many of the other Oracle EBS modules, a few rough edges have been identified — none mission critical. The project manager is satisfied that Oracle has applied the needed resources to resolve these issues.

  Last Word Oracle — particularly with Oracle Fusion Applications — has begun delivering a new generation of software for enterprise-level business applications that enables flexibility in migration, capabilities, and deployment. The company is doing this important rollout smartly, first obtaining and supporting over 100 early adopters that are now good references. This is a key requirement in the sales cycle to close additional customers. The next challenge is to ramp up the company's large and global eco-system of partners with updated technology and implementation skills.

  Business users have developed expectations based on services available to consumers: search with Google, mobility with a smartphone and iPad, and social networking with Facebook, and so on. Search, mobility, social networking, and cloud have become key technology trends that impact the applications provided by nearly all businesses, governments, and other organizations. Oracle's improved and new offerings in these rapidly emerging domain areas can help enable organizations to meet the expectations of users for their applications.

  Mobility — driven by the widespread adoption among consumers and strong business benefits — has become a rapidly growing requirement for EAM systems. Offering a native solution with a seamless user experience has become increasingly important for success in the EAM market. Oracle's plan for two solutions — one specifically for technicians processing work orders, and another for management decision support — provides an excellent combination that should fit each user's needs.