Monday, January 29, 2007

Catching Up

It's been a few weeks since I posted anything here, due to family events and happenings in my personal life. So let's catch up on a few of the more noteworthy Oracle-related events of the past few weeks, shall we?

OAUG Delivers Again On The Demystifying Fusion Series

Tim Dexter, from Oracle's XML Publisher team, gave an outstanding presentation for OAUG's "Community Thursday" session on Demystifying Oracle Fusion. This was the best explanation I've seen on the mechanics and use of XML Publisher. You can read some of what Tim showed us if you check his XML Publisher blog.

The next Demystifying Fusion session, Web Services Fundamentals For Fusion, will be given by Innowave Technology's Basheer Khan on February 15. You're really missing out on a good thing if you're not joining the Dymystifying Fusion series. There is a strong emphasis in these sessions on getting into the nuts and bolts of various Fusion Architecture components, with quite a few "driving live" demos. I should also point out that these sessions are free to all OAUG members.

The Release of EBS R12

Well, the E-Business development teams did it. Oracle quietly made EBS Release 12 generally available for purchase from the Oracle Store and for download from Oracle Product E-Delivery on January 25th. The About Documents that came with earlier releases have been consolidated into a single document, Metalink Note 394692.1. You can find information about the Release Content Documents ("RCDs") that describe the new features in R12 for each product family in Metalink Note 404152.1.

Oracle Launch Event: 5 New Releases. 6 Continents. 24 Hours.

I've previously posted to this blog about the upcoming Oracle Launch Event on January 31st, when Oracle will formally announce the general availability of EBS R12, JDE Enterprise One R8.12, JDE World A9.1, PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.0, and Siebel R8.0. If you're unable to attend the event live, you can attend the live webcast if you reserve a seat prior to the event.

EBS 11.5.10.2 Vision Instance Available

For those of us not diving immediately into Release 12, my friends over at Solution Beacon now have an E-Business 11.5.10.2 Vision instance available for public use. This means that Solution Beacon now offers free use of 11.5.10.2, 11.5.10.0, and 11.5.9 Vision instances online.

Transparent Data Encryption Certified With 11i E-Business Suite

Transparent Data Encryption ("TDE") is now certified with the E-Business Suite. TDE allows encryption of selected columns in the EBS database tables, but is transparent to the EBS during runtime and requires no additional EBS patches. However, Oracle Wallet is required for backing up files utilizing TDE. Prerequisites include EBS 11.5.9 CU2 and Oracle 10gR2 Database 10.2.0.2. You can read the full story on using TDE with EBS in Metalink Note 403294.1.

Rumors and More Rumors

I really couldn't wrap up a "catch up" article for any significant period of time without addressing some Oracle rumors, now could I? If nothing else, they're good for a smile and a chat around the office watercooler. Among those recently heard:

- Oracle's next acquisition target is Business Objects. This one comes up once or twice a year, so I'd take this with a grain of salt...

- Oracle will soon offer support for MySQL, much in the same way they're doing so for RedHat Linux.

- Oracle will soon make an offer for SAP (no kidding, I really read this here)


No comments: