Stunned

I'm stunned that 61 percent of Oracle E-Business customers are still on 11.5.10:

http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/oaug-erp-upgrades-1531330.pdf

It's akin to 61% of the Titanic's passengers opting to play in the ship's band rather than get off the boat...after the stern is under water. Wow...just so much wow.

ATG 12.1.3 Release Update Pack Required by Feb 2012 for Premier Support

Sorry I've been away for a bit...busy, busy. In the midst of working up a radical post but, in the meantime, a note for all you Oracle E-Business users out there.

The ATG 12.1.3 Release Update Pack will be required for all EBS customers by February 2012 for Premier Support. Read what the expert, Oracle's Steven Chan, has to say on the matter here.

If you have not done so already, you may want to get going on applying the patch...

Keeping The Faith on 11i

You can get just so much from a good thing

You can linger too long in your dreams

Say goodbye to the "Oldies But Goodies"

Cause the good ole days weren't always good

And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems

- From Billy Joel's "Keeping The Faith"

So while we let the hubbub over the Conditional Availability of Oracle Fusion Applications die down a bit, let's talk about the E-Business Suite…which is the "here and now" situation for many of us.

I've been a little surprised by the continued resistance of many EBS customer to upgrade to R12.1.3, choosing instead to stick with 11.5.10 as long as possible. I get the most commonly-heard arguments for standing pat: not seeing value in R12 functionality, can't really afford the cost of the upgrade, waiting to see what happens with Fusion Apps and EBS. And I'd offer the following counterpoints:

1. Value - stuff you could leverage for better, faster, cheaper

-- A fully-configurable home page

-- Look-ahead List-Of-Value technology

-- More leverage of BI Publisher (write reports once, use them many times)

-- Multi Org Access Control

-- SubLedger Accounting

2. Can't really afford the cost of the upgrade

-- the upgrade from 11.5.10.2 to R12.1.1, subsequently patching up to 12.1.3 (cum patch, no 12.1.2 required), is the most straight-forward upgrade I've ever seen from a technical perspective for any Oracle product. It really doesn't get much simpler or less expensive than this.

3. Waiting to see what happens with Fusion Apps, EBS, and everything related.

-- Stop waiting. Fusion Apps v1 is not a full-functionality replacement for EBS and likely won't be a good fit for many current Oracle EBS customers. Upgrading is the right answer for most.

Now a thought in favor of the upgrade: the longer you wait, the more it will cost...resources, dollars, any way you measure it:

-- We'll soon see EBS 12.2, which will include the transition from OC4J to WebLogic. Upgrading from 11.5.10.2 and replacing the middle-tier in the same upgrade? As simple and straight-forward as the upgrade from 11.5.10.2 is now, it promises to be much more complex when moving from 11i to 12.2…and complexity = cost.

-- The sand is running through the hourglass for 11.5.10.2 support. Personally, I don't want to be the CIO in the shop that can't resolve a payroll or HR issue because they missed the support deadline for 11i. That story will have a costly end (maybe including a search for a new CIO).

So, here's the upshot for those of you "keeping the faith" with 11i. The iceberg is melting, the curtain is coming down, the lights are dimming, the fat lady is singing. The later versions of 11i were good things…we got bundles of value out of 11i…but, like it or not, it's winding down in favor of a better product in R12.1.3. It's time to upgrade. Frankly, the longer you keep the faith with 11i, the more you'll miss out on the value of the new products…and the more it will cost when you do make the move. Maybe it's time to get on it?

UPDATE: A recent quote from Steven Chan, the Oracle EBS Technology guru, puts it very well:

When it comes to ERP software, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. It's always best to make your plans around releases that are currently available.

You should plan your upgrade to EBS 12.1.3 today. The upgrade from EBS 11i to 12 is technically-straightforward but has many new updates and features on the functional side. These functional product updates and new features have the potential to introduce significant changes that will affect your business users.

If customer feedback is any indication, it is likely that you will spend more time working through the implications of the new EBS 12.1 features than anything else. This process may be time-consuming, so it's best to get started now. If you're on EBS 11i today, you should focus your efforts on getting up to EBS 12.1.3 as the immediate priority.

About Collaborate 11

I went into Collaborate 11 hoping to focus on a few specific areas: Fusion Applications and E-Business R12.2. So, short, sweet and to the point: I came back with 4 important highlights worth sharing:

• Upgrading to EBS 12.2 will require a bit of technical mojo, as the upgrade will include migrating the supporting middleware server from OC4J to WebLogic. It'll be cool to see the rock-solid data model of 12.1.3 layered with WebLogic (yeah, that's my inner geek talking).

• Oracle's VP of Applications Development, Steve Miranda, got a little feisty during the Q&A portion of one of his sessions (I personally liked the feistiness - it's about time). When asked if Fusion Apps were ready for customers, Steve responded that Oracle's Early Adopter Program was ready: "bring 'em on". Steve also stated that Fusion Apps would be available via e-delivery "in a couple of months." Methinks we're getting close.

• The whole Fusion picture came together for me at Collaborate…the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Fusion Architecture, Fusion Middleware, Fusion Applications. I'll be writing more more here about how it all works together over the next few weeks.

Already looking forward to Collaborate 12...but I doubt that Vegas has any Brazilian steakhouses that will match up to the one in Orlando discovered by my friends from the Oracle UX team (thanks for letting me tag along). But if you come to Collab next year, maybe we can try to find one together!

Collaborate 11: What Looks Good To Me

Collaborate 11 kicks up next weekend in Orlando, Florida (assuming the weather and the US Government budget permit the planes to fly). I'm looking forward to it for several reasons: 1) getting face-to-face with friends I only see a few times each year; 2) gathering more user stories from Oracle Applications customers; 3) hearing more about Fusion Applications (some folks on this subject are sharing more info, while others appear to not know what they're talking about - some presentations will be educational and some will just be entertaining).

As usual, I can't get to all the interesting stuff in this conference. I'll be focusing on Fusion Apps, E-Business Suite, and maybe a little SOA and BI if I can get it in. Based on those focus areas, this is what looks good to me at Collab 11:

Product Release Announcements

I expect we'll hear about one significant product update, possibly two. We may also hear about one or two product releases…I definitely see some noisy water on a few fronts, so it'll be interesting to see if any results surface during the conference. This is all speculation on my part, but isn't that half the fun of Collaborate?

Oracle Fusion Soup to Nuts II

It's nice to see Soup to Nuts take on a life of it's own. I haven't really had any role in this year's set of workshops, but it's good to see other people running with the idea. It's taken on a life of it's own and this year's agenda looks really strong.

My Presentations

I'll be presenting twice on Fusion Applications:

• Fusion Applications: A Peek Under The Hood, Session ID 7631, Monday, 3:45 - 4:45 in Room W105B

• Fusion Applications: How Is The Journey So Far?, Session ID 7642, Tuesday, 3:15 - 4:15 in Room W105B

I'll be walking my usual thin line between sharing information without getting myself into legal trouble…should be an entertaining dance, so come on by if you have the time.

E-Business Presentations

Oracle E-Business Suite Technology: Vision, Release Overview and Product Roadmap - Lisa Parekh

Get Ready for EBSR12.1! Tasks to Complete Now to Ease The R12.1 Upgrade Process

Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut Factor at the World's Largest Healthcare Payer - John Stouffer

Key Techniques and Tools to Reduce Your Oracle E-Business Suite R12 Technical Upgrade - Elke Phelps

Advanced Technology Deployment Architectures for Oracle E-Business Suite - Steven Chan

Leveraging Cloud Computing in an ERP Eco-System - Mike Rulf

Oracle E-Business Suite Applications Strategy and General Manager Update - Cliff Godwin

Oracle E-Business Suite and the Coexistence Strategy with Fusion Applications: Platform Perspective - Nadia Bendjedou

CS - Accounting in R12: Procure-to-Pay Process - Mohan Iyer

Technical Roadmap for Oracle Fusion Middleware, E-Business Suite R12 and Oracle Fusion Applications - John Stouffer

SML Publisher in E-Business Suite for Newbies - Srini Chavali

Business Flow Overview and Master Data Management - Mohan Dutt

Fusion Applications

Oracle Fusion PPM: Next Generation Project Portfolio Management Applications - LIam Boyd

Record to Report Business Flow in Oracle Fusion Applications - David Haimes

Fusion Applications - Move Now or Wait? - Debra Lilley

Implementing Fusion Applications Using The Oracle Unified Methodology - Bruce Dehner

Oracle Fusion Middleware Extensions and Patterns for Oracle Fusion Applications - Paul Johl

Oracle Fusion Applications Technical Architecture and Deployment Overview - Steve Miranda

The Fusion Applications' User Experience: Transforming Work into Insight

Other Stuff

Facebook for Oracle! All About Oracle Webcenter for Non-Technical Folks - Basheer Khan

Physical Ordering of Data - Is It Ever Useful? - Mark Farnham

Understanding Oracle and Industry Cloud Computing Directions - A Decision-Maker's Guide - Ron Batra

Grid Next Generation - The Virtual Enterprise Extended - Ray Payne

So there you have it...my picks, for what they're worth. Collab 11 looks to be a pretty spiffy gathering...hope to see you there (look me up and say "hi").

Some Nervous Water

I see some nervous water around Fusion Applications. Not that I'm going on the record predicting an imminent release date…because I'd be wrong…so that would just make me look stupid (again). It's just that I see a little nervous water indicating progress toward a release date. So, with that in mind, let me recap what I like about Fusion Applications.

1. The User Experience work baked into Fusion Apps makes a huge difference. Oracle went out to customer sites, found out how people work, then built the applications around those workflows. The productivity gains are evident after a few hours of use (which also indicates a short learning curve).

2. The data model has it's roots in the E-Business Suite data model - tons of incremental improvements from years of use by thousands of customers. There are also some nifty tricks borrowed from the PeopleSoft data model, like trees and data reference sets.

3. Integration is based on industry standards and loose coupling, which means that your integration between Fusion Apps and other apps (Oracle and non-Oracle) holds up through upgrades. And Fusion Apps is full of exposed services to help me with those integrations.

4. The "watchlist" concept is based on a philosophy that runs throughout Fusion Applications: management by exception. The watchlist brings your exceptions to the forefront. You worry about the 3 purchasing requisitions that have stalled out rather than the 1500 that are progressing just fine. That's part of what we pay specialists to do - resolve the exceptions.

5. The divide between transactional data and business intelligence has been broken down. So we can immediately see the impact of individual transactions on trends. Ditto for changes to budgets and plans. Nothing quite as good as immediate feedback.

6. The underlying middleware is Fusion Middleware, which means we can build extensions to the applications using tools we already know. WebCenter, BPM, JDeveloper, ADF…nothing new to learn here…as a developer, I can be effective extending the apps on Day 1…because Oracle continues to eat their own dogfood.

There's more good stuff, but these are the points that really hit home with me. I'm really itching for general availability...giddy-up!

Buffing Up The Crystal Ball

Are you as tired of reading all those "predictions for 2011" articles as I am? Can't we stop predicting and get on with doing something?

While I'm already tired of seeing these types of posts (I'm writing on New Year's Day), I'm also feeling guilty about not making my own set of predictions.

I'm not really much of a prognosticator, but what the heck…I'll give it my two cents. So I buffed up my crystal ball (which is really one of those glass Christmas paperweights I have yet to pack up- you know, shake the ball and it snows over the scene inside the ball), focused my thoughts on the future, stared deeply into the ball for about 3 seconds and pulled these predictions out of thin air:

1. ERP Support - 2011 will be the year that the current business model for ERP software support begins to implode. Customers just can't continue paying 23 to 25 percent of license fees for annual maintenance. While Oracle and SAP may be able to run the 3rd-party support vendors out of the market through lawsuits and other barriers to entry, the business model will collapse under its own weight as businesses redirect more of their dollars into competing in the marketplace…regardless of the risks associated with lower levels of support.

2. Amazon's EC2 will become the preferred platform for companies moving their ERP instances to the cloud…and the number of companies doing so will not be insignificant. The cloud business model could also be the answer to the collapse of the ERP maintenance fee model (wrap the fees into the overall cloud business model…at a lower fee level) but, either way, 2011 will be the year of ERP in the cloud…and Amazon will be the leading provider.

3. Generation Y - Gen Y (folks born in the earlier 1980s or later) will become the dominant segment of the workforce. And all bets are off in terms of how we work. This will become especially evident in the move away from centralized procedures and processes, and the move toward collaborative creation.

4. Oracle's Fusion Applications - Fusion Applications will become generally available. Customers will find value in the user experience as well as the disappearance of the division between transactions and business intelligence, but they'll also have to adjust to the idea of planned incremental releases of functionality.

5. IT projects that are customer-facing or provide significant costs savings will be at the top of the "to-do" list at most companies in 2011. Maintenance activities will be outsourced (remember that cloud thing?) in a big way, with the cost savings providing the funding to the new projects. From an employment perspective, that means that 2011 will be a better year for IT consultants and contractors…not so much for "permanent" hires.

6. The Oracle E-Business Suite extended support wave will continue to roll through the mostly-unaware set of customers. 11i moved off of Premier Support in 2010. R12.0x moves to Extended Support on February 1, 2012. Still, I don't think 2011 is the year that customers will begin to realize just what has happened to their ERP systems (although Oracle and the user groups have been sounding the trumpet until their faces turned blue). I personally think that happens in 2012 (the fee waiver for 11i Extended Support expires, R12.0x rolls into Extended Support, and the Extended Support warning bell begins to chime for R12.1.x - that's a "triple witching hour").

7. For Oracle in the applications space, 2011 will be about A) extending the reach of the "Red Stack" into the various Oracle application product lines (do you catch Oracle's recent announcement that they'll stop licensing IBM's "Blue Stack" as part of their JD Edwards EnterpriseOne licensing deals?), and B) shifting their acquisition targets to industry-specific vertical solutions.

So there you have it…my predictions for 2011. They're probably worth less than the time it cost you to read them, but we can all have a little fun seeing how accurate I am with this stuff. And at least I've worked off my guilt.

Happy New Year!

Scratching The Itch - EBS 12.1.3

I "scratched an itch" recently with my personal Oracle E-Business development environment: cleaned everything out, chucked CentOS for Oracle Linux 5.5, and installed EBS 12.1.3 on and 11.1.0.7 database.

I'm finding I really like EBS 12.1.3. Let me share a few reasons:

The improved User Experience (UX).

The type-ahead search feature has been a long time coming and makes a huge difference all by itself. But wait...there's more! Read more about it here.

The Smoother Install

Surprise! Rather than creating from scratch, I used Oracle's VM templates (part of the reason I swapped CentOS for Oracle Linux). You can check them out here and here. I have yet to try out the Sparse Middle Tier template, but I may go through another round of rip-and-replace just to give it a go (yeah, another itch I may have to scratch).

Iterative Improvements in Oracle Projects

Having "cut my teeth" in Oracle Projects, I'm always on the hunt for improvements in this particular product suite. Well, there's a bunch that come with 12.1.3. You can find a pretty good overview (summarized from Oracle's 12.1.3 RCD) here.

Reading all the references I've pointed out here made me itch to move to EBS 12.1.3. Check out the references here and let me know if you need to scratch your own itch.

SQL Tuning - Low Hanging Fruit

Helped an old client out with some SQL tuning issues today. They've moved some of their E-Business mod plsql customizations over to APEX in preparation for an upgrade to R12.1.3, but they ran into some performance issues. Turned out to be a very basic issue but, with some many customers in the midst of undertaking this kind of thing, I thought it might be helpful to have a basic review of SQL processing. Because close to 70 percent of the tuning issues I encounter with Oracle databases are caused (at least in part) by issues with SQL statements.

So, without getting too deep into the weeds here, let's look at what happens when a SQL statement is processed for the first time: hard parsing and execution.

Parsing generally consists of the following steps:

1. Check the incoming SQL statement for syntax errors

2. Validate referenced objects for existence and accessibility

3. Generate basic parse tree structure

4. Determine the best execution query plan for the statement based on the Cost Based Optimizer (and CBO is way beyond the scope of this discussion - find more here).

After parsing, the statement is executed according to the plan. While that sounds pretty mundane, there is an important process from a performance perspective that takes place during execution: a cursor (a pointer to the parsed plan that can be shared and executed by multiple other SQL statements, even in multiple sessions) is created and stored in the library cache.

Now why is a cursor so important to the performance of SQL statements? Because ti smooths the way for subsequent SQL statements that are identical in nature. The parsing of a statement is where all the heavy lifting is done - it's a CPU-intensive operation and a drain on database server resources. But when the database server is able to match a submitted SQL statement to a cursor in the library cache, most of the heavy lifting of the hard parse is eliminated…utilizing an already parsed plan on a different query is called a soft parse. It's a lot like using an existing wheel design rather than reinventing the wheel.

So, while all this technical overview stuff is well and good, how can you leverage it? Well, one idea that immediately comes to mind (and one of my favorite checkpoints when tuning SQL statements) is using bind variables. A bind variable is a placeholder in a query. An example:

Coding in a hard value yields a select statement like:

Select * from Supplier where Supplier_ID = 654;

If I worked a LOOP into my query to cover a range of hard coded values, my SQL statement would go through a hard parse each time it ran through a cycle of the loop: painfully slow and potential reducing my system to the speed of molasses…running uphill…in the winter.

If using a bind variable, I would write the Select statement as follows:

Select * from Supplier where Supplier_ID = :suppid

I'm using ":suppid" as my bind variable. Now when I use LOOP logic, I can generate a range of values for my query results. Each cycle of the loop will now leverage the cursor created during the hard parse of the first cycle of the query. Significant performance gains over the hard-coded statement.

How much improvement? Your mileage will vary according to your hardware and software environment. But just for the sake of discussion… My Oracle database test bed is on a CentOS Linux VM, running on a duo-core iMac with 4GB of ram. If compare the performance results of two queries similar to the examples shown above, the bind variable yields results about 10 times faster than the hard-coded example. What that should tell you is that the statement with the hard-coded value spends much, much, much more time parsing than actually executing my query. Again, your mileage could vary significantly.

So, where is this story going? When my old client (and friend) called for a little quick help today with some performance tuning, it didn't take long for me to start checking his SQL. Want to guess the first issue I found? Yup, statements with hard-coded values. After tweaking the code to use bind variables, we picked up performance by orders of magnitude. Easy win, low-hanging fruit, just by applying a fundamental concept.

And we won't even talk today about the scalability gains picked up by reducing the latching time through avoiding hard parses.

So, for all you E-Business customers with mod plsql and other SQL-based customizations out there (and I KNOW that there are bunches of you out there…we've all done it to some extent), check your code as one of your upgrade preparation steps. Hard coded values, full table scans…you might be amazed at the low-hanging fruit you can pick.

Got some good tuning stories? Share in the comments.

Fusion Applications - By The 3's

My thoughts are coming at me in sets of three today…

I've been getting peppered with folks asking about whether or not they should take on Fusion Applications. Some are current Oracle customers and some are not…but I'm not sure that matters too much. The way I see it, different people will describe the value proposition for Fusion Apps in different ways, but it really all falls into finding value in one or more of three categories: the User Experience, the Applications Platform, and the Technology Adoption.

By the way, I freely admit that I stole the three categories from a slide shown repeatedly at OpenWorld this year, but the thoughts are my own...

User Experience

Anybody who reads here on a regular basis or talks to me for more than five minutes knows that I see the user experience (UX) as the biggest win in Fusion Apps. Three big reasons:

1) The UX is designed around shallow navigation, meaning the stuff you need to see is generally displayed on one page…fewer clicks. Lead to higher productivity for the people making their living with the apps.

2) The user interface is uses or is similar to tools we already know: the browser, Excel, instant messaging. Familiar look and feel…more productivity benefits.

3) Business Intelligence is cooked right into the apps. No leaving ERP apps to take a look at BI apps…but set that little blessing aside for a moment. The big win here is that you can leverage the BI elements to start managing by exception. Present the transaction exceptions to the analyst or specialist or whatever the correct title is this week rather than making them search for those exceptions…and let them fix those exceptions. Hmmm, analysis and management of exceptions…isn't that really the high-value activity we get from those analysts or specialist? Wow, this could actually free those folks up to do the job the boss wanted them to do when they were hired!

Applications Platform

Some folks (including me at times) really get pumped up at the thought that Fusion Apps are built with Oracle's Fusion development tools and run on Fusion MIddleware. But, to be honest, the folks with the checkbooks (the CFOs, the CEOs) couldn't care less. But they will care about three things:

1) Industry standards, which can actually work against vendor lock-in (including the redstack itself). One of the swell things about industry standards is that I can replace Oracle's industry-standard compliant components with another industry-standard compliant component…even some of that appealing open-source stuff. Replace JDeveloper with Eclipse. I've had good luck with using ActiveBPEL Designed with Oracle's Apps Server. And my E-Business test bed runs on CentOS Linux. So there's competition at the component level, and that's a good thing for both pricing and progress.

2) SOA. I personally like the SOA approach. We can get into discussions about Web Services versus REST and all sorts of nifty techie stuff, but that's not where the real appeal is for me. It's about reuse. One of the best ways to reduce costs in any effort is to build something once and use it many times. That's what services are all about. Build a service once and reuse it in many different processes for many different types of consumers. Play out this scenario to your CFO and watch the eyebrows arch with interest.

3) Getting back to industry standards, but with a point that merits individual consideration: loose coupling. The idea here is that if I build integration between two subsystems and one of those subsystems changes, the other subsystems and the integration I built will still work just fine. That's a huge cost saver when you're upgrading, or ripping and replacement, modules in your system. The applications platform in Fusion Apps leverages industry standards and SOA to make loose coupling the rule rather than the exception. More cost savings, greater flexibility - another nice case for the CFO's consideration.

Technology Adoption

Now, I know what you're thinking…what's the value to you just because Oracle is adopting some cool technology? In fact, doesn't that cost you money in the form of upgrading/relicensing? Hang with me through these three points and you'll get a feel for my perspective:

1) Think Modularity, which really ties back to that loose coupling argument I made earlier. Because of the technology upgrade, which supports loose coupling and industry standards, I can now uptake Fusion Applications on a modular basis: the apps are designed to co-exist with applications you already have in place. So if you have PeopleSoft HR, but like the Talent Management application in the Fusion Apps Human Capital Management Suite, it's doable. Ditto for Fusion Apps Project Portfolio Management with E-Business Financials. We're talking incremental uptake…moving forward in small steps. Less expensive, less disruptive moves forward than a "big bang"…appealing in this economic environment.

2) Cloud or SaaS. Oracle's been pounding this drum pretty hard lately, so I don't need to spend much time here. But think of this: If I can uptake incrementally, and I have interest in transitioning to a Cloud (maybe even inside my own firewall) or to Software-as-a-Service (either with Oracle or a 3rd-party), maybe it makes sense for me to go there incrementally? See the notes above on less expensive, less disruptive, etc.

3) Choices. Technology adoption gives you choices…falling behind the curve limits those choices. A non-Oracle example…my daughter bought an iPhone 3G a few months ago. Her idea was to jump on an iPhone and save a few bucks. Problem is that, just within a few months, the technology has passed her by: many apps won't run on her 3G iPhone (the apps need a 3Gs or a 4i). Fewer choices. Ditto for early adopters of Android phones, so don't blame it on Apple…it's just the nature of technology. My old Intel Pentium laptop is only good for Linux now…it can't run the latest Windows releases anymore. Fewer choices as technology moves on. Now here's the thing…as the choices wane, the higher the cost (effort plus dollars) of getting current - even if the dollar cost eventually drops, the effort continues to grow. Had I not upgraded that laptop several years ago, the effort of upgrading and moving all that data would be tremendous. Upgrading to E-Business 12.1.x from 11.5.10 is significantly less effort than upgrading from 11.5.4. Technology adoption provides more choices, and the competition amongst the choices keeps the cost of each choice lower - Adam Smith's "invisible hand" in action.

So, in a post-Oracle OpenWorld 10…after the Fusion Apps product launch, that's how I see it. Now your mileage could vary - you'll have to figure out the value in your own words for your specific situation. I just hope I gave you something to think about…in threes!

On The Eve Of OpenWorld...Upgrade!

On the eve of OpenWorld, it seems like we'll hear lots of exciting news.

Most of us in the ERP world are excited about seeing more details on Fusion Apps (even though the general release may not happen before year end). It's understandable, as the Fusion Apps will be a game-changer in the Oracle ERP space.

We'll also likely hear some announcements about some new products as well as an acquisition or two. Larry's keynote will be fun as always…and it'll also be interesting if we hear from Mark Hurd.

But, getting back to the ERP space, a huge impending milestone for E-Business users should not be lost in the bright lights of OOW: Premier Support for the terminal release of 11i (11.5.10.2) ends in November. From that point forward through 2013, 11.5.10.2 customers are on Extended Support. While Extended Support ain't so bad in and of itself (unless you count on certifications with new product releases - and most of us do, given the rate of change in technology today), it may serve you well to keep a close eye on Oracle's Mandatory Minimum Patch Baseline.

The Minimum Patch Baseline consists of those patches that you must…repeat: must…apply in order to qualify for Extended Support. The baseline is also required in order to upgrade, either to R12.1.3 or Fusion Apps. You can keep an eye on Mandatory Minimum Patch Baseline, which is frequently updated, via My Oracle Support Note 883202.1. I suspect that the longer you stay on 11.5.10.2, the more patches you'll see in the Mandatory Minimum Patch Baseline.

So, with all that in mind, my opinion? If I were an 11i customer, I'd spend some serious time at OpenWorld focusing on gathering information for an upgrade to R12. It's time to get on with your upgrade if you haven't done so already. A few reasons for my opinion:

• The longer you wait to upgrade once Premier Support ends, the more complex the upgrade will become. Oracle will continue to produce new releases of R12, with new technology and new features…the further behind you fall, the tougher it gets to catch up.

• If you have your eye on upgrading to a later release of Fusion Apps, keep in mind an important point: 11.5.10.2 is a support "jump off point" for Fusion Apps version 1.0. No promise has been made regarding 11.5.10.2 and later versions of Fusion Apps.

• We're starting to see more and more Oracle middleware technology move from OC4J to WebLogic. Sooner or later, it will likely happen for the E-Business Suite as well. Do you really want to roll a move to WebCenter into your EBS upgrade?

• On the upside, R12 has introduced some valuable features. Subledger Accounting, more APIs for increased integration opportunities, and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) all come to mind. Having a few recent R12 projects under my belt, I can really see the business value…it's worth looking at.

So, yeah, on the eve of OpenWorld I'm suggesting you 11i customers spend your time at the conference checking out your upgrade options. It's time.

So Many Moving Parts

I recently received a pretty cool little gift in the mail from MIchael Stewart at Red River Solutions. Seems he's teamed up with my pal John Stouffer to produce a new book: Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i & 12 Apps DBA 101. Nice of the guys to send me a copy.

After spending a few hours reading through the book and checking out some of the references, I suspect it will spend more time in the field with me than on my bookshelf.

The premise of the book is that, with the E-Business Suite, there are so many moving parts. Despite covering all those moving parts, It's a quick read, coming in at 105 pages. But it's chock full of references (Oracle Support notes, blog urls, ideas and lessons learned by experience. The book is a pretty powerful reference work for an Apps DBA managing an Oracle E-Business Suite environment.

Keep an eye out for the book at OpenWorld this year. Highly recommended reading.

Oracle OpenWorld 2010 - What Looks Good To Me

Oracle OpenWorld is staring us in the face. With the combination of iDevelop, JavaOne and OpenWorld, San Francisco will be an overflowing mass of humanity determined to attend sessions, network, and socialize. And what would OpenWorld be without another "What Looks Good To Me" blog post?

The idea behind the "What Looks Good To Me" post is to tell you the sessions that look good to me, because I really don't think I'm all that unique…some of the stuff that looks good to me may be interesting to you too.

As you consider what looks good to me in building your own schedule for OpenWorld, you should keep in mind my focus areas (yours could be different). Because I know I can't possibly take it all in, I tend to focus on specific areas of interest when I go to any software conference, including OpenWorld.

My areas of focus for this OpenWorld are Fusion Applications (finally, we're really lifting the curtain and sharing detailed information…I can't wait to hear the customer reaction), E-Business R12.1.3, latest developments in Oracle's User Experience efforts, and exploring proactive approaches to Oracle Support. While I normally like to explore the PeopleSoft and JD Edwards spaces as well, I don't think I'll have much chance to do so because of my focus on Fusion Apps and EBS 12.1.3…wish I could clone myself to cover it all.

I should also point out a pretty significant leaning toward Project Portfolio Management, Financials, and Human Capital Management in anything involving Oracle Applications (because implementing and upgrading those suites is how I make my living).

So I've broken my listing this year into four categories:

1. My Stuff: These are the sessions in which I'll be presenting. Hey, why write a blog if you can't plug your own sessions? Besides, I'm my own favorite speaker and I'm sure you agree…right? Right? Hey, what's that look about? Rolling your eyes and all? Just nod your head to make me feel good and read on, OK?

2. Fusion Applications: Yes, we're going to see detailed sessions on Fusion Applications at this year's OpenWorld. We'll even be able to use the "F" word ("Fusion") and everything. I'm really looking forward to seeing customer reactions…this will probably be the high point of the conference for me this year (especially the User Experience aspect of Fusion Applications, which is probably the biggest benefit of the new applications suite).

3. E-Business Suite: Release 12.1.3 recently rolled out, providing new functionality. 11.5.10.2 transitions to Extended Support this November. Many customers have started planning their upgrades. OpenWorld marks the beginning of a hugely important 12 month period for existing E-Business customers…I'm looking forward to hearing the message in this area.

4. Support: These sessions always seem to be the poor step-children of the conference - lightly attended, usually stuck off in some remote corner of the conference building. And I just don't get it. As much money as customers spend on support, you'd think they'd want to learn how to get the maximum value for their dollars. Anyway, over the past year, I've seen the beginning of a ground-swell with Oracle customers in taking a more proactive approach to support - working to reduce maintenance costs and concurrently working just as hard to address issues before they arise. It'll be interesting to see how Oracle Support addresses this building concern…I plan to spend some time on this area by attending at least three very interesting sessions.

OK, plus a 5th - Special Attention Sessions: These are sessions worth attending above and beyond everything else.

Format and Caveats

I've formatted all of the listings here to include titles and session numbers. I figure that, if something sounds intriguing to you, you'll look it up on the OpenWorld Schedule Builder, read the abstract, and review the logistics - why repeat that here? The exception is for My Stuff, where I provide day, time and location…hey, of course I'm going to provide all the info if I'm plugging my presentations.

I should also point out that, if you attempt to check out all the sessions I recommend here, you'll discover that there are scheduling conflicts. Unfortunately, you can't have it all in this situation. The sign of a good conference is the need to make difficult choices about how you spend your time. You'll certainly have to do some of that at OpenWorld.

And I should make an important disclosure: I have taken "the King's shilling" this year. Oracle is covering the cost of my attendance at OpenWorld. Feel free to take my opinions with a grain of salt if you see the need.

My Stuff

• Altimeter's Oracle Open World Preview at The Four Seasons from 3 - 5 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. I'll be a panelist on the Oracle Users Panel - The End User's Point of View from 3:30 - 4:00.

• OAUG Fusion Council Panel Discussion at Moscone West L3, Room 3016 - S318429. I'll be running over for the second half of this just as soon as my prior panel session concludes. I put this under "My Stuff" because I have a strong attachment to the Fusion Council, and I'll likely share my opinions more than once during this session.

• Oracle Fusion Architecture: Choices, Choices, Choices - S316409, Monday, 5 - 6 p.m. in the Marriott Marquis Golden Gate B (I'm betting this will be a very intimate gathering considering the time slot and location - I'm thinking a combo presentation and piano bar may be just the ticket). I'll be talking about Fusion Applications, Applications Unlimited products, and how to figure out the way forward.

• The Oracle Fusion Applications User Experience: Transforming Work into Insight - S318427, Thursday, 10:30 - 11:30 a.m, Moscone West L2, Room 2001. I'll only be presenting for a small chunk of this time slot, but I'll be telling a few good stories…should be worth your time.

• I may also throw in a few Unconference sessions (love the OOW Unconference), so be sure keep an eye out for that.

• UPDATE: I'll also be speaking several times during the week at the 20 x 20 Innowave Booth in the Exhibit Hall. I'll keep you posted as times are locked in.

Fusion Applications

• Overview of Embedded Analytics in Oracle Fusion Applications - S318251
• General Session: Oracle Fusion Applications Overview - S318276
• Inside Oracle Fusion Applications: Understanding the Foundation - S318744
• Oracle Fusion PPM: Next Generation Portfolio Management Applications - S318244
• Oracle Fusion PPM: Next Generation Project Financial Management - S318425
• Oracle Fusion Applications: Adoption and Deployment Overview - S318137
• Oracle Fusion Applications: An Intro to Oracle Fusion Functional Setup Manager
• Oracle Fusion ERP Applications: Answers to the Top 10 Questions - S318302
• User Experience Innovations: Oracle's End-to-End User Experience Platform - S318250
• Oracle Fusion Applications DNA: Functional Architecture Overview - S318138
• Oracle Fusion Middleware Extensions and Patterns for Oracle Fusion Applications - S315584
• Oracle Fusion Applications and Primavera: Next-Generation PPM Your Way - S318246
• Understand Fusion Applications for E-Business Customers - S318303
• Understanding Fusion Applications for PeopleSoft Customers - S318304
• 10 Things You Can Do Today to Prepare for Fusion Applications - S316898
• Introduction to Fusion Applications Architecture - S316941
• Oracle Fusion Applications: Technical Architecture Overview - S318135
• Oracle Fusion Principles: Lessons for Oracle's Applications Unlimited Customers - S317566

E-Business Suite

• Oracle EBS SIG - S318582
• OAUG Upgrade SIG - S318420
• Quick-Start Session: Realizing Value with SOA
• General Session: Oracle EBS Vision, Strategy and Roadmap - S318106
• Oracle Project Analytics for Oracle E-Business Suite - S318187
• 10 Steps to Success: Your Oracle Certification Advisor - S313368
• Replacing Oracle E-Business Suite mod_plsql Apps with Oracle APEX - S315649
• Upgrading to Oracle EBS Release 12.1: Technical/Functional Panel - S317115
• Oracle E-Business Suite Technology Certification Primer and Roadmap - S318119
• The Value of Upgrading to Release 12.1 for Projects - S318147
• Top 10 Recipes From Oracle E-Business Release 12 Financials Cookbook - S316415
• Migrating to Oracle Subledger Accounting in Oracle E-Business Suite 12 - S315480
• Building Mobile Solutions for Oracle Applications: Technical Insight - S317110
• What's Next for Applications Unlimited User Experiences - S318252
• Faster, Better, Cheaper Deployment with Oracle Business Accelerators - S318096
• Oracle E-Business Suite 12 Applications DBA 101 - S316240
• Oracle Database 11g Upgrade Essentials for Oracle E-Business Suite Environments - S314886
• Get Ready for Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1: Tasks to Complete Now

Support

• Herbalife Case Study: Oracle Proactive Support Best Practices - S315890
• Oracle Support: Unlocking Its Full Value - S317259
• Best Practices for Patching and Maintaining Oracle E-Business Suite 12 - S317555

Special Attention Session

• General Session: Oracle Applications Strategy and Roadmap - S318344. This session should be packed to the point of irritating the local Fire Marshal. Every Oracle apps customer should be here to learn about the strategies for the various Oracle apps product lines and how those strategies will play off each other.
• Web 2.0 Versus Enterprise 2.0: Lost In Translation - S313346. The guys from the Oracle Apps Lab are pretty smart cookies. When they talk, I tend to listen...and even take a few notes.

So, there you have it...these are the sessions that look good to me at Oracle OpenWorld 2010. As always, comments are welcome.

Thoughts on OBA

I've been busier than an ant at a sugar convention lately, working with lots of clients and potential clients in the various stages of implementing Oracle E-Business R12 (actually 12.1.2, but I was never any good with numbers; that's why I went to law school). Most of the companies I meet these days are small or medium size enterprises, which means they're very interested in Oracle Business Accelerators ("OBA").

I like the idea behind OBA - reduce the cost of application implementation by adhering to basic "best practices" and sticking with to the basics: minimal configuration, no data conversions or interfaces. OBA is a solution-driven implementation - here's the solution, make it work for your business. It's a powerful value proposition in the SME marketplace where every day and every dollar counts. OBA promises a less expensive implementation and a quicker transition from legacy systems to Oracle Apps.

How quick and how fast? Most of my work over the past decade has been for large companies implementing the E-Business Suite: implementations that run 12 months or more, with implementation costs running anywhere from $500,000 up, depending on the scope of the implementation, the level of customization, and the organization's ability to absorb change. With OBA implementations, we're looking at schedules of 8 weeks and up with costs running as low as 20 - 25 percent of what I've seen for requirements-driven implementations.

Of course, OBA has it's own limitations. SMEs often try to squeeze even more out of the cost and the schedule, which usually leads to a low-quality solution (haste makes waste…even an OBA implementation can only go so fast). Other SMEs plan for an OBA implementation, then want to tailor "just a few things" - which opens the flood gates to scope creep, which in turn leads to longer schedules and higher costs.

The trick with an OBA implementation seems to be managing client expectations and keeping a tight control on the project scope. The big benefit - it scales the cost and schedule of an apps implementation down to the point that SMEs can get into the game.

I've had pretty good luck taking the OBA approach recently at a couple of client sites; seems to work well when it's done right. Something for the SMEs out there to think about.

I wonder if we'll see an OBA approach for Fusion Applications?

SaaS and SME Customers

The new job at Innowave Technology is pretty cool so far: good people, great projects, very challenging work. It's pretty neat to be in the only company with 3 Oracle ACE Directors. It's also pretty neat to have the opportunity to see many different situations with customers in the SME space and the ways in which they use Oracle products.

One trend I'm noticing already: there are not many of these customers taking a bite out of the SaaS apple. I'm surprised by that. Think about it for a minute…does it really make sense for companies with under $100 million in revenue to be taking on the infrastructure required for the E-Business Suite or PeopleSoft? I'm thinking that doing so consumes a hefty chunk of their margins.

Now here is the really interesting part. I've been asking those companies if they've considered OnDemand or another SaaS partner. Most were either unaware of the SaaS option or did not have a good understanding of post-implementation maintenance costs for the apps they're implementing.

My conclusion: we're not doing a very good job of getting the SaaS message across to the SME customers. Which is surprising to me, considering they're the customers that have the most to gain from that message.

I'd be interested in hearing your observations. Are you seeing the same lack of traction for SaaS with SME customers I'm seeing? Find the comments.