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.

Busy Busy Busy!

It's hard to believe, but the Oracle conference season is upon us again. RMOUG Training Days, UTOUG Training Days, Alliance, Collaborate, KScope 12 and then the big daddy - Oracle OpenWorld 2012. And I've come nowhere close to listing them all.

It's already shaping up to be a busy year for this boy. My calendar so far:

Alliance 12, March 18-21. Yes, I'm finally getting to Alliance after years to wanting to do so. I'm excited to be part of a joint effort between HEUG and ODTUG to put on some Sunday workshops: "Fusion Fundamentals - Back To The Egg" and "Oracle Fusion Applications CoExistence - Having Your Cake and Eating It Too". The Sunday workshops will rock this year - make your reservations early!

Collaborate 12, April 22-26. It'll be nice to put on my "apps hat" for a couple of presentations: "18 Months with Fusion Applications - Stories From The Trenches" and "Functional Setup Manager - The Key That Unlocks Fusion Applications". I'll have just finished up another Fusion Apps implementation a few weeks before Collaborate - much of the content for these presentations will share experiences from that project.

KScope 12, June 24-28. I've had the pleasure of helping put together the Fusion Middleware track this year. Kudos to OTDUG for a great experience - no hooey, no roadblocks, just a nice simple process focused on getting it done. The Fusion Middleware Track will rock this year. And don't forget the FMW Sunday Symposium. I'll be presenting for appstechs on "Design Time, Design Time @ Run Time, Personalization…What The Huh?"

It's shaping up to be a busy year. Hope to see you somewhere along the way!

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").

"Soup To Nuts" Goes Online

Exciting stuff today. As you might recall, one of the highlights of Collaborate 10 was the all-day "Oracle Fusion Architecture: Soup to Nuts" workshop. Unfortunately, some folks were unable to attend Collaborate this year, but still want the information from the workshop. Now it looks as though those folks are in luck.

OAUG, Quest, ODTUG, HEUG, IOUC, IOUG and Oracle have all worked together to take "Soup to Nuts" online. The all-day workshop has been broken up into a series of live seminars running from July 12 through 16 at noon EDT (U.S.) and 9 a.m. PST (U.S.). You can check out the abstracts and register for the FREE live sessions here.

Yeah, collaboration rocks!

Oracle Fusion Architecture: Soup to Nuts - It'll Rock!

This Sunday, as a kind of kick-off for Collaborate 10, Oracle and several of the Oracle user groups are “collaborating at Collaborate” to put on a free seminar: “Oracle Fusion Architecture: Soup to Nuts”. We’ll be exploring highlights of the entire Fusion Architecture stack, starting with the database and working our way up to Fus…uh, I mean “Next Generation”…Applications. And it’s going to rock!

We’ll start up the seminar at 10 a.m. with a quick welcome. Then we’ll start with the database (because everything starts with the database) as ODTUG’s John.King launches into a presentation of “Oracle 11g for Developers: What You Need to Know”. John will serve double-duty, taking a look at development tools and ADF at 11. At noon we'll break an hour for lunch.

After lunch, OAUG’s Ron Batra will take us through an overview of the Applications Integration Architecture (AIA). Then Oracle’s Margaret Lee and Nishit Rao will provide some insight into Fusion Principles.

After the Fusion Principles presentation, we’ve lined up something a bit unique: some customers will be talking openly and honestly about their experiences in using Fusion Middleware with their Applications Unlimited products. HEUG and Quest will be sponsoring this discussion. I’ve previewed the presentations…learned a few things myself. I’m especially looking forward to seeing the reaction of a customer story involving Fusion Middleware and JDE World. We’ve allotted 3 to 3:45 for these customer stories.

Once the customer stories wrap up, we’ll move on with a presentation from Oracle’s Usability Labs. Jeremy Ashley and Katie Candland will walk us through the concepts behind Oracle’s user experience work. This is a story that extends well beyond Fusion Architecture, but at the very core of the yet-to-be-released applications.

Next Debra Lilley, Basheer Kahn and I will present a 30-minute encore of our Unconference Session from Oracle OpenWorld 09: “Why We Can’t Wait For Fusion Applications”.

We’ll wrap up with a 30 minute Q&A session from 5:15 to 5:45, with a panel of experts from the user groups taking questions from the audience.

It’s a long day. But, like I said, it’s going to rock! Mandalay Bay Ballroom D, Level II; Sunday from 10 to 6. Hope to see ya’all there.

Collaborate 10 - What Looks Good To Me

Collaborate 10 kicks off in Las Vegas on April 18th. I'm actually flying out on the 16th to get settled in and attend to some OAUG-related pre-conference things. Overall, it looks to be a pretty good user conference. I'm personally going there to dig into 3 subjects: Fusion Architecture, E-Business upgrades to R12.1.x, and squeezing more value from the buckets full of money delivered for Oracle Support maintenance.

I'll also be engaged in presenting or hosting a few sessions of my own:

- Oracle Fusion Architecture: Soup to Nuts workshop: I think this will be a major highlight of the conference. Oracle, OAUG, Quest, ODTUG, HEUG, IOUC and IOUG have all combined forces to touch on some of the more significant components of Fusion Architecture. We'll be talking about and performing demos on the database tools, development tools, middleware, Fusion Principles, User Experience, and Fusion Applications. We'll dedicate a portion of the workshop to customers standing up and talking about their experiences with Fusion Architecture. Then we'll wrap things up with a panel answering audience questions. Sunday April 18th from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mandalay Bay D, Level 2, South Convention Center. And attendance is free for all conference attendees.

- Release 12.1 - Reimplement versus Upgrade Panel: How I got invited onto a panel with all these smart people is beyond me. Show up for this session and we'll all learn a bunch about upgrading to R12.1.

- I also be dropping into a few SIG and Geo meetings, and may even wind up doing some Q&A at one or two of those sessions.

So, other than those sessions where I'm presenting, I looked over the catalog of sessions with my three areas of focus in mind. What follows is a list of the sessions that that look good to me. I didn't include session times or locations, as there is already a pretty nifty tool for looking all that stuff up here. If you do look up my list, you'll see there are time conflicts involved - a sign of a good conference is that you have to make difficult choices about how to spend your time - so you won't be able to catch all of these sessions...these are just the sessions that piqued my interest.

Fusion Architecture

- Oracle Fusion Applications: Functional Overview

- The Fusion Development Experience

- 10 Things You Can Do Today to Prepare for the Next Generation Applications

- Oracle Fusion Applications: Technical Oveview

- OA Framework Versus ADF: The Better Choice for the Best Benefits

- Technology Essentials: Using the Latest Oracle Technologies with E-Business Suite

- Fusion Applications 101

- Where in the World Are We? (This is a case study of a JDE World customer using Fusion Middleware...I'm really looking forward to this session)

- Understanding What Fusion Applications Means to You

- Web 2.0 User Experience and Oracle Fusion Middleware Integration with Oracle E-Business Suite

- A Technical Roadmap for Oracle Fusion Middleware, E-Business Suite R12 & Oracle Fusion Applications

- Fusion Service Oriented Architecture Explained for Business Users

- Fusion Principles: Lessons in Fusion Middleware from Fusion Apps

Upgrading to Release 12.1.x

- Release 12.1 - Reimplement vs. Upgrade Panel - Functional and Technical

- Get Ready for EBS Release 12.1! Tasks to Complete Now to Ease R12.1 Upgrade Process

- Steps and Methodology For Custom Development in R12 E-Business Suite

- Building an R12.1.1 Sandbox Environment Using VMWare

- "KIcking the Tires" - Practical Use Cases for Sub-Ledger Accounting in E-Business Suite R12

- Oracle E-Business Suite Technology Road Map and Vision: Release 12.1 and Beyond

- Understanding SOA Maturity Phases in an Oracle E-Business Suite Implementation Lifecycle

- 11g Upgrade Essentials for Oracle EBS Environments

- Implementing an Advanced Architecture for Oracle E-Business Suite

- E-Business Suite in the Amazon Cloud

- The Latest on The E-Business Technology Roadmap

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

- You vs The Bad Guys - The Top 10 List for Securing R12

- What's New in Oracle's Business Intelligence Applications

- Integrated SOA Gateway - Expose Oracle E-Business Suite Functionality As Web Services

- E-Business Suite 12 Upgrade--An Easier Ride on 9 Miles of Bad Road

- Technology Essentials: Using the Latest Oracle Technologies with E-Business Suite

- R12 Upgrades: Why, When, and How

- Best Practices for EBS R12 Upgrades

- Release 12 Technical Information - Intermediate

- E-Business Suite OAM Patch Wizard Utility

- Tuning the Beast (E-Business Suite) in a RAC Environment

- How to Manage Customizations Using Application Change Management Pack for Oracle E- Business Suite

- Upgrading to Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 - Best Practices

- Leveraging Cloud Computing in an ERP Ecosystem (OK, I cheated here - this isn't really about an R12 upgrade; I'm just interested in the subject)

Oracle Support

- OAUG Customer Support Council/Oracle Support Panel

- Creating Customer Value

- My Oracle Support - Working Effectively with Oracle Support

- Gain Efficiencies and Cost Savings with My Oracle Support Best Practices

- Oracle E-Business Suite Diagnostics & Health Checks

Collab 10 Is Right Around The Corner

So, I'm sitting on my deck enjoying the weather this fine Sunday morning in Southern California, just daydreaming about the next few weeks and months when it hits me…yow, Collaborate 2010 is right around the corner!

Important disclosure: I'm going. I don't need to persuade or be persuaded. The years I've attended have convinced me that it's a worthwhile investment, especially when Collaborate takes place so close to me (Las Vegas).

But I'm also betting that my case is different from yours. In another year of tight budgets and limited resources, you're probably wondering whether you should attend at all. And if you do want to attend, how do you justify it? For those of you in this position, I have three points for your consideration.

1. The real story in real time. What I mean here is that you'll get real stories from real customers on what they're doing in real time (the present) with the same challenges, products and tools that you're using in your own enterprise. Not much sugar coating or sales pitching here (although there will be plenty of both as well if you're into that sort of thing). Just the real story.

2. Networking opportunities. You'll have the chance to rub shoulders and talk shop with other customers with technical footprints and business situations similar to your own. Make a friend, swap business cards. Then the next time your company starting talking about the next upgrade, new product, or business process change, you can call up your new friend and do some informal benchmarking.

3. Learning and exploration. Lots of new products, tools and configurations first see the light of day at Collaborate, especially in the workshops. Need some advice on a specific challenge? Swing by the OAUG/ITConvergence both on the exhibition floor to "Get Expertise from the ACEs". Want to get a peek at the latest developments with Oracle Enterprise Search? Sign up for a an Oracle Usability Lab user session. Want some hands-on training with a specific tool? Check out IOUG's Deep Dive sessions and Bootcamps. How about some "let me drive" exploration of new products without someone hovering over your shoulder? Quest is sponsoring a Playday with "live drives" of JD Ewards, E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, BI Publisher, the User Productivity Kit, K-Rise Systems's EASYProcess and Hewlett-Packard's LoadRunner. Looking for information on Oracle Fusion? Come to the "Oracle Fusion Architecture: Soup to Nuts" workshop.

So there you have it. Who knows what nuggets you'll be able to take back to the office? But if you want those nuggets, you have to come to Las Vegas to get them. Three fine reasons to be in Las Vegas from April 18 through 22 for Collaborate 2010. See you there.

Fusion Applications - Three Reasons To Care

There's a lot to be excited about in the Oracle-verse these days: the EU has finally approved the Sun acquisition, Collaborate 10 is sneaking up on us, the upcoming release of Fusion Applications. It's all very interesting stuff, but it's the last one I want to dwell on for a moment.

During the closing moments of the OpenWorld 09 keynote address, we heard that Fusion Apps 1.0 would be released sometime in 2010. Since that time, I've met quite a few Applications Unlimited customers who are scratching their heads and wondering why they should care. The thinking is that, with the depth and breadth of the Fusion Middleware Suite, they can essentially get all the functionality of Fusion Applications from the E-Business, PeopleSoft, or other Applications Unlimited products they're already running. The point missing in this logic is that it's not just about the functionality of the products, it's about the business value the products provide.

So, with that in mind, let me quickly give you three reasons to care about Fusion Applications:

1) The user interface works like tools we're already familiar with. The first place a user lands is essentially a browser web page. A click or two takes you to detail laid out in a spreadsheet-like format - it's not exactly Excel, but it looks and works an awful lot like Google Docs (which, in turn, looks and works an awful lot like Excel). So, first reason to care: it's a short learning curve to master the user interface, because it works like tools we already know - which equals lower training costs and higher productivity sooner in the lifecycle.

2) The business processes have been reengineered, especially in Financials and Human Capital Management. To reengineer those business processes, teams of Oracle engineers have made site visits to a multitude of customers to learn first-hand about best practices in business domains like Accounts Payable and Talent Management (among many others). They have used that information to redesign business processes for Fusion Apps. It's not all finished - we'll see more business process reengineering surface in the apps in later releases (personally, I'm looking forward to the BPR in Project Portfolio Management). Still, Fusion Apps will have best industry practices built in out-of-the-box. So not only are you buying software, you're buying a best-practices business process model for you enterprise. You should see efficiency gains in short order, simply because the Fusion Apps business process model will help your enterprise do things right.

3) Business intelligence is baked right into the applications…it's no longer separated from the basics of doing the job. What this leads to is the ability to manage by exception…rather than monitoring the 500 purchasing requisitions that are smoothly flowing through the process of becoming line items in a purchase order, let's focus on the three that failed to work through the process - see them quickly (via BI), fix the exceptions (reported by BI), and move on. So now, my detail specialists - the folks who manage the basic business transactions, can work by exception: quickly chasing down the stray lambs rather than shepherding the whole flock - most of whom are doing pretty nicely without any detailed oversight by you, thank you very much! Management by exception increases the throughput of those specialists and reduces the cost per transaction…CFO nirvana!

Now, there are more reasons that just these three. In fact, I could lay out at least another three right off the top of my head…but I think you're getting the idea here, so that would just be a waste of space. I just wanted to lay out three solid business reasons to get excited about Fusion Applications (note that this is a value proposition oriented toward business gains…because, in the end, it's not about the technology but about the business value) and to get ya'all thinking about the business value for your own organization.

Let the commenting begin!

Oracle OpenWorld 2009 - HIghlights and Impressions

So, I really thought I would write my Oracle OpenWorld experience as a day-by-day, blow-by-blow kind of thing. However, as I started to craft those posts, one thought kept popping into my mind: "This is really self-indulgent, low-value garbage". So I changed my approach to more of a highlights summary…hopefully, ya'all will get more out of this angle. So, here are my highlights and impressions from OOW09:

• The big news, at least from my perspective, is that Larry's keynote included a demonstration of Fusion Applications by Steve Miranda and Chris Leone. Not PowerPoint slides (although there were plenty of those too), but a real honest-to-goodness, live demo for public consumption. You can check out screen-shots here.

• In addition to the demo during Larry's keynote, Oracle Corp. also informed me that my Non-Disclosure Agreement regarding Fusion Applications has been lifted. As I interpret that, that means I can share all the information I have on Fusion Applications: features, underlying technology, delivery schedule…it's all fair game (if anyone from Oracle is reading this, please consider this as one last opportunity to limit my scope before I start spilling my guts).

• I'm also excited about the proactive support approach taken with Oracle's Next-Generation Support program…another part of Ellison's keynote. The idea of recommending fixes before problems arise is one I've personally hoped to see implemented for several years now. It's exciting for the first incremental release to see the light of day.

• The presentation by the Oracle Applications User Experience team (Jeremy Ashley and Katie Candland) at the OAUG Fusion Council session on Sunday afternoon just blew the roof off of Moscone West. We had people taking furious notes and Twitter was on fire with positive feedback. I think folks began to get a feel for the work the User Experience team is doing and the benefits of that work to Oracle apps customers. But I'll write more about that later (remember that I still owe ya'all an article on how I spent the Thursday before OOW).

• The other User Experience presentation I was able to attend was "How Customer Collaboration Improves The User Experience". The subject matter here was on how the Oracle Usability Advisory Board is helping to guide the design of Oracle's applications. I've recently joined the OUAB myself and look forward to getting more deeply involved in the process.

• The Unconference is a big winner in my book. I presented four times at OOW, three in the Unconference. No PowerPoint slides for any presentation I made, by the way. The interaction from the audience in an informal setting is great - I learned as much as I shared in the Unconference. If you haven't engaged in the OOW Unconference yet, give it a try next year.

• During my roadmap presentation in the Unconference, I shared the news that my shop is beginning to look at Open Source replacements for some Fusion Middleware components. It's not that we dislike the Fusion Middleware components (far from it, in fact) but, in a period of declining budgets, we can't afford the maintenance and support fees. We're looking for replacements strictly out of economic necessity.

• I attended very few E-Business sessions that were really about EBS. Most were promotions for using Fusion Middleware components with EBS. That was more than a little disappointing.

• On the other hand, Nadia Bendjedou's talk on "10 Things You Can Do Today To Prepare For Fusion Applications", was outstanding as always. The list of 10 things is up to 14 now…I learn new things every time I hear this presentation.

• Most EBS customers were still on 11i. I suspect that the release of information about Fusion Apps will allow more customers to begin their upgrades to either R12.x or Fusion Apps.

• One of the absolute high points of the conference for me was participating in two User Experience user feedback sessions on Wed. afternoon. I'll talk more about this in a future post, but I highly recommend engaging in one of these sessions if you ever get the chance. BTW, both sessions involved different types of search tools…I wonder if Oracle is working on search functionality? Hmmm….

• The good news is that, at least for the foreseeable future, EBS will continue to run on an OC4J-based technology stacking. The bad news is that, if you implement the external integration with Oracle's 11g Applications Server (which is a WebLogic apps server), your database administrators, appstech staff, and systems administrators will need skills in both OC4J and WebLogic.

• Didn't see much on Discoverer at all; only a passing mention in a few customer presentations. I think Discoverer is on life-support. By the way, it seems there are problems in running Discoverer with EBS 12.05 or earlier - those problems are allegedly fixed in 12.06, 12.1, and 12.1.1.

• I'm not too excited about the Exadata concept in and of itself; it's just not my area of expertise, so I don't have enough knowledge to get really excited about the concept. However, when I stand close to all that sleek, shiny hardware…I want one! It's a lot like walking on a car lot and checking out a Maserati - I don't understand the technology, but it looks so good and runs so fast that I want one.

• On the Exadata note, I really enjoy it when Larry Ellison starts to trash-talk the competition. There's nobody in the business better at it, and Larry took some real digs at IBM throughout the conference. You can read about his server duel challenge here.

• With all the digging at IBM, I found it ironic that IBM was the sponsor for the OAUG reception on Wednesday evening.

• The best informal flow of information at the conference took place in the Oracle Technology Network Lounge. I learned more by hanging out there and swapping info with friends than anything I picked up in most of the formal presentations.

• Lots of information on Fusion Middleware, and especially the Applications Integration Architecture. Also tons of info on WebCenter - I think WebCenter has a lot of potential, but lacks the business use cases to really gain traction with the end users. WebCenter needs some business-related stories because, in most enterprises these days, those business end-users hold the purse strings.

• Three admittedly self-indulgent points to raise: 1) thanks to Justin for wading through the muck and clearing my blogger's credentials; 2) thanks to Joan Levy, who learned about my crummy seating during the Wed. keynote (via Twitter) and guided me to a much better seat (and a much better attitude as well); 3) Basheer Kahn, Debra Lilley and I did a joint presentation Thursday morning on "Why We Can't Wait For Fusion Applications." I have to thank Debra for being such a good sport with all the grief I have her during that presentation - teasing Debra is one of my favorite pastimes, simply because I always get such a good reaction; playing dumb, being ornery, poking gentle fun…it all gets a rise from Debra, but in a very good-natured way. So thanks, Debra.

So, with all those highlights, I finally realized the real reason I keep coming back to OOW year after year. It hit me Tuesday night, when we had a gathering of friends in the lobby of the Hotel Nikko. Though I won't name names here, the core of this group is really a "who's who" in the field of Oracle applications. This does leave open the question of how in the world I ever got involved with these folks…but I am nevertheless and feel very fortunate about it. At any rate, we were swapping information and catching up on our personal lives well into the late hours of the night. It was a special night and, sometime during that night, I realized that the camaraderie with people I respect and care deeply about is the reason I keep coming back. Can't wait for next year!

What's Happening?

Years ago, when I was a much younger man…wearing bell-bottom jeans so large I had to step twice before the pant leg moved at all…people would great each other with the phrase “What’s happening?” Seems like a good time to resurrect that greeting and give ya’all some answers:

• For all the middleware types out there, the Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g Launch event is July 1^st at 10 am EST (US). If you’re not attending the event live in Washington D.C., you can catch the webcast.

• If you’re more into the applications, the OAUG Fusion Council will be holding their quarterly update call on July 1^st at 9 am PST (US). In the spirit of full disclosure, you should know that I’m hosting this call, so this is an unabashed plug. BTW, it’s a bit unfortunate that we have a schedule conflict with the 11g Launch; the good news is that we’re recording the call so that you can listen to it on demand. More info on the call here.

• The Oracle Mix “Vote-A-Session” for this year’s Oracle OpenWorld wraps up voting on July 3^rd. So get yourself over to the Mix voting site and cast votes for the sessions you’d most like to see (Oracle Mix login required).

So it looks like we’ll all be busy for the next few day. What's happening? Tons o' stuff.

If I Were Going To Collaborate

I'm not attending Collaborate 09. Tough economy, tight budget, massive workload...you know the story. It's a real shame I can't make it, as I see Collaborate as an event that provides a substantial return on investment.

If I were going to Collaborate this year, there are a few things I would focus on and watch for:

1) As Oracle continues to advance through acquisitions, integrating the various software components becomes a continually large piece of their evolutionary process. In that process, the Applications Integration Architecture is becoming even more significant. I'd spend some time at Collaborate learning about AIA.

2) There seems to be significant activity around an impending E-Business 12.1 release. If I could get a look at EBS 12.1 at Collaborate, I'd take the opportunity to do so.

3) The Oracle story these days continues to revolve around Fusion Middleware. Collaborate will provide some opportunities to hear some customer experiences about Fusion Middleware, especially BPEL (which sort of leads us back in the direction of AIA, doesn't it?)

4) Collaborate will include a "live drive" of Fusion Applications. If you're attending Collaborate and haven't seen Fusion Apps yet, the demo is definitely worth the time you'll invest.

5) With maintenance becoming such a significant portion of IT budgets, this is not the year to neglect gathering new information on Oracle Support. Learn how to get the most value from your maintenance dollars by spending a few minutes with any member of the OAUG Customer Support Council.

6) There is an old saying in the enterprise applications world: "applications come and go, but the data remains." Truer words were never spoken. If you're an Oracle apps user and you don't know much about the database, you're missing knowledge on the most critical element of your software technology stack. Collaborate is a great place to start learning about the database.

OK, I'm admittedly painting with a pretty broad brush here. That's one of the best things about Collaborate...there's some much to see, hear and learn. For more detail, check out my previous post on "What Looks Good To Me" from Collaborate 09. Ya'all enjoy the conference...

Collaborate 09 - What Looks Good To Me

Collaborate 09 is almost here, taking place May 3 - 9 in Orlando, Florida. Unfortunately, I won’t be attending Collaborate this year. The budget is too tight and the workload is too high for me to get there. It’s a tough choice, as I always get huge value from attending Collaborate, but it’s a necessary choice this year.

If I were attending, the focus points for me this year would be Fusion Architecture (middleware and applications…especially the Applications Integration Architecture or “AIA”), E-Business, and Support. For those of you who are able to attend, I’ve highlighted some sessions in these focus areas that look especially good to me. I’ve laid out the sessions by subject, using a format of session id, title, presenter, presenter’s company, date, time. There are some scheduling conflicts in my list but, as I’ve written before, that’s a key indicator of a good conference. Keep in mind that session scheduling could very well change between this time I write this and the time the conference begins. You should stay current by using the Agenda Builder at www.oaug.com.

So here you go…if you get to Orlando, have some rock shrimp for me!

Oracle Executive Sessions

Oracle’s Strategy Update for Best-in-Class Applications and Next Generation Technology, Charles Phillips, President, Monday, 9:30

2921 - Oracle E-Business Suite Applications Strategy and General Manager Update, Cliff Godwin, Senior Vice President of Applications Development, Monday, 10:45

62430 - What Should I do? Strategic Applications Planning for PeopleSoft Customers, John Webb, Vice President, PeopleSoft Enterprise Product Strategy, Tuesday, 11:00

2862 - Keynote Support Executive Session — Future of Support, Jim Patrice, Senior Vice President, Global Customer Support, Tuesday, 1:30

2864 – Communities, Medi Goker, Vice President, Global E-Business Suite Support, Tuesday, 3:15

2825 - Business Transformation with AIA and MDM, Jose Lazares, Vice President, Applications Development and Applications Integration Architecture, Monday, 2:30

2792 - Oracle Fusion Applications — Applications for the Next Generation Organization (Part I), Steve Miranda, Senior Vice President, Chris Leone, Group Vice President, Fusion and GRC Applications Development, Wednesday, 8:30

2793 - Oracle Fusion Applications — Applications for the Next Generation Organization (Part II), Steve Miranda, Senior Vice President, Chris Leone, Group Vice President, Fusion and GRC Applications Development, Wednesday, 9:45

2790 - Oracle Running Oracle, Bret Fuller, Senior Vice President, Thursday, 8:30

Fusion Architecture

1094 - Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) For Conversion, Vineet Rai (Infosys Technologies Limited, Bangalore), Monday 8:00-9:00

2586 - BI Publisher Quick Start Guide, Karen Brownfield (Solution Beacon, LLC), Monday 8:00-9:00

779 - Oracle's Vision, Strategy and Roadmap for Portals and User Interaction , Rahul Patel (Oracle), Monday 10:45-11:45

702 - Getting Started with SOA, Chris Ostrowski (TUSC), Monday 10:45-11:45

782 - WebCenter Interaction Roadmap (ALUI), Ajay Gandhi (Oracle), Monday 1:15-2:15

2786 - 10 Things You Can Do Today to Prepare your Path to the Future - Part 1 Nadia Bendjedou (Oracle), Monday 1:15-2:15

2869 - The Evolution of Oracle Data Integration, Denis Gray (Oracle), Monday 1:15-2:15

1459 - Best practices for Master Data Management: Product Information Masters and Transformation Hubs, Amit Garg (CRMantra), Monday 2:30-3:30

1903 - Oracle BAM (Business Activity Monitoring) as Oracle SAM for System Activity Monitoring, Shivaprasad Kambalimath (Infosys Consulting Inc), Monday 2:30-3:30

2825 - Rapid Deployment of Applications with Application Integration Architecture and Master Data Management, Jose Lazares (Oracle), Monday 2:30-3:30

785 - Bringing it All Together: Oracle Web Center Interaction, Universal Content Management, Identity Management & Secure Search (Chick-fil-A, ALUI) , Jay Taylor (Chick-Fil-A); Brian Lucas (Chick-Fil-A), Monday 3:45-4:45

786 - Oracle WebLogic Portal Roadmap, Josh Lannin (Oracle), Monday 3:45-4:45

1128 - Bullet-proof SSO & OBIEE: Implementing a Single-Sign-On Solution with Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, Brad Reinders (BI CONSULTING GROUP), Monday 3:45-4:45

2887 - Zero Sign-on to EBS - Enabling 96000 users to login to EBS without user maintenance, Doug Pepka (Comcast Cable Communication), Monday 3:45-4:45

2727 - Oracle BPEL Training, Basheer Khan (Innowave Technology), Tuesday 9:45-10:45

1800 - Integration of Banner Student information to Oracle Financials using SOA Tools, Kiran Pasham (EiS Technologies, Inc.), Tuesday 9:45-10:45

3191 - A Common Sense Approach to Building Next Generation Business Systems leveraging the SOA Framework, Peter Lang (Protege Software Services), Tuesday 11:00-11:30

113 - Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Applications - Application Server Strategy and Status Mike Lehmann (Oracle), Tuesday 11:00-12:00

790 - WebLogic Portal Essentials: 10 Things Oracle Brings to WebLogic Portal, Josh Lannin (Oracle), Tuesday 11:00-12:00

2732 - What Oracle E-Business Suite Customers Can Do with Oracle Fusion Middleware Today, Nadia Bendjedou (Oracle), Tuesday 1:30-2:30

2137 - Picking Up the Pieces After All the Oracle Acquisitions: Developing an Oracle Applications Roadmap, David Rudzinsky (Hologic, Inc), Tuesday 3:15-4:15

2918 - 10 Things You Can Do Today to Prepare your Path to the Future - Part 2 [Panel] , Nadia Bendjedou (Oracle), Tuesday 3:15-4:15

737 - Oracle Fusion Middleware - Tales from the Trenches, Paul Dorsey (Dulcian, Inc.), Wednesday 9:45-10:45

1129 - Buy vs. Build - What's the real value of pre-built BI Analytic Applications?, Amy Mayer (BI Consulting Group), Wednesday 11:00-12:00

1162 – Service Oriented Architecture Introduction For Business Users, Robert McMillen (Triora Group LLC), Wednesday 11:00-12:00

2198 - Using Oracle Application Integration Architecture Foundation Pack to Build a Best-of-Breed Landscape, Michael Rulf (AT&T), Wednesday 11:00-12:00

1443 - Uncover Design Patterns In Composite Applications Using Oracle Application Integration Architectur, Ramesh Chandra Revuru (Sierra Atlantic Inc), Wednesday 1:30-2:30

1657 - A Technical Roadmap for Oracle Fusion Middleware, E-Business Suite Release 12 and Oracle Fusion Applications, John Stouffer (Independent), Wednesday 3:15-4:15

2307 - Cross-Application Data Integrity Considerations When Integrating Packages Using Middleware, Miles Thomas (Tesco plc), Wednesday 4:30-5:30

2784 - Maximize the Value of Your Investments in Applications with End to End Process Integrations, Devesh Sharma (Oracle), Wednesday 4:30-5:30

2432 - Fusion Architecture - A Technical Perspective, Kevin Dahl (Solution Beacon, LLC), Thursday 11:00-12:00

1797 - Bam! We Have Integration - Using SOA Suite/ODI/BAM To Monitor Your Integration Layer , Ahmed Aboulnaga (IT Convergence Corporation), Thursday 12:15-1:15

1609 - The ABCs of AIA , Michael Butler (TUSC), Thursday 12:15-1:15

E-Business

2392 - Achieving Excellence in Customer Service and Support- Today's Primary Goal in The High Tech Industry, Chiranjib Sarkar (Quantum Corporation), Monday 1:15-2:15

1458 - From the Trenches: An e-Business Suite R12- 11g Implementation, Jerry Ireland (Rightsizing, Inc.), Tuesday 9:45-10:45

2739 - Using Oracle Application Server 10g with Oracle E-Business Suite, Steven Chan (Oracle), Tuesday 9:45-10:45

1873 - Using Oracle VM To Support An Oracle E-Business Suite Environment , Michael Brown (Colibri Limited Company), Tuesday 11:00-12:00

3027 – Wizarding Your Way To Release 12, Brian Bent, Tuesday, 1:30-2:30

1854 - Case study: Customer Service Portal Using Oracle iSupport, Anant Soni, Wednesday 4:30-5:30

2585 - Workflow Performance Tuning, Karen Brownfield (Solution Beacon, LLC), Wednesday 4:30-5:30

1068 - Extending Oracle E-Business Suite In A Supported and Upgradeable Manner , Srini Chavali (Cummins, Inc.), Thursday 9:45-10:45

2554 - What's New in Workflow: 11i RUP5, RUP6 and R12, Karen Brownfield (Solution Beacon, LLC), Thursday 9:45-10:45

Support

780 - How to Best Utilize Oracle Customer Support, Mark Middleton (Oracle), Monday 12:00-12:30

61970 - Working Effectively with Oracle Utilities Support, Jennifer Borders (Oracle Corporation), Monday 3:45-4:45

2865 - My Oracle Support Proactive/Predictive Health Checks, Hiran Patel (Oracle), Wednesday 8:30-9:30

2866 - My Oracle Support Best Practices: Deployment, Installation, Maintenance And Usage, Anthony Cavotta (Oracle), Wednesday 9:45-10:45

3153 - Application Upkeep in a Downturn, Michael Rulf (AT&T), Wednesday 10:15-10:45

1334 - Support Tips and Tricks: Resolve Service Requests Faster, or Avoid Some All Together, James Phipps (Oracle Corp), Thursday 8:30-9:30

I Have Been To The Summit

I had the good fortune to spend three days last week at the IOUC Summit at Oracle HQ in Redwood Shores. Althought this summit has been an annual event for a few years now, this is the first time I’ve been able to attend. Personally, I left on Friday with several “take-aways” and highlights worth sharing:

• Wednesday’s highlight was a brief tour of Oracle’s Usability Labs. Oracle’s Jatin Pinakin Thaker and Alisa Hamai did a great job in teaming up to guide my group through some pretty neat initiatives (the new eye-tracking technology has some serious geek appeal). Oracle’s taking a pretty exciting approach with usability. The rallying cry is: “It’s not the number of clicks; it’s how you work”. We’re seeing some of this work in the most recent iterations of Fusion Applications, and I expect we’ll see more in future releases of Apps Unlimited products. I’m hoping to make arrangements with to spend a full day in the User Experience Lab…I’ll keep you posted.
  

• It seems to me that we’re very close to the general availability release of E-Business 12.1. The Release Content Documents (RCDs) are already available on Oracle MetaLink, and I expect we’ll see some documentation on the value proposition for Release 12.1 (which will be a new thing for Oracle EBS customers) appearing in the next few weeks. I feel comfortable in speculating that the 12.1 release is very close at hand.
  

• Speaking of Fusion Applications, I’d be surprised to see a generally available release anytime in 2009. Oracle is in the early stages of building a list of early adopters or pilot testers. Considering the extent of pilot testing Oracle plans on doing, it appears to me that this phase of Fusion Apps development will take at least a year.
  

• There will be another round of Fusion Middleware's Oracle Excellence Awards this year to recognize Apps Unlimited customers extending functionality with Fusion Middleware in innovative and creative ways. This year, nominations will probably kick off at Collaborate 09 and award winners will be honored at Oracle OpenWorld 09.
  

• A new developer career track is beginning to take shape, the Fusion Developer track. As both customer development and apps development utilizes the same tool set, there is no differentiation between custom developers and apps developers here – there are only Fusion Developers. You’ll see take a little more shape at Collaborate 09 and at Oracle OpenWorld 09.

• Oracle intends to leverage their ACE Directors to conduct hands-on workshops for extending Apps Unlimited functionality with Fusion Middleware. So, if you’re looking for a low-cost, hands-on workshop, track down your local ACE Director (I’m taking my training and receiving my materials sometime in February…I hope).
  

• The migration from MetaLink to MyOracleSupport continues. One of the best things I saw last week was the introduction of support forums as part of MyOracleSupport. These will be product-specific discussion forums where users can share information with each other. In the time since I left Oracle’s employ almost 10 years ago, I’ve always missed the ability to check my issues against the experiences of other customers. Introducing these forums has the potential to restore that information sharing capability. Could turn out to be a very cool thing, especially if the MyOracleSupport forums manage to differentiate themselves from the forums currently found on the Oracle Technology Network.
  

Not a bad collection of highlights and tidbits over a three day period. My thanks to Oracle's Mary Lou Dopart and everyone on her team who helped put this summit together. I’d also like to send out a special thanks to my new friend Vashima Goel, a manager in Oracle’s Global Customer Programs organization. Even though over 100 people attended the summit, Vashima made me feel as though she came all the way from India specifically to make me feel welcome from the moment I arrived at the summit until the minute I left…all too rare a customer experience in this day and age.

Overall, a very interesting week and a great way to start off 2009. I can’t wait to see how this all plays out.

Steppin' Down

Sometimes things don't work out
But that's how life is, son
All them little miseries
Can keep you on the run
Just remember that old saying
'Bout the round hole and square peg
And put out the fire
Call in the dogs
Head it on back to Bowleg
- From "Bowleg" by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

I'm stepping down as Chair of the OAUG Fusion Council. It's part of my effort to simplify life so I can focus on getting some health issues related to the diabetes thing under control. The Fusion Council won't be rid of me, because I plan to continue as a Council member. Nor do I plan to stop blogging about Oracle Fusion, the E-Business Suite, or things related (some just barely) to either subject. It's just that, in order to continue providing the highest level of value to OAUG members and the general Oracle user community, the Council needs a focused leader...and my focus for the next few months will be elsewhere.

Once I have things under control, I'll renew my engagement with OAUG leadership in the manner that makes the most sense. But for now, I have to step back from a few things and focus on personal matters. Time to head it on back to Bowleg.

We have a very capable person stepping in to take my place as Chair, but that's not my news to share. Watch OAUG's website for news on the change in leadership for the Fusion Council.

We now continue with your regularly scheduled programming...

An Exciting Week

A couple of occurrences over the past two days have really made my week.

I took a call from an old friend at Oracle yesterday. I've accepted the opportunity to serve as a judge for the Oracle Excellence Awards again this year. The awards are given to Oracle customers and partners who are creatively using Oracle Fusion Middleware with Oracle Applications (E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Siebel, JD Edwards etc) to create innovative and standards-based technology solutions. I'm honored to be a judge and excited about the change to learn of the creative ways that apps customers and partners are leveraging Fusion Middleware. If you're doing something nifty along these lines in your own shop, tell us about it; you might win an award! Nominations are open until August 8th.

I'm also off to Seattle, presenting on the first day of Oracle Days, a conference hosted by the Puget Sound Oracle Users Group. I'm pretty excited about this event. I really enjoy the exchange of ideas that takes place at a good conference. In addition, I've never had the chance to hang with the PSOUG folks before. Wish I could stay longer than a day, but a day is better than nothing. Be sure to swing by and say hello if you happen to be attending the conference.

Yup, it's an exciting week...

Fusion On A Shoestring

You ever have one of those days when you realize the workload has gotten overwhelming? Too many things to do for too many different people who all want their stuff now? For me, today is one of those days. I handle days like this by going incommunicado...I don't go to work, I don't take calls, I don't check my email, I don't Twitter. No contact with the outside world until I knock a few things off the list. That's what I'm doing today. Now, the fact that I've been feeling a bit under the weather and took a sick day to get better helps this strategy work. Nevertheless, I must admit that I'm home mostly to knock some work out - the rest time is almost secondary.

One of those items I need to knock out is this particular post. The ideas here have been on my mind for a few weeks but really just started insisting that I write about them in the last week. When an idea grabs hold like that, I don't get much sleep until I write it up. I'd really like to get some sleep tonight (despite my discounting the importance of rest in the last paragraph, you've got to get some sooner or later), so here we go.

Just before and during Collaborate, I spoke with quite a few customers in a quandary over the whole Oracle Fusion thing. They want to get going with moving to Fusion, but most just lack the budget or funding to really get going. It's an expensive proposition and, in the current economy, finding money to upgrade is a challenge. So the issue is "what can I do now without spending a lot of money"? In other words, how you prepare for Oracle Fusion on a shoestring budget? After kicking the idea around a bit and talking it over with a few people, I have five brief ideas.

Patch Up To Current

Patch up to the latest version of software you already own, while not free, is relatively inexpensive. It's also a great way to eliminate many problems that you may run into if you're not current on your Oracle patches.

What to I mean by patch up to current? If you're on E-Business Suite 11i, get to 11.5.10.2. If you're on E-Business Release 12, be on 12.04. As part of doing so, check Oracle Metalink's "Certify" and make sure that you're on the latest releases of your middleware, database, and operating system products certified for your particular apps version - patch up or upgrade those components if you're not (and it's usually a good idea to patch up or upgrade these components before upgrading the apps suite).

Identify Your Customizations and Work Out A Plan For Each One

The most difficult and, frankly, the riskiest part of an upgrade to Fusion Architecture is and will be migrating customizations into that new environment. For example, if you've got some custom mod/plsql work, that stuff won't run in R12 (there is no supported mod/plsql in R12). Custom views or tables? You can't look to Oracle to anticipate your customizations and build a migration path as part of the product, for obvious cost reasons. Don't even get me started on custom Oracle Workflow processes.

My advice to avoid the pain and cost of moving your customizations forward? First, identify them. Second, map the functionality to the E-Business Suite and see if they can be eliminated. Some of those customizations you've been moving forward since 10.7SC can now be replaced by "vanilla" functionality. Third, if you can't replace the customization, plan out exactly how you'll bring it into the Oracle Fusion Architecture. Will you remodel a custom business process in BPEL? How about moving custom reports to BI Publisher?

Learn the Middleware Technology

The Fusion Architecture is really dominated by Fusion Middleware...if you understand the middleware, you're well on your way to understanding the entire Fusion Architecture. The difficult part? Fusion Middleware is a large and rapidly expanding category of Oracle products. It's a challenge to develop the needed detailed technical understanding of these products just due to the breadth of the product line. My suggestion here is to take an incremental approach, learning one key component or group of components (such as ADF or the Business Process Analysis tools) at a time through hands-on experience. And the best way to do this is by leveraging the Oracle Technology Network.

I'm continually amazed by the number of customers who don't know about the Oracle Technology Network ("OTN"). Great forums for talking about and trouble-shooting Oracle technology, best practice centers for extending Oracle applications with Fusion Middleware (EBS, PeopleSoft and Siebel), opportunities to download and try out Oracle technology and tools...the list goes on and on. You'll find most of the Fusion Middleware components available for download and exploration for free, the limitation here being that you can't build anything for a production environment without purchasing the appropriate license. OTN is the best means for learning the technology and taking a "try before you buy" approach to ramping up your knowledge and skills.

Build a Roadmap

Consider the core functions of your enterprise. Then consider what Oracle's Fusion-related products offer in terms of enhancing those core functions or expanding into new ones. You'll see some elements of Fusion Architecture that add value for you and some that don't. Limit your uptake to only those that offer enough value to make sense for you. Then build a plan with tasks and dates for the uptake. That's all there is to roadmapping...but it's a lot tougher than it sounds here.

Keep Your Eye on the Ball

The Oracle Fusion domain is changing rapidly. New products, sunsetting technologies, more acquisitions...the rate of change is dizzying. You'll need to keep track of those changes and adapt where appropriate. There are several great ways to keep track of the changes, but I've personally had my best luck with the Oracle Applications Users Group ("OAUG"). I get quite a bit of benefit from hearing the discussions between users about the changes and developments in the Fusion domain. I think these discussions and information exchanges will have even more value with the release of the Knowledge Factory.

As Chair of the OAUG Fusion Council this year, I'll do my best to get info pushed out for everyone as soon as it happens, both through the Knowledge Factory and this blog. In fact, the Fusion Council has a surprise or two in the works for sharing information about the evolution of the Fusion Architecture. Stay tuned!

At any rate, that's what I've got on my mind. As always, I encourage your thoughts and comments...