Smartsoft Oracle Blog

Feb 26, Cloud co,puting case studies

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:23:45 GMT

For organisations considering using Cloud storage to augment current application infrastructure here are 2 video case studies of organisations using CloudArray software together with Cloud storage. The focus of these case studies is more on the impact of applications as opposed to using Cloud storage for file/print or as a specific tier of storage.

Feb 23, Live Webcast - Consolidate for Bus Advantage: From Storage to Scorecard

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:30:25 GMT

Learn how to: * Drive pervasive insights and decision-making with Oracle Business Intelligence * Unify enterprise information at low cost with Oracle Data Integration Suite * Get extreme performance and manage data growth with Oracle data warehousing

Feb 23, Oracle Live Webcast : Upgrading to 11g

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 03:51:01 GMT

Learn best practices for upgrades from Oracle9i and Oracle 10g and how to fine-tune your upgraded environment with Oracle Real Application Testing. You'll also get access to the Oracle Database 11g Release 2 'Upgrade Companion'. And Roger Snowden, from Oracle Support Center of Expertise, will be available for Q&A.

Feb 23, Oracle Live Webcast: 3 Ways to Transform your Enterprise with Data Integration

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 03:51:01 GMT

Transform your Enterprise with Data Integration w/DirectTV. Golden Gate, ODI, Exadata and Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition together.

Feb 22, How to build an integrated enterprise

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 03:27:07 GMT

Replay of webcast from Computing and Oracle discusses how an enterprise can create an integrated IT strategy covering the challenges, technologies and best practices.

Feb 21, Oracle BI EE 10.1.3.4.1 Solutions Puzzles 1 & 2

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 20:50:29 GMT

Oracle BI EE has been positioned in the leader's quadrant in Gartner's BI Magic Quadrant which makes it increasingly likely that organisations will be using it. Here are the solutions to a couple of puzzles about OBIEE.

Feb 21, Solve your business challenges in 2010

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 20:11:25 GMT

Get the answers to the biggest challenges facing your business in 2010 from an expert panel of local business advisors.

Feb 18, Enabling continual learning

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:56:53 GMT

Very interesting case study of the benefits to Agfa HealthCare of providing elearning to their staff on a continuing basis. 'In times like these, when there are so many cutbacks, training is not a candidate for cuts. On the contrary, we need to pay more attention to developing peoples' skills because if we don't invest in our employees, especially the good ones, then the chances are even higher that we'll lose them. Making sure we have a cost-effective training solution in place is very crucial to our business at this moment.' - Agfa HealthCare

Feb 18, Cut through the fog around Cloud Computing

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:19:30 GMT

Oracle has announced a global tour to help IT professionals understand cloud computing and how organisations can make use of it. The yopics that will be adressed include:-

How an organisations IT department can become a private cloud service provider for its users.
How to evolve existing enterprise architectures to a cloud model.
How to leverage public clouds from providers like Amazon Web Services.

Feb 16, Business challenges for export orientated hi-tech companies in 2010

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 22:31:05 GMT

The next Auckland ICT Cluster event will take place on 25 February 2010 and will draw on the knowledge of Auckland ICT members who advise high growth businesses from throughout New Zealand on branding, legal issues and business development.

Feb 16, Searchable UNIX/Linux man pages online

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 22:23:25 GMT

Manna from heaven for all developers/dbas/sys admins who use Linux and/or UNIX and ever need to look something up in the manual. The UNIX and Linux Forums have a new recursive man page search function for all forum users. Linux, OpenSolaris, FreeBSD, OSX and POSIX man pages are currently included in the reference library (over 30K man pages). More will be added in the future. One smart feature is that if a man page is not found based on your keyword, the search engine will widen the search criteria and show available matches in the man page set.

Feb 16, Oracle SOA training

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 22:23:25 GMT

Paid for and free training for Oracle SOA is available from this site.

Feb 15, Oracle wins America's Cup

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 03:23:30 GMT

Oracle's trimaran won the 2nd race against defender Alinghi today thereby winning the cup. Neither was it close-run - not by a long way. Oracle won the first race by 15 minutes and the second race by 5 minutes. Are there any parallels we can draw from the way Oracle won the cup to the way they do business. I think so. Oracle made sure they had the best technology - in this case the triamaran and the sails - and coupled that with a great team (led by Russell Coutts who has now won the America's Cup four times). Oracle also did everything they could to make sure the contest was fair (or fairer to them depending on your point of view) not hesitating to resort to legal action. What all this points to is that Larry Ellison, Oracle's CEO, doesn't like coming second. This means he is more than likely to continue to push Oracle to be the leader in all markets, acquiring the best technology (Sun, BEA, PeopleSoft etc) and building the best team along the way. Whether being #1 in business is as easy as being #1 in yachting remains to be seen, but it should be an exciting ride!

Feb 12, Oracle's Iron Man 2 contest

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 04:36:57 GMT

Oracle and Marvel have created a competition to become the honorary CIO of Stark Industries and atten the premier of Iron Man 2. All you need to do is tell Oracle how you're using their technologies to help transform your organisation and be the hero of the business. Entries close 15 March 2010.

Feb 11, Oracle Buys Convergin

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 03:03:02 GMT

It seems as if Oracle is buying a company (potrential competitor?) every day! And today is no exception. They have just announced the purchase of Convergin described as a leading provider of real-time service brokering solutions. So what does Convergin have that Oracle wants? According to the press release, Convergin's products complement Oracle's integrated communications product suite - Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management, Oracle Communications Converged Application Server and Oracle Communications service fulfillment applications. The idea is that this will enable Oracle to provide a single carrier-grade, standards-based IT platform allowing communications service providers to provide a better service at a lower cost.

Feb 11, Oracle system performance conference

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:32:11 GMT

Tom Kyte will be the keynote speaker at the Hotsos Symposium from March 7-11 2010 in Dallas. This is the only conference in the Americas devoted to Oracle system performance.

Feb 9, Gartner puts Oracle in leader's quadrant for data integration

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:41:29 GMT

To be in the leader's quadrant of Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Data Integration Tools, companies " ... are front runners in the convergence of single-purpose tools into an offering that supports a range of data delivery styles." Leaders also have "significant mind share in the market" and readily available resources that are skilled in the tools.

Feb 8, Oracle Buys AmberPoint

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:56:31 GMT

Not content with just having consumed Sun, Oracle has bought yet another company, although AmberPoint is not on the scale of Sun. Ironically, or perhaps by design, many of the management team worked together at Forte which was acquired by Sun and/or Sun itself (now acquired by Oracle). The acquistion is aimed at strengthening Oracle's SOA offering (part of Oracle Fusion Middleware), AmberPoint "governs, secures and manages today's heterogeneous, distributed applications -- from Java to .NET, SOA to cloud, Web 2.0 to BPM".

Feb 7, Oracle Security Alert for WebLogic Server Vulnerability

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:34:32 GMT

Oracle has released a securty alert regarding the Node Manager component of Oracle WebLogic Server. Exploitation of this vulnerability may allow a remote, unauthenticated user to affect the performance of the targeted system.

Feb 5, Benefits of Oracle Certification For Employers

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:33:54 GMT

Video from Joel Goodman (global team leader of Oracle DBA certification exam team) on how employers benefit from their DBAs gaining Oracle certification.

Feb 5, Latest Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse 11g now available

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:33:54 GMT

Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse is a set of plug-ins for Oracle Fusion Middleware that enable developers to build Java EE and Web Services applications using the Eclipse IDE.

Feb 3, Oracle not so unbreakable after all

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:15:22 GMT

As reported in Computer World, David Litchfield, a security researcher at NGS Consulting, stated that the Java implementation in Oracle 11g R2 allows a low privileged user to take complete control of the database. The vulnerability also allows Oracle Label Security to be bypassed. Until Oracle issues a patch to resolve the problem, David Litchfield recommends DBAs revoke public access to certain Java-based functions.

Feb 3, Beyond HIPAA: Get Ready for ARRA

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 02:22:56 GMT

Free live e-seminar - Beyond HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act): Get Ready for ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) (HITECH) Compliance Thurs, Feb 04, 2010, 12pmE/9amPT

Feb 1, Oracle + Sun Strategy/Welcome Events

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:49:52 GMT

Over the next few months Oracle will be holding live events worldwide to explain their strategy for Sun's products and to enable clients to acquaint themselves with their local Oracle team.

Jan 31, Oracle Certification Demystified

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 07:35:20 GMT

The myriad Oracle certification options can be baffling - here's the simple version

Jan 30, Benefits of Oracle Certification For Professionals

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 23:28:52 GMT

Video from Joel Goodman (global team leader of Oracle DBA certifcation exam team) about the benefits of gaining Oracle certification.

Jan 29, CloudCamp Auckland 2010

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:58:31 GMT

The Auckland CloudCamp unconference is scheduled for 26th February 2010. Whether you are interested in the technical or business ramifications of cloud computing, you are encouraged you to share your thoughts in several open discussions. Free registartion.

Jan 28, The Shift to Enterprise Cloud Computing

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:10:34 GMT

Free webcast from BrightTALK prsented by John Stetic, Director pf Product Management, Novell, on 18th March

Jan 28, MySQL to become "part of the Oracle family"

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:20:14 GMT

Sun is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Oracle who now have their hands on all Sun's jewels (some of which may have been looking a bit the worse for wear). On Wednesday 27th January after the purchase of Sun Microsystem's had completed, Oracle's CEO Larry Ellison and other executives from Sun and Oracle presented the road map for Sun's products and their integration with Oracle's products. One of the sticking points for the takeover as far as the EU were concerned was the future of MySQL. Oracle had to give certain guarantees about the product to reassure the EU and have now added some detail. In short the MySQL group will continue as an autonomous division within Oracle (at least for the time being) and Oracle will make MySQL "better" by providing integration with tools such as Oracle Enterprise Manager, Secure Backup and Audit Vault. Oracle's chief corporate architect, Edward Screven, also stated that MySQL would become "part of the Oracle family". Other commitments made at the webcast were that Oracle would continue to invest in Sun Sparc, Solaris, Java and virtualisation products and that Sun would be profitable to the tune of $1.5bn by June 2010.

Jan 27, Cloud Trends in 2010

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 04:21:11 GMT

The consensu of opinion from analysts is that cloud computing will be increasingly seen by businesses as a serious contender for IT services. This article in CIO magazine discusses the critical success factors in cloud computing and the major focus areas for this year. So what are some of the critical succes factors? Manageability - different vendors will be offering different layers of the cloud so tools to manage the various layers will be crucial. Survival of the fittest - not all of those offering cloud services will continue to do so. Instead they will partner with those companies who are already succesful in offering cloud-based I.T. services. Organisations will need to rationalise their I.T. environments to gain the most benefit from cloud computing. The ineeficiency of each application or line of business having their own server won't work in a cloud environment. Security of data will become a major concern as difeerent organisations co-exist on the shared infrastructure of a cloud provider. Service level agreements will be an issue for both internal and external cloud providers. For external providers the sla and the price will determine whether they win business. For internal providers th esal and the cost will determine whether they will be repalced with an external provider. Platform as a service (PaaS) will become increasingly significant as comapnies seek to increase flexibility by building their own applications in the cloud. Current offerings include force.com, Intuit Quick Base Online, Google Apps and Microsoft's Azure.

Jan 25, Future of Oracle and Sun in the clouds

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 22:21:39 GMT

Oracle's plans for the future of the new Oracle+Sun organisation are not due to be announced until 27th January. That hasn't stopped speculation on the direction they are likely to take, though. The consensus is that Oracle will use their applications and Sun's hardware to offer private clouds to organisations and to compete with IBM and HP as a full service company.

Jan 22, Costly mistakes businesses make in outsourcing

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 03:15:16 GMT

A new study by researchers at the University of Tennessee reveals that organisations make a variety of mistakes when outsourcing IT and other business operations. The most common problem is that organisations get what they pay for - in other words outsourcers do what they're paid to do! Usually no more and no less.

Jan 21, Launch of the ICT Research Forum

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 01:18:15 GMT

Auckland ICT and NZICT will be launching the ICT Research Forum on 28th January 2010. The forum is supported by NZICT Group, Auckland ICT, IISEIE and other stakeholders from government and the tertiary sector. Find out some of the latest trends and opportunities research in the ICT sector, as well as some of the international benchmarks that may be relevant to better understanding how to grow New Zealand's ICT industry. In addition, this event will also provide the opportunity for you to participate in setting possible directions the future research, as well as gaining access to relevant and contemporary research that can drive growth for your ICT business.

Jan 21, Oracle to unveil Oracle+Sun strategy

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 01:18:15 GMT

Oracle will be hosting a live event at on 27th January to outline the Oracle+Sun strategy, product roadmaps, and benefits to customers. The event will be broadcast globally.

Jan 20, More predictions for 2010

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 08:59:26 GMT

Continuing our look at predictions for the new year, here are Ovum's 2010 predictions. 1. Analytics and information management across the extended-enterprise will become a higher priority in 2010 as enterprises look to make better decisions more quickly. 2. Cloud computing will become more popular. Although Ovum cautions CIOs to ensure that easier resource provision doesn't lead to cost blow-outs and to to evaluate the multi-tenancy 'one size fits all' of some cloud offerings to enusre this matches their specific requirements. 3. Enterprises will be looking more closely at green IT both as a concept and as a practice as they focus on reducing their environmental impact. Ovum predicts there will be 2 aspcts to IT's involvement: improving its contribution to the companys overall environmental performance (reducing carbon emissions); and enabling greener business processes (e.g. emissions trading, supply chain management). 4. Intra-enterprise social networking options will be examined by more organisations in their quest to improve collaboration and productivity. However Ovum predicts that getting approval for the budgets will not be easy due to the speculative nature of such technology in most enterprises in Asia Pacific at present. 5. CIOs will be looking at Windows 7 as hardware is refreshed and support for XP wanes. This will be a challenge for some CIOs due to the need to support legacy applications and assist in user education.

Jan 18, MySQL creater hopes Russia and/or China will block Sun takeover

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 23:28:18 GMT

One of the creators of the MySQL database (which Sun bought in 2008) has collected 30,000 signatures for his petition to stop Oracle getting their hands on MySQL (by buying Sun). Whilst it looks as if the EU will approve the deal on 27 January 2010, Michael 'Monty' Widenius is still optimistic that the Russians or the Chinese will block the takeover. Why is he so against the takeover? The answer to this is apparently that if Oracle were to acquire MySQL they would have too much control over an open source database and they would lock out of the market other open-source software companies. But maybe that's too superficial. Maybe he regrets having sold out to Sun in 2008 and hopes that Oracle dumps MySQL in order to keep the bigger prize of Sun and that he can buy it back on the cheap. Or maybe one of Oracle's competitors are paying him to cause trouble! Or maybe he does really care about the industry and his motives are pure. For the sake of Sun though, its employees and the rest of the I.T. industry let's hope the uncertainty is resolved soon - one way or the other.

Jan 18, Look to the future now - IDC's Top 7 Predictions for 2010

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 04:50:32 GMT

As Slade sang nearly 40 years ago it's time to "Look to the future now/It's only just begun." So, let's have a look at the top 7 predictions for 2010 from IDC 1. The cloud thickens - that is cloud computing! IDC believes that guaranteed uptime of 99.999, coupled with business continuity/disaster recovery capabilities will give cloud computing the edge. 2. Better analytics. IDC expects business analytics will become a key technology to help CIOs manage costs, meet regulatiory obligations and make knowledge a strategic asset within the organisation. 3. Social media hits 'critical mass'. You may think it has already but IDC are talking about the adoption of these technologies by eneterprises (presumably other than Delll, Oracle, Microsoft, HP, IBM etc). 4.The data centre evolves and fabric converges. According to IDC, this will solve the problem of IT sprawl and the high cost of maintenance that goes with it. 5.SaaS evolves into KaaS. Knowledge-as-a-service (KaaS) will be the next big thing after software-as-a-service (SaaS) due to the increasing maturity of SaaS and the decreasing profit margins in business process outsourcing (BPO). Therefore KaaS is SaaS with the addition of intellectual property (IP) related to a particular horizontal process or industry. This will enable SaaS and BPO vendors to form partnerships with industry for the delivery of KaaS solutions in the cloud. 6. The popularity of smart phones in emerging economies increases. IDC expects India and China together to increase handset shipments in 2010 by more than 295 million. The key driver being the increasing sophistication of mobile users. Sales in China are expected to grow from 7.5 per cent of the market in in 2008 to 13.5 per cent in 2010. 7. The birth of the enterprise appliance. 2010 is likely to continue 2009's trend of product launches that started to change the way vendors thought about hardware stacks and solution offerings. 2010 will be the year when hardware vendors offer dedicated, preconfigured hardware and storage for specific applications and workloads - the enterprise appliance.

Jan 15, Performance Issues With Your Oracle Systems

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 04:33:21 GMT

Here's a great article on tracking down performance issues in Oracle Fusion Middleware by making use of the monitoring tools that come with it: Oracle Enterprise Manager; VisualVM; and Oracle JRockit Mission Control.

Jan 14, Oracle Named Leader In Web Access Management

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 03:15:36 GMT

Oracle Access Manager (part of Oracle Identity Management) has been named as one of the leaders in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Web Access Management due to the product's "completeness of vision" and Oracle's ability to execute. Other leaders in the Magic Quadrant include Sun (perhaps ironically) with its OpenSSO Enterprise product, IBM (Tivoli Federated Identity Manager), CA (SiteMinder) and Novell (Novell Access Manager). Oracle Access Manager delivers centralized and automated single sign-on to help enterprises manage access to information across the entire IT infrastructure. The benefits are greater control enforcement, lower operational costs and stronger enterprise security.

Jan 13, Microsoft Offers MySQL Migration Tools

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 05:48:42 GMT

Microsoft has joined the ranks of those companies hoping to lure customers away from Sun and profit from the uncertainty surrounding Oracle's takeover bid. The SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) for MySQL is currently offered as a Community Technology Preview (CTP) and is available for free download from microsoft.com. The tools automate aspects of the migration process to SQL Server 2005 and 2008/SQL Azure Microsoft's cloud database.

Jan 11, Oracle Continues Acquisition Spree

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:53:22 GMT

Oracle has started the New Year where it left off in the old year - buying companies. This time the target was Silver Creek Systems which provides solutions to simplify complex product descriptions. This enables organisations to better manage product data. Oracle believes the purchase of Silver Creek Systems will extend its leadership in data integration with advanced data quality capabilities to manage product data across multiple industries.

Jan 11, Jan. 14th Live Webcast: Deploying Enterprise User Security Using Oracle Directory Services

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 02:14:38 GMT

Thursday, Jan. 14, 2010 at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET This webcast will demonstrate how to leverage your existing infrastructure to centralize Oracle database users and roles. Oracle Virtual Directory provides options for customers to leverage their existing Active Directory or Sun Java System Directory to lower total cost of ownership.

Jan 7, Thousands sign Save MySQL petition

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 02:11:24 GMT

The petition asks competition authorities around the world to stop Oracle from buying MySQL. The campaign claims to have attracted 5,000 developers and 3,000 companies to sign it in just 1 week.

Jan 7, Y2K Bug Hits Banks & Telcos 10 Years Later

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:47:17 GMT

Banks in Germany and Australia and telcos in the U.S. have reportedly suffered from problems due to the change to the new decade.

Jan 6, Skills and business change are key priorities for IT heads in 2010

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:27:26 GMT

Business change together with strategy and planning are considered the two main New Year 'resolutions' that need to be tackled to allow organisations' IT functions to better enable the business this year, according to a survey by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.

Jan 6, Test Your Knowledge of Oracle 11g

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 04:36:57 GMT

Not much has been happening for the past couple of weeks due to the Christams and New Year celebrations so if you're feeling bored Oracle have come up with a quick quiz to test your knowledge of Oracle 11g. It's a multiple choice test and not very long so you should be able to complete it in 5 to 10 minutes. Just go to http://www.oracledatabase11g.com/Main/Questionnaire/EducationQuiz.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1 No registration required. And remember if you need training on Oracle 11g or (10g) or need help with upgrading just give us a call.

Dec 28, Oracle Sued Over Fusion Applications

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:45:16 GMT

MB Technologies in Georgia, U.S.A, developed a technology called Bindows that was licensed by Hyperion before being bought by Oracle. The company is now suing Oracle not just for patent infringement due to unsucessful licensing discussions but also for fraud.

Dec 18, Integrating .NET Applications With Oracle Databases

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:05:31 GMT

Step by step guide to building an WinForms.NET web site application with Oracle A summary of teh tools and technologies Oracle provides to integrate Oracle databases with Microsoft's .NET framework

Dec 18, How To Build a WinForms.NET Application With Oracle

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:04:11 GMT

Step by step guide to building an WinForms.NET web site application with Oracle A short tutorial on accessing an Oracle database from a WinForms.NET application for both Oracle developers who are unfamiliar with C# and C# developers who are new to Oracle.

Dec 18, How To Build an ASP.NET Web Site Application With Oracle

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:03:23 GMT

Step by step guide to building an ASP.NET web site application with Oracle