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ToadOracle_Q4_09_NextGen_NoSnipe.indd 1 11/24/09 2:22 PM JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE GETTING TO MODERN Enterprise architecture integrates services and delivers business value

KNOW WHO. KNOW HOW. Oracle CRM On Demand turns customer knowledge into business success BUILDING A BETTER DATABASE MACHINE The Sun Oracle Database Machine is the first for OLTP and better for all applications CONSTRUCT A CUBE Create an Oracle Essbase aggregate storage database COMPRESSING COLUMNS Compress more with Hybrid Columnar Compression

JF10_cover.indd 5 12/1/09 9:19:04 AM 8 x 10 7/8

omag0909p034p035.indd 1 7/27/09 11:58 AM 8 x 10 7/8

omag0909p034p035.indd 2 7/27/09 12:01 PM ALTERNATIVE THINKING ABOUT BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY: Move Ahead.

Alternative thinking is recognizing the proper role of technology in this era is not just to be safe and steady and reliable, but to spur the business to compete aggressively, imaginatively and daringly.

It is working with HP and Oracle to reduce risk and lower costs while driving your business ahead. hp.com/go/oracle

Technology for better business outcomes.

FEATURES GETTING TO MODERN From automating manual processes to enabling new enterprise processes, technology has certainly changed KNOW WHO. business operations. But a new approach for managing technical resources—enterprise architecture—goes KNOW HOW. beyond changing individual operations and instead aligns Customer acquisition and retention all of IT more closely to business strategy. Read how are critical for any business. Oracle has helped customers create and evolve their own To understand their customers, enterprise architectures. —David Baum companies turn to customer /30 relationship management (CRM) software. Learn how Oracle CRM On Demand can help organizations find out more about their Cover illustration: I-Hua Chen customers. —Marta Bright /38 HONORING EXCELLENCE There’s no shortage of challenges for companies today, from finding new ways to meet customer demands to developing green business practices. In 2009, Oracle recognized customers and partners that are meeting these challenges through innovation in technology, applications, and sustainability. Learn about the awards and meet the winners./27 DEPARTMENTS

From the Editor / 8 Packs, the Past, and the Future 12 AT ORACLE —Tom Haunert Events / 12 Briefs / 15 Find out about upcoming Interview / 18 technology and industry events. Juan Loaiza, senior vice president of systems Resources / 13 technology at Oracle, talks about Oracle Exadata V2 Your guide to Oracle Webcasts, and the Sun Oracle Database Machine. podcasts, blogs, education Oracle OpenWorld 2009 / 11 offerings, and more Highlights from the conference.

ORACLE MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 3

JF10_TOC.indd 3 11/30/09 3:35:35 PM CONTENTS 20 COMMUNITY Partner News / 20 InQuira, Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions, Attunity, NetSuite, Zeus Technology, Altova, Infogain, Wipro Technologies, JGI, Excel4apps, Novosoft Book Beat / 21 54 OTN Bulletin / 23 TECHNOLOGY Learn what’s happening with Oracle’s most COMPRESSION dynamic online community. Compressing Columns / 54 Architect / 24 Compress more with Oracle Exadata Hybrid Columnar Oracle enterprise architecture framework builds Compression. —Arup Nanda momentum and value. Up Close / 25 ASK TOM Ray Payne, OAUG president, talks about A Closer Look at the New Edition / 61 embracing changes in technology. Our technologist redefines and defers with Oracle Peer-to-Peer / 26 Database 11g Release 2. —Tom Kyte Tanel Poder, Chen Shapira, Piet de Visser

66 COMMENT

42 DEVELOPER IN THE FIELD The Importance of Patches / 66 FRAMEWORKS Too many companies leave their databases The Route to Success / 42 insufficiently protected. —Ian Abramson Use task flow routers for conditional navigation. —Steve Muench ANALYST’S CORNER Driving Database Innovation / 68 PL/SQL PRACTICES Clustering, lower cost, and better performance On Privacy and Function / 45 are key database benefits. —David Baum Use Oracle Virtual Private Database and Function Result Cache—securely. —Steven Feuerstein

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE Building a Cube / 49 Learn the basics of building an Oracle Essbase aggregate storage database. —Tracy McMullen and Edward Roske

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JF10_TOC.indd 7 11/30/09 3:32:29 PM from the editor

Packs, the Past, and the Future Getting behind Oracle Application Integration Architecture, looking back, and looking ahead

ver the last few issues, Oracle Magazine has included Reference process models provide a quick-start method for information about several Oracle Application Integration modeling business processes so you can begin an integration Architecture point releases. The updates and new features with a clear view into your business processes, user roles, tasks, in each release have been many, however, and it’s been dif- and activity levels, and how those map to underlying systems. ficult to provide a description of the key product components Enterprise business objects and services are prebuilt, reusable, behind those updates with each release. So I thought I’d take a standards-based building blocks. They provide the ability moment here to offer a quick description of Oracle Application to create loosely coupled integrations that can be modified, Integration Architecture and its key components. extended, and configured as business demands. SOA governance and lifecycle management tools are business The NamiNg of ParTs process change-control tools that help you manage, maintain, First, Oracle Application Integration Architecture is built on and optimize your integration. Predefined reference architecture Oracle Fusion Middleware, and it provides open standards– and methodology is the documented Oracle approach to imple- based, packaged solutions for integrations across all your menting a proven SOA. applications—Oracle, third-party, or homegrown. Finally, as noted in Briefs (page 16), Oracle has released Foundation packs and process integration packs are key Oracle Application Integration Architecture 2.5, which includes components of Oracle Application Integration Architecture. new cross-industry and industry-specific process integration Foundation packs contain the building blocks and templates packs and new enterprise objects and services. (process models, business objects, and business services) needed to integrate any combination of custom, Oracle, and LookiNg Back, LookiNg ahead non-Oracle applications into agile business processes. Process This is the first issue of Oracle Magazine for 2010, but it’s integration packs are prebuilt, end-to-end business process caused me to reflect on some particular events in 2009. integrations that connect specific Oracle and non-Oracle (SAP, Looking back, I’m reminded of the Kaleidoscope conference for example) applications. Oracle offers both cross-industry held by Oracle Development Tools User Group (ODTUG) and industry-specific prebuilt integrations. You can buy pre- in Monterey, California, where I caught up with a variety of built process integration packs or build your own integrations. folks who had great ideas for new content in Oracle Magazine. Oracle Application Integration Architecture Foundation Pack (Thanks to Lonneke Dikmans, Steven Feuerstein, Tom Kyte, is used to build each process integration pack. Tracy McMullen, Mike Riley, Mark Rittman, Edward Roske, Dan In addition, Oracle Application Integration Architecture Vlamis, and many more.) “Building a Cube” by Tracy McMullen Foundation Pack itself includes several components, each and Edward Roske (page 49) is the result of one conversation at of which is designed to help developers create their own the conference, and new magazine content for 2010 based on custom integrations: other meetings at Kaleidoscope 2009 is forthcoming. At their keynote at Oracle OpenWorld San Francisco in October 2009, Oracle Presidents Charles Phillips and Safra Catz nextStePS presented Oracle Magazine Editors’ Choice Awards to the five CIOs of the Year: Giovanni Chiarelli, João Cumerlato, Hideo LeArN more about Higuchi, Hyojoong Kim, and Andy Platt. Congratulations to all oracle Application integration Architecture oracle.com/aia the winners. otn.oracle.com/products/applications/aia Looking ahead at 2010, I’m eager for several events, includ- Information Connects: Oracle Application Integration Architecture oracle.com/applications/oracle-application-integration-architecture-overview- ing COLLABORATE 10, April 18 through 22 in Las Vegas, brochure.pdf Nevada; and Oracle OpenWorld 2010, September 19 through foundation packs 23 in San Francisco, California. And there are some changes oracle.com/applications/oracle-foundation-pack.html coming to Oracle Magazine later in 2010 that I’m very much prebuilt integrations looking forward to. Stay tuned. oracle.com/applications/prebuilt-integrations.html CoLLABorAte 10 collaborate10.ioug.org Tom Haunert, Editor in Chief [email protected]

8 January/February 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_ednote.indd 8 12/1/09 11:33:03 AM Once upon a time in a land not so far away...

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an Francisco opened its arms and streets once again to thousands Oracle Executive Vice President, Product Development, Thomas of Oracle OpenWorld attendees from October 11 through 15, 2009. Kurian; Sun Microsystems Chairman of the Board and Cofounder Scott The world’s largest gathering of Oracle customers, partners, developers, McNealy; Dell Inc. Chairman of the Board and CEO Michael Dell; Infosys and technology enthusiasts showcased the newest and most-innovative Technologies CEO and Managing Director S. Gopalakrishnan; and, of Oracle products and services. Conference attendees were offered more course, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. than 1,900 sessions and more than 600 live demonstrations cover- Oracle and Sun. Sun Microsystems’ Scott McNealy kicked off Oracle ing the full breadth of Oracle products and services, including new and OpenWorld 2009 with a keynote presentation focused on Sun’s technology upcoming releases. They also kept busy in two exhibition halls, which featured hundreds of partner and customer exhibits, special themed pavilions and theaters, the Callaway Golf Experience, and the Motorola Enterprise Mobility Lounge. Here is a look at some of the highlights of the week. Oracle Develop. The premier program for Oracle’s developer community, Oracle Develop featured renowned experts leading sessions about the latest development trends and technologies for SOA, extreme transaction processing, virtualization, Web 2.0, and more. Keynote speakers included Ask Tom’s Tom Kyte on Oracle Database, Oracle Tools and Middleware Chief Architect and Senior Vice President Ted Farrell on rich enterprise applications, and Sun Microsystems’ James Gosling on software at Sun. Keynotes. This year’s keynote speakers included some of the biggest names in technology: Oracle Presidents Charles Phillips and Safra Catz; HP Executive Vice President, Technology Solutions Group, Ann Livermore; Hartmann StudioS In his keynote presentation, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison (above) touted the Sun Oracle Database Machine— the only database machine that runs online transaction processing applications—and Oracle Exadata V2 technology. “Oracle Exadata V2 runs virtually all database applications much faster and less expensively than any other computer in the world,” he said. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (left) joined Ellison onstage and discussed technology as a key driver of California’s economy. He also praised Oracle, saying, “There are so many brilliant innovators in your company, walking onstage I think my IQ shot up 10 points.”

10 january/february 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_OOW.indd 10 11/19/09 10:07:09 AM Celebrates Innovation with questions, left with answers.

innovation. “Innovation is at the core of Sun,” he said, touting a variety of Sun technologies including Solaris, Sun Ray thin client, and chip multithreading. Oracle’s Larry Ellison joined McNealy onstage, noting, “It’s dazzling thinking of all the innovations that have come from Sun.” Ellison also discussed a new record-breaking benchmark with Oracle Database 11g running on Sun SPARC servers (see Briefs, page 16, for details.) Networking. Oracle OpenWorld 2009 offered numerous opportunities for attendees to network with their peers— including the Welcome Reception, Oracle Technology Network’s OTN Night, and the Oracle OpenWorld Appreciation Event, where legendary rockers Roger Daltrey and Aerosmith got the crowd moving. Social networking

was bigger than ever this year, thanks in part to Oracle Hartmann StudioS OpenWorld Live, which provided a live Web feed from the Oracle Presidents Charles Phillips and Safra Catz presented Oracle’s vision of the future— a future that is connected, open, and ready to deploy. Oracle spends billions on innovation and OTN Lounge. This live programming included an audience integration every year, Phillips said. He also discussed the latest developments in the Oracle Q&A with Oracle Vice President of Product Strategy Ken stack: in applications, industry solutions, middleware, the database, and infrastructure. Jacobs, OTN TechCast Live sessions featuring OTN Editor in Chief Justin Kestelyn in conversation with numerous technology experts, and a daily buzz roundup. In-person and virtual attendees provided a stream of content and commentary through Oracle OpenWorld’s Facebook page, Twitter feed, Oracle Mix page, blog, and the Oracle Unconference. Finally, after a week of keynotes, sessions, and exhibits, Oracle OpenWorld attendees closed out the week in style at the last official conference event, “It’s a Wrap!” Hartmann StudioS Thousands of Oracle OpenWorld attendees converged upon Moscone South, home of one of two exhibition halls and many conference sessions.

webLOCATOR Oracle OpenWorld oracle.com/openworld Oracle OpenWorld Live nora Stratton oracle.com/openworldlive ThinkQuest, an international technology competition for students sponsored by the Oracle Education Foundation, brought 114 award-winning students and Oracle OpenWorld On Demand teachers from 11 countries to Oracle OpenWorld. Planet Keepers, a Puerto Rico– oracle.com/us/openworld/registration.htm#ondemand based team that placed first in the 19-and-under age division, is pictured above ThinkQuest with Matt Mayerson (left), Oracle vice president of manufacturing and distribution www.thinkquest.org and member of the Oracle Education Foundation Board of Directors.

oracle magazine january/february 2010 11

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Oracle user grOups Greater Cincinnati Oracle User Group Meeting with Tom Kyte January 13, Blue Ash, Ohio www.gcoug.org Technology Events Northeast Ohio Oracle Users Group Meeting Conferences and sessions to help you stay on the cutting edge January 15, Independence, Ohio www.neooug.org Nashville Oracle Users Group Meeting Alliance 2010 January 20 and February 17, February 28–March 3, Nashville, Tennessee San Antonio, Texas www.noug.net With more than 3,500 participants Dallas Oracle Users Group Meeting expected, this conference is the world’s January 21 and February 18, largest meeting of higher education, Irving, Texas public sector, and federal users of Oracle www.doug.org Applications. The event offers more than UKOUG UNIX SIG Meeting 400 user-driven sessions, an executive January 21, London, England forum, a series of keynotes, and a www.ukoug.org preconference golf tournament and fun run. Suncoast Oracle Users Group Meeting Get details and sign up at www.heug.org. January 28 and February 25, Tampa, Florida soug.acomp.usf.edu International Conference Forrester’s Enterprise on Computer Education, Architecture Forum 2010 UKOUG Public Sector Human Capital Management Customer Forum Management Technology, and February 11–12, San Diego, California January 28, Birmingham, England Application 2010 Find out why enterprise architecture is www.ukoug.org January 27–28, Kathmandu, Nepal the basis for the business/IT partnership. This conference connects researchers, scien- This forum addresses how to align busi- UKOUG Financials/Government Day tists, engineers, and students in the areas of ness and IT strategies, enable transforma- February 9, London, England www.ukoug.org computer education, management technology, tion of IT into a business-centric service and applications to exchange research results provider, and boost IT’s strategic value. Get UKOUG Oracle Projects SIG Meeting and explore new theories in an international details at www.forrester.com/events/ February 11, London, England forum. To learn more, go to www.coemta.org. eventdetail?eventID=2432. www.ukoug.org Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group Smart Energy Canada Mobile World Congress Training Days January 31–February 2, Toronto, Canada February 15–18, Barcelona, Spain February 16–18, Denver, Colorado This event brings together key stakeholders This gathering of 47,000 mobile professionals www.rmoug.org in utilities to solidify the bridge from smart features a thought leadership conference, key- UKOUG Human Capital Management metering to the smart grid in Canada. The notes and panel discussions, more than 1,300 SIG Meeting agenda includes discussions of new technolo- exhibitors, industry seminars, and network- February 23, Slough, England gies and best practices. Sign up at www ing opportunities. Learn more and register at www.ukoug.org .spintelligent-events.com/sec2010/en. www.mobileworldcongress.com. Southeastern Oracle Users Conference February 24–25, Charlotte, Sustainability Virtual Summits EnergyBiz Leadership Forum North Carolina February 9–11, online February 28–March 2, Washington DC www.seouc.com This virtual event focuses on information and Join major influencers—industry executives, communications technologies that can contrib- policy makers, regulators, consumers, and ute to mitigating the effects of climate change. members of the financial and legal communi- events The event showcases profitable practices and ties—to tackle the formative issues affecting LOCAtOR strategies that alleviate negative environmental energy. Highlights include the financial implica- Oracle Events impacts, enhance corporate social aware- tions of overhauling energy and a discussion of oracle.com/events Locate User Groups ness, and benefit corporate growth. Sign up at technology’s role in energy advancements. Learn otn.oracle.com/community/user_groups

www.sustainabilityvirtualsummits.com. more at www.energybizforum.com. Getty ImaGes

12 January/February 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_events.indd 12 11/23/09 2:20:32 PM at Oracleresources

What’s New at Oracle The latest Webcasts, podcasts, white papers, and blogs

WEBCASTS AND INTERNET The Oracle Enterprise Architecture Framework center offers podcasts, blogs, white papers, SEMINARS oracle.com/goto/oeaf and other content that reflect the insight Oracle Tuxedo: Modern. Mission-Critical. Read about how Oracle enterprise archi- and expertise of Oracle Technology Network SOA-Ready. tecture framework provides a streamlined members who are dealing with enterprise www.bit.ly/xCjF0 technology-agnostic framework that helps architecture challenges. Hasan Rizvi, senior vice president, Oracle Oracle work collaboratively with custom- oracle cFo central Fusion Middleware, discusses Oracle ers to develop strategic road maps and oraclecfo.com Tuxedo, Oracle’s market-leading application architecture solutions that enable business Focused on the needs of the chief finan- server for C, C++, and Cobol applications. and IT alignment. cial officer, Oracle CFO Central provides Five IT Cost Management Imperatives Architectural Strategies for Cloud Computing in-depth thought leadership on financial www.bit.ly/2YhnZv oracle.com/goto/eacloud management topics and solutions, and the Honorio J. Padron, IT research practice Cloud computing is the convergence of latest news, resources, and information lead at the Hackett Group, reviews the virtualization, distributed application design, about upcoming executive events. practices that organizations should follow to grid computing, and enterprise IT manage- lower their IT costs. ment to enable a more flexible approach for PODCASTS deploying and scaling applications. Learn Extreme Performance for Data Warehouses WHITE PAPERS AND REPORTS more about delivering an architecture that oracle.com/database/podcasts.html The Role of Application Management captures the potential of cloud computing. Ray Roccaforte, Oracle’s vice president Outsourcing in Improving IT Agility, Part I Maximizing SOA Returns with Enterprise www.bit.ly/syW4d Architecture Read about emerging models for applica- oracle.com/goto/easoa oracle Direct tion management outsourcing that address The value of SOA has been limited due to its For Oracle product information, call the number for the need to rapidly ramp up capacity with implementation as more of a solution archi- your region: minimal capital investment during an expan- tecture than an enterprise architecture. See Country Phone Number sion phase and scale back capacity swiftly how a shared-services infrastructure built U.S. and Canada ...... 1.800.367.8674 Australia ...... 1800.735.467 during a downturn. with the foundation of enterprise architec- Austria ...... 0800.29.7626 Belgium ...... 0800.73280 OAUG ResearchLine Report: ture can provide sustainable cost reduction Brazil ...... 0800.901.985 Performance Under Pressure and improve alignment of the business to IT. China ...... 800.810.0161 Denmark...... 8088.1068 oracle.com/goto/em_survey Finland ...... 0800.113.573 Whether you are a customer attempting to RESOURCE KITS AND CENTERS France ...... 0800.905.805 Germany ...... 0800.1.810.111 access an e-commerce site or a manager executive Guide to Grid computing Greece ...... 00800.353.12020 Hong Kong ...... 3002.1246 at the other end charged with keeping the oracle.com/goto/gridexecguide India ...... 1600.44.6725 site’s applications performing flawlessly on Grid computing enables data centers to get Indonesia ...... 001.800.1.672.253 Ireland ...... 1850.672253 a 24/7 basis, you know that there are always ready for the next decade of business chal- Italy ...... 8008.74720 going to be glitches lurking. Learn how lenges while providing immediate benefits Japan ...... 0120.155.096 Malaysia ...... 1800.80.1837 Oracle Enterprise Manager can mitigate in terms of lowering costs, raising service Mexico ...... 01800.221.7321 The Netherlands ...... 0800.0827 these issues through effective monitoring, levels, and increasing agility. This grid com- New Zealand ...... 0508.555.215 testing, and quality assurance. puting resource kit offers a primer on grid Norway ...... 800.14411 Philippines ...... 811.5831 Deciding Whether or Not to Use a computing techniques and showcases real Portugal ...... 800.853.021 Portal Platform customer use cases. Singapore ...... 1800.6722.531 South Africa ...... 0800.994.225 oracle.com/goto/forresterportalreport enterprise Architecture center South Korea ...... 080.2194.114 Spain ...... 900.952900 Portals provide secure access to applica- otn.oracle.com/architect/entarch Sweden ...... 020.798798 tions, content, and communication tools. Enterprise architecture is a method and an Switzerland ...... 0800.55.2574 Taiwan ...... 0800.672.253 Learn more about the driving factors behind organizing principle that aligns functional Thailand ...... 001800.441.0545 portal implementation and how to decide if a business objectives and strategies with an IT Turkey ...... 00800.353.90014 U.K...... 0870.5.332200 portal product is right for your organization. strategy and execution plan. This resource

oracle magazine january/february 2010 13

JF10_Resources.indd 13 11/19/09 9:21:28 AM ResouRces

upcoming releases, new product announce- overHeArD ments, glimpses into the inner workings of Oracle Development, and in-depth discussions of technology stack architectures. “If you execute the architecture process well, other people won’t notice your success. If you fail, they feel it’s useless ORACLE UNIVERSITY and slow. How can you make architectural success more Training for oracle’s Peoplesoft PeopleTools oracle.com/education visible in your organization?” PeopleSoft PeopleTools 8.50 provides a full- — Lonneke Dikmans, Oracle ACE Director, in part one of the Enterprise Architecture Visibility podcast feature technology upgrade to help enhance (otn.oracle.com/syndication/arch2arch-podcasts) the value of PeopleSoft applications. Oracle University provides a series of courses to help you understand the changes and responsible for developing data warehous- of Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise and other new features available with PeopleSoft ing solutions, discusses how Oracle Exadata data models. PeopleTools 8.50. Courses include V2 and Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Best Practices for Upgrading to Oracle PeopleTools I Release 8.50, PeopleTools enable customers to easily deploy and scale Database 11g II Release 8.50, PeopleSoft PeopleCode an Oracle data warehouse and deliver the oracle.com/database/podcasts.html Release 8.50, PeopleSoft Application Engine best cost/performance ratio. Roger Snowden of Oracle’s Customer Release 8.50, and PeopleSoft Structured Enterprise Architecture Visibility, Parts 1 and 2 Support Database Center of Excellence Query Report Release 8.50. otn.oracle.com/syndication/ discusses best practices and resources arch2arch-podcasts available to help reduce the time, cost, and SALES Oracle ACE Directors Lonneke Dikmans and risks associated with upgrading to Oracle Free Web Application Assessment Mark Simpson discuss bridging silos and Database 11g. oracle.com/goto/webassessment the difficulty in dealing with the “people Tom Kyte’s Thoughts on Oracle Database 11g The Oracle Fusion Middleware Web issues” inherent in enterprise architecture. Release 2 Application Assessment is a collaborative Cloud Computing and the Politics of Enterprise oracle.com/database/podcasts.html discovery process focused on specific Architecture, Parts 1–3 Oracle’s Tom Kyte shares his opinions about Web application efficiency, performance, otn.oracle.com/syndication/ Oracle Database 11g Release 2. and availability issues. Following industry arch2arch-podcasts Oracle Exadata V2: The World’s First OLTP standards and best practices, Oracle’s tech- Basheer Khan of Innowave Technology, Database Machine nical experts will engage with your team Jordan Braunstein of Rolta TUSC, and Ralf oracle.com/database/podcasts.html to review your applications and supporting Dossmann of Oracle’s Enterprise Solutions Juan Loaiza, senior vice president of infrastructure. The engagement consists Group discuss how cloud computing might systems technology at Oracle, talks about of one half-day information gathering and reshape the battleground between business Oracle Exadata V2 and how customers can advisory workshop. and IT. experience extreme performance for both Author Iggy Fernandez Discusses Sound data warehousing and online transaction Practices and Techniques DBAs Can Use with processing (OLTP) workloads. webLocAToR Oracle Database 11g oracle Blog center oracle.com/podcasts/author- BLOGS oracle.com/blogs podcasts.html enterprise Architecture Blog oracle consulting oracle.com/consulting Iggy Fernandez, author of Beginning Oracle blogs.oracle.com/enterprisearchitecture oracle events and Webcasts Database 11g Administration: From Novice This blog focuses on best practices for oracle.com/events to Professional (Apress, 2009) discusses the enterprise architects. Contributors include oracle Podcast center value-add that Oracle Database 11g offers Mans Bhuller and Hamza Jahangir of oracle.com/podcasts to all database administrators. Oracle’s Enterprise Solutions Group; Adam My oracle support PeopleSoft Developer’s Guide for PeopleTools Boczkowski, Oracle Insight program direc- myoraclesupport.com and PeopleCode tor; and Pat Shepherd of Oracle Sales. oracle Newsletters oracle.com/podcasts/author- oracle e-Business suite Technology oracle.com/newsletters podcasts.html blogs.oracle.com/stevenchan oracle support Judi Doolittle, author of PeopleSoft This blog provides the latest news from oracle.com/support Developer’s Guide for PeopleTools and the Oracle E-Business Suite development oracle university oracle.com/education PeopleCode (Oracle Press, 2008) discusses team. It includes Oracle insiders’ takes oracle on Twitter practical problems and techniques used by on technology stack–related topics for www.twitter.com/oracle DBAs for normalization and denormalization Oracle E-Business Suite, sneak previews of

14 january/february 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_Resources.indd 14 11/19/09 9:22:39 AM at Oraclebriefs did yOu KNOW?

Tales of encrypTion Oracle applicatiOn DevelOpment FramewOrk mObile client preview available In a survey of more than 600 IT security Oracle has released a developer preview mobile application rendering in the professionals, 41 percent said they encrypt of Oracle Application Development native look and feel of each device; and backup tapes, 43 percent encrypt databases, Framework (Oracle ADF) Mobile Client, integrates with on-device services such and 49 percent encrypt full disks. The single which enables developers to extend as calendar, contacts, and peripherals. most important factor preventing encryption their enterprise applications onto mobile “With Oracle ADF Mobile Client, was cost, with 26 percent citing the cost of devices. It provides built-in security and developers can write their applications acquiring encryption and 26 percent citing the database synchronization services to once and deploy them on multiple cost of managing encryption. manage data distribution and reconcilia- mobile platforms, saving time and allow- Source: Trust Catalyst tion with mobile applications. ing developers to focus on building www.trustcatalyst.com Oracle ADF Mobile Client also sup- better applications,” says Ted Farrell, ports disconnected access to enterprise tools and middleware chief architect and more companies Think Green applications from mobile devices; offers senior vice president at Oracle. 60 percent of organizations in the U.S. Oracle vm 2.2 accelerates applicatiOn DeplOyment have a partial or comprehensive green IT The latest release of Oracle’s server vir- cessors. Other enhancements include strategy, and 72 percent conduct audits of tualization software, Oracle VM 2.2, new CPU power management, memory energy consumption and power management, enables customers to accelerate deploy- management, and direct disk I/O capa- according to a CompTIA survey. Worldwide, ment of and simplify management of bilities. Additionally, this release delivers about 25 percent of companies have a green enterprise applications. Now available, on the initial integration of Oracle VM IT program in place, and another 9 percent the new release enables organizations and Virtual Iron technology. plan to have one within a year, according to a to run their data centers in the most “The release of Oracle VM 2.2 Deloitte survey. environmentally sustainable and efficient enables customers to capitalize on the Sources: CompTIA and Deloitte manner, while lowering costs. latest advancements in server virtualiza- www.comptia.org Oracle VM 2.2 features the latest tion technology to better manage their www.deloitte.com Xen-based, industry-standard hyper- virtual environments and reduce both visor, Xen 3.4, and provides substantial cost and power consumption in the accidenTs Worse Than hackers performance enhancements for custom- data center,” says Wim Coekaerts, vice for daTa loss ers running Intel Xeon processor 5500 president of Linux and virtualization 85 percent of companies surveyed say series and Six-Core AMD Opteron pro- engineering at Oracle. data loss through external hacking is “very unlikely,” and 45 percent believe that UpDateD line OF Oracle berkeley Db embeDDable Databases releaseD accidental employee error is the most likely Three new releases in the Oracle Oracle Berkeley DB XML 2.5 delivers channel for data loss. Almost 60 percent plan Berkeley DB family of open source, several performance and data manage- an IT security audit. The survey included more embeddable databases are available: ment improvements, including support than 400 IT security decision-makers in 18 Oracle Berkeley DB 4.8, Oracle Berkeley for external functions, a smaller on-disk countries worldwide. DB XML 2.5, and Oracle Berkeley DB footprint for XML containers, and certi- Source: Dimension Data and IDC Java Edition 4.0. Oracle Berkeley DB fication on Oracle Berkeley DB 4.8. www.dimensiondata.com products can be integrated directly Oracle Berkeley DB Java Edition 4.0 into software applications, devices, and includes new replication features for social neTWorkinG resTricTed equipment to deliver high performance, high availability and scalability, signifi- reliability, and availability with virtually cant performance improvements, and a A survey of 1,400 CIOs in the U.S. found that no human administration. plug-in for JConsole, which eases appli- 54 percent of companies completely prohibit Oracle Berkeley DB 4.8 delivers cation deployment and monitoring. employee use of social networking sites such improved scalability, performance, “These new releases contain signifi- as Facebook and Twitter at work. 19 percent and ease of use. New features include cant new enhancements to the products permit social networking for business purposes, support for foreign keys, improved in terms of performance, high avail- 16 percent permit it for limited personal use, failure handling for multithreaded appli- ability, and ease of use and reinforce and 10 percent have no restrictions. cations, and a new db_sql utility that Oracle’s commitment to open source Source: Robert Half Technology generates Berkeley DB application code products,” says Rex Wang, vice president www.roberthalftechnology.com from a SQL schema description. of product marketing at Oracle.

oracle magazine January/February 2010 15

JF10_briefs2.indd 15 11/19/09 3:04:30 PM briefs

Oracle Secure Backup 10.3 SuppOrtS Oracle and Sun achieve WOrld-recOrd Benchmark virtual tape liBrarieS Oracle has announced a new world- hardware than IBM used for its largest Oracle is now shipping the latest record Transaction Processing benchmark.(3) Oracle Real Application release of its centralized tape backup Performance Council (TPC-C) bench- Clusters allowed Sun and Oracle to scale management system, Oracle Secure mark result for Oracle Database 11g performance on a 12-node Sun SPARC Backup 10.3. The new release provides running on Sun SPARC servers with Enterprise T5440 cluster. enhanced virtual tape library support chip multithreading technology and The Oracle-Sun configuration also through serverless tape duplication, the Sun Solaris Operating System.(1) consumed four times less energy than which helps increase performance and Oracle Database 11g running on the the IBM configuration even though it reduce server overhead when backup Solaris 10 Operating System achieved ran 26 percent faster. data is copied from virtual to physi- a record-breaking 7.7 million tpmC at “With this benchmark result, there’s cal tapes. Oracle Secure Backup 10.3 $2.34/tpmC. This result proves that no denying that Oracle Database 11g also allows backup encryption to be the Oracle-Sun combination runs faster running on Sun SPARC Enterprise performed on the host or by leveraging than IBM DB2 running on IBM’s flagship T5440 servers outperforms IBM and LTO-4 tape drives to offload encryp- Power 595.(2) DB2,” says Juan Loaiza, senior vice pres- tion processes from the host. Other new The Oracle-Sun benchmark used a ident of systems technology at Oracle.

features include tape vaulting enhance- combination of Sun’s chip multithreading As of October 11, 2009. Source: TPC-C, www.tpc.org. ments that better automate management servers to power the database, along with (1) 12-node Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server cluster: 7,717,510 tpmC at $2.34/tpmC. Available December 14, 2009. of tapes between multiple locations; Sun’s Flash Storage technology to speed (2) IBM Power 595 server, model 9119-FHA: 6,085,166 support for IP version 6; and platform I/O. With the Sun Storage F5100 Flash tpmC at $2.81/tpmC (best IBM DB2 TPC-C result). Available December 10, 2008. support for HP-UX Itanium, AIX, Linux, Array, Oracle and Sun were able to set (3) Hardware size measured in racks of equipment as priced for Windows, and Solaris SPARC. the world record using eight times less the benchmarks.

Oracle applicatiOn teSting Suite Oracle applicatiOn integratiOn architecture 2.5 SuppOrtS induStry SOlutiOnS includeS teSt-Scripting platfOrm Oracle has released Oracle Application tions reduce business process integration Oracle has unveiled the latest version of Integration Architecture 2.5, which complexity and accelerate delivery of its application testing solution for Oracle includes 10 new cross-industry process enterprise application solutions. With 30 Applications, Web, and SOA applications: integration packs, 6 new industry- process integration packs and 4 founda- Oracle Application Testing Suite 9.0. specific process integration packs, tion packs, this release supports critical The suite introduces OpenScript, and a library of more than 1,000 business processes across multiple indus- a Java-based, integrated test-scripting enterprise services and 100 enterprise tries, including manufacturing, utilities, platform for automated functional objects. Oracle Application Integration retail, and health sciences, and provides testing and load testing. Users can now Architecture 2.5 provides an open, customers with integration solutions that create test scripts that automate both standards-based approach for organiza- can be extended and managed over time. Web- and Oracle Forms–based applications to integrate end-to-end business “Oracle Application Integration tion interfaces. Leveraging OpenScript’s processes across a broad range of custom, Architecture Release 2.5 reinforces our intuitive graphical scripting interface, Oracle, and third-party applications. unwavering commitment to reducing users can record automated test scripts With an increased focus on end-to-end the cost of integration for our cus- by stepping through their Oracle industry solutions and prebuilt integra- tomers,” says Jose Lazares, vice presi- E-Business Suite business transactions tions across Oracle and non-Oracle appli- dent of application development and in the browser. cations, Oracle Application Integration product strategy for Oracle Application To help ensure the health and per- Architecture Release 2.5 helps organiza- Integration Architecture. formance of packaged, Web, and SOA applications, Oracle Application Testing Oracle agreeS tO acquire hyperrOll aSSetS Suite 9.0 delivers Oracle E-Business Oracle has agreed to acquire certain is a critical requirement for organiza- Suite accelerators that support auto- assets of HyperRoll, a leading provider tions,” says Robert Gersten, senior vice mated functional testing and load testing of financial reporting acceleration solu- president of Oracle product develop- of Oracle E-Business Suite applications. tions. HyperRoll’s products help improve ment. “Oracle enterprise performance “Comprehensive application testing reporting performance, shrink the close management already enables rapid, is among the most important parts cycle, and improve visibility of financial accurate, and secure financial consolida- of today’s IT toolbox for delivering data to line management. Customers tion and reporting. With the addition cost efficiencies to the business,” says across multiple industries including of HyperRoll’s reporting acceleration Melinda-Carol Ballou, program direc- retail, consumer goods, and financial ser- technology, customers are expected to be tor, application lifecycle management, at vices currently use HyperRoll’s products. able to execute a faster and more com- market intelligence firm IDC. “Enterprise performance management pliant financial close.”

16 January/February 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_briefs2.indd 16 11/19/09 3:05:06 PM Oracle acquires Data integratiOn PrOViDer gOlDengate Oracle MeDia intellectual PrOPerty Oracle has acquired GoldenGate performance in a global 24/7 envi- ManageMent releaseD Software, a leading provider of real-time ronment has led to the need for data Oracle is shipping Oracle Media data integration solutions. GoldenGate’s integration to support real-time and Intellectual Property Management, a com- best-in-class solutions enable real-time high-availability capabilities,” says Hasan prehensive software solution acquired data integration and continuous data Rizvi, senior vice president of Oracle from Sophoi that manages intellectual availability by capturing and delivering Fusion Middleware product develop- property and the content value chain updates of critical information as the ment. “With the addition of GoldenGate, for media and entertainment compa- changes occur and providing continuous Oracle will help customers achieve nies. It automates intellectual property data synchronization across heteroge- better performance through improved rights and royalty management and sales neous environments. business intelligence and business conti- and distribution across content owners, “The need to improve operating nuity with real-time information.” aggregators, and service providers to reduce revenue leakage and develop new Oracle Database Vault certifieD with saP aPPlicatiOns revenue models. In order to provide customers with data directly using ad hoc database query “With the proliferation of media and increased security for mission-critical tools. Oracle Database Vault establishes entertainment distribution channels, the SAP application data, Oracle has certi- protective realms around SAP application management and licensing of intellectual fied Oracle Database Vault for use with database objects to prevent privileged property rights and royalties has become SAP applications. Oracle Database Vault database user access to sensitive data. increasingly complex,” says Liam enables organizations to efficiently “Oracle Database Vault proactively Maxwell, vice president of products, increase security and address regulatory and transparently safeguards application Oracle Communications. “The addi- compliance by controlling who, when, data, preventing unauthorized access tion of Sophoi technology to Oracle’s where, and how existing SAP applica- and providing customers with the nec- product line for the communications, tion data can be accessed by any users, essary database security technology to media, and entertainment industries is including privileged database users help achieve regulatory compliance. This expected to accelerate the adoption of such as DBAs. certification extends that protection to standards-based software to monetize Using Oracle Database Vault, organi- SAP environments, allowing companies digital content and enable better finan- zations can further ensure that database to protect their critical business informa- cial control of content assets.” ■ users cannot bypass SAP application secu- tion,” says Vipin Samar, vice president of rity features and access SAP application database security at Oracle. webLOCATOR Oracle Application Development Oracle’s PeOPlesOft enterPrise 9.1 unVeileD Framework Mobile Client Oracle has released Oracle’s PeopleSoft ence through the use of new Web 2.0 otn.oracle.com/tech/wireless/adf_mobile.html Enterprise 9.1, which includes release capabilities, enhanced integration, and Oracle VM otn.oracle.com/products/vm 9.1 of PeopleSoft human capital expanded reporting options. Oracle Berkeley DB management solutions, PeopleSoft PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal 9.1 helps oracle.com/database/berkeley-db PeopleTools 8.50, PeopleSoft Enterprise organizations promote engagement and Oracle Secure Backup Portal 9.1, and PeopleSoft Enterprise collaboration through the deployment of otn.oracle.com/products/secure-backup Learning Management 9.1. online communities and Web-based self- Oracle Application Testing Suite Release 9.1 of PeopleSoft human service sites for their enterprises. otn.oracle.com/products/oem/prod_focus/etest.html capital management solutions includes PeopleSoft Enterprise Learning Oracle and Sun Benchmark www.tpc.org a core platform that addresses end-to- Management 9.1 enables organizations Oracle Application Integration end human resources responsibilities to proactively manage their learning Architecture for global organizations. In addition to environments, ensuring that employees oracle.com/aia best-in-class integrated talent manage- acquire knowledge and skills consistent Oracle and HyperRoll ment, workforce management, and work- with corporate objectives and regula- oracle.com/hyperroll force service delivery, the latest version tory compliance. Oracle and GoldenGate oracle.com/goldengate includes embedded Web 2.0 capabilities “Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.1 Oracle Database Vault and new industry-specific enhancements. includes many new features that cus- oracle.com/database/database-vault.html PeopleSoft PeopleTools 8.50 offers tomers have told us they need today,” Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.1 a flexible development environment says Paco Aubrejuan, vice president and oracle.com/peoplesoft for customers to manage, customize, general manager for Oracle’s PeopleSoft Oracle Media Intellectual Property integrate, and support their PeopleSoft Enterprise product line. “This approach Management oracle.com/industries/media-entertainment/oracle- applications. This latest update fea- ensures our products continue to drive media-intellectual-property-management.html tures an enriched end-user experi- real business value today.”

oracle magazine January/February 2010 17

JF10_briefs2.indd 17 11/19/09 3:05:54 PM at Oracleinterview by Tom HaunerT

Building a Better Database Machine The Sun Oracle Database Machine is the first for OLTP and better for all applications.

uan Loaiza, senior vice president of very fast mode called compress for query, systems technology at Oracle, sat down and we have a mode that optimizes with Tom Haunert, Oracle Magazine editor space called compress for archive. A very in chief, to talk about Oracle Exadata V2 large financial company has achieved and the Sun Oracle Database Machine. The 19 times compression with compress following is an excerpt from that interview. for query mode, which is a tremendous Download a podcast of the full interview at compression rate. And a scientific cus- oracle.com/magcasts. tomer saw 70 times compression with Oracle Magazine: What are the key tech- compress for archive mode. nology innovations in Oracle Exadata V2 Oracle Magazine: What’s new and inno- and the Sun Oracle Database Machine? vative about the Flash technology in Loaiza: There are three key innova- Oracle Exadata V2? tions in Oracle Exadata V2. The first is Loaiza: In Oracle Exadata V2, we’ve the intelligent Oracle Exadata storage incorporated a new technology from (which we introduced in Oracle Exadata Sun called FlashFire technology in V1) that is deployed in a grid scale-out every storage server. architecture using InfiniBand network- Up to now, Flash had been intro- ing. So it’s very high performance with duced as kind of a disk replacement. very high-speed networking. Juan Loaiza, Senor Vice President of Systems It included a disk-drive interface and Second, we’ve introduced a technology Technology at Oracle sat behind a disk controller, but inside called Hybrid Columnar Compression, it was actually a bunch of Flash chips. which provides much better compres- base servers very quickly, especially as That was the first generation of Flash sion than we or anyone else has achieved we bring Flash into the picture. technology, and it worked pretty well. before. We think it’s going to have dra- Oracle Magazine: How does Oracle’s But having Flash look like a disk drive matic benefits for very large databases. Hybrid Columnar Compression work? and sit behind a disk controller actually Third, we’ve incorporated Flash tech- Loaiza: With Hybrid Columnar limits the performance quite a bit. nology into the Sun Oracle Database Compression, we transparently reorganize With FlashFire, Sun has introduced Machine, and we’ve done it in an inno- the data into a column-oriented format to a technology where the Flash memory vative way that’s high performance, easy achieve much better compression. With actually sits on a PCI card that goes to use, low cost, and highly available. our previous generations of compres- directly into the motherboard of the Oracle Magazine: What’s new in intelli- sion, we usually achieved 2 to 4 times servers. That’s what we’re using in our gent storage in Oracle Exadata V2? compression on user data. With Hybrid Oracle Exadata storage, and it’s much, Loaiza: Intelligent storage was the big Columnar Compression, we typically much faster than using Flash as a disk innovation in Oracle Exadata V1, and achieve 10 times or more compression. drive. Imagine putting DRAM into a we’ve enhanced it in Oracle Exadata We are starting to get the early disk form factor and sitting it behind V2. We’ve done three things to avoid results back from customers with very the disk controller. You’re going to lose storage bottlenecks. First, we do query large databases, and they are amazing. a lot of the performance of that DRAM. processing inside storage. Second, we For example, a telecom customer that Flash is a lot more like DRAM than like went away from the monolithic storage tried Hybrid Columnar Compression a disk drive. Flash is a semiconduc- architecture to a scale-out storage using call data records, which tradition- tor technology, and it’s much better to architecture. Our storage is made from ally don’t compress very well, is achiev- introduce it closer to the processors. modular building blocks that are basi- ing over 6 times compression. This is We’re primarily using the Flash in cally servers with disks in them. Third, much higher compression than we’ve our Oracle Exadata Storage Servers we use an InfiniBand network that runs ever seen before with call data records. as a cache in front of the disk drives. at 40Gb/second. That’s key to getting We have two modes for Hybrid We have 5TB of Flash in a one-rack

lots of data from storage into the data- Columnar Compression. We have a Sun Oracle Database Machine, and BoB Adler

18 January/February 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_interview.indd 18 11/20/09 1:42:41 PM we automatically manage which data Oracle Exadata V2 to greatly speed up in Oracle Exadata V2. If we achieve 10 goes on disk and which data goes on OLTP. With the Flash that we have in a times compression with our Hybrid Flash. And as data becomes active, we’ll one-rack Sun Oracle Database Machine, Columnar Compression technology, the move it automatically into Flash so that we can run at more than a million customers’ very large data warehouses— subsequent accesses will get the perfor- I/Os per second, which is a rate that has whether they’re 1TB, 10TB, 50TB, or mance of Flash. never been seen before. Before Oracle 100TB, can be shrunk in size. This Oracle Magazine: How can OLTP [online Exadata V2, it would take around 100 greatly improves performance. Also, transaction processing] customers racks of storage to achieve that kind of it’s very cumbersome to do backup or benefit from Oracle Exadata V2? performance, and it would cost millions restore or reorganization of the data on Loaiza: In Oracle Exadata V2, we’ve and millions of dollars. these extremely large systems. If you introduced support for OLTP, so OLTP Oracle Magazine: How do storage and can shrink the size by a factor of 10, it customers get great benefits from the performance compare between Oracle makes it an order of magnitude easier to intelligent storage grid. We’re able to Exadata V1 and Oracle Exadata V2? manage and also gives much lower cost offload query operations for OLTP just Loaiza: In Oracle Exadata V1 we had and much higher performance. ■ like we do for data warehousing. the intelligent, scale-out storage grid, One of the unique features of Oracle and we were able to run queries at a technology is that we’re able to run rate of 14GB/second off disk. That’s 5 nextSTEPS very complex and sophisticated OLTP to 10 times faster than other storage LISTEN to the podcast applications in a scale-out grid infra- devices that were much bigger than oracle.com/magcasts structure using Oracle RAC [Oracle Real ours. In Oracle Exadata V2 the disk READ more about Application Clusters]. This includes performance is 50 percent faster than Oracle Exadata V2 oracle.com/database/exadata.html applications such as Siebel, PeopleSoft, in Oracle Exadata V1. But more impor- Sun Oracle Database Machine and Oracle E-Business Suite. The other tantly, the compression technologies are oracle.com/database/database-machine.html key OLTP feature is the use of Flash in a key part of the data-warehousing story

oracle magazine January/February 2010 19

JF10_interview.indd 19 11/20/09 1:43:38 PM communitypartner news book Beat

Oracle JDeveloper 11g Handbook By Duncan Mills, Peter Koletzke, and Avrom InQuIra now Integrates wIth sIebel ContaCt Center and oraCle CrM on deMand Roy-Faderman Oracle Press Oracle partner InQuira has announced customer inquiries. iConnect for Siebel www.mhprofessional.com iConnect for Siebel Contact Center, Contact Center also provides historical an enterprise knowledge management context for customer requests and sum- This book shows you how to build Java solution that integrates with Oracle’s maries of relevant content. Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) Web In other news, InQuira’s on- applications using Oracle JDeveloper 11g, Siebel Contact Center desktop. Key Oracle Application Development Framework features of iConnect for Siebel Contact demand Web self-service applications (Oracle ADF), and JavaServer Faces. The Center include guided assistance, linked are now integrated with Oracle CRM authors, a group of Oracle JDeveloper experts, answers, smart excerpts, and managed On Demand. The integrated solution discuss the latest technologies and explain how answers. Siebel Service Request data, enables customers to go seamlessly to develop code using multiple techniques. They provide hands-on practice examples to walk such as product information and request from self-service to agent-assisted you through the creation of a complete sample summaries, provides context for agent service, while providing service agents application that employs highly interactive searches, while InQuira’s natural lan- with a view of customer issues and user interface components and declarative guage processing capabilities understand actions taken. development methods.

Oracle PL/SQL arrow eCs targets resellers wIth oraCle traInIng boot CaMps Programming Oracle Certified Advantage Partner ligence, business process management, By Steven Feuerstein and Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions content management, Oracle Coherence, Bill Pribyl (Arrow ECS) has become an authorized Oracle WebLogic Server, and Oracle O’Reilly Media Oracle Enablement 2.0 Delivery Partner, Application Integration Architecture. www.oreilly.com which allows Arrow ECS to offer Oracle The two- and three-day regional boot boot camp training to resellers. Oracle camps provide a combination of class- In the fifth edition of this definitive reference, boot camp training, designed exclu- room lectures and hands-on training. authors Steven Feuerstein and Bill Pribyl cover sively for Oracle resellers, focuses on Arrow ECS will also offer one-day sales language fundamentals, advanced coding Oracle Database and Oracle Fusion demand-generation training in conjunc- techniques, and best practices for using Oracle’s Middleware, including business intel- tion with the technical boot camps. procedural language. Thoroughly updated for Oracle Database 11g Release 2, this edition oraCle announCes oraCle exadata partner prograM reveals new PL/SQL features and provides extensive code samples that range from Oracle has created the Oracle Exadata ucts. Solution providers and systems inte- simple examples to complex and complete real Partner Program, which supports Oracle grators in the program can build Oracle applications. The book is ideal for novices and partners that resell Sun Oracle Database Exadata expertise and implementation experienced Oracle programmers alike. Machines and Sun Oracle Exadata services around business intelligence, Oracle Essbase & Storage Servers. Resellers participating in data warehousing, very large databases, Oracle OLAP the Oracle Exadata Partner Program must and online transaction processing envi- By Michael Schrader, be enrolled in the Oracle PartnerNetwork ronments, as well as expertise in the Dan Vlamis, Mike Nader, and hold a valid Full Use Distribution retail, financial services, communications, Chris Claterbos, Dave Agreement to resell Oracle Exadata prod- healthcare, and public sector industries. Collins, Mitch Campbell, and Floyd Conrad Oracle Press attunIty IntroduCes data replICatIon solutIon www.mhprofessional.com Attunity, an Oracle partner with Oracle and processes only the changes made to Warehouse Builder certification, has heterogeneous relational and nonrela- In the first-ever book to cover both Oracle Essbase and Oracle OLAP (online analytical introduced solutions enabling Oracle tional enterprise datasources. processing), a group of product experts explains customers to replicate data in real time Attunity solutions include a stand- the unique features and benefits of these to and from Oracle databases. The solu- alone operational data replication products. This book details how to architect an tions are based on a concept Attunity application for replicating data across het- OLAP solution that meets varying requirements. calls “operational data replication,” erogeneous datasources, an operational It provides proven techniques for building robust applications and tuning and maintaining which supports real-time business intel- data replication solution that can be an OLAP environment and presents real-world ligence requirements and is an alterna- integrated with existing database invest- case studies. tive to homegrown data replication ments, and an event-driven operational solutions and enterprise data replication data replication that captures database Look for Oracle books at otn.oracle software packages. Attunity’s low-impact change events. All three solutions support .com/bookstore. change data capture technology captures Oracle as a source or target for data.

20 January/February 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_partner.indd 20 11/20/09 8:51:14 AM netsuite links cloud-BAsed softWAre With orAcle e-Business suite Wipro Announces sAAs plAtform NetSuite, a vendor of cloud comput- Suite. With SuiteCloud Connect for Oracle Certified Advantage Partner ing business management software, has Oracle, companies can combine Oracle Wipro Technologies has unveiled unveiled NetSuite OneWorld for Oracle, E-Business Suite and NetSuite OneWorld w-SaaS, a platform for rapid software- a new version of its NetSuite OneWorld for Oracle to manage multinational, as-a-service (SaaS) enablement of busi- software-as-a-service application that multisubsidiary businesses in real time. ness applications using Oracle Grid enables Oracle E-Business Suite enterprise Division-level transaction and summary Computing and Oracle application grid customers to deploy NetSuite business data can be rolled from NetSuite middleware. The w-SaaS platform will applications at the divisional level while OneWorld for Oracle into Oracle help independent software vendors retaining corporate Oracle applications. E-Business Suite for an enterprisewide (ISVs) move business applications to The offering uses a new integration view of business operations. For example, SaaS so traditional single-tenant applica- solution called SuiteCloud Connect for a company could roll up general ledger, tions can operate in multitenant mode. Oracle to integrate NetSuite OneWorld order, and revenue information for aggre- The platform is initially aimed at the for Oracle with Oracle E-Business gate financial reporting. energy and utilities, retail, transportation, healthcare, and manufacturing Zeus Announces Zeus trAffic mAnAGement softWAre templAte for orAcle Vm industries in North America. Zeus Technology, a software-based solution, in an Oracle VM environ- Wipro has also signed a codevelop- application traffic management company ment. Developers can use Zeus Traffic ment agreement with Oracle to develop and an Oracle partner, has announced Manager to control Web application process integration packs using Oracle the Zeus Traffic Manager Template, traffic via Zeus TrafficScript, a program- Application Integration Architecture for a preinstalled, preconfigured virtual ming language that works with Eclipse the communications, retail, consumer machine for Oracle VM. The Zeus through the Zeus Eclipse plug-in. products, high-tech, and industrial Template for Oracle VM speeds deploy- The product, available for free down- manufacturing industries. The process ment of the Zeus Traffic Manager, an load, is certified with Oracle Enterprise integration packs will include campaign enterprise-class, layer-7 load-balancing Linux and can be deployed in any phys- to cash for high-tech companies, order and application-traffic-management ical, virtual, or cloud environment. to activate for communications companies, and design to release for process AltoVA updAtes mApforce dAtA mAppinG tool manufacturing companies. MapForce 2010, the latest version of output filenames can now be used Oracle partner Altova’s data mapping as parameters, enabling the user to JGi lAunches orAcle AccelerAte tool, allows users to process data from generate dynamic mappings in which solution for nonprofits or into multiple files, making it easy to this information is defined at runtime. JGI, an Oracle Certified Partner, has consolidate file collections or output MapForce 2010 provides native support released an application implementa- data from one file to many. Input or for Oracle Database 11g. tion solution for Oracle’s PeopleSoft enterprise human capital management infoGAin unVeils fiVe initiAtiVes for retAilers and financial management software for Oracle Certified Partner Infogain is offer- opment, support, and production, midsize nonprofit organizations. This ing five solutions to support retailers of and provides assessment monitoring, Oracle Accelerate solution provides a all sizes that use Oracle Retail applica- maintenance support, administration, fixed-cost and fixed-scope approach to tions. Infogain’s Retail Store System and other services. Infogain’s Retail human capital management and finan- Implementation uses a dual-shore model Oracle E-Business Suite Integration, a cial management. JGI uses a lab-based and an iterative methodology to assess framework of prebuilt accelerators and deployment approach in which it hosts and implement Oracle Retail store appli- interfaces, integrates front-end store and the development environment on its cations. Infogain’s Retail Merchandising point-of-sale solutions with back-end servers and conducts the majority of the Solution uses built-in accelerators, inter- systems, including financials and inven- project development work there. The faces, and reusable templates and scripts tory. The last solution, Infogain’s Oracle solution can later be moved to the cus- to integrate Oracle Retail merchandising BI for Retailers, enables Oracle Business tomer’s data center, or it can continue to applications with back-end financial Intelligence Suite, Enterprise Edition be hosted by JGI. and front-end store solutions. Infogain’s Plus functionality on Oracle Retail Data JGI also offers Oracle Accelerate solu- Retail Application Management Solution Warehouse, so an organization’s employ- tions for the financial, media and enter- manages the application lifecycle and ees can access analytical information tainment, healthcare, and professional product environments across devel- optimized for their roles. services industries.

oracle magazine January/February 2010 21

JF10_partner.indd 21 11/20/09 8:52:25 AM PARTNER NEWS

EXCEL4APPS ACCELERATES REPORT CONVERSION FOR ORACLE webLOCATOR Excel4apps, an Oracle partner and Oracle General Ledger. InQuira a provider of Microsoft Excel–based Companies with customized finan- www.inquira.com Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions reporting and budgeting software for cial statement generator reports can also www.alttech.com/products/oracle/bootcamps Oracle users, has released GL Wand use GL Wand to convert the reports Oracle Exadata Partner Program 3.90. The upgraded application converts to Excel for manipulation. GL Wand’s oracle.com/database/exadata.html reports from Oracle’s financial statement drill-down capabilities allow users to Attunity generator into formatted, refreshable, view live Oracle data at the journal and www.attunity.com and drillable Microsoft Excel spread- subledger levels and see multiple trans- NetSuite www.netsuite.com/oneworld-for-oracle sheets that access live financial data from actions at once. Zeus Technology www.zeus.com/landing/oracle-vm-zeus NOVOSOFT DELIVERS BACKUP SOLUTION FOR ORACLE DATABASE Altova Oracle partner Novosoft, a provider of Handy Backup is compatible with www.altova.com backup solutions for Windows-based most Oracle Database releases, includ- Infogain www.infogain.com servers, has released Handy Backup ing Oracle Database 10g and Oracle Wipro Technologies 6.4, which supports Oracle Database Database 11g. Support for database www.wipro.com using the Open Database Connectivity backup is standard in the Handy Backup JGI (ODBC) protocol. Handy Backup pro- Professional Edition and is available with www.jginfo.com vides hot database backup of all data- Handy Backup Standard using a plug-in. Excel4apps base table data, archive logs before and Another version, Handy Backup Server, www.excel4apps.com Novosoft after backup, SPFILEs, control files, set- supports backup of Oracle databases on www.handybackup.net tings, and passwords. networked workstations. ■

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22 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE

JF10_partner.indd 22 11/20/09 8:52:52 AM communityOTN BULLETIN by Justin Kestelyn

Ecosystem Abuzz Interactive programs take Oracle OpenWorld 2009 to new heights of community building.

rom a community-building perspec- to GlassFish, Hudson, and Java Platform, Brandenburg’s application, called IT tive, Oracle OpenWorld 2009 may Enterprise Edition 6. Access, was designed to track the assign- have been the most successful confer- Even excluding content from Sun, ment of physical IT assets and/or appli- ence ever. Starting on the Friday prior to the community benefited enormously cation access to employees. One of the the conference, when Oracle Executive from the involvement of luminaries such main purposes of the application was to Vice President of Product Development as PL/SQL evangelist Steven Feuerstein, give the capability to decommission those Thomas Kurian addressed more than Oracle Vice President of Linux assignments when an employee leaves the 50 Oracle ACE Directors at a special Engineering Wim Coekaerts, Oracle company—rather than when someone technical briefing and Q&A session, Director of Database Tools Development happens to notice that a long-departed and ending with the “It’s a Wrap!” party, Kris Rice, and the inimitable Tom Kyte employee’s e-mail address still exists, for the Oracle ecosystem stayed extremely in the OTN team’s efforts to deliver example. The application enables a living active—and extremely noisy. actionable content. inventory of such assets in an intelligent Much evidence supports claims of The key to good content is often inter- and elegant fashion. the show’s success. First, the Oracle action, and most of these folks are adept Read the announcement about all of Technology Network (OTN) team esti- at provoking, as well as continuing, a the winners at www.bit.ly/3hfwC7. ■ mates that at least 15,000 Twitter updates conversation—whether during their ses- pertaining to Oracle OpenWorld were sions, on camera for Oracle OpenWorld Justin Kestelyn ([email protected]) is senior made, by both onsite and virtual attend- Live, or just hanging out in the OTN director, Oracle Technology Network and developer ees. Second, for the live video broadcast Lounge. As Kris Rice put it so well, a programs, as well as OTN editor in chief. transmitting via the Oracle OpenWorld primary purpose of the OTN program is Live stream, the OTN team saw an to serve as a “router” between the end- OTNLOCATOR average of several hundred people online user community and Oracle’s developers OTN Home (many of them partaking in chat) con- and product managers, and that process is otn.oracle.com tinuously throughout the show. Third, the always at its best during the conference. OTN Headlines Oracle OpenWorld Unconference agenda For the 2010 conference, the sky’s the otn.oracle.com/pub/news wiki was nearly complete within 48 hours limit: with expanded opportunities for Free Software Downloads of being opened, and several sessions the use of rich and social media, Oracle otn.oracle.com/software were filled to capacity. Finally, more than OpenWorld will offer an even more Documentation 2,500 people passed through the OTN rewarding experience for physical as well otn.oracle.com/documentation Lounge at some point during the week. as virtual attendees. That said, there’s no Technology Centers There are several reasons for this substitute for actually being there: regis- otn.oracle.com/tech activity, but content is the one I want to tration for Oracle OpenWorld 2010 has Podcasts otn.oracle.com/techcasts emphasize. The breadth and depth of the already begun at oracle.com/openworld. Technical Articles content “halo” around the OTN program otn.oracle.com/pub/articles at Oracle OpenWorld and the colocated And the Winner is . . . Blogs Oracle Develop event were simply Eric Brandenburg of Brunswick blogs.oracle.com excellent—in no small part because of Corporation in Lake Forest, Illinois, Discussion Forums the active presence of Innovation sponsor is the first-place winner of the Oracle forums.oracle.com Sun Microsystems. I was honored to have Application Express Developer Developer Events Calendar the opportunity to meet and interview Competition. The premise of the compe- otn.oracle.com/events James Gosling—a Sun vice president, tition, announced in June 2009, was to Oracle ACE Program Sun fellow, and the father of the Java lan- seek the best Oracle Application Express otn.oracle.com/goto/oracle-ace guage—on camera for Oracle OpenWorld application (as determined by a panel of OTN on Twitter www.twitter.com/oracletechnet Live. In addition, several Sun presenters judges) developed to address a particular Oracle Sample Code were involved in the Oracle OpenWorld business problem, while adhering to a samplecode.oracle.com Unconference, covering topics pertaining rigorous set of technical guidelines.

oracle magazine January/February 2010 23

JF10_OTN.indd 23 11/19/09 9:34:07 AM communityArchitect by bob rhubart

Snowball Battles Hair Ball Oracle enterprise architecture framework builds momentum and value.

he Center for Information Systems rolling multiple solution architectures too big. Shrinking budgets and reduced Research of MIT’s Sloan School of into cohesive enterprise architectures. staff can also make enterprise architecture Management defines enterprise architecture And that help had to extend beyond the appear to be too much to handle. as “the organizing logic for business pro- Oracle perspective to encompass other “Because of that, a lot of organiza- cesses and IT infrastructure reflecting the technologies. tions tend to implement just solution integration and standardization require- “So our organization set out to create architectures,” says Covington, “and they ments of the firm’s operating model.” a framework that would help jump-start don’t take advantage of the economies Sounds important, right? Some orga- enterprise architecture,” says Covington. and the value associated with an enter- nizations, however, don’t see it that way. “Our goal wasn’t to replace any of the prise architecture.” “They look at architecture as overhead, existing enterprise architectures, like Using the Oracle enterprise archi- and many of them don’t even have an TOGAF [the Open Group Architecture tecture framework, an organization can individual or a department to address Framework] or FEA [Federal Enterprise gain economies of scale by merging it,” says Oracle ACE Director Basheer Architecture] or Gartner, but to provide two or three solution architectures, Khan, CEO of Innowave Technology. a tool that could expedite the process of using those savings to continue and Other organizations might think they implementing enterprise architecture.” expand that process. “So you get a have an enterprise architecture, but they The Oracle enterprise architecture snowball effect that allows you to instead have what Oracle ACE Jordan framework team created a just-enough, incrementally expand the value of Braunstein describes as a “hair ball.” just-in-time framework that will allow enterprise architecture in your organi- “I can’t tell you how many customers an enterprise to get started with enter- zation,” Covington says. I work with who think that their current prise architecture without getting It doesn’t take an MIT scientist to see architecture is OK,” says Braunstein, bogged down in unnecessary processes, how such a snowball might be an effective business integration and architecture paperwork, and artifacts. weapon against hair-ball architecture. ■ partner at Rolta TUSC. “And they’re “Our goal,” says Jahangir, “was not sitting there telling me they’re losing to build a framework for the sake of Bob Rhubart ([email protected]) is manager transactions. Not only are they losing building a framework but to really look of the architect community on Oracle Technology transactions, but they don’t know where at the end results, to be very solution- Network (OTN), the host of the OTN Arch2Arch to look for them.” and business value–oriented, and then podcast series, and the author of the ArchBeat blog Convincing the unenlightened to take reverse-engineer a framework that fits (blogs.oracle.com/archbeat). enterprise architecture seriously takes that principle.” more than just talk. “At the end of the The resulting Oracle enterprise day, it’s not enough if we paint a pretty architecture framework is more than a picture,” says Khan. “We need to have collection of easily ignored, quickly for- nextStePS the tools and the wherewithal to make gotten documents. LiSteN to the picture a reality.” “We’re not looking at it as yet another Introducing the Oracle Enterprise Architecture Framework set of documents or artifacts that just www.bit.ly/pu2eK EntErprisE ArchitEcturE for rEAl gets published and uploaded into a Hair-Ball Architecture and Other Nightmares Bob Covington and Hamza Jahangir are repository,” says Jahangir. “We’re looking www.bit.ly/477pJ6 doing their part to frame that reality. at what needs to be built and what more Architect (OtN Arch2Arch) Covington and Jahangir are directors needs to be addressed at a certain point podcasts otn.oracle.com/syndication/arch2arch-podcasts of enterprise architecture in Oracle’s in time to progress you toward creating Get more OtN architect information Enterprise Solutions Group and were value for your business.” otn.oracle.com/architect instrumental in the creation of the Oracle reAD more about enterprise architecture framework. Just Enough, Just in timE enterprise architecture Covington, Jahangir, and their col- That just-enough, just-in-time focus is otn.oracle.com/architect/entarch otn.oracle.com/architect/entarch/pdf/ leagues were getting calls for help from part of a mission to overcome the percep- oea_framework.pdf customers who were having difficulty tion that enterprise architecture is just

24 January/February 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_ARCHITECT.indd 24 11/19/09 9:40:42 AM communityUP Close by JeFF erickson

Top of the Stack OAUG helps members make the most of evolving infrastructures.

hese days when Oracle Applications Tokyo, Japan; Paris, France; and New Users Group (OAUG) members gather Delhi, India. But all roads lead back to to talk shop, they often discuss infra- Las Vegas, Nevada, for COLLABORATE structure technologies such as SOA and 10, the largest independent Oracle user business process management. “It’s all conference (to be held April 18 through very exciting,” says OAUG President Ray 22), which OAUG sponsors with Payne. “This is where Oracle is going Independent Oracle Users Group and with its next generation of applications, Quest International Users Group. and we intend to help our global mem- New technologies present new learn- bership stay on top of it.” ing opportunities. “With Release 12 of As an Oracle ACE and president of Oracle E-Business Suite based on Oracle OAUG, Payne was a busy guy at Oracle Fusion Middleware, we’re seeing more OpenWorld 2009. I used several of his OAUG sessions on topics such as Oracle fellow OAUG board members to triangu- SOA Suite and Oracle BPEL Process late his position and get a few minutes Manager,” says Payne. “People are with him. Payne was eager to talk about excited about the possibilities.”

OAUG on the cusp of its 20th year. OAUG President Ray Payne In addition, members have shown a Payne has been a part of OAUG for lot of interest in Oracle’s Hyperion appli- 18 years. In that time, he’s seen a lot of This huge and diverse body of tech- cations. “In 2010 we’ll try to meet that changes in applications technology— nologists forms more than 100 special need with three conferences dedicated and OAUG. In 1993, Payne presented a interest groups (SIGs), and 53 of them to Hyperion,” he says. The first of those paper at a conference on how to query held meetings at Oracle OpenWorld conferences will take place in Jersey Oracle E-Businesss Suite data through 2009. “Our SIGS are very active,” he says. City, New Jersey, February 22 and 23. a Web browser. “That’s old hat now,” he OAUG’s vast activity is reflected While OAUG helps its members says, “but back then it was innovative.” by the volume of online resources follow Oracle’s lead, it also helps Oracle About 600 members attended that exchanged on the OAUG site. “It’s full of gain a better view into the real-life use 1993 conference. By 1997, when Payne nitty-gritty stuff like how to do encum- cases of its technology. “A few years joined the OAUG board of directors, brance accounting in general ledger, or back, I relayed to Oracle executives that almost 8,000 attended the group’s how to incorporate document imaging our members would like to access Oracle annual meeting. “Our growth mirrored into your workflows,” Payne says. support right from the Oracle E-Business the explosive growth of Oracle in those OAUG provides free online classes Suite console,” says Payne. “This year, days,” Payne says. Payne’s career grew at and hosts the OAUG Knowledge Factory, Larry Ellison announced that feature in the same time, as he moved from appli- which features online forums, education his Oracle OpenWorld keynote.” cation developer to application manager. and information resources, and a data- That cycle indicates the value that By the time he was elected OAUG presi- base of more than 4,000 papers. Still, OAUG and Ray Payne bring to members. dent in 2008, the group’s database had the best way to meet people and gain “Evolving with Oracle,” says Payne, “has grown to more than 1 million individual firsthand technical knowledge is through always been a rewarding experience.” ■ contacts around the globe, and Payne a face-to-face meeting. had become chief architect for Oracle “Our group meets everywhere from Jeff Erickson is a senior editor with Oracle Publishing. infrastructure at his employer. Argentina to Russia, and we continue All individual members join OAUG to grow our international membership,” next through corporate memberships. “We says Payne. “We held our first Dubai sTePs have about 2,200 corporate members,” conference last year, and we will inau- JoIN oAUG www.oaug.org says Payne. “Anyone from those organiza- gurate a Budapest conference this May.” WATCH Up Close videos tions can sign up to be part of an OAUG Payne often makes the international oracle.com/us/oramag/upclose

DaviD Deal DaviD event and use the online resources.” scene, having spoken in Singapore;

oracle magazine January/February 2010 25

JF10_UpClose_R1.indd 25 12/7/09 10:57:49 AM PEER-TO-PEER community BY Blair CampBell

Simple Pleasures On the journey from toy cars to tuning, Linux as a life-changer, and getting back to basics

Tanel Poder sysadmin in my university’s peerSPECS How did you get started in IT? I computer lab. To me, the fact Company: HP Job title/description: Oracle DBA was 11 years old when I found that students can now get a head in HP’s SaaS organization, responsible an old BASIC programming start in serious IT technologies for installations, upgrades, tuning, manual on my mother’s desk like Linux by playing with them backup, and recovery and started reading it. I was right on their home PCs for free Location: Cupertino, California Oracle credentials: Oracle already interested in electron- is amazing. Certified Professional (Oracle ics and building electric toy You’ve taken Oracle University [OU] Database 10g), with 10 years of experience using Oracle products cars, but this book showed me classes in the past. What led you

a way to build something cool to do this? I take training very without having to physically assemble anything. I asked to take seriously. Everyone on our six-

a BASIC programming course, and after learning BASIC I went person DBA team tries to take at otn.oracle.com/community/oracle_ace on to learn Pascal, dBASE, and C. least one OU course every year— Which new features in Oracle mostly covering a new technology we’re considering imple- peerSPECS Database are you finding most menting. OU instructors are usually very experienced and Company: TanelPoder.com, a valuable? consulting and training business Being a performance offer a lot of value that you can’t get from books alone. specializing in advanced Oracle tuning geek, I like Oracle Database and troubleshooting services and database design 11g’s Real-Time SQL Monitoring Piet de Visser Job title/description: Founder feature the most. It allows you Which new features in Oracle and consultant, focusing on complex to determine, in real time, which Database are you finding most tuning and troubleshooting issues spanning multiple components in the part of an execution plan a long- valuable? The Oracle Database enterprise infrastructure stack running SQL statement is spend- 11g improvements in Oracle Location: Singapore ing most of its time in. Partitioning are quite helpful, Oracle credentials: Oracle If you were going to the International and I see great potential for Certified Professional (Oracle8 Database, Oracle9i Database) and Space Station for six months and Oracle Real Application Testing Oracle Certified Master (Oracle9i could take only one Oracle reference and Result-Set Caching. Database), with 13 years of experience using Oracle products book, what would it be? Christian What advice do you have about Antognini’s Troubleshooting Oracle getting into Web or database development? Get your basic IT

Performance [Apress, 2008] is the education right. Reading the work of Chris Date is a good start. best Oracle performance-tuning Understand ACID [atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durabil- otn.oracle.com/community/oracle_ace book out there. ity] and the 12 rules by Ted Codd. Listen and try to understand the needs of your business and peerSPECS Chen Shapira your clients; then strive for sim- Company: Logica.com, an IT and What’s your favorite tool or technique on the job? PL/SQL. Even as plicity and clarity. Finally, avoid business services company a DBA, I still find development skills very important. There hype-of-the-day stuff. Job title/description: Database consultant and DBA, responsible for are many repetitive aspects to my job, and the only way I can What green practices do you use assisting with technical architecture, make time for fun or chal- in your DBA work? I build simple troubleshooting database issues, and coaching fellow DBAs, developers, lenging tasks is by automating and efficient systems that don’t managers, and architects everything that can be auto- need ridiculously large machines Location: Rotterdam, the mated. PL/SQL is a great tool in order to function properly. Netherlands for this, thanks to its native A system with no frills requires Oracle credentials: Oracle Certified Associate, with 19 years of integration with the database. fewer resources and less mainte- experience using Oracle products What technology has most nance and is therefore “greener” changed your life? Linux. I overall. And I rarely print any- actually got my start in IT thing, as I find paper too heavy when I found work as a Linux to lug around. ■ otn.oracle.com/community/oracle_ace

26 januarY/feBruarY 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_PEER.indd 26 11/19/09 9:48:47 AM HONORING EXCELLENCE Leading companies demonstrate innovation, environmental leadership, and excellence with Oracle technologies and applications.

racle’s customers and partners dem- Oracle Innovation Award (formerly the Oracle Oonstrate leadership in many areas of Excellence Award). For the second year, technology, applications, and sustainability— Oracle recognized outstanding achieve- from implementing business intelligence ments in environmental leadership with initiatives and deploying Oracle the Oracle Enable the Eco- grids to solving the chal- Enterprise Award (formerly lenges of midsize the Oracle Empower the businesses and Green Enterprise Award). establishing green Oracle honored partners business practices. for innovative uses of In 2009, Oracle Oracle technology by pre- sponsored several senting two sets of awards: awards programs to honor the first annual Oracle customers and partners for PartnerNetwork Global Awards their achievements and vision. and the Oracle North America In the area of Oracle Fusion Titan Awards. Winners were Middleware, Oracle, in conjunc- selected for excellence in solving tion with six user groups, commended real-world customer challenges and customers for their achievements in for their development and deploy-

GETTY IMAGES middleware deployments with the ment of Oracle technology.

ORACLE MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 27

JF10_awards.indd 27 11/25/09 1:37:01 PM Oracle Business Intelligence/Enterprise vices at Business for Social Responsibility, Performance Management Innovation and Kathleen Schwille, director of program Award winners: development at National Geographic • AWE Education Programs. • British Telecom • CAE Oracle Enable the Eco-Enterprise Award • City of New York winners (and their respective partners, • Continental Airlines if applicable): • Dubai Aluminum • Abigroup (partner: Ndevr) • EuroChem • EMC • Florida State University • IBAMA (partner: Condomínio de Soluções) • General Dynamics • Kraft Foods Global

• Ingersoll Rand • Ministry of Justice of Turkey maria Forney VocaLink’s Hussein Badakhchani (right) accepted the • Marsh (partner: Havelsan) 2009 Oracle Application Grid Innovation Award from Hasan Rizvi (left), senior vice president of product • Mercer • Missouri Division of Professional Registration development at Oracle, as Ajay Patel (center), vice • NetApp (partner: Tallgrass Technologies) president of product management at Oracle, watched • Pearson Education • Motorola (partner: Deloitte Consulting) from the podium. • Pernod Ricard • NH Hoteles (partner: Oracle Customer • Singapore General Hospital Services) Oracle InnOvatIOn awards • Panduit The Oracle Innovation Awards recognize orga- Oracle Business Intelligence/Enterprise • Reflexite (partners: Andrews Consulting nizations for innovative deployments of Oracle Performance Management Implementation Group and WTS) application grid, Oracle business intelligence, Partner of the Year Award winner: • Remote Energy Monitoring and Oracle’s enterprise performance manage- • Business Intelligence Consulting Group • S-OIL ment system, all of which are components (BICG) • San Diego Gas & Electric of Oracle Fusion Middleware. Oracle also (partner: Capgemini) recognized one partner for its implementation Oracle enable the ecO-enterprIse awards • Sprint of Oracle business intelligence and enterprise The Oracle Enable the Eco-Enterprise Awards • Utah Department of Transportation performance management solutions. recognize Oracle customers for their envi- The 2009 awards were cosponsored by ronmental leadership. Oracle presented this Oracle partnernetwOrk GlObal awards Oracle and the Australian Oracle User Group, award to 15 global customers and their For the first time, Oracle presented the Oracle Independent Oracle Users Group, Oracle respective partners from a wide range of PartnerNetwork Global Awards, which recog- Applications Users Group (OAUG), Oracle industries. The winning companies rely on nize partner excellence in a number of catego- Development Tools User Group (ODTUG), Quest Oracle Applications and technologies to ries, including Oracle Accelerate, applications, International Users Group, and United Kingdom support their green business practices and industry, midsize, and technology. In addition, Oracle User Group. A panel of judges from reduce their environmental impact while the award features a separate track that rec- Oracle, OAUG, ODTUG, special interest groups, improving business efficiencies. ognizes value-added distributor (VAD) partner and the user community selected the winners. The 15 winning companies for 2009 performance from around the world. were selected by a panel of six judges, A team of IDC executives and ana- Oracle Application Grid Innovation which included four Oracle green experts as lysts, including Martin Canning, Philippe de Award winners: well as Cody Sisco, manager of advisory ser- Marcillac, Henry Morris, and Ricardo Villate, • Agilent Technologies • Avis Budget Group Inc. • Bank Zachodni WBK S.A. • Barclays Global Investors • Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) • Credit Suisse • Express & Transportation Research Institute (Korea) • General Electric • J. Crew Group Inc. • Royal Bank of Scotland • TD AMERITRADE Holding Corporation Hartmann StudioS • VocaLink Winners of the 2009 Oracle Enable the Eco-Enterprise Award with Oracle Chairman of the Board Jeff Henley (right)

28 January/February 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_awards_R1.indd 28 12/7/09 11:05:56 AM selected the global award winners. A panel of Oracle Worldwide Alliances and Channels executives selected the VAD winners. The categories, winners, and runners-up for the 2009 Oracle PartnerNetwork Global Awards are as follows:

Accelerate • Winner: Business Technology Services (BizTech) • Runner-Up: InoApps Applications • Winner: Kalypso

HArtmAnn StudioS • Runner-Up: Business Services Provider de Venezuela Judson Althoff (left), senior vice president, Worldwide Alliances and Channels, at Oracle, presented the Oracle PartnerNetwork Global Award in the Accelerate category to Business Technology Services. Tom Connolly (second Industry from left), Margot McDonnell, and Kyle Snyder accepted the award. • Winner: IBM Global Business Services • Runner-Up: Deloitte Mexico Midsize sales, marketing, and solution development. Accenture and IBM Global Business Services • Winner: Cloud Creek Systems The 2009 recipients were selected by a panel • Enterprise 2.0: Deloitte Consulting • Runner-Up: GuangZhou Wisetop Computer of 68 judges that included IDC analysts; • Enterprise Performance Management and (GZ Wisetop) Everything Channel journalists; and Oracle Business Intelligence: InterRel Consulting Technology sales, marketing, and development executives. • Enterprise Resource Planning: CD Group • Winner: Deloitte Consulting The 2009 Oracle North America Titan • Oracle Accelerate Application: Business • Runner-Up: Inatech Solutions Awards recognized 13 leading partners across Technology Services (BizTech) VAD 17 momentum and solutions categories. • Oracle Database, Grid, and Oracle Real • Winner: Arrow ECS Alternative Technology Application Clusters: Cloud Creek Systems Group Momentum categories and award recipients: • Security and Identity Management: SENA • Runner-Up: Beijing Teamsun Technology • Global SI Applications Momentum: Accenture Systems • Regional Systems Integrator/Reseller • SOA and Integration: Deloitte Consulting Oracle NOrth america titaN awards Applications Momentum: CD Group • Specialty Applications: Kalypso For the sixth year, Oracle presented the Oracle • Technology Momentum: BIAS North America Titan Awards, which recognize Industry-specific solutions categories and partner solutions and best practices devel- Solutions categories and award recipients: award recipients: oped or delivered in the award year. Oracle • Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing: • Industry: Terillium PartnerNetwork honored partners that dem- Deloitte Consulting • Life Sciences and Health Care: IBM Global onstrated excellence in categories including • Customer Relationship Management: Business Services • Manufacturing: Infosys Technologies • Public Sector: Applications Software Technology nextSTEPS WATCH Oracle Innovation Award winner videos oracle.com/innovation/innovation-awards.html Oracle North America Titan Award winner videos www.youtube.com/oraclepartnernetwork LEARN more about Oracle Enable the Eco-Enterprise

HArtmAnn StudioS Award CD Group won the Oracle North America Titan Award for Regional Systems Integrator/Reseller Applications www.bit.ly/TToh6 Momentum. From left to right are Tyler Prince, group vice president, North America applications and public Oracle PartnerNetwork sector alliances and channels at Oracle; Jeff Henley, Oracle chairman of the board; Larry Campbell, president of oracle.com/partners CD Group; Don Landrum, vice president of CD Group; and Ted Bereswill, senior vice president of sales at Oracle.

oracle magazine January/February 2010 29

JF10_awards_R1.indd 29 12/7/09 11:06:24 AM By DaviD Baum GettinG to Modern Enterprise architecture integrates services and delivers business success.

rom automating manual processes to assets, road map, and business case). enabling new enterprise processes, One aspect in harnessing the power of technology has certainly changed busi- enterprise architecture is to maximize and ness operations. However, there’s a fine-tune the benefits of a service-oriented new approach for managing technical architecture (SOA), which can lower resources that goes beyond changing costs by sharing services, create agility individual operations and instead aligns by orchestrating services, and improve all of IT more closely to business strategy. interoperability between application silos. Enterprise architecture is a method and “SOA is an empowering vehicle for organizing principle that aligns functional legacy modernization projects,” says business objectives and strategies with an Lance Knowlton, vice president of plat- IT strategy and execution plan. form migrations at Oracle. “By taking the “The overriding objective of enterprise most-costly legacy systems and modern- architecture is to direct the evolution and izing them with SOA, you can provide a transformation of enterprises with technol- framework for moving other legacy ser- ogy,” says Mark Salser, senior vice presi- vices to a lower-cost platform.” dent of the Enterprise Solutions Group This architecture development process at Oracle. “This in turn makes IT a more provides the structure for an enterprise strategic asset for successfully imple- architecture that can optimize the use menting a modern business strategy.” of shared services in an organization. In reorganizing its legacy system, for Reviving Legacy SoftwaRe aSSetS example, Deutsche Leasing leveraged Enterprise architecture is a professional SOA principles to construct a completely discipline that starts with matching busi- new architecture with new workflows and ness requirements to an architectural vision business processes while retaining all of (considering governance, current state of its old business-relevant knowledge.

30 January/February 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_modernization.indd 30 12/1/09 12:00:28 PM JF10_modernization.indd 31 JF10_modernization.indd

I-Hua CHen January/February 2010 oracle magazine 12/1/09 12:01:10 PM 12:01:10 12/1/09 31 The company offers a range of leasing services and insur- ance packages for both movable and nonmovable assets, such as information and communications technology assets, machinery and industrial equipment, medical technology, fleet management, and energy products. Deutsche Leasing had to find a way to modernize more than 80 software applications developed over three decades and deployed primarily on IBM mainframe computers. The computer languages included COOL:Gen, Mantis, Cobol, Assembler, and Smalltalk—more than 8 million lines of source code in all. According to Peter Kox, head of Development International and Services at Deutsche Leasing, expanding this complex IT environment on the existing platforms was an expensive, dead-end prospect that extended the company’s reliance on obsolete technology and a dwindling base of legacy skills. “Our mainframe applications were facing the end of their useful life, so we decided to step into a modern Java EE [Java Platform, Enterprise Edition] architecture,” he says. Kox, who served as program manager for the migration to the Java EE/Oracle platform, says the legacy applications were not well documented and not particularly scalable. Worse still, making changes was time consuming and risky to the business; taking down and revising a module often

Enterprise architecture provides the performance Deutsche Leasing needs while opening had unforeseen consequences. Deutsche Leasing wanted a access to a large pool of developers. “It’s much quicker to make changes,” says Peter new architecture that would duplicate the legacy function- Kox (right), pictured with Otto Schmitz. ality and add new capabilities as well. “Most companies start the modernization journey Founded in 1962, Deutsche Leasing is the largest finance focused on solving a specific tactical pain point,” says Barry

leasing company in Germany and one of the top five in Europe. Perkins, vice president of Oracle Modernization at Oracle. TON HENDRIKS

The Oracle Enterprise Architecture Framework: Aligning Information Technology to Business Enterprise architecture is an organizing framework is designed to provide quick, ■ Application strategy: The applica- principle that aligns business objec- incremental results and consists of seven tion architecture principles (build or buy, tives and strategies (including capital core components. hosted or in-house, open standards or planning, project management, asset Business architecture aligns an proprietary), application governance and management, resource allocation, and organization’s operating model, strate- portfolio management, and the reference strategy formulation) with an IT strat- gies, and objectives with IT; creates a application architectures egy and execution plan. The Oracle business case for IT transformations; ■ Application services: An inventory enterprise architecture framework can and provides a business-centric view of the application services exposed to provide the guidelines that make this of the enterprise. It provides informa- internal and external audiences that alignment possible. tion about business strategy (business support the business services “The Oracle enterprise architecture requirements, objectives, performance ■ Application processes: The processes framework includes processes, meth- indicators, and business risks), business that support the business processes in odologies, tools, and repositories of function (business services, processes, the business architecture best practices to help customers create and capabilities), and business orga- ■ Logical components: An inventory of enterprise architectures and solution nization (structures, decision-making the product-agnostic systems that are architectures,” says Mark Salser, senior process, and budget information) relevant to the business objectives vice president of the Enterprise Solutions Application architecture ties business ■ Physical components: Products Group at Oracle. “We have certified enter- functions and services to application that support the logical application prise architects throughout North America processes and services to application components to help customers use this framework.” components. The application architec- Technology architecture describes The Oracle enterprise architecture ture has five aspects: how the infrastructure underlying the

32 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE

JF10_modernization.indd 32 12/1/09 12:01:43 PM “Our goal is to solve the tactical issues while incorporating a strategic focus, providing tailored solutions that deliver maximum business value and benefit with a rapid ROI [return on investment] and a reduced TCO [total cost of ownership].” Perkins says that Oracle’s modernization process begins with a business and technical discovery to document a company’s current business processes, IT environment, strategic future goals, and business requirements, followed by an assessment of its challenges and issues. With this information, the enterprise architecture team develops a modernization road map based on best practices that satis- fies the customer’s modernization requirement. Based on the outcome of Deutsche Leasing’s discovery process, Oracle modernization partner Hexaware recommended rearchitecting the company’s legacy systems. This involved recovering and reassembling business-relevant code from legacy applications while eliminating as much of the technology-specific code as possible. Deutsche Leasing began by inventorying all of the legacy software assets, creating a model of the 3,000-plus programs that made up the overall system. The goal of the rearchitecture was to leverage existing business processes, data models, and presentation logic as much as possible within a new Java EE

architecture. Data from Btrieve, VSAM, DB2, and Microsoft “We have a well-defined vision for what we are trying to accomplish, and Oracle’s enterprise Access databases was then cleansed and migrated into an architecture enables us to think long term and to integrate new capabilities over time,” says Oracle Database; the new applications were deployed on Al Foster, acting CIO of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs. Oracle WebLogic Server. Deutsche Leasing used its SOA to enhance its contract management module for managing all partners and products,

DAVID DEAL DAVID termination module. The company created a unified partner a management module for defining product offerings, and a

business, application, and information business strategy to ensure its alignment of architecture development, mainte- architectures is organized. It provides a with the enterprise architecture during nance, implementation, and governance. technical reference model that is used to solution implementations. Enterprise Process is the adherence to architectural align technology purchases, infrastruc- architecture governance includes people, processes that maximize the chance of a ture, and solution implementations with processes, and policies; technology infra- successful implementation and minimize the enterprise IT strategies, architecture structure; and financial management. resource expenditure. Modeling (Oracle principles, standards, reference architec- Enterprise architecture repository Business Process Analysis Suite), port- tures, and governance model. is an Oracle internal repository for all folio management (Oracle’s Primavera Information architecture provides an the architecture artifacts and deliver- solutions), and architecture asset reposi- information- and data-centric view of ables that are captured and developed tories (Oracle Enterprise Repository) an organization. It focuses on informa- throughout the lifecycle of an enterprise tools and technologies accelerate the tion strategy (information architecture architecture, including a library of refer- process of developing and managing principles, governance and compliance ence architectures, models, and prin- enterprise architecture. requirements, data models, and dissemi- ciples that describe the desired state of “Enterprise architecture covers every- nation patterns) and information assets the architecture and Oracle enterprise thing in the enterprise, from data center (business datatypes and the relation- architecture intellectual property. modernization to legacy modernization,” ships between those business datatypes People, process, and tools identifies Salser says. “It brings together the busi- and the services and processes that the people, processes, and tools used to ness side of the enterprise and aligns it interact with that data). define enterprise architectures and solu- with the IT side of the enterprise to help Enterprise architecture governance tions. The people have enterprise archi- customers leverage information to gain a provides the structure for implementing tecture responsibilities from perspectives strategic advantage.”

ORACLE MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 33

JF10_modernization.indd 33 12/1/09 12:02:23 PM Web-based system for lease- is extremely important given and hire-purchase products. the agency’s diverse mission, It also centralized its security which includes everything from directory. “All the business education—Indian Affairs runs services are implemented as a federal education system for discrete business functions more than 40,000 students—and that operate independently of law enforcement to fiduciary the state of any other service responsibility for the trust assets defined within the system,” of Native American tribes. Two says Otto Schmitz, CIO at million tribal members count on Deutsche Leasing. the Indian Affairs Web site for Each service has a well- information. Currently, 5,000 defined set of interfaces that employees use the new intranet exchange data with each other “We wanted to take advantage of Oracle’s direction, and we wanted a site, a number that will grow service-oriented-architecture approach,” says Karen Gunderson (right), using Oracle Enterprise Service pictured with Mary Hillstrom and Todd Hill of the University of Wisconsin. to about 10,000 within a year. Bus. The business service layer “We needed an architecture that also provides a mechanism to would allow all these parts of the take enterprise-scale components, business-unit-specific com- organization to communicate effectively,” he says. ponents, and in some cases, project-specific components, and Finally, the new infrastructure had to sync up technically externalize a subset of their interfaces in the form of service with the rest of the federal agencies. descriptions. “The enterprise components provide service real- In planning for all these constituencies and planning for the ization at runtime using the functionality provided by their future, Foster and his team had to be sensitive to the need to interfaces,” Schmitz says. empower information owners to manage their own content. This enterprise architecture provides the performance and “We initially wanted to do this to remove IT from the content flexibility Deutsche Leasing needs while opening access to a management workflow, and this, in turn, has positioned us to large pool of developers. “It’s much quicker to make changes, respond to the new administration’s plans for open and trans- create innovative business services, and maintain the environ- parent government,” Foster says. ment,” says Kox. Indian Affairs chose Oracle products because when the agency evaluated the market, Oracle offered the best combina- FROM THE VISION TO THE PLAN tion of capabilities. “We were interested in speed, security, and A successful enterprise architecture is woven into the enter- simplicity to achieve our outcomes,” says Foster. “We wanted prise’s culture and evolves over time, maintaining flexibility for Enterprise 2.0 capabilities as part of an IT environment that future change. But to get to an enterprise architecture, the U.S. could integrate with other federal agencies under the auspices Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs had to of the U.S. Department of the Interior. We were interested in start almost entirely from scratch, incorporating its constituen- green computing, which our secretary and the new administra- cies’ demands as well as federal goals and mandates as guide- tion support. This is what Oracle delivered.” lines for technical innovation. Goals for communication and collaboration were enhanced “We had been off the intranet for six years as a result of a by the Oracle WebCenter Suite Spaces feature, which has social court order,” says Al Foster, acting CIO for Indian Affairs. “We computing services, certified Oracle application integrations, didn’t have direct internet access. We didn’t have BlackBerrys and Microsoft Office desktop integration to improve the usabil- for wireless access to e-mail. We had a very basic external Web ity and productivity of personal and group work environments. site. We were not able to use many of the tools most corpora- “Users can customize the site to determine what they see on tions and government agencies had access to,” he says. their portal and how to arrange their personal workspaces,” That didn’t stop Indian Affairs from planning for the future. Foster says. “This gives us the best of both worlds: a secure, “What we needed after the court order was lifted was an centrally administered infrastructure that gives people indi- infrastructure that would allow us to join the rest of the Web- vidual control.” connected world,” he says. The Oracle solution, while giving the agency the function- The agency’s planning was guided by four primary issues. ality it needs now, also gives Indian Affairs an opportunity to “We looked for an integrated product suite because we didn’t grow. “The core infrastructure is there to allow us to add other want to reinvent the wheel,” Foster says. “Next, we wanted capabilities that are of interest to us, including, for example, something that would provide us with agility, because that’s a Oracle Identity Management and Oracle Records Management,” goal of the new [Obama] administration—to deliver capabili- Foster says. “Those two areas present significant challenges for ties quickly.” many federal agencies.” Foster says the agency also wanted the new infrastructure to Indian Affairs weighed the cost of its enterprise architec-

provide capabilities for communication and collaboration. This ture using Oracle against the long-term benefits. “This was an MARK LUINENBURG

34 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE

JF10_modernization.indd 34 12/1/09 12:03:02 PM snapshots

Deutsche Leasing AG appreciable investment, but we calculated www.deutsche-leasing.com identify and apply for scholarships while we would spend less money over the Location: Bad Homburg, Germany helping schools and colleges disperse Industry: Financial services long term if we put the right foundation Employees: 1,600 available funds. For example, a donor in place,” Foster says. “We have a well- Oracle products: Oracle WebLogic Server, might want to target a scholarship to a defined vision for what we are trying to Oracle Database, Oracle Reports, Oracle Fusion student with a 3.8 grade point average accomplish, and Oracle’s enterprise archi- Middleware who went to a local high school. “With tecture enables us to think long term and U.S. Department of the Interior, this system, we can help students know to integrate new capabilities over time.” Bureau of Indian Affairs which scholarships they are eligible to www.indianaffairs.gov apply for,” she says. A FrAmework For IntegrAtIon Location: Washington DC Hillstrom estimates that students will Developing an enterprise architecture pre- Industry: Government save time applying for financial aid, and sented unique challenges at the University Employees: 10,000 financial aid officers will need less time Oracle products: Oracle Universal Content of Wisconsin when its student financial aid to evaluate applications using the new Management, Oracle Web Content Management office set out to create an online scholar- for WebCenter, Oracle Secure Enterprise Search, process. In addition, Gunderson says, ship service to match qualified undergrad- Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle Database, Oracle Real every department and college at the uni- uate students with available awards. The Application Clusters versity will ultimately save time, money, financial aid office worked with all of the University of Wisconsin and effort by not having to support its university’s undergraduate schools and col- www.wisc.edu own financial grant systems. leges as well as the Division of Information Location: Madison, Wisconsin The project was rolled out to continu- Technology, but the university’s decentral- Industry: Education ing students in the College of Letters and ized environment meant that business Employees: 18,000 Science in September 2009. Ultimately, objectives—much less an IT strategy— Oracle products: Oracle WebLogic Suite, the new application will be available to all Oracle JDeveloper 11g, Oracle WebLogic Server, were not necessarily aligned. undergraduate enrollment, about 25,000 Oracle Database, PeopleSoft Campus solutions, “Each school and college is indepen- Oracle Application Development Framework students in all. Hillstrom, Gunderson, and dent,” says Mary Hillstrom, assistant direc- Hill all believe that their experience will tor in the Office of Student Financial Aid. influence other projects at the university. “It’s been hard even to know how many “I think [a system like this] gets traction scholarships we have on campus and, of those, what their total at the business level first,” Hill says. “What hooks a lot of busi- worth is. And that was part of the challenge of this project— ness users are the user interface features. Then we can speak to making a decentralized campus work in a centralized way so some of the advantages at the development level.” that we could better serve students.” “We are making it easier for the schools and colleges on The Office of Student Financial Aid decided to create a campus to offer and award scholarships,” says Hillstrom. “The Scholarships@UW-Madison application, integrating it with the better we can automate this process, the better we can help university’s surrounding services infrastructure. “We wanted to students meet their academic goals.” ■ take advantage of Oracle’s direction,” says Karen Gunderson, technical manager for the project. “And we wanted a service- David Baum ([email protected]) is a freelance business writer based in oriented-architecture approach.” Santa Barbara, California. As an Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle WebLogic Suite customer, the university already had a license for next Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF), a STEPS Java environment for building enterprise applications. Todd VISIT the Enterprise Architecture Center otn.oracle.com/architect/entarch Hill, a lead developer on the project, decided to use this framework with Oracle JDeveloper as the application devel- READ more about SOA opment environment. oracle.com/technologies/soa Using Oracle ADF Faces Rich Client permitted the univer- Oracle Fusion Middleware sity to create a rich, interactive environment that displays lots oracle.com/products/middleware of data relationships simultaneously. “Oracle ADF Faces Rich Oracle Modernization Client is very Ajax friendly,” says Hill. oracle.com/technologies/modernization The Scholarships@UW-Madison application gets student Oracle Tuxedo’s COBOL conversion capabilities data from Oracle’s PeopleSoft Campus solutions; with its com- oracle.com/products/middleware/tuxedo ponent interfaces, PeopleSoft Integration Broker made access DOWNLOAD Oracle SOA Suite to this data relatively easy. The university used Oracle ADF otn.oracle.com/products/soa/soasuite/collateral/downloads.html security to allow fine-grain control over pages and task flows, Oracle JDeveloper protecting sensitive student data. otn.oracle.com/software/products/jdev According to Gunderson, the new application helps users

oracle magazine January/February 2010 35

JF10_modernization.indd 35 12/1/09 12:03:54 PM The adventures of Harry & Garry 8.0

Free trial available! Download at www.plsqldev.com/8 PL/SQL Developer is the Oracle development tool that gives you maximum productivity, ease of use and all the features you need, for a reasonable price. Visit our website for additional details: www.allroundautomations.com/plsqldev JF10_CRM.indd 38 11/30/09 1:37:06 PM By Marta Bright Know who. Know how. Oracle CRM On Demand turns customer knowledge into business success.

ustomers are the lifeblood of any busi- cation, or the organizational requirements ness. Finding them—and then keeping don’t justify the need for an on-premises them—is critical. And to do that, companies solution,” says Anthony Lye, senior vice must know who their customers are, what president of CRM at Oracle. they want, and what will keep them satisfied. From banking and finance to education Customer relationship management (CRM) and government agencies, hundreds of software helps companies understand their Oracle customers around the world have customers’ needs, buying patterns, and examined their requirements for CRM even complaints. Oracle CRM On Demand and found that Oracle CRM On Demand goes one step further—offering companies a provides the functionality and ease of portfolio of software-as-a-service (SaaS) and use they need. managed applications that reduces risk and lowers the total cost of ownership for the A Lifetime of LeArning companies that use them. Established more than 150 years ago and “On-demand software provides a tre- spread across 16 campuses in New York, mendous amount of value to an organiza- Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin, Bryant & tion that doesn’t have all of the resources Stratton College is a private career college

Lindy GroeninG required to deploy an on-premises appli- that helps students develop professional

oracle magazine January/February 2010 39

JF10_CRM.indd 39 11/30/09 1:37:37 PM skills in specialties ranging from much experience in using Web- graphic design and nursing to based technologies, Grieco says. information technology and “Oracle CRM On Demand hotel and restaurant manage- has given us a far better under- ment. A 22-year veteran at standing of our prospective stu- Bryant & Stratton, IT Director dents and existing students,” John Grieco led a project to he says. Oracle CRM On implement Oracle CRM On Demand enables the college Demand to manage marketing to track advertising to prospec- and career placement services tive students and determine for close to 1 million potential accurate costs for each lead; and existing students. application; and registered, “The true value of IT is not attending student. in keeping machines up and “Being able to figure out how running,” says Grieco. “It’s in much all of these marketing what you can gain from an IT programs truly cost has led us to department’s knowledge of the look at what we did in the past “Oracle CRM On Demand has given us a far better understanding of our business. To maximize and use prospective students and existing students,” says John Grieco, IT director and say, ‘We always thought that that knowledge to its greatest for Bryant & Stratton College. campaign was very successful, capacity, I think we are well but in reality it’s not compared served to let Oracle worry about managing IT, so we can to this campaign. Maybe next semester we’ll allocate more worry about running the college’s business.” resources to this campaign and not worry about what we did Grieco completed the integration of Oracle CRM On last year,’” Grieco says. Demand with a third-party collegiate administrative suite of Creating an environment that supports independent, as- student, financial aid, finance, human resources, and advance- needed use by the marketing staff is a great fit for a business ment systems running on Oracle Database. The integrated like Bryant & Stratton, says Amy Konary, a research director Oracle CRM On Demand environment is especially useful for with IDC. “If your salespeople are widely distributed and they marketing to Bryant & Stratton’s different student popula- need to contribute to one system, standardizing them on one tions—recent high school grads, who are usually more tech- system of record is valuable, and having a single database for savvy, and nontraditional older students, who may not have as that is especially valuable,” she says.

Oracle On Demand: Delivering Customer Choice CATHERINE GIBBONS CATHERINE

40 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 ORACLE.COM/ORACLEMAGAZINE

JF10_CRM.indd 40 11/30/09 1:38:12 PM Green Miles to sustainability CRM On Demand to make it VicUrban, located in Melbourne, easier for staff first to access and Australia, demonstrates how an capture customer information Oracle CRM On Demand solu- and then to use that information tion can improve the customer to market to prospective buyers experience. As well, it can unite more precisely. and simplify IT for a diverse Indeed, Morton and others sales team that had been using at the agency are enthusiastic multiple software solutions. about the benefits that SaaS VicUrban is the state gov- provides. “It’s much easier for ernment’s sustainable urban Oracle [rather than VicUrban] development agency; it works to make sure the availability is with the public and private appropriate for these applica- sectors to build sustainable tions,” says Morton. communities and create oppor- As VicUrban’s business appli- tunities for industry develop- cation needs grow and change, ment. Created in 2003 after a Morton has found that turn- “Oracle CRM On Demand will reduce power consumption even during heat merger between Victoria’s Urban waves,” says David Morton, information and communications technology ing to Oracle for answers is Regional Land Corporation service delivery manager at VicUrban. always a great option. “We and the Docklands Authority, always look to Oracle first to VicUrban has focused its projects primarily on developing see what it can offer,” Morton says. communities that address the challenges posed by population Morton is very happy to have the SaaS model to serve the growth and climate change. agency’s business computing needs and as a role model for Because one agency had been based on a Microsoft system sustainable practices. VicUrban has embraced sustainability as and the other had been based on Oracle technologies, the a credo, a concept that was reinforced when the agency moved merger required some retooling of the IT infrastructure. “Some into its new “green” offices in Victoria’s first heritage-listed of the primary considerations involved were cost, unifying on building during the intense heat of Australia’s summer season a single platform, and robust industry standards,” says David and achieved the Green Building Council Australia’s 5 Star Morton, information and communications technology (ICT) Green Star Certified Rating for office design. service delivery manager at VicUrban. “We want to take a leadership role in the area of sustain- The new organization decided to implement an all-Oracle ability, so one of the things we’re trying to do with ICT is solution based on Oracle Database, Oracle Application Server, to ‘green’ it,” Morton says. “One way I’m doing that is by and Oracle E-Business Suite to ensure system longevity, implementing services like SaaS, including Oracle CRM On compatibility, and integration. The agency also adopted Oracle Demand, which will reduce power consumption even during heat waves.” VicUrban is trying to push the green initiative by imple- snap shots menting services such as Oracle CRM On Demand that will both reduce the power consumption at the VicUrban offices Bryant & Stratton College and demonstrate that people can follow a similar path with www.bryantstratton.edu Location: Buffalo, New York their own lives and business initiatives. “Sustainability,” says Industry: Education and research Morton, “is not only about the carbon; it’s also about improv- Revenue: US$80 million ing lifestyles.” ■ Employees: 1,800 Oracle products: Oracle CRM On Demand, Oracle Financials, Oracle Database Marta Bright is a senior editor with Oracle Publishing.

VicUrban www.vicurban.com Location: Melbourne, Australia next Industry: Public sector STEPS Revenue: US$186 million READ more about Oracle CRM On Demand Employees: 250 oracle.com/applications/feature-oracle-crm-ondemand.html Oracle products: Oracle CRM On Demand; Oracle E-Business Suite, includ- VISIT the Oracle Application Integration Architecture ing Oracle Financials, Oracle Project Management, and fixed assets and project Best Practice Center accounting applications; Oracle Business Intelligence Suite, Enterprise Edition otn.oracle.com/products/applications/aia Plus; Oracle Discoverer; Oracle Database; Oracle BPEL Process Manager; Oracle TRY Oracle CRM On Demand Application Server www.bit.ly/49W7MJ RobeRt edwaRds

oracle Magazine January/February 2010 41

JF10_CRM.indd 41 11/30/09 1:38:55 PM frameworks developer By Steve Muench

The Route to Success Use task flow routers for conditional navigation.

ask flows in Oracle Application employee, the data will appear immedi- give the page access to its value. Click Development Framework (Oracle ately. If the search identifies two or more the Create control binding (green ADF) enable you to define an applica- matches, the user will be able to pick plus sign) toolbar button in the header tion’s control flow. In “Developing a one of them to view. If no rows match, of the Bindings box. When the Insert Regional Accent” (Oracle Magazine, the user will see a message to that effect. Item dialog box appears, ensure that November/December 2008), you worked the category of components is Generic with bounded task flows to create reus- Using Page Definition Variables Bindings, select attributeValues in able page regions. This column shows Start by selecting the ViewController the list of items, and click OK. In the how to capture task flow parameter project in the Application Navigator Create Attribute Binding dialog box, values from the user, invoke model-layer and pressing Ctrl + Alt + minus (the select the variables iterator binding for initialization logic when a task flow keyboard shortcut for Navigate -> Go Data Source, select SearchStringVar starts, and perform conditional routing to File). When the Go to File dialog for Attribute, and click OK. Select based on method results—all without box appears, type FE in the search field the new SearchStringVar1 binding in writing any backing-bean code. to narrow the list and then double-click the Bindings box, and in the Property To begin, download the starter FindEmployees.jspx to open the page Inspector, change the id property to workspace at otn.oracle.com/oramag/ in the visual editor. You can see that an SearchString to give the binding a more oracle/10-jan/o10frame.zip and ensure inputText field, a Search button, and a meaningful name. that you’re using the studio edition decorative box component are already Click the Design tab to return to the of the Oracle JDeveloper 11.1.1.1 set up on the page. visual editor, and select the inputText production release, available as a free Select the inputText component, and field. In the Property Inspector, click in download at otn.oracle.com/jdev. note in the Property Inspector that the the Value field and use the menu to the Start by extracting the contents of the Value property field is empty, indicating right of the field to choose Expression o10frame.zip file and opening the that the field is not currently bound to Builder. In the Expression Builder FrameworksJanFeb2010.jws workspace any data value. The value in this field dialog box, expand the ADF Bindings in Oracle JDeveloper. The Model project will only be passed along as a parameter folder, the bindings node it contains, in the workspace defines a base set of to the task flow. You’ll use an Oracle and the SearchString binding. Scroll Oracle ADF components for working ADF feature called a Page Definition down to select the SearchString bind- with the data in the EMP table in the Variable to provide temporary storage for ing’s inputValue property. Note that a SCOTT schema. The ViewController the value, without needing to create a corresponding EL expression appears project includes FindEmployees.jspx backing-bean class. in the Expression text box above, and and three JavaServer Pages (JSP) page Click the Bindings tab of the visual then click OK to use that expression. fragments used in the find-employee editor to see the page definition. To Now the text field is bound to the page bounded task flow. create a new page definition variable, definition variable you created, using the Before proceeding, adjust the prop- right-click the variables iterator binding attribute binding. erties of the scott connection in the that appears in the Executables box In the Application Navigator, expand Application Resources zone of the and choose Insert inside variables -> the Page Flows folder inside Web Application Navigator until you can suc- variable. In the Insert variable dialog Content in the ViewController project. cessfully test a connection to a SCOTT box, enter SearchStringVar in the Name Drag the find-employee task flow, schema. If you need to create the tables, field and java.lang.String in the Type and drop it into the center of the use the provided CreateDeptEmpTables field and then click OK. Note that the panelGroupLayout (inside the decora- .sql script. new variable does not appear in the tive box) that is already on the page. You’ll complete a simple application main editing surface of the Bindings tab When the Create context menu appears, that enables the user to enter a search but that you can see it as a child node of choose Region to add the bounded task value—an employee number, name, or variables in the Structure window. flow to your page as a region. Because job—and view the resulting employee Next, you’ll create a control binding the find-employee task flow has a details. If the search matches a single based on this page definition variable to required parameter named searchString,

42 January/FeBruary 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_FRAMEWORKS.indd 42 11/24/09 9:54:14 AM the Edit Task Flow Binding dialog box Done activity to complete the task flow initializeFindEmployeeFlow() method appears. Enter the same EL expression without performing any work. in the Available list, click > to shuttle it you used previously—#{bindings To create a router activity, drag a into the Selected list, and click OK. .SearchString.inputValue}—into the Input Router from the Component Palette To take a closer look at what this Parameters table’s Value field. This con- and drop it onto the diagram near the method does, click the hyperlink to the figures the region to get the value of its STEP 2 note. Change the new router’s right of the Application Module Class searchString parameter from the page name to ProcessParameters. To mark label to navigate to the HRModuleImpl definition variable the user populates, the router as the default activity, right- class in the code editor. As the com- using the text field you configured click the router’s icon and choose Mark ments explain, the method accepts a earlier. Click OK to create the region. Activity -> Default Activity. Then string argument; sets two view object select the Control Flow Case tool in bind variable values on the EmpView1 Using a Wildcard rUle and the Component Palette. First click the view object instance; executes its query; a defaUlt roUter ProcessParameters router activity and and then returns an integer result to Now that the containing page is set then the initializeTaskFlow method indicate whether zero, one, or multiple up, you’ll complete the declarative call activity to connect them. Name rows were retrieved. configuration of the task flow. Double- the control flow case Initialize. Select To see how the EmpView1 view click the find-employee task flow in ProcessParameters (the router activity) instance is configured, return to the the Application Navigator to open it in in the diagram, and use the Property HRModule editor, navigate to its Data the editor. The diagram contains four Inspector to set the value of its Default Model page, select the EmpView1 view annotations to remind you of the steps Outcome property to Done—the name instance in the Data Model tree on the required to complete the task flow’s func- of the wildcard rule you created. In the right, and click the Edit button. In the tionality. (After you complete each step, Cases table in the Property Inspector’s Edit View Instance dialog box, note that feel free to delete the reminder note.) General category, click the green plus the FindByEmpnoEnameOrJob view Multiple activities will enable the user icon to create a new router case. Enter criteria is applied to the view instance. to complete the task flow, so rather than #{pageFlowScope.searchString != null} as As its name implies, that view criteria cluttering up the diagram with many the Expression, and for Outcome select uses the bind variable values being set navigation case lines that all connect to Initialize from the list. Because in the initialization method to find an the Done task flow return activity, you #{pageFlowScope.searchString} is where employee based on employee number, can keep the diagram readable by creat- the searchString task flow parameter is name, or job. Click Cancel to close ing a wildcard control flow rule. Drag configured to store its value, this condi- the dialog box, and click back on the a Wildcard Control Flow Rule from tion will route to the Initialize activity find-employee task flow editor (find- the Component Palette (select View -> when the parameter’s value is not null. employee.xml tab). Component Palette, if necessary), and Next, you’ll drag the initialize drop it onto the diagram close to the initializing a task floW With a client FindEmployeeFlow() method from existing Done activity. Accept the default interface Method the Data Controls onto the method name, *, by pressing Enter. Next, select The HRModule application module call activity in the task flow. Expand the Control Flow Case tool in the uses a custom method named initialize the Data Controls section of the Component Palette. First click the FindEmployeeFlow() to encapsulate Application Navigator. Right-click wildcard rule icon and then the Done all the model-layer business logic neces- HRModuleDataControl, and choose activity to connect them. When the sary for initializing the task flow. You’ll Refresh to ensure that the Data box for assigning a name to the control expose this method on the client inter- Controls reflect the latest changes flow case appears, enter Done and press face, so you can then drag it from the you’ve made to the model layer. Expand Enter. You can think of the flow as this: Application Navigator’s Data Controls HRModuleDataControl, drag the From wherever we might be, if the outcome zone and drop it onto the initializeTask initializeFindEmployeeFlow() method, is Done, we’ll come here next. Flow method call activity. This will cause and drop it directly onto the initialize Next you’ll configure a router activity the initializeFindEmployeeFlow() TaskFlow method call activity. When the as the default activity in the task flow method to be invoked declaratively Edit Action Binding dialog box appears, to perform conditional handling of the before the first view activity renders. click in the Value field in the Parameters passed-in parameters. If the parameter Start by double-clicking HRModule table for the searchString method value is not null, your router will navi- in the Model project in the Application parameter. Enter the EL expression gate to the initializeTaskFlow method Navigator to open it in the editor. Select #{pageFlowScope.searchString} to use the call activity to perform the necessary the editor’s Java page, and then click the task flow parameter value as the method model-layer setup before showing the pencil icon in the title bar of the Client argument’s value, and click OK. Recall first view activity. If the parameter value Interface section. When the Edit Client that the initializeFindEmployeeFlow() is null, the router will go directly to the Interface dialog box appears, select the method returns an integer result.

oracle magazine January/February 2010 43

JF10_FRAMEWORKS.indd 43 11/24/09 9:55:01 AM frameworks

couple of buttons onto the view activity page fragments to navigate to the Done activity and to configure the Search button on the main page to refresh the region when the button is clicked. To complete the first of these tasks, double-click the ShowEmployee view activity to open its page fragment in the visual editor. Select the Done button, and in the Property Inspector, use the list to set its Action property to Done. Return to the find-employee task flow (the find-employee.xml tab), and double-click the SelectEmployee view activity. Select its Cancel button, and set its Action property to Done. The online version of this column, at otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/10-jan/ o10frame.html, concludes with the steps for configuring the Search button and running the application. ■

Steve Muench is a consulting product manager for Oracle JDeveloper and an Oracle ACE. Since 1990 he has developed and supported Oracle tools and XML Figure 1: Task flow with conditional routing technologies and continues to evangelize them. Muench coauthored Oracle ADF Developer’s Guide for Forms/4GL Next you’ll configure the method naming the new router activity Developers (Oracle, 2006), wrote Building Oracle XML call activity to store its result in order to FoundOne, and then repeat one last Applications (O’Reilly Media, 2000), and shares tips and perform conditional routing based on time to connect RouteByNumRows tricks on Oracle Technology Network and in his Dive into its value. Select the initializeTaskFlow to SelectEmployee, naming the last ADF blog (blogs.oracle.com/smuenchadf). activity. In the Component Palette’s router activity FoundMultiple. Parameters section (expand the Next, configure the RouteBy Parameters node, if necessary), set NumRows router to forward condition- nextsTePs the Return Value property to the EL ally to the appropriate view activity, reaD expression #{pageFlowScope based on the method result you stored online-only column content .numRowsFound} to store the method earlier in the #{pageFlowScope otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/10-jan/o10frame.html result in a pageFlowScope attribute .numRowsFound} attribute. Select the more frameworks named numRowsFound. activity, and in the General section otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/frameworks of the Property Inspector (expand reaD more about Routing Based on Method Results the General node, if necessary), use oracle JDeveloper and oracle Drag another Router from the the list to set Default Outcome to application Development framework otn.oracle.com/products/jdev Component Palette onto the diagram FoundNone. As you did earlier for the otn.oracle.com/products/jdev/tips/muench/ near the STEP 4 note, and name it other router, click the green plus icon designpatterns Oracle Fusion Middleware Fusion Developer’s Guide RouteByNumRows. Use the Control to add a new router case. Enter an for Oracle Application Development Framework 11g Flow Case tool to connect the Expression of #{pageFlowScope Release 1 (11.1.1) download.oracle.com/docs/cd/e12839_01/web.1111/ initializeTaskFlow activity to this .numRowsFound == 1}, and choose b31974/toc.htm new router, accepting the default an Outcome of FoundOne. Repeat oracle fusion middleware name for the flow case name. Use to add a second router case with an download.oracle.com/docs/cd/e12839_01/index.htm the same tool again to connect the Expression of #{pageFlowScope otn.oracle.com/documentation RouteByNumRows activity to the .numRowsFound == 2} and an Outcome DowNLoaD FoundNone activity, giving the new of FoundMultiple. With the notes oracle JDeveloper 11g otn.oracle.com/software/products/jdev router activity the name FoundNone. deleted and the nodes rearranged a bit, the starter workspace for this column Repeat the process to connect your diagram should resemble Figure 1. otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/10-jan/o10frame.zip RouteByNumRows to ShowEmployee, The final two steps are to wire a

44 January/February 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_FRAMEWORKS_r2.indd 44 11/30/09 9:55:44 AM PL/SQL PracticeS developer by steven Feuerstein

On Privacy and Function Use Oracle Virtual Private Database and Function Result Cache—securely.

e just upgraded to Oracle Database tables. Oracle Database then automati- The cache is shared among all sessions 11g, and I am excited about being cally adds these policies in the form of connected to the same instance of the able to use the new Function Result Cache WHERE clause predicates to restrict database. The cache can also be tied to feature. We also use Oracle Virtual Private the rows a user can query or change in underlying database tables, so as soon Database (Oracle VPD) to restrict the rows that table. The bottom line: two differ- as a change has been committed to a in our tables that can be seen by our ent users can run what seems to be the table, the cache will be invalidated, users. Can I use the Function Result Cache same query (such as SELECT last_name guaranteeing clean data. with an application built on Oracle VPD? FROM employees) and get different Now let’s take a look at how You certainly can use Function Result results. It is impossible for a user to get Function Result Cache can cause Cache to optimize retrieval of data from around these policies, because they are problems when combined with Oracle tables on which you have specified applied inside the SQL layer—and they VPD. In this first and very simplistic access control through Oracle VPD. You are invisible to the user. example, my application data and code will, however, likely need to change the Function Result Cache can dramati- are owned by the appowner schema parameter list of your function to ensure cally reduce the time it takes to return and the data is accessed from two user that the correct data is always returned previously queried data to the appli- schemas, user1 and user2. by Function Result Cache. cation. When a result-cache-enabled The application’s table—data_by_ In this answer, I will demonstrate function is called, Oracle Database user—keeps track of text by ID; there problems that can arise when you’re first checks to see if a call to this func- is also an audit column populated by a using Function Result Cache with tion with matching input values has trigger that tells us the schema to which Oracle VPD–controlled tables. I will been executed. If so, the function is a user was connected when the data then offer some suggestions on how to not executed again; rather, the return was inserted: avoid these problems. And at the end value cached from the previous invoca- of this answer, I will describe an Oracle tion is returned. If the result-cache- CONNECT appowner/appowner Database 11g Release 2 enhancement for enabled function is called with a new Function Result Cache that will make all combination of input values, Oracle CREATE TABLE data_by_user our lives much easier. Database will execute the function and ( I previously wrote about Function cache both inputs and return values. id NUMBER Result Cache in “On the PL/SQL Function Result Cache,” in the codeLiStiNG 1: Creating text_for_id function September/October 2007 issue of CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION text_for_id (id_in IN data_by_user.id%TYPE) Oracle Magazine (available at otn.oracle RETURN data_by_user.text%TYPE .com/oramag/oracle/07-sep/o57plsql RESULT_CACHE RELIES_ON ( data_by_user ) .html), so I will assume a rudimen- IS l_text data_by_user.text%TYPE; tary knowledge of the basics of this BEGIN feature. Oracle VPD is a very power- DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (‘Retrieving text for ID ‘ || id_in); ful and complex feature of Oracle SELECT dbu.text Database that cannot be fully explained INTO l_text in this answer; I will provide only a FROM data_by_user dbu high-level explanation and relatively WHERE dbu.id = text_for_id.id_in;

simple examples. I recommend that RETURN l_text; you review the Oracle documentation END text_for_id; (links are provided in nextSTEPS) for /

information on this topic. GRANT EXECUTE ON text_for_id TO user1 When you use Oracle VPD in your / application, you define security or GRANT EXECUTE ON text_for_id TO user2 / access policies for SQL operations on

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JF10_PLSQL.indd 45 11/19/09 3:15:49 PM pl/sql practices

, text VARCHAR2 (100) To implement this access control by_user table, as shown in Listing 5. , created_by VARCHAR2 (30) policy, I first create a packaged function— Now that the policy is in place, ) vpd_policies—that returns a WHERE user2 should not be able to see any / clause predicate for the policy, as shown rows entered by user1. This is easy to in Listing 4. Note that the schema and verify with a SELECT statement against CREATE OR REPLACE TRIGGER name arguments are required by Oracle the data_by_user table: data_by_user_audit VPD, even if they are not used within BEFORE INSERT the function. SQL> connect user1/user1 ON data_by_user I then call the DBMS_RLS.ADD_ Connected. FOR EACH ROW POLICY procedure (RLS stands for DECLARE row-level security) to apply this your_ SQL> SELECT * BEGIN data_only policy function to the data_ 2 FROM appowner.data_by_user :new.created_by := USER; END data_by_user_audit; codelistiNG 2: Inserting two rows into the data_by_user table / connect user1/user1

GRANT ALL ON data_by_user TO user1 BEGIN / INSERT INTO appowner.data_by_user (id, text ) VALUES (1, ‘User1 data row 1’ );

GRANT ALL ON data_by_user TO user2 INSERT INTO appowner.data_by_user (id, text ) / VALUES (2, ‘User1 data row 2’ );

COMMIT; The application also provides a END; function for retrieving text by ID: text_ / for_id, shown in Listing 1. Note that connect user2/user2 it is a result cache function and that it displays an indicator that the function BEGIN was executed. INSERT INTO appowner.data_by_user (id, text ) VALUES (3, ‘User2 data row 1’ ); Each user then inserts two rows into the table, as shown in Listing 2. INSERT INTO appowner.data_by_user (id, text ) Because there are not yet any Oracle VALUES (4, ‘User2 data row 2’ ); VPD policies defined for the data_by_ COMMIT; user table, both user1 and user2 can END; successfully retrieve all rows from the / table with either a SELECT statement or the text_for_id function. codelistiNG 3: Executing the text_for_id result cache function

In addition, because the function SQL> connect user1/user1 is defined as a result cache function, Connected. the text for a particular ID will be SQL> SET SERVEROUTPUT ON retrieved from the table the first time it SQL> BEGIN is requested. After that (and until the 2 DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (appowner.text_for_id (3)); cache is invalidated) the function will 3 DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (appowner.text_for_id (3)); 4 END; not be executed to retrieve that same 5 / text, as you can see in Listing 3 (note that the “Retrieving text . . .” message Retrieving text for ID 3 User2 data row 1 appears only once). User2 data row 1 Now let’s bring Oracle VPD into the picture. The access control policy for the SQL> connect user2/user2 Connected. data_by_user table is very simple: you should be able to see only rows you’ve SQL> SET SERVEROUTPUT ON inserted. In other words, when I am con- SQL> BEGIN 2 DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (appowner.text_for_id (3)); nected to user1, I should not be able to 3 END; see rows inserted by user2; yet that is 4 / precisely what happened in Listing 3 (the User2 data row 1 row with id 3 was created by user2).

46 January/February 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_PLSQL.indd 46 11/19/09 3:16:22 PM 3 WHERE id = 3; on which the Oracle VPD policy would with any function that queries the con- no rows selected have been applied, was not executed. tents of a table on which Oracle VPD In other words, the benefit of the policies are defined. That is too extreme What happens, however, if we result cache is precisely the cause of the a conclusion, though. In fact, you can access this data through the text_for_id policy violation. make these technologies compatible, result cache function? but it will take some re-engineering of Suppose the database instance was Avoiding Result CAChe inteRfeRenCe your code. just started by the DBA; all result with oRACle vPd PoliCies I will show you how to do this for caches are empty. I connect to user2 You might conclude that Function the text_for_id function. Then I will gen- and ask to see the text for ID 3 with Result Cache should never be used eralize this technique to a rule and apply a call to the text_for_id function. Because that row was originally created codeLISTING 4: Creating the vpd_policies packaged function by user2, it is displayed—after the function is executed and the informa- CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE vpd_policies IS tion cached: FUNCTION your_data_only (schema_in VARCHAR2, NAME_IN VARCHAR2) RETURN VARCHAR2; SQL> connect user2/user2 END vpd_policies; / Connected. CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE BODY vpd_policies SQL> set serveroutput on IS FUNCTION your_data_only (schema_in VARCHAR2, NAME_IN VARCHAR2) SQL> BEGIN RETURN VARCHAR2 2 DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line IS (appowner.text_for_id (3)); BEGIN RETURN ‘created_by = ‘ ’ ’ || USER || ‘ ’ ’ ’; 3 END; END your_data_only; 4 / END vpd_policies; / Retrieving text for ID 3 User2 data row 1 codeLISTING 5: Calling DBMS_RLS.ADD_POLICY

BEGIN I then connect to user1. Because the DBMS_RLS.ADD_POLICY (object_schema => ‘APPOWNER’ Oracle VPD policy is in place, I should , object_name => ‘data_by_user’ not , policy_name => ‘Your_data_only’ be able to see the text for ID 3, but , function_schema => ‘APPOWNER’ in fact I can: , policy_function => ‘vpd_policies.your_data_only’ , statement_types => ‘SELECT’ , update_check => TRUE SQL> connect user1/user1 ); Connected. END; / SQL> set serveroutput on SQL> BEGIN codeLISTING 6: Creating the priv_text_for_id “private” result cache function

2 DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line CONNECT appowner/appowner (appowner.text_for_id (3)); 3 END; CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION priv_text_for_id ( id_in IN data_by_user.id%TYPE, user_in in VARCHAR2 4 / ) RETURN data_by_user.text%TYPE User2 data row 1 RESULT_CACHE RELIES_ON ( data_by_user ) IS l_text data_by_user.text%TYPE; The Oracle VPD policy has been BEGIN violated. How could this have hap- DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (‘ Retrieving text for ID ‘ || id_in);

pened? Note that when I ran this SELECT dbu.text function in the user1 schema, the INTO l_text “Retrieving text . . .” line was not FROM data_by_user dbu WHERE dbu.id = priv_text_for_id.id_in; displayed. That’s because the inputs and the return string were previously RETURN l_text; cached—so the body of the function, END priv_text_for_id; / which includes the SELECT statement

oracle magazine January/February 2010 47

JF10_PLSQL.indd 47 11/19/09 3:16:54 PM pl/sql practices

codelistiNG 7: Creating new text_for_id “public” function—no result cache be much more complex, relying on multiple values. Second, most applica- CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION text_for_id (id_in IN data_by_user.id%TYPE) RETURN data_by_user.text%TYPE tions these days use connection pooling, IS enabling many users to share the same BEGIN database connection. USER simply return priv_text_for_id (id_in, USER); END text_for_id; doesn’t provide specific enough informa- / tion about the person who is actually sitting at the keyboard and trying to access the database. it to a more complex, real-world scenario. 3 END; Oracle Database offers session- The problem with my current text_ 4 / specific application contexts (essentially, for_id function implementation is that name/value pairs) to enable developers it specifies a single cache for all users in SQL> connect user1/user1 to obtain more-detailed information the database instance, yet different users Connected. about user identity. These contexts are need to see different data. To address usually set in a logon trigger. A devel- that need, I could ask Oracle Database to SQL> oper can then call the SYS_CONTEXT create a separate cache for each user, by SQL> /* Try to get text for id 3. */ function to retrieve the value for a spe- adding the user name to the parameter SQL> cific context name. list of my function. SQL> BEGIN The online version of this column, I could also simply add the user_in 2 DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line at otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/10-jan/ argument to the original, “public” (appowner.text_for_id (3)); o10plsql.html, concludes with informa- text_for_id function and provide a default 3 END; tion on how to use application contexts value of USER. This approach, though, 4 / with Oracle Virtual Private Database and leaves the application more vulnerable Function Result Cache. ■ to bugs. The application requires that the BEGIN name of the currently connected user be * Steven Feuerstein ([email protected]) is passed to the result cache function, so ERROR at line 1: Quest Software’s PL/SQL evangelist. He has published why give the programmer an opportunity ORA-01403: no data found 10 books on Oracle’s programming language, to provide a different value? including Oracle PL/SQL Programming and Oracle A better approach is to create a The vpd_policies.your_data_only PL/SQL Best Practices (O’Reilly Media). Feuerstein’s “private” result cache function—priv_ function concatenated USER into the self-appointed mission in life these days is to improve text_for_id—that accepts the user name predicate string. Including USER in the the quality and quantity of PL/SQL code testing. as an argument, as shown in Listing 6. parameter list of the priv_text_for_id With the private function in place, function ensured a distinct cache for next create the “public” function (text_ each distinct predicate clause. for_id—the one that can be executed From this reworking of the text_ nextsteps outside of the appowner schema) to call for_id function, we can come up with reaD online-only column content the private priv_text_for_id function and a general rule for using Oracle VPD otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/10-jan/o10plsql.html pass along the user name, as shown in with the result cache: Make sure the reaD more Best practice pl/sql Listing 7. Note that the text_for_id func- parameter list of the result cache func- otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/plsql otn.oracle.com/pub/columns/plsql tion is no longer a result cache function. tion includes all variant data used by learN more about With this new configuration, the the access policy function to produce the Function result cache Oracle VPD access policy will be predicate clause. “On the PL/SQL Function Result Cache” applied even when the text_for_id otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/07-sep/o57plsql.html function is called: Avoiding orAcle vPd violAtions in Oracle Database PL/SQL Language Reference download.oracle.com/docs/cd/e11882_01/ the reAl World appdev.112/e10472/subprograms.htm#lnPlS00817 SQL> connect user2/user2 Although the use of USER in the param- Oracle Virtual private Database Connected. eter list of the priv_text_for_id function Oracle Database Concepts provided a solution for using Oracle download.oracle.com/docs/cd/e11882_01/server.112/ e10713/cmntopc.htm#cncPT62345 SQL> VPD and Function Result Cache, I Oracle Database Security Guide SQL> /* Cache the data for id 3 */ doubt that there are very many Oracle download.oracle.com/docs/cd/e11882_01/ network.112/e10574/vpd.htm#DBSeg007 SQL> VPD policy functions that rely on the SQL> BEGIN USER built in to determine the predicate DOWNlOaD Oracle Database 11g release 2 2 DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line clause returned by the policy function. otn.oracle.com/software/products/database (appowner.text_for_id (3)); First of all, these policies are likely to

48 January/February 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_PLSQL.indd 48 11/19/09 3:17:18 PM Business intelligence developer By Tracy McMullen and edward roske

Building a Cube Learn the basics of building an Oracle Essbase aggregate storage database.

ith the world economy keeping cation and database; build dimensions these prerequisite tasks are completed, all of us awake at night, better and members into an outline; define you are ready to begin. company performance is critical. member properties and hierarchy types Fortunately, Oracle Essbase provides for the dimensions and members; and, CreAte An AppliCAtion And A dAtAbAse an environment for deploying pre- finally, load data. With the mission The first steps of creating a new applica- packaged applications and develop- completed, JWC analysts will be able tion and a database with Administration ing custom analytic and enterprise to analyze data in the Oracle Essbase Services are simpler than paying taxes. performance management (EPM) database via Smart View, receiving (In Oracle Essbase, an application is a applications. In this article, we’ll get answers to their pressing questions so container of databases, and a database you started on your rapid applica- they can make good business decisions is the actual Oracle Essbase “cube” that tion development journey to building and improve overall performance. stores and organizes data for fast analy- Oracle Essbase applications and data- sis and reporting.) bases to deliver high-speed reporting Let’s knock out the simple steps: and analysis for your user community. 1. In Administration Services, select Oracle Essbase supports two data- File -> New. Then select Aggregate base types: aggregate storage option Storage Application. (ASO) databases and block storage 2. Select the Oracle Essbase server, and option (BSO) databases. This article specify a new application name. For focuses on the creation of ASO data- our example, call it Juggle. (Although bases, which will be your default Oracle Essbase supports Unicode appli- type of database in most cases. (ASO cations, do not check Unicode mode.) databases are designed to handle more 3. Click OK. You now have an applica- dimensions and members, smaller tion with no databases within it. (It is batch windows for loads and aggrega- completely useless, though, so don’t tions of sparse data, and smaller data- stop now.) base footprints.) 4. Right-click the application you just created (Juggle), and select Create Answer Questions for the Juggling Database. wolverine CompAny 5. Your server and application should In this article, we will use the fictitious This article assumes that you’ve already be selected, so type in a new Juggling Wolverine Company (JWC) to installed and configured the Oracle database name (for our example, use illustrate the basics of Oracle Essbase. Essbase server and its related compo- Juggle, because that’s how creative we JWC specializes in juggling services nents, including Shared Services (for are) and click OK. around the globe, but the business is security and other “plumbing” type Is that it? No, it is just the beginning. struggling (the economy is hurting components), Administration Services everyone), and the company has ques- (for administration of Oracle Essbase build dimensions, members, And tions: How are sales trending across databases), and Smart View (for report- hierArChies in the outline customers? What is the profitability by ing and analyzing Oracle Essbase data). Each Oracle Essbase database will have customer? Which customer type drives When prompted during the Oracle a single outline—an object that contains the most revenue? (JWC’s marketing Essbase installation, install the sample all the hierarchical information for efforts need to be directed accordingly.) applications. (Although we won’t your database. Unlike a relational data- JWC has asked you to build an use them in this article, the sample base, in which the hierarchy is applied Oracle Essbase database to answer applications provide helpful objects to data already stored in tables, the these questions and more. Your for review and learning.) In Shared outline in Oracle Essbase (and, as such, mission, should you choose to accept Services, create and provision a user as the hierarchy) directly controls how

Lindy GroeninG it, is to create an Oracle Essbase appli- an Oracle Essbase administrator. Once data is stored and indexed.

oracle magazine January/FeBruary 2010 49

JF10_ESSBASE.indd 49 11/24/09 11:01:30 AM Business intelligence

Your Oracle Essbase outline will click and select Edit. The Outline Essbase ASO are Accounts, Time, Time contain dimensions—common groupings Editor will open. Date, and Attribute. You could also of data elements we analyze and report 2. Right-click in the Outline Editor, assign None or no dimension type. on. Examples of dimensions are Time, and select Add child to add the first Oracle Essbase provides some built-in Account, Product, and Market. Think of a dimension, as shown in Figure 2. functionality associated with each of dimension as something that goes down 3. Type in the name for the member these dimension types. For this JWC the side or across the top of a report. Period. example, you will set the Time and Dimensions are made up of 4. Repeat the steps, using Add child or Accounts dimension types. members. Members will have a member Add sibling to build the dimensions 1. In the Outline Editor of name and an alias—member proper- and members defined in Table 1. (The Administration Services, select the ties that provide two ways to view the member selected in the outline will Period dimension. Right-click and member. In the Product example in dictate whether to use Add child or select Edit Member Properties. Figure 1, the product number is the Add sibling.) 2. On the Information tab, set the member name and the product descrip- As an alternative to manually build- dimension type for Period to Time and tion is the alias. Note that products roll ing the members in the Customer click OK. up to the product family, which rolls dimension, you can import the 3. Select the Account dimension. up to the total Product, given the hier- Customer dimension information by Right-click and select Edit Member archical nature of Oracle Essbase. using the bldcust.rul rules file and Properties. After requirements-gathering ses- custdim.txt source file, available for 4. On the Information tab, set the sions with stakeholders at JWC, you download at otn.oracle.com/oramag/ dimension type for Account to design a short five-dimensional outline oracle/10-jan/o10essbase.zip. Accounts and click OK. to address JWC reporting and analysis Now that you’ve built the dimen- needs (it’s not uncommon for ASO out- sions and members, let’s assign dimen- Define member properTies anD lines to have 20-plus dimensions and sion types, member properties, and HierarcHy Types millions of members). The dimensions hierarchy types. We’ve already discussed two member and members identified for the JWC properties: member name and alias. cube are listed in Table 1. Define Dimension Types Let’s review some other member 1. In Administration Services, navigate The dimension types in an Oracle properties that help define the Oracle to the database outline beneath the Essbase database. Some member prop- Juggle database you created. Right- erties, such as Expense Reporting and Time Balance, are specific to a dimension type, and others are specific to the Oracle Essbase database type. Consolidation. Consolidation operators tell Oracle Essbase how to aggregate members in a dimension. Should January, February, and March be added together to reach a total for Q1? Should units sold be multiplied by price to cal- Figure 1: Dimensions, member names, aliases Figure 2: Creating a dimension in the Outline Editor culate revenue? Valid ASO consolidation operators include the default consolida- Period Account, Scenario, Customer dimension (with alternative hierarchy, dimension Year dimensions “By Customer Rating”) tion property, (+) Addition, as well as (–) Subtraction, (*) Multiplication, (/) Division, (%) Percent, and (~) No consolidation (identified by “Ignore” in the Member Properties window)—in the same dimension. In most cases, you will use the default (+) Addition consolidation operator. The second most commonly used consolidation operator is (~) No consolidation. Use it in places where it doesn’t make sense to add up members. Would we want to add Actual and Table 1: JWC dimensions and members Budget together for Scenario? No, so

50 January/February 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_ESSBASE.indd 50 11/24/09 11:02:22 AM we would assign No consolidation, or ~ from very simple to highly complex. properties, you will also set a property (Ignore) in the outline, to both Actual Time balance. Time balance proper- called a hierarchy type for each hierar- and Budget. ties are available only in the Accounts chy within the outline. ASO databases Data storage. The data storage property dimension and are used to tell Oracle have three types of hierarchies: stored, tells Oracle Essbase how the member Essbase how a given member should dynamic, and multiple (“Hierarchies should be stored. Valid ASO data be aggregated in the Time dimen- Enabled”). Note in your Juggle outline storage options are sion. For example, should Headcount that each hierarchy is, by default, set • Store: Store the data value with the for January, February, and March be to stored. Stored hierarchies will aggre- member (default for ASO databases). added together for Q1? This definitely gate according to the structure of the • Never Share: Do not allow members wouldn’t make sense. In most cases, outline. In our example, months will to be shared implicitly. you want the Q1 head count to equal roll up to quarters, up to a year total, • Label Only: Create members for navi- the March head count, the last head in the Period member. This aggregation gation and grouping. count in the period. To get Oracle is really fast (that’s the nature of ASO • Shared Member: Share data between Essbase to do this, you tag Headcount databases), but stored hierarchies may two or more members. with Time Balance Last (“TB Last”), so have only the (+) Addition operator for Shared member data storage is a bit that it will take the last member’s value any member and the (~) No consolida- more complicated, so let’s look at it in when aggregating time. Depending tion (Ignore) operator for members more detail. Note that in our Juggle on your requirements, you could also under a Label Only storage member outline, we built two hierarchies in the assign Time Balance First or Time (other assigned consolidation operators Customer dimension: Total_Customer Balance Average, along with specifica- are ignored). Also, stored hierarchies and By Customer Rating. In these tions for how to handle periods with cannot have member formulas, and hierarchies, we are rolling up the same missing data. there are a few other restrictions on base members in two different ways for Solve order. The solve order member Label Only members. reporting and analysis. We will need property tells Oracle Essbase, “Here is Dynamic hierarchies are calculated to tag the second set of base members the order for completing calculations” by Oracle Essbase, rather than being as “shared” for this outline to validate. for ASO databases. Why is this impor- aggregated in stored hierarchies, so all Shared members have the same name tant? You want to calculate the correct consolidation tags and member for- as another member, belong to the same numbers in the correct order. Think mulas are processed. The evaluation dimension, and point to the same data order of operations for basic math. 4 + order for the calculation of members values, but they belong to different 5 * 2 does not equal (4 + 5) * 2. Using is dictated by the solve order, as men- parents and participate in different roll- solve order is the way you control the tioned above. Dynamic hierarchies, ups for alternative views of the same order of calculations in ASO databases. predictably, do not calculate as quickly data. The original member contains the Hierarchy types. In addition to member as stored hierarchies. value, and the shared member has a pointer to the original member. Datatype. We’re happy to say that in Oracle Essbase 11, a member in the Accounts dimension may be one of three datatypes: numeric, text, or date. In earlier releases, Essbase stored only numeric data. A new feature introduced in Oracle Essbase 11.1 enables the administrator to create and display text or date values to users for members in the Accounts dimension. Oracle Essbase is still storing a numeric value, but a translation happens between the stored value and a lookup table with the assigned text value. Member formulas. You can assign a member formula to a member, providing specific logic for how it should be calculated. Calculation logic, written in Multidimensional Expression Language (MDX) for ASO databases, can range Figure 3: Setting the Consolidation operator in the Member Properties window

oracle magazine January/February 2010 51

JF10_ESSBASE.indd 51 11/24/09 11:03:34 AM Business intelligence

Hierarchies Enabled for Hierarchy Information and Label Only for Data Storage. 10. Click Next until you reach the By Customer Rating member, and set the member properties to (~) Ignore for Consolidation and Store for Data Storage. The By Customer Rating alternative hierarchy will be a stored hierarchy (we need only the (+) Addition consolidation operator, and no member formulas are required). 11. Select all the base members (1001 through 4002) under By Customer Rating, and click the Shared Member icon, setting the storage property for Figure 4: Verifying and saving your outline many members in one click.

Verify and SaVe your outline You’ve added dimensions and members and assigned properties. (As with anything you’re working on, we recommend that you save often.) Now it’s time to verify your outline and make sure you haven’t broken any of the Oracle Essbase rules (for example, every member name and alias must be unique; check out the Oracle Essbase Database Administrator’s Guide for the complete list). Click the Verify button Figure 5: Loading the data to do this. Once everything checks out OK, click the Save button to save You can also have multiple hierar- Consolidation. the outline back to the Oracle Essbase chies within a single dimension. The 3. Click the Next button, set server, as shown in Figure 4. hierarchies within a dimension can be Other Exp to (–) Subtraction for all stored or all dynamic or have one Consolidation, and click OK. load data—load data file and create hierarchy stored and the other hier- 4. Right-click Scenario, and select Edit ruleS file archies dynamic. Multiple hierarchies Member Properties. There are many different ways to load can contain alternative hierarchies with 5. Set Data Storage to Label Only. data into Oracle Essbase: using Smart shared members or completely differ- 6. Set the remaining member properties: View Submit, Oracle Essbase Excel ent hierarchies. a. Year: Label Only for Data Storage Add-in Spreadsheet lock and send, Set member properties and define b. Actual: (~) Ignore for free-form data loading, data load rules hierarchy types for JWC. Now that you Consolidation (against flat files and relational tables), are fully fluent in Oracle Essbase c. Budget: (~) Ignore for Oracle Essbase Studio, or Oracle Data member properties and hierarchy Consolidation Integrator. The following is an intro- types, let’s update the JWC outline to 7. Right-click Account, and select duction to data load rules files, which set member properties and hierarchy Edit Member Properties. Note that are objects containing the instructions types to meet reporting and analysis the Hierarchy Information is set to for how Oracle Essbase should load a requirements. Dynamic. By default, the Account source text file (or SQL query result). 1. In the Outline Editor for Juggle, dimension is always set to Dynamic, 1. In preparation, if you have not right-click the Op_Expense member allowing member formulas and all con- already done so, download otn.oracle and select Edit Member Properties. solidation operators. .com/oramag/oracle/10-jan/o10essbase The Member Properties window will 8. Right-click Customer, and select .zip and extract the jugact.txt text file. appear (as shown in Figure 3). Edit Member Properties. 2. In Administration Services, navigate 2. Select (–) Subtraction for 9. On the Information tab, select to the Rules Files option under the

52 January/February 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_ESSBASE.indd 52 11/24/09 11:04:14 AM Juggle database. Right-click and select your source file column: ConClusion Create Rules File. The Data Prep While you’ve built the most basic Editor will open. Field 1: Year of Oracle Essbase databases, you’ve 3. Select File -> Open Data File, and Field 2: Customer learned some valuable concepts and browse to and open the jugact.txt text Field 3: Account initial database creation steps you file you downloaded in Step 1. Field 4: Jan can apply in your own environment. 4. Once the datafile is open, select Field 5: Feb Next steps include learning ways to Options -> Data Source Properties. Field 6: Mar dynamically build dimensions with The Data Source Properties window will Field 7: Apr rules files (do you want to manually open. Data source properties tell Oracle Field 8: May build a 100,000-customer list?), how to Essbase the datasource delimiters, what Field 9: Jun automate processes, and how to design field edits have been made in the rules Field 10: Jul and optimize your ASO databases the file, and what header rows may exist. Field 11: Aug “right” way. 5. On the Delimited tab, choose Tab, Field 12: Sep You are well on your way to build- and on the Header tab, set the number Field 13: Oct ing reporting, analysis, and perfor- of lines to skip to 1. Click OK. Field 14: Nov mance management applications that 6. Select Options -> Associate Field 15: Dec provide tangible benefits and action- Outline, and the Associate Outline able information to your organiza- window will open. Choose the Juggle 5. Select Options -> Validate to vali- tion. We’ve covered only the tip of database, and click OK. date the rules file (check out the Oracle the iceberg when it comes to Oracle 7. Select Options -> Data Load Essbase Database Administrator’s Guide Essbase, so we encourage you to deep- Settings, and the Data Load Settings for a complete listing of rules file dive into Oracle Essbase and learn window will open. restrictions). about all the features and functions On the Data Load Values tab, 6. Select File -> Save to save the rules this EPM powerhouse can provide. Go you can define whether this rules file file. forth and aggregate. ■ should overwrite, add to, or subtract We have the datafile; we have the from existing values or if it should data load rules file. Let’s load some data! Tracy McMullen ([email protected]), perform sign flipping of data values 1. Within Administration Services, director, and Edward Roske ([email protected]), during the load. On the Header select the Juggle database and choose CEO, deliver EPM solutions for clients at interRel Definition tab, you define any headers Actions -> Load data for “Juggle” Consulting (www.interrel.com). Winner of the 2008 that may be needed for the source. from the menu. The Data Load window and 2009 Enterprise Performance Management and When data is being loaded, all dimen- will open. Business Intelligence Solution of the Year Oracle sions must be referenced either in the 2. Choose Overwrite Existing values, North America Titan Awards, interRel Consulting file or as a header. and leave the default values for the provides consulting, training, infrastructure, support, 1. For our example, select the Header other options. and software services for Oracle EPM solutions. Definition tab. Expand Scenario, and 3. Click Find Data File, as shown in double-click Actual to select it as the Figure 5, and navigate to the dimen- header (your datafile contains actual sion datafile (the text file you just data, even though the datafile doesn’t downloaded). nextSTEPS specifically say so). Click OK. 4. Click Find Rules File, and navigate READ 2. In the Data Prep Editor, select Field to the data load rules file (the rules file Oracle Essbase documentation -> Properties, and the Field Properties you just created). download.oracle.com/docs/cd/e12825_01/nav/ portal_3.htm window will open. This is where you 5. Accept the defaults for the Error will map the columns to dimensions or File location and name. Oracle enterprise performance management system documentation members and identifying data values. 6. Check the Overwrite check box if otn.oracle.com/documentation/epm.html 3. Next select the Data Load you want the error file to replace an Look Smarter Than You Are with Essbase 11: An Administrator’s Guide Properties tab. (Ignore the Dimension error file that may already exist, and, www.lulu.com/content/6402010 Build Properties tab, because we are finally, click OK to load the data. more Roske focusing on data loading.) Here you Congratulations! Thanks to your looksmarter.blogspot.com select the dimension that maps to the fine work, JWC analysts can now DOWNLOAD field or select a specific member or retrieve and analyze data against the Oracle Essbase select Data Field or select Ignore field Juggle database via Smart View or otn.oracle.com/software/products/bi/performance- management during a data load. other end-user reporting tools. (Oracle sample data for this article 4. On the Data Load Properties tab, Essbase ASO cubes require no further otn.oracle.com/oramag/oracle/10-jan/o10essbase.zip set the appropriate field name to match calculation steps.)

oracle magazine January/February 2010 53

JF10_ESSBASE.indd 53 11/24/09 11:05:04 AM Compression technology by arup nanda

Compressing Columns Compress more with Oracle Exadata Hybrid Columnar Compression.

rganizations are storing increasingly duced online transaction processing With Hybrid Columnar Compression, large amounts of data in their data (OLTP) compression, and that compres- Oracle Exadata Storage Server in Oracle warehouses to support their businesses, sion mechanism replaces a value in a Exadata V2 creates a column vector for and many government regulations and row with a much smaller symbol, reduc- each column, compresses the column industry mandates require this data ing the length of the row. vectors, and stores the column vectors to be archived rather than deleted. In real-world situations, however, in data blocks. The collection of blocks Unchecked, this exponential explosion data is more often repeated in columns, is called a compression unit. The blocks in active and archived data will in a compression unit contain all lead to skyrocketing storage costs the columns for a set of rows, as and slowing query performance as shown in Figure 2. (In Hybrid a result of increased I/O. Columnar Compression, a row Fortunately, Hybrid Columnar typically spans several data blocks.) Compression—a key feature in Oracle Exadata Storage Server Types of HybRid ColumnaR Software in Oracle Exadata CompRession V2—addresses both the data explo- Hybrid Columnar Compression sion and potential I/O bottlenecks. comes in two basic flavors: It minimizes storage requirements warehouse compression and and significantly improves query archive compression. performance, by changing how Warehouse compression. For ware- compressed data is organized. house compression, the compres- Instead of storing rows of the sion algorithm has been optimized table together, Hybrid Columnar for query performance, specifically Compression stores the columns— for scan-oriented queries used where the data has similar characteristics not rows. For example, here is the data heavily in data warehouses. This —together. The new organization and for a simple (abbreviated) table: approach is ideal for tables that will be the similar characteristics of the column queried frequently. data allow a much better compres- FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME Here is how you create a table with sion ratio. This article explains how to ------warehouse compression: enable and manage Hybrid Columnar Albert Smith Compression and examines the storage Bernie Smith CREATE TABLE XXX and performance impact. Charles Smith COMPRESS FOR QUERY David Smith AS Rows VeRsus Columns John Smith SELECT * FROM YYY; Traditionally, database table rows have been stored in blocks, as shown in ... and so on ... Archive compression. With archive com- Figure 1. Typically, a row is fully con- pression, the compression algorithm has tained in a block, with the columns The Smith value repeats many times, been optimized for maximum storage of the row stored next to each other. so a great deal of compression can be savings. This approach is ideal for tables However, when the row becomes too achieved by replacing the Smith value that are infrequently accessed. (Note large to fit into a block, the row over- with a much smaller symbol. And that for compressing or decompressing flows into the next block—a phenom- because the same symbol can represent data, archive compression may consume enon known as row chaining—but the all of the repeated Smith values, fewer a significant amount of CPU compared organization of the columns being stored unique symbols will need to be stored, to warehouse compression.) next to each other still remains the same. reducing the size of the compressed Here is how you create a table with

Oracle Database 11g Release 1 intro- data significantly. archive compression: Tim Webb

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JF10_compression.indd 54 11/20/09 9:06:11 AM CREATE TABLE XXX select * from loc_nocomp and LOC_COMPARCHIGH tables are COMPRESS FOR ARCHIVE / created with the query low, query high, AS create table loc_comparchigh archive low, and archive high compression SELECT * FROM YYY; nologging settings, respectively. compress for archive high After the tables have been created, we This is all that’s necessary for enabling as can check the space consumption of the Hybrid Columnar Compression—no select * from loc_nocomp tables by using this query: application changes are necessary. Note / that within each of the two Hybrid SELECT SEGMENT_NAME, Columnar Compression flavors, you can We use data from a table called BYTES/1024/1024 MB also set a HIGH or LOW modifier to LOCATIONS, available from a sample FROM USER_SEGMENTS control the amount of compression. Oracle E-Business Suite database, and WHERE SEGMENT_NAME LIKE ‘LOC%’; Comparing compression performance. then we create one uncompressed table When a table compressed with Hybrid and four compressed tables from this SEGMENT_NAME MB Columnar Compression is read, the source table, with different compression ------CPU consumption may be higher than clauses. The LOC_COMPQRYLOW, LOC_ LOC_NOCOMP 33020 for an uncompressed table. However, COMPQRYHIGH, LOC_COMPARCLOW, LOC_COMPQRYLOW 5455 because the number of blocks returned by a query against a compressed table is Data Block 1 Data Block 2 significantly lower, the logical reads and COL1 COL2 COL3 COL4 COL1 COL2 COL3 COL4 consistent gets are lower as well, often resulting in a reduction in both CPU COL1 COL2 COL3 COL4 COL4 COL1 COL2 COL3 COL4 COL1

consumption and I/O. So, the overall COL4 COL1 COL2 COL3 COL4 COL1 COL2 COL3 COL4 CPU consumption may actually be lower for queries against tables compressed ROW1 ROW2 ROW3 ROW4 ROW5 ROW6 with Hybrid Columnar Compression. Now let’s look at the effects of different Figure 1: Row-centric data block structure compression types and settings on performance with an example table. The following syntax creates our compressed tables: Compression Unit 1

ROW1 COL1 COL2 COL3 COL4 create table loc_nocomp nologging ROW2 COL1 COL2 COL3 COL4 as ROW3 COL1 COL2 COL3 COL4 select * from locations ROW SET / ROW4 COL1 COL2 COL3 COL4

create table loc_compqrylow ROW5 COL1 COL2 COL3 COL4 nologging ROW6 COL1 COL2 COL3 COL4 compress for query low as select * from loc_nocomp Figure 2: A compression unit in Hybrid Columnar Compression / create table loc_compqryhigh Compression Table Size, Elapsed Query Consistent Physical CPU Logical Setting Compared to Time (min:sec) Gets Reads Utilization Reads nologging Uncompressed compress for query high Table as Uncompressed 100.00% 1:39 2,507,953 2,098,606 14,637 2,512,966 select * from loc_nocomp Query low 16.52% 0:18 551,861 350,109 14,936 552,684 / Query high 10.15% 0:12 401,043 220,973 14,783 401,666 create table loc_comparclow Archive low 8.26% 0:15 314,644 185,706 15,966 315,292 nologging compress for archive low Archive high 6.34% 0:08 228,167 143,629 15,452 228,630 as Table 1: Compression of LOCATIONS table and its effect on query performance

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JF10_compression.indd 55 11/20/09 9:06:57 AM Compression

LOC_COMPQRYHIGH 3352 by changing the comptype parameter. data loaded or modified with conven- LOC_COMPARCLOW 2727 In this example, the value is DBMS_ tional data manipulation language (DML) LOC_COMPARCHIGH 2093 COMPRESSION.comp_for_query_low, will be compressed with OLTP table which estimates the compression factor compression. Because there are no DML From the output, we can calculate for the “for query low” clause during restrictions and because Oracle Database the compression ratio (the size of the compression. By changing it to comp_ automatically manages all compression compressed table as a percentage of the for_query_high, comp_for_archive_low, operations, the compression is completely uncompressed one) for each type of or comp_for_archive_high, you can application transparent. compression. estimate the compression factor for the You can also alter an existing, Finally, let’s run a small test to iden- clauses “for query high,” “for archive noncompressed table to use Hybrid tify the resource consumption of a query low,” and “for archive high,” respectively. Columnar Compression. However, when against the tables—the uncompressed as Listing 3 shows the output for all the you alter an existing noncompressed table well as the four compressed tables. The Hybrid Columnar Compression options. to use Hybrid Columnar Compression, code is shown in Listing 1. (Please note the existing table data will not be imme- that the exact output may be different in existing tables diately compressed. Newly loaded rows, your case.) Table 1 shows the summary Tables under Hybrid Columnar but not the existing data, will be com- of the performance metrics as well as the Compression can have data loaded or pressed. To compact the existing data, compression ratios in each case. modified with any type of SQL opera- use ALTER TABLE MOVE. (This same As you can see, with compression set tion. Data that is direct-path-loaded method can be used to migrate OLTP- at query low, the table consumes only will be compressed with the Hybrid compressed rows to Hybrid Columnar 17 percent of the storage required by the Columnar Compression format, whereas Compression.) Listing 4 shows how to original table, whereas the table consumes only 6 percent of the original storage codeLisTinG 1: Performance test for accessing the compressed tables when using archive high. As a result of set serveroutput on size unlimited compression, the query against the com- alter system flush buffer_cache pressed tables required significantly fewer / logical reads, with only modest increases col value noprint new_value start_cpu select value in CPU consumption, and in the case of from v$sesstat s, v$statname n warehouse compression, this significantly where sid = (select sid from v$mystat where rownum < 2) reduces the elapsed time of execution. and s.statistic# = n.statistic# and n.name in (‘CPU used by this session’) With the query high compression setting, / for example, elapsed query time was 12 col value noprint new_value start_reads percent of the time required to run the select value from v$sesstat s, v$statname n same query against the uncompressed where sid = (select sid from v$mystat where rownum < 2) table. Because the number of blocks and s.statistic# = n.statistic# queried was reduced, the logical I/O was and n.name in (‘session logical reads’) / reduced significantly—ultimately reduc- set autot on explain stat ing the elapsed time. set timing on select city, APPLICATION_ID,avg((sysdate-CREATION_DATE)) CheCking for Compression Candidates from LOC_COMQRYLOW group by city, APPLICATION_ID The more aggressive the compression order by city, APPLICATION_ID setting, the greater the space savings, / -- but how can you determine the space -- Repeat the test by replacing the tablename above with savings that would result from using a -- the other compressed table names particular compression setting? -- set autot off You can use the DBMS_ select value - &start_cpu cpu_consumed COMPRESSION package to estimate from v$sesstat s, v$statname n the space savings. Listing 2 shows how where sid = (select sid from v$mystat where rownum < 2) and s.statistic# = n.statistic# to use this package to estimate the and n.name in (‘CPU used by this session’) compression ratio for the LOCATIONS / table compressed with query low. From select value - &start_reads logical_reads from v$sesstat s, v$statname n the output, we can see that the com- where sid = (select sid from v$mystat where rownum < 2) pression ratio would be 7.71 times. and s.statistic# = n.statistic# You can re-execute the package for and n.name in (‘session logical reads’) / each of the other compression types

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JF10_compression.indd 56 11/20/09 9:08:27 AM codeLISTING 2: estimating the compressed table size reduction use ALTER TABLE MOVE to compact a table called LOCATIONS. DECLARE

l_blkcnt_cmp BINARY_INTEGER; Partitions l_blkcnt_uncmp BINARY_INTEGER; If a table to be compressed is partitioned, l_row_cmp BINARY_INTEGER; l_row_uncmp BINARY_INTEGER; you may want to apply different degrees l_cmp_ratio NUMBER; of compression to each partition. For l_comptype_str VARCHAR2 (200); instance, you may want to keep the most BEGIN recent partition uncompressed, the partition for last month compressed for query, DBMS_COMPRESSION.get_compression_ratio ( scratchtbsname => ‘USERS’, and older partitions compressed for ownname => ‘ARUP’, archive. You can easily accomplish that, tabname => ‘LOCATIONS’, as shown in Listing 5. partname => NULL, comptype => DBMS_COMPRESSION.comp_for_query_low, blkcnt_cmp => l_blkcnt_cmp, administration blkcnt_uncmp => l_blkcnt_uncmp, You can check the compression set- row_cmp => l_row_cmp, row_uncmp => l_row_uncmp, tings in place for tables by using the cmp_ratio => l_cmp_ratio, DBA_TABLES view. Compression setting comptype_str => l_comptype_str information for individual partitions ); and subpartitions is available from the DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (‘l_blkcnt_cmp=’ || l_blkcnt_cmp); DBA_TAB_PARTITIONS and DBA_TAB_ DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (‘l_blkcnt_uncmp=’ || l_blkcnt_uncmp); SUBPARTITIONS views, respectively. DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (‘l_row_cmp=’ || l_row_cmp); DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (‘l_row_uncmp=’ || l_row_uncmp); The noteworthy columns are DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (‘l_cmp_ratio=’ || l_cmp_ratio); ■ COMPRESSION, which indicates DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (‘l_comptype_str=’ || l_comptype_str); the compression status of the table or END; partition. The values are ENABLED and DISABLED. For partitioned tables, l_blkcnt_cmp=184 l_blkcnt_uncmp=1419 NULL is shown as the value for tables; l_row_cmp=216 for subpartitioned tables, NONE is l_row_uncmp=27 shown as the value for partitions. l_cmp_ratio=7.71 ■ l_comptype_str=”Compress For Query Low” COMPRESS_FOR, which indicates the compression type. The values are BASIC, LISTING 3: OLTP, QUERY LOW, QUERY HIGH, code Output of dbms_cOmpressiOn for all compression types ARCHIVE LOW, and ARCHIVE HIGH. l_BLKCNT_CMP=178 You can also add and drop columns l_BLKCNT_UNCMP=2147 from hybrid columnar compressed l_ROW_CMP=2501 l_ROW_UNCMP=207 tables. When adding a column, you have l_CMP_RATIO=12.06 to define the column as NOT NULL if l_COMPTYPE_STR=”Compress For Query Low” you are specifying a default value. When

l_BLKCNT_CMP=103 dropping a column, the database marks l_BLKCNT_UNCMP=2006 the column as unused immediately and l_ROW_CMP=4041 drops it later. This avoids a potentially l_ROW_UNCMP=207 l_CMP_RATIO=19.47 long decompression and recompression l_COMPTYPE_STR=”Compress For Query High” operation on the table. (Note that unlike OLTP table compression, which allows l_BLKCNT_CMP=99 l_BLKCNT_UNCMP=1992 only tables with 255 or fewer columns, l_ROW_CMP=4169 Hybrid Columnar Compression allows l_ROW_UNCMP=207 any number of columns.) l_CMP_RATIO=20.12 l_COMPTYPE_STR=”Compress For Archive Low” You can also check for the compression characteristics of a specific row in l_BLKCNT_CMP=66 the table, by executing the GET_ l_BLKCNT_UNCMP=1607 l_ROW_CMP=5049 COMPRESSION_TYPE function in the l_ROW_UNCMP=207 DBMS_COMPRESSION package, shown l_CMP_RATIO=24.34 in Listing 6. The output “8” means that l_COMPTYPE_STR=”Compress For Archive High” the row was compressed with the clause

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JF10_compression.indd 57 11/20/09 9:09:09 AM Compression

codeLisTinG 4: Compressing existing tables “for query low.” Here are the possible outputs and their meanings: SQL> create table loc_normal nologging 2 as select * from locations where rownum < 1000001; 1 Uncompressed -- Let’s check for space consumption 2 Compressed for OLTP

SQL> select bytes, extents from dba_segments where segment_name = ‘LOC_NORMAL’; 4 For query high 8 For query low BYTES EXTENTS 16 For archive high ------1,140,850,688 200 32 For archive low

-- Now alter the table to add compression Locking

SQL> alter table loc_normal compress for query low; When a session locks a row in an uncompressed table, it puts an entry in a con- -- checking for space again struct known as the Interested Transaction SQL> select bytes, extents from dba_segments where segment_name = ‘LOC_NORMAL’; List, inside the block header. When the table is under Hybrid Columnar BYTES EXTENTS Compression, there is no specific block ------1,140,850,688 200 for a given row, so where does Oracle Database put the locking information? -- The space consumption didn’t change. Now, move the table to compress the data In a hybrid columnar compressed SQL> alter table loc_normal move; table, when a lock is placed on a row, Oracle Database locks all the rows in that SQL> select bytes, extents from dba_segments where segment_name = ‘LOC_NORMAL’; compression unit, not just that row. Be BYTES EXTENTS aware of this behavior change and the ------impact it may have on your applications. 167,772,160 91 concLusion -- The table is now compressed OLTP table compression, introduced in codeLisTinG 5: Separate compression mechanisms for different partitions Oracle Database 11g Release 1, allows DML against compressed tables. To CREATE TABLE trans ( accommodate the demands of expo- acc_no number not null, txn_id number not null, nential data growth, Oracle Exadata V2 txn_dt date not null, has introduced a new technology called txn_amt number(15,2) not null Hybrid Columnar Compression that ) PARTITION BY RANGE (txn_dt) changes the fundamental way the data ( is structured inside a block. Instead of partition y09m06 VALUES LESS THAN(TO_DATE(‘2009-07-01’, ’yyyy-mm-dd’)) COMPRESS FOR archive high, grouping rows, it groups like values partition y09m07 VALUES LESS THAN(TO_DATE(‘2009-08-01’, ’yyyy-mm-dd’)) COMPRESS FOR archive low, partition y09m08 VALUES LESS THAN(TO_DATE(‘2009-09-01’, ’yyyy-mm-dd’)) COMPRESS FOR query high, in columns to make the compression partition y09m09 VALUES LESS THAN(TO_DATE(‘2009-10-01’, ’yyyy-mm-dd’)) COMPRESS FOR query low, ratio orders of magnitude higher. This partition y09m10 VALUES LESS THAN(TO_DATE(‘2009-11-01’, ’yyyy-mm-dd’)) nocompress enables databases to store more data for ) data warehousing and archival purposes without a corresponding size increase. ■ codeLisTinG 6: Checking for compression for a specific row

SQL> variable ret number Arup Nanda ([email protected]) has been an Oracle DBA for more than 14 years, handling all SQL> begin 2 :ret := dbms_compression.get_compression_type ( aspects of database administration, from performance 3 ‘ARUP’, ’LOC_COMPQRYLOW’, ’AAASOgAAEAAAAaLAAA’); tuning to security and disaster recovery. He was Oracle 4 end; Magazine’s DBA of the Year in 2003. 5 /

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> print ret nextsTeps

RET LeArn more about ------Hybrid Columnar Compression oracle.com/database/exadata.html 8

58 January/february 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_compression.indd 58 11/20/09 9:09:46 AM Announcing The First OLTP Database Machine

Exadata V2

Hardware by Sun

Software by Oracle

oracle.com/exadata or call 1.800.ORACLE.1

TEMPLATE PUBLICATION NOTES:

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Please examine these publication materials carefully. Any questions regarding the materials, please contact Darci Terlizzi (650) 506-9775 or [email protected]. Application Integration Architecture

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S Size NA S S NA S S S NA PUBLICATION: NS Size NA TBD S = Standard Treatment NS = Non-Standard Treatment NA = Not Applicable

Please examine these publication materials carefully. Any questions regarding the materials, please contact Jodi Cordova (650) 506-5482 or [email protected]. ask tom technology BY tom kYte

A Closer Look at the New Edition Our technologist redefines and defers with Oracle Database 11g Release 2.

nstead of using the usual question-and- objects that constitute your application one occurrence of a stored procedure, answer format of the Ask Tom column, in the database could not be modified trigger, and so on in a schema at a time. I’m going to continue in this issue to while users were using them. If someone In the past, a schema object was explore some of the many new features of was executing a stored procedure and referenced with two components: the Oracle Database 11g Release 2. This time the DBA tried to “patch” it (CREATE OR owner of the object and the object name I’ll be looking at two features: REPLACE the code with new code sup- itself. That would, of course, prevent ■ Edition-Based Redefinition plied by the developer to fix a bug), the the existence of two stored procedures ■ Deferred Segment Creation DBA would get locked out (blocked) by named “P” in a single schema. At most, the person executing the code. you could have one schema object refer- The Killer FeaTure: ediTion-Based Further, anyone else who tried to enced by OWNER. P. redeFiniTion subsequently run a procedure the DBA The edition object in Oracle Database I consider Edition-Based Redefinition was trying to replace would be blocked 11g Release 2 introduces a third dimen- the killer new feature of Oracle Database by the DBA. And in most cases, the sion in the name resolution scheme: all 11g Release 2. In short, it’s the ability to DBA would be replacing not a single objects are now referenced by the edition perform an online application upgrade procedure but many procedures, and of the session, the owner of the object, of your application. It’s also a huge the CREATE OR REPLACE of the new and the object name. Every database feature—so huge that it’ll take at least procedure code would tend to invalidate has at least one edition associated with three columns to describe it. I’ll start with other dependent objects as well. The it, and the database always has a default how to use Edition-Based Redefinition database would appear to “freeze”—the edition. When you create a session in to “patch” systems. Next time, I’ll show DBA could not accomplish the patching Oracle Database 11g Release 2, your how to use Edition-Based Redefinition to tasks (replace a few procedures, pack- session will have an attribute associated minimize downtime during a full-blown ages, views, triggers, and so on), and the with it that denotes the edition your application upgrade that includes physical end users could not accomplish their session will be using (by default, this will schema changes. Last, I’ll show how to tasks (run the procedures to perform be the default edition of the database). remove downtime during that same full- transactions). They ended up blocking Using ALTER SESSION, you may specify blown application upgrade. and locking each other out. any edition to which you have been Over the years, Oracle Database has This all ends with Oracle Database granted access in your session. given us many online operations, such as 11g Release 2 and Edition-Based When you invoke or reference objects ■ Modifying most parameters (Only 90 Redefinition, which enables DBAs and in Oracle Database 11g Release 2, those out of the 350 are not modifiable online.) end users to access more than one occur- objects are dereferenced with the edition ■ Reorganizing objects (turning a non- rence of a stored procedure, a trigger, currently set in your session. That means partitioned table into a partitioned one, a view, and other objects and therefore that an application administrator can reclaiming free space, and so on) to stage—in isolation—the changes in a now log in; alter a session to use an ■ Creating indexes schema. Starting with Oracle Database edition named VERSION2, for example; ■ Applying database patches with Oracle 11g Release 2, a single schema can now and compile code into this edition. Real Application Clusters have two or more occurrences (think The work performed by the application ■ Upgrading Oracle Database from “versions”) of a stored PL/SQL unit administrator in the VERSION2 edition major release to major release (function, type, trigger, and so on) or is visible only in sessions using the The result is that almost any change a view or synonym and all of their VERSION2 edition. Because VERSION2 at the database level could be accom- related metadata such as GRANTs on is not the default edition, no one else plished while the database was up and those objects. (These two occurrences are sees these changes (new procedures, running and performing transactions— independent—they coexist but do not modified views, dropped packages, and with a few glaring exceptions, such as interfere with each other.) The “magic” so on) unless the person specifically re-creating a stored procedure, chang- that permits this is the new edition requests to (via ALTER SESSION) and ing a trigger, adding a grant, revoking a object type—it introduces a new trans- has the privilege to use—to “see”—that grant, and changing a view. In short, the parent namespace that allows more than edition. The application administra-

oracle magazine januarY/feBruarY 2010 61

JF10_asktom.indd 61 11/20/09 9:22:36 AM ask tom

tor is able to create or replace any code So, now I install version 1 of my 3 to demo; without contending with the others application in the DEMO account: Grant succeeded. running the code. If the application administrator needs to replace 50 DEMO> create or replace SQL> grant use PL/SQL units, that person can do so—in 2 procedure my_procedure 2 on edition version2 isolation—all while the in-use produc- 3 as 3 to scott; tion application continues to execute. 4 begin Grant succeeded. The following small example demon- 5 dbms_output.put_line strates this concept. I’ll start as the DBA 6 ( ‘I am version 1.0’ ); The ALTER USER statement enabled by creating a demonstration account and 7 end; the DEMO account to use editions granting it the minimum set of privileges: 8 / of the application code. Without this Procedure created. permission, the DEMO account would SQL> create user demo be able to have only one copy of the 2 identified by demo; DEMO> create or replace code in place at any given time, just User created. 2 procedure my_procedure2 as in Release 7.0 through Release 11.1 3 as of Oracle Database. The GRANT USE SQL> grant create session, 4 begin statements then permit the DEMO and 2 create procedure 5 my_procedure; SCOTT accounts to see the VERSION2 3 to demo; 6 end; edition. Because the DEMO account Grant succeeded. 7 / is edition enabled, it will be able to Procedure created. modify the VERSION2 edition as Now I’ll start the process that will well—it can change the implementa- enable me to create more than one Pretty simple so far, and when I tion of various objects in this edition occurrence of my code objects in the execute this “application,” I see without affecting other editions in database. I’ll need a new edition in order place. The SCOTT account will be able to do this. The following command DEMO> exec my_procedure2 to use just this VERSION2 edition—to creates the new edition: I am version 1.0 set its current edition in its session to VERSION2 and see the objects as they SQL> create edition version2 PL/SQL procedure successfully completed. exist in that edition. 2 as child of ora$base; Now I’ll “patch” my application. Edition created. Now, suppose this application code Logging back in as the DEMO account, has been running in production for a I’ll first see what I have in place after I’ve created an edition named while now and I discover a bug, some- altering my session to use the VERSION2 VERSION2 in my database, and it starts thing I need to fix in the stored proce- edition, as shown in Listing 1. as a child of ORA$BASE. As mentioned dure. In the past, I would have needed So, right now, in the VERSION2 above, every database has at least one a maintenance outage in order to install edition, I have both PL/SQL units (MY_ edition and every database has a default the new code. PROCEDURE and MY_PROCEDURE2), edition. For example, every fresh Oracle Now, however, I can stage the change but as the EDITION_NAME column Database 11g Release 2 install will have in the database while the database is denotes, they are “inherited” from a default edition named ORA$BASE. As up and running and users are execut- ORA$BASE. The VERSION2 edition is a child of ORA$BASE, my VERSION2 ing my code with the default edition pointing at the copy in ORA$BASE; it is edition starts life as a complete copy of (ORA$BASE). First, as the DBA, I need not a physical copy of the code. the default ORA$BASE edition—every- to permit the DEMO account to use I have to fix two bugs. First, I have thing that is true in ORA$BASE is true editions, and then I need to permit a bug in the implementation of MY_ in VERSION2. the DEMO account to see and use the PROCEDURE, and I will be replacing It is important to note, however, that VERSION2 edition. Additionally, for that code. Second, I missed a GRANT this VERSION2 copy is a virtual copy. this demonstration, I am going to let the when I deployed my application—the The CREATE EDITION statement did SCOTT account see and use VERSION2: SCOTT user was supposed to have not physically copy every object from had the EXECUTE privilege on MY_ ORA$BASE into a new VERSION2 SQL> alter user demo PROCEDURE2, but somehow that didn’t edition. Rather, VERSION2 knows to 2 enable editions; happen when I last installed the applica- point to ORA$BASE objects, and it won’t User altered. tion. I’ll start by updating the code: start to use storage in the dictionary until I modify objects in the context of the SQL> grant use DEMO> create or replace VERSION2 edition. 2 on edition version2 2 procedure my_procedure

62 January/february 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_asktom.indd 62 11/20/09 9:23:33 AM 3 as As you can see, I still have only two DEMO> select object_name, 4 begin objects—but there are really three physi- 2 edition_name 5 dbms_output.put_line cal objects there, as you’ll see in a second. 3 from user_objects_AE; 6 ( ‘I am version 2.0’ ); I have MY_PROCEDURE2, which is 7 end; inherited from ORA$BASE, and I have OBJECT_NAME EDITION_NAME 8 / MY_PROCEDURE, which now physically ------Procedure created. exists in the VERSION2 edition. This is MY_PROCEDURE ORA$BASE called actualizing the code—when I have MY_PROCEDURE2 ORA$BASE DEMO> select object_name, a physical copy of the code in the edition, MY_PROCEDURE VERSION2 2 edition_name I have actualized the code in that edition. 3 from user_objects; Using a new set of views that see Looking across the editions, you can across all editions—and end in _AE—I see that I have actualized two physical OBJECT_NAME EDITION_NAME can see the entire state of my DEMO copies of MY_PROCEDURE now: one ------schema. I query the USER_OBJECTS_ in the default ORA$BASE edition and MY_PROCEDURE2 ORA$BASE AE view for OBJECT_NAME and one in the new VERSION2 edition I’m MY_PROCEDURE VERSION2 EDITION_NAME: working in. Now I’ll apply the needed EXECUTE grant to SCOTT: codeLISTING 1: Setting the VERSION2 edition and selecting procedures DEMO> grant execute DEMO> alter session 2 set edition = version2; 2 on my_procedure2 Session altered. 3 to scott; Grant succeeded. DEMO> select object_name, 2 object_type, 3 status, DEMO> select object_name, 4 edition_name 2 edition_name 5 from user_objects; 3 from user_objects; OBJECT_NAME OBJECT_TYPE STATUS EDITION_NAME ------OBJECT_NAME EDITION_NAME MY_PROCEDURE2 PROCEDURE VALID ORA$BASE MY_PROCEDURE PROCEDURE VALID ORA$BASE ------MY_PROCEDURE2 VERSION2 MY_PROCEDURE VERSION2 codeLISTING 2: Executing my_procedure2 in current and VERSION2 editions

DEMO> connect scott/tiger DEMO> select object_name, Connected. 2 edition_name SCOTT> SELECT SYS_CONTEXT 3 from user_objects_AE; 2 (‘userenv’, 3 ‘current_edition_name’) sc 4 FROM DUAL; OBJECT_NAME EDITION_NAME ------SC MY_PROCEDURE2 ORA$BASE ------ORA$BASE MY_PROCEDURE ORA$BASE MY_PROCEDURE2 VERSION2 SCOTT> exec demo.my_procedure2 MY_PROCEDURE VERSION2 BEGIN demo.my_procedure2; END;

* If you look at USER_OBJECTS, you’ll ERROR at line 1: see that I have the two procedures but ORA-06550: line 1, column 7: PLS-00201: identifier ‘DEMO.MY_PROCEDURE2’ must be declared that both have now been actualized ORA-06550: line 1, column 7: in the VERSION2 edition. By grant- PL/SQL: Statement ignored ing the EXECUTE privilege on the

SCOTT> alter session MY_PROCEDURE2 stored procedure 2 set edition = version2; to SCOTT, I made a physical version Session altered. of the stored procedure appear in the

SCOTT> exec demo.my_procedure2 VERSION2 edition, and I applied I am version 2.0 the grant in that edition in isolation, without encountering any concurrency PL/SQL procedure successfully completed. issues (blocking/locking issues because

oracle magazine january/february 2010 63

JF10_asktom.indd 63 11/20/09 9:23:58 AM ask tom

someone was running the procedure). codeLIstING 3: Create one table, create many segments Looking at USER_OBJECTS_AE, you SQL> alter session set can see that there are now four physical 2 deferred_segment_creation=false; objects, two in each edition. Now when I run the MY_ Session altered.

PROCEDURE2 stored procedure in the SQL> create table t1 VERSION2 edition, I see 2 ( x int 3 constraint t1_pk 4 primary key, DEMO> SELECT SYS_CONTEXT 5 y int 2 (‘userenv’, 6 constraint t1_y 3 ‘current_edition_name’) sc 7 unique, 8 z clob 4 FROM DUAL; 9 ) 10 lob( z ) SC 11 store as t1_z_lob 12 (index t1_z_lobidx); ------VERSION2 Table created.

SQL> select segment_name, DEMO> exec my_procedure2 2 extent_id, I am version 2.0 3 bytes 4 from user_extents 5 order by segment_name; PL/SQL procedure successfully completed. SEGMENT_NAME EXTENT_ID BYTES The version 2.0 code is executed. ------T1 0 65536 Now by simply connecting—and T1_PK 0 65536 therefore using the database’s default T1_Y 0 65536 edition (still ORA$BASE)—I instead see T1_Z_LOB 0 65536 T1_Z_LOBIDX 0 65536

DEMO> connect demo/demo Connected. codeLIstING 4: DEFERRED_SEGMENT_CREATION=TRUE

SQL> alter session set DEMO> SELECT SYS_CONTEXT 2 deferred_segment_creation=true; 2 (‘userenv’, 3 ‘current_edition_name’) sc Session altered.

4 FROM DUAL; SQL> create table t2 2 ( x int SC 3 constraint t2_pk 4 primary key, ------5 y int ORA$BASE 6 constraint t2_y 7 unique, 8 z clob DEMO> exec my_procedure2 9 ) I am version 1.0 10 lob( z ) 11 store as t2_z_lob 12 (index t2_z_lobidx); PL/SQL procedure successfully completed. Table created. The version 1.0 code is still there, SQL> select segment_name, and by default it will be executed. 2 extent_id, Further, to see the effect of the 3 bytes EXECUTE privilege I granted to SCOTT, I 4 from user_extents 5 order by segment_name; can connect as SCOTT and try to execute the MY_PROCEDURE2 stored procedure SEGMENT_NAME EXTENT_ID BYTES in the default edition and the VERSION2 ------T1 0 65536 edition, as shown in Listing 2. T1_PK 0 65536 As you can see, when SCOTT is using T1_Y 0 65536 the ORA$BASE edition, SCOTT cannot T1_Z_LOB 0 65536 T1_Z_LOBIDX 0 65536 see or execute the MY_PROCEDURE2

64 January/february 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_asktom.indd 64 11/20/09 9:24:33 AM Announcing APC’s new, interactive energy-saving Smart-UPS.

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Oracle_110_n386w.indd 1 11/4/2009 3:58:01 PM ask tom

stored procedure. However, in the use these tables.). 4 from user_extents VERSION2 edition, SCOTT can see Enter a new feature of Oracle 5 order by segment_name; and execute that procedure, so when Database 11g Release 2: Deferred version 2.0 of the application goes into Segment Creation. It can be set system- SEGMENT_NAME EXTENT_ID BYTES production, SCOTT will get the ability to wide (via an init.ora parameter), session ------execute that procedure by default. by session, or even at the data defini- T1 0 65536 At this point, I’m ready to release this tion language (DDL) statement level. I’ll T1_PK 0 65536 application code to production to be demonstrate this with a session setting, T1_Y 0 65536 used by the user community at large. A which is probably what you would T1_Z_LOB 0 65536 single, simple ALTER DATABASE issued use with a third-party install script to T1_Z_LOBIDX 0 65536 by the DBA sets the current edition for have the creation of the initial extents T2 0 65536 the database to VERSION2, and this deferred until data is actually placed into T2_PK 0 65536 code becomes immediately accessible. each segment. T2_Y 0 65536 I would like to point out that this is First, I’ll demonstrate what has hap- T2_Z_LOB 0 65536 just the tip of the iceberg. Here I had pened historically when we’ve created T2_Z_LOBIDX 0 65536 to do relatively common operations: objects in the database and observe just replace some existing PL/SQL units and how many segments might be created 10 rows selected. change grants on some objects. I did not by a very small, simple CREATE TABLE take the entire application from version statement, as shown in Listing 3. Now I see the segments—my INSERT 1.0 to version 2.0, because that would I ran this DDL in a schema that had statement caused their creation. (Note have involved changing tables and other no created objects whatsoever, so every that the statements used to create these objects that are not “editionable.” So segment you see was created by that segments were executed as a recursive what this column has discussed so far single CREATE TABLE statement. I have transaction and committed immediately. is the very common need to “patch” a segment T1 for the table data, T1_PK Even if I were to roll back the insert, the system, whereby you need to apply code for the default index created in support segments would remain.) ■ changes and privilege changes but no of the primary key, T1_Y for the default physical schema changes such as adding index created in support of the unique Tom Kyte is a database evangelist in Oracle’s Server columns, adding indexes, and alter- constraint, T1_Z_LOB for the large Technologies division and has worked for Oracle since ing tables. I will be addressing how to object (LOB) segment created in support 1993. He is the author of Expert Oracle Database approach those tasks in the next column. of the character large object (CLOB) Architecture: 9i and 10g Programming Techniques and Until then, look at Chapter 19 in column, and finally T1_Z_LOBIDX Solutions (Apress, 2005) and Effective Oracle by Design Oracle Database Advanced Application for the LOB index created on the LOB (Oracle Press, 2003), among others. Developer’s Guide 11g Release 2 (11.2), at segment. A simple CREATE TABLE www.bit.ly/1m2n0J. statement (with three columns) meant the creation of five segments! Look, NothiNg Up My SLeeve Now, let’s see what can happen if I nextstEPs Historically, when you or an application enable Deferred Segment Creation, as ask tom created any database object—a table, an shown in Listing 4. Tom Kyte answers your most difficult technology ques- index, anything that consumed storage— As you can see, no new segments tions. Highlights from that forum appear in this column. the database would create the appro- have been created, even though I asktom.oracle.com priate segments and allocate at least executed a CREATE TABLE statement REaD more tom Expert Oracle Database Architecture: 9i and 10g one initial extent. This extent might be that was identical to the first (with the Programming Techniques and Solutions small—say, 64K—but it was allocated. exception of the names). That is the amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1590595300 Although creating one new 64K goal of Deferred Segment Creation: to Oracle Database Concepts 11g Release 2 (11.2) www.bit.ly/43S9cl extent sounds small, if you do some- defer the allocation of storage until we REaD more about need it. So, let’s need some storage and thing small over and over, it starts to Edition-Based Redefinition add up. For example, some third-party see what happens: Oracle Database Advanced Application (or in-house-developed) applications Developer’s Guide 11g Release 2 (11.2) www.bit.ly/1m2n0J create hundreds or even thousands of SQL> insert into t2 Deferred segment Creation tables that never get used, but new corre- 2 values ( 1, 2, ‘hello world’ ); Oracle Database Administrator’s Guide 11g sponding segments and extents are nev- 1 row created. Release 2 (11.2) ertheless created. (The application tables www.bit.ly/3Vmb2h would be used if you used a particular SQL> select segment_name, DoWNLoaD oracle Database 11g Release 2 feature or option of the application, but 2 extent_id, otn.oracle.com/software/products/database in many of our installations, we do not 3 bytes

66 January/february 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

JF10_asktom_R1.indd 66 12/7/09 2:08:10 PM comment IN THE FIELD by Ian abramson

The Importance of Patches Too many companies leave their databases insufficiently protected.

f someone were to give your organiza- Why aren’t CPUs applied? The that the implementation of technology tion free and dependable software to report demonstrates that organizational security patches is not a task that’s too improve the security and performance of constraints, rather than negligence, are daunting to implement. your database, would you accept it? Or an issue in applying patches promptly. On the organizational side, IT profes- would you just say, “No, thanks”? Recent Respondents say that executive mandates sionals need to push our organizations to surveys suggest that most organizations (17 percent), security audits (13 percent), make sure that the patches get done. Do would forgo such an offer. or requirements from security staff (6 we need more executive buy-in? If so, we In May and August 2008, Independent percent) would give administrators the need to prepare our case and present it. Oracle Users Group (IOUG) and Oracle’s support they need to be more proactive Are security audits unsatisfactory? We can Security Customer Advisory Council with applying CPUs. Budget is also a do our own checks. Are the requirements jointly conducted two online surveys problem. Only 28 percent of respondents from security staff inadequate? Work with to understand how organizations apply reported that IT security–related spending them to form newer guidelines, and then Oracle’s critical patch updates (CPUs) has increased, and about 13 percent— stick to them. There’s not much any one and patch sets and the general state of a threefold jump from 2007—said spend- person can do about budget restrictions, security in Oracle environments. The ing decreased. The complexity of testing but it’s everyone’s responsibility to do the results of these surveys should send patches before applying them is also a most with what’s available. If applications warnings to organizations that value major obstacle to timely compliance. such as Oracle Real Application Testing their information assets. We must find a way around these are in the budget, deploy them. The combined results of the two CPU constraints if we want to ensure our com- If we can save our companies from surveys were published in the Security panies’ data integrity. Applying critical just one security breach, the effort will Patching Practices by Oracle Customers patches late—or not at all—leaves our have been worth it. We owe it to our report and show that only 26 percent data and our companies woefully unpro- organizations to make things better of organizations require applying CPUs tected. We must make applying security despite themselves. ■ systematically when Oracle releases patches a priority if we are to secure our them. Further, 19 percent do not have data effectively. We can do that in two Ian Abramson ([email protected]) is president specific requirements for applying any ways—technically and organizationally. of IOUG and an Oracle ACE focused on business vendor-supplied security patches, as On the technical side, we can take intelligence and data warehousing. Based in Toronto, typically recommended by IT gover- advantage of the tools that Oracle pro- Canada, he is the director of the Enterprise Data Group nance frameworks such as COBIT and vides for evaluating, testing, and apply- for Thoughtcorp, a technology consulting company. He ISO 27001. An additional 11 percent ing patches using the Oracle Enterprise is coauthor of Oracle Database 11g Beginner’s Guide report that their policies do not extend Manager interface. Oracle Real (Oracle Press, 2008). to Oracle patches. Application Testing combines a work- Even more startling was the fact load capture and replay feature with a that 36 percent of organizations require SQL performance analyzer to help you next justifying the use of the Oracle security test changes against real-life workloads STEPS patches. A small number of respondents and then help you fine-tune the changes JOIN IOUG (6 percent) also reported that the system- before putting them into production. www.ioug.org atic application of Oracle CPUs is limited Oracle Application Testing Suite lets ATTEND COLLABORATE 10 http://collaborate10.ioug.org to mission-critical systems. us perform load testing, functional READ Even organizations that apply CPUs testing, and test management before Security Patching Practices by Oracle Customers do not necessarily apply them in a timely we deploy anything. (By attending the www.ioug.org/networking/sigs/ioug_whitepaper_ fashion. 30 percent apply them before the IOUG Forum at COLLABORATE 10 in cpu_survey.pdf next one is released; 25 percent are only Las Vegas, Nevada, April 18 through other IOUG research www.ioug.org/tech/introresearch.cfm one cycle late (three to six months). The 22, 2010, you can learn from those who LEARN about Oracle Database security rest are six to nine months late or worse. have done this.) Now is the time to oracle.com/database/security.html 11 percent never apply CPUs at all. expand your security toolkit and learn

oracle magazine january/february 2010 67

JF10_in the field_R1.indd 67 12/7/09 2:13:10 PM commentANALYST’S CORNER BY david Baum

Driving Database Innovation Clustering, lower cost, and better performance are key database benefits.

racle Magazine spoke with Carl collecting statistics to make configura- behind logic, for example. This also Olofson, research vice president of tion decisions, to give one example. improves I/O performance. information management and data inte- They can spend more time thinking Oracle Magazine: What are the benefits of gration software at IDC, about database about whether a data structure makes file storage in the database? management technology. sense for a particular application. Olofson: Files that are stored in the Oracle Magazine: How does database Oracle Magazine: What are some of the database can be secured in the same management technology today influence ways that companies can reduce data way that the database data is secured. the choice of system hardware? storage costs? They can be compressed the same way. Olofson: One big issue is the question of Olofson: Data compression and data- They can be backed up and recovered SMP [symmetric multiprocessing] versus base partitioning are two ways. One of the same way, which means you get the commodity hardware. The advantage of Oracle’s approaches entails database par- same high-availability characteristics for using SMP systems is that you have a titioning. Customers can establish parti- files that you get for the database. managed environment, with an operat- tions or “tiers” in the database that let You also achieve better data integrity ing system and management tools built them move infrequently accessed data when performing operations that require in. The obvious advantage of using com- to less-expensive storage platforms. For information from both types of content. modity hardware is the price. However, example, high-throughput transactional For example, consider that business with a commodity hardware cluster, you databases can reside on Tier 1 storage to intelligence may involve not only have to put the cluster together, so the get the best performance. Transactional looking at sales statistics from relational challenge that Oracle has addressed is to data that has reached the end of its life- tables, but also analyzing satisfaction provide the clustering technology that cycle can be moved to less-expensive reports, data from call centers, e-mail, makes that as automatic as possible. Tier 2 storage devices. and other unstructured content. Oracle It used to be that people turned to Oracle Magazine: How can organizations Database 11g Release 2, for example, SMP boxes because as they scaled up, maximize I/O performance without stores all of this information, so the it was the only way to go. Now they’ve investing in faster hardware? operational mechanisms for data recov- got another alternative, which is cluster- Olofson: One way that database manage- ery, failover, and so forth are exactly the ing. And clustering provides integration ment systems do this is by caching in same. Thus you have confidence that a among the nodes to allow the system to the form of in-memory databases, which file-based report will always match the be flexible and perform well, and you serve as a front end to the database database numbers it references. So that’s can also do things like rolling upgrades and reduce the number of requests that a good argument for maintaining all of and swapping boxes in and out and have to go back to the data server itself. your content in one place. ■ adjusting the resources as needed. And compression not only helps reduce Oracle Magazine: How are DBAs dealing storage costs, it also effectively makes David Baum ([email protected]) is a freelance with the challenge of maintaining large your database buffers bigger because business writer based in Santa Barbara, California. database management systems? you can put more data in them, and Olofson: Maintaining large and complex therefore you do less I/O. IDC (www.idc.com) provides advisory services, market databases will always require special With respect to Oracle in par- intelligence, and events for the IT, telecommunications, expertise. However, today’s management ticular, caching is a big part of what and consumer technology markets. tools are becoming more comprehensive they’re doing with the Oracle TimesTen and easier to use. For example, Oracle In-Memory Database, which enables Enterprise Manager lets DBAs focus on applications to access, capture, and nextSTEPS database organization and use, instead update information more quickly. READ more about of routine administrative issues such as Oracle’s latest database management Oracle Database 11g Release 2 how to rebuild indexes. The software system [Oracle Database 11g Release oracle.com/database DOWNLOAD advises them about data distribution, 2] optimizes the way that data is laid Oracle Database 11g Release 2 partitioning, and other functions. This out on the disks as well as the way it’s otn.oracle.com/software/products/database means that they don’t have to waste time retrieved—with read-ahead and write-

68 JanuarY/FeBruarY 2010 oracle.com/oraclemagazine

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