Oracle Day Nigeria: Engineered Systems for the Nigerian Market

At the Oracle Day in Nigeria held recently, it was an opportunity to bring to the Oracle Partners and customers in Nigeria the latest innovation and development from Oracle which is engineered to drive their businesses effectively and also as it affects Africa and especially Nigeria.

 

At the event, Alexander Jenewein, the regional Sales Director West and Central Africa-Hardware said “Oracle engineered systems for businesses have been built to help businesses optimise their processes effectively, reduce cost and also have time to focus on satisfying their customers rather than expend energy and money deploying separate IT solutions, with our engineered systems, the hardware and software components have been built together to work effectively”

He further explained that Oracle products have been built considering the demands of their customers even in Africa. Nigerian customers of Oracle can now get full support for their Hardware and Software products from Oracle here in Nigeria. Alexander also said that Oracle is working on having Oracle authorised solution centre in Lagos where they will showcase Oracle product and services for businesses, and provide support their customers.

Another special area of interest is in terms of Education, Training and certification for the Nigerian market, Oracle expert in charge of Oracle University for Nigeria, Lynda Abah said that henceforth Nigeria has become a centre of Oracle University where training and certification can be directly carried out from Nigeria through Oracle experts.

What Happened at the Oracle Open World 2012

More than 50,000 people from 123 countries around the world once again gathered in San Francisco for Oracle Openworld 2012, the world’s largest technology show. This year, they were joined by more than a million online participants.  At this year’s event, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison was joined by many technology industry leaders, as well as special guests, including Michael Lewis, best-selling author; Clayton Christensen, author and world-renowned innovation expert; Seth Godin, best-selling author and customer experience thought leader; Dr. Robert Ballard, oceanographer, scientist and discoverer of the Titantic; Connie Chung, journalist and news anchor; and Joe Montana, Hall of Fame quarterback.

On-demand replays of each day’s keynotes can be accessed here. Photos from keynotes and the event’s media programme and general scenes from the event can be found here.

 

Oracle Cloud Computing

Oracle made a significant announcement in this area, as it unveiled an expanded Cloud Services Portfolio:

• Oracle announced preview availability of seven new Oracle Cloud Services, including: Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service; Oracle Financial Reporting Cloud Service; Oracle Data and Insight Cloud Service; Oracle Social Sites Cloud Service; Oracle Developer Cloud Service; Oracle Storage Cloud Service: Enables businesses to store and manage digital content in the cloud, integrated with other Oracle Cloud services that require online storage; Oracle Messaging Cloud Service.
• The seven new Oracle Cloud preview services augment Oracle’s comprehensive portfolio of Platform Services, Application Services, and Social Services, all available on a subscription basis.
• The pricing model is simple, predictable and based on a monthly subscription model. Customers can choose to sign up for month-to-month subscriptions or longer term contracts.

The other Cloud-related announcement that Oracle made was Solaris 11.1, delivering over 300 new performance and feature enhancements to the Oracle Solaris 11 product family. Oracle Solaris 11 is the first cloud OS that allows customers to build large-scale enterprise-class Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS),Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) clouds on a wide range of SPARC and x86 servers and engineered systems.

Oracle Engineered Systems

The show kicked off with the keynote of Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle. The major news in this opening keynote at Oracle OpenWorld was the announcement of Oracle Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machine.

The Oracle Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machine can store hundreds of Terabytes of compressed user data in Flash and RAM memory, virtually eliminating the performance overhead of reads and writes to slow disk drives. In order to realize the highest performance at the lowest cost, the Oracle Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machine implements a mass memory hierarchy that automatically moves all active data into Flash and RAM memory, while keeping less active data on low-cost disks. It delivers four times the Flash memory capacity of the previous generation; with up to 40 percent faster response times and 100 GB/second data scan rates.  It also delivers 20 times more capacity for database writes through updated Exadata Smart Flash Cache software.

The new Exadata Smart Flash Cache software also runs on previous generation Exadata systems, increasing their capacity for writes tenfold.

Building on news from Larry Ellison’s keynote on Sunday, Oracle announced the availability of enhanced analytics software optimized for Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine, the industry’s first high-speed engineered system featuring in-memory business intelligence (BI) software and hardware to deliver extreme performance for analytic and performance management applications. New capabilities in Oracle Exalytics enhance customers’ ability to quickly access and leverage data assets in real-time, from information discovery to visual and mobile analytics.

Oracle also announced Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud X3-2, the second hardware generation of the company’s flagship engineered system for running business applications. Incorporating the fastest and most modern CPUs, flash memory and network fabric technologies, the new Oracle Exalogic X3-2 builds on the recent release of Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud Software 2.0  to provide customers with extreme performance for the most highly mission-critical, large scale private cloud deployments at the infrastructure-as-a-service layer.

Another Engineered Systems announcement focused on the Communications Industry – Oracle’s first industry-specific Engineered System – the Oracle Network Applications Platform. This is specifically designed to meet the extreme network workload requirements for the development and deployment of mission-critical communications services and applications.  The communications industry is experiencing rapid mobile broadband network growth, a proliferation of smart connected devices and intensifying competition.  Network equipment providers (NEPs) and communications service providers (CSPs) must innovate faster and at a lower cost.

Oracle Network Applications Platform is an application-ready engineered system combining Oracle’s Sun Netra 6000, Oracle’s Sun ZFS Storage 7320,Oracle Linux, Oracle VM, Oracle Enterprise Manager, Oracle Communications Service Availability (OCSA) and Oracle Clusterware software technologies.  By standardizing the pre-configured, integrated and tested Oracle Network Applications Platform, which can deliver up to seven 9’s (99.99999%) service availability and unified platform management, Oracle customers can reduce platform integration and testing and operational costs, accelerate time-to market of new services and thus shift highly-skilled resources to focus on innovation.

 

Oracle Database and Middleware

During his second keynote presentation, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison announced the Oracle Social Relationship Management (SRM) Suite. This is an integrated enterprise service that enables companies to listen, engage, create, market, and analyze interactions across multiple social platforms in real-time providing a holistic view of the consumer.

Oracle Social Relationship Management Suite is integrated with Oracle’s enterprise applications, including Oracle Fusion Marketing, Oracle Fusion Sales Catalog, Oracle ATG Web Commerce, and Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), allowing organizations to use social to transform their corporate business processes and systems.

Additionally, Oracle Social Relationship Management Suite is integrated with Oracle Platform Services, including Oracle Java Cloud Service and Oracle Database Cloud Service, enabling marketing teams to integrate social with their custom Web pages, landing pages and marketing tools.

Oracle also announced the release of Oracle Identity Governance Suite, a key component of Oracle Identity Management 11g Release 2, which provides customers with a single comprehensive, platform for access request, provisioning, role lifecycle management and privileged account management among its many features.

Finally, Oracle announced a new release of Oracle Business Intelligence (BI), including expanded mobility and intuitive visualization capabilities. It comes with enhanced mobile capabilities, reflecting a show-wide trend towards mobile device optimization, including a new user experience designed for maximum productivity and interactivity. Oracle Business Intelligence Release 11.1.1.6.2BP1 helps users easily identify and analyze trends and take immediate action from their preferred mobile device.

 

Oracle Applications

Further reflecting the growing popularity of mobile devices in the professional world, Oracle announced the availability of Oracle Fusion Tap, a native iPad application that redefines the level of productivity users can achieve while on-the-go. Oracle Fusion Tap runs off cloud-based enterprise applications and across Oracle Application Cloud Services, requiring only one simple Apple App Store installation. Automatically personalized to each user, Oracle Fusion Tap gives users exactly what they need at their fingertips and provides the long-sought, key functionalities to remain productive and to keep business moving, even when away from the desk or travelling.

Other Applications news included the unveiling of a waste management solution for the Oracle E-Business suite, which will reduce the cost and complexity of compliance with international recycling and environmental protection laws.

Extending the capabilities within Oracle Depot Repair, Oracle Transportation Management and Oracle Global Trade Management, the waste management solution for the Oracle E-Business Suite  automates and monitors waste management processes to help ensure that hazardous materials are tracked and handled in accordance with regulatory requirements.

By providing real-time visibility into the current location and status of controlled materials, Oracle’s waste management solution for the Oracle E-Business Suite enables businesses and their reverse supply chain partners to avoid fines and recover the maximum extractable value from used assets and salvaged parts. The solution is available to all Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 customers on the latest maintenance pack.

Underlining the gathering momentum behind its Fusion Applications, Oracle announced that more than 25 of the 100-plus customers who have selected Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management (HCM) are already live. Ardent Leisure, Peach Aviation, Toshiba Medical Systems and Zillow have deployed Oracle HCM Cloud Service and are using it to transform their HR operations. They join companies such as Principal Financial Group and Elizabeth Arden, who are already using Oracle HCM Cloud Service to help manage international growth and deliver pervasive, role-based, configurable solutions to their employees.

 

Oracle Industries

A theme within Larry Ellison’s first keynote was the rise of cloud and the role of elastic charging within the infrastructure-as-a-service offering. And on that subject, Oracle announced the extension of the Oracle Communications billing and revenue management product family with an innovative elastic charging engine.

The Oracle Communications Elastic Charging Engine is a 100 percent real-time rating and balance management engine designed using patent-pending technology to process high-volume, next-generation communications services with unprecedented performance and efficiency. It can process more than three billion events per hour on a single Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud system. At this level of performance, the Oracle Communications Elastic Charging Engine is capable of rating and charging every phone call made in the world each day in real-time.

It is a powerful response to skyrocketing data usage, smartphone and tablet proliferation, and consumers’ increasing demand for choice and control which have forced communications service providers (CSPs) to evaluate their current rating and charging capabilities for voice, data, cloud and machine-to-machine services. Thus, CSPs must consider factors including system performance and scalability, efficiency and business flexibility.

Oracle Insurance also made an announcement of OpenWorld with news that it introduced Oracle Insurance Policy Administration for Life and Annuity 9.5 to support the rapidly changing global insurance environment around life, annuity and retirement products.

The latest release of Oracle’s adaptive policy administration solution includes market-driven enhancements that:

• Can help speed new product introduction
• Can help foster product innovation
• Can help reduce policyholder servicing costs
• Boosts employee productivity

 

Oracle Partners

In a significant development for Oracle and its partners, Oracle PartnerNetwork Exchange@OpenWorld made its debut, with content-rich sessions, valuable certification opportunities, networking events, and more, all dedicated to connecting Oracle’s partners with the Oracle executives, experts, customers, and prospects who will help grow their business with Oracle. Some news came out of the event:

• To date, more than 4,600 Oracle partners have become Specialized with 11 Diamond level partners, representing over 21,000 individual Specializations, and 29,000 certified specialists worldwide. Next fiscal year, to achieve Diamond level status, partners must complete 30 Specializations, 10 Advanced Specializations and generate $100 million in Oracle co-sell and re-sell.
• EMEA-based Oracle Partners from Germany, Egypt, Netherlands, Qatar, UK and Spain were revealed as winners of the Oracle Excellence Awards 2012 EMEA Specialized Partner of the Year at the Oracle PartnerNetwork Keynote hosted by Judson Alhtoff held at Oracle OpenWorld on Sunday, September 30th..
• Hitachi was recognized as a Diamond Level Partner in the Oracle PartnerNetwork. This is the highest possible ranking available and reflects Hitachi’s is committment to helping clients bring their business visions to life through industry led services and solutions. For more than two decades, Hitachi has helped clients maximize the business benefits of their Oracle Applications.

The company made a significant announcement about its Cloud Strategy for partners, based on the OPN Exchange Keynote from Judson Althoff, Oracle has unveiled a comprehensive new set of Oracle Cloud partner programs and enablement resources that help partners to speed time to market with new cloud-based services and solutions and deliver increased value to customers. New Oracle PartnerNetwork Cloud offerings include an Oracle Cloud Referral Program, Oracle Cloud Specialization featuring RapidStart and Oracle Cloud Builder Specializations, Oracle Cloud Resale Program and Oracle Platform Services for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs).

In other partner news, Oracle has announced that more than 100 leading ISVs are integrating in the cloud with Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud Service, a service available through Oracle Cloud. The news demonstrates Oracle’s ongoing commitment to business value via open standards and the cloud. For the first time Oracle Sales and Marketing Cloud Service users can choose from a wide array of directly integrated third-party solutions, providing a new level of choice, seamless deployment and single view of customers with preferred implementations.

To support its growing partner ecosystem, Oracle announced enhanced tools and programs for Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c, including  a new Enterprise Manager Extensibility Exchange, updated Oracle PartnerNetwork Enterprise Manager Knowledge Zone, and additional Enterprise Manager Extensibility Kit resources, enabling management of all software and hardware assets from a “single pane of glass,” to help partners accelerate their transformation to the public and private cloud.

The new Enterprise Manager Extensibility Exchange provides a “one-stop shop” of resources for partners to submit their own extensions for  Oracle Enterprise Manager, including management plug-ins, management connectors, deployment procedures, data masking templates and more.

Finally, Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) announced the winners of its 2012 Oracle Excellence Awards for Specialized Partner of the Year – Global. Winners were recognized for their commitment to delivering innovative, Specialized solutions and services based on Oracle applications, middleware and hardware. Two partners from EMEA featured among the winners: Mannai Trading Company (in the Industry category) and Capgemini España S.L.U. (Oracle-on-Oracle)

JavaOne News

Oracle made several announcements on day one of the JavaOne conference which ran in San Francisco at the same time as Oracle OpenWorld 2012:

• On a general note, during the JavaOne 2012 strategy keynote, Hasan Rizvi, executive vice president, Oracle Fusion Middleware and Java, and the Oracle Java Development team leaders outlined plans for the future of the Java platform and highlighted the latest Java technology innovations. Phil Rogers, AMD Corporate Fellow and HSA Foundation President, joined Oracle on stage to discuss Project Sumatra, which was recently approved in the OpenJDK Community. Project Sumatra will explore how Java can be extended to support heterogeneous computing models for improved performance and power consumption. Canoo, Cinterion, Navis, National Geographic, Nike and the Royal Canadian Mint also joined Oracle during the keynote to discuss their latest Java-based projects.
• Oracle took the opportunity of the show to highlight Java EE momentum. Oracle showcased the latest developments in the evolution of Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) and discussed plans for the upcoming Java EE 7 release. Java EE continues to be hugely popular with increasing developer adoption and over 50 million downloads of Java EE components, including Oracle GlassFish Server, and 14 Java EE 6 compliant application server implementations currently available from IT vendors. Java EE 7, the next generation of Java EE, is targeted for release in the second quarter of 2013.
• The company also announced its plans for advancing the Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) and JavaFX with an update on the Java SE and JavaFX roadmap. Beginning with the Java SE 7 Update 6, released in August of 2012, consumers and developers have access to the latest Java SE features and security updates across all major desktop operating systems: Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.
• The 2012 Duke’s Choice Awards winners and their creative, Java-based technologies and Java community contributions were highlighted during JavaOne. The 10th anniversary of the Duke’s Choice Awards features the first-ever Community Choice Award, which was given to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for its MASE Integrated Console Environment (MICE). Among the winners of the Duke’s Choice awards were the Apache Software Foundation Hadoop Project, the London Java Community and the Student Nokia Development Group.
• At Java Embedded @ JavaOne 2012, Oracle executives outlined innovations in its Java embedded product line and discussed how Java can help customers and partners enhance business opportunities and intelligence in areas such as networking, consumer products, Machine-to-Machine (M2M) modules and industrial automation. With nearly two decades of innovation, Java continues to be a widely adopted technology solution for enterprises worldwide and powers over 3 billion devices.