Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g Launch plus Q&A
03 Jul 2009 by Simon Haslam (in Events) | Comments (0)
Yesterday I attended Oracle's UK launch of Fusion Middleware 11g. The day consisted of substantial sessions by Charles Phillips and Thomas Kurian in the morning, followed by specialist sessions in the afternoon delivered by the likes of Mike Lehmann and Vince Casarez. I was also fortunate enough to be invited along to a Q&A session with Thomas Kurian (more of which later). OFM 11g is a tour de force - I don't think I've seen such a broad Oracle technology release before. I have tried to distill the key points from yesterday in this write-up, based on my own interests (the technical aspects of WebLogic Server, SOA, Identity Management and ADF) but this is only really scratching the surface. |  |
Charles Phillips, Oracle's President, outlined the overall context and said the drivers for OFM 11g came from the need to deliver the latest requirements for applications (rich interfaces, 'enterprise 2.0' functionality, coordinated identity management and governance) and to exploit technology trends (multi-core processors, 64 bit/low cost memory, virtualisation & storage). Apparently this release has consisted of over 1,987 projects, taken 7,350 person-years and 13 million hours of testing and, in doing so, Oracle has spent $3bn on R&D... a pretty big project then!
[Read More]OFM 11g Install Types
19 Jun 2009 by Simon Haslam (in General) | Comments (0)
The UK Oracle User Group held a very informative Application Server & Middleware SIG meeting yesterday. Whilst no doubt we'll all find out more details about OFM 11g on 1st July (with the UK launch event being held on 2nd July), Oracle Support did give some interesting tasters (as approved by Product Management). |  |
- Web tier (Web Cache, Oracle HTTP Server)
- WebLogic Server
- 'Classic' (Forms/Reports/Portal/Discoverer)
- SOA
- WebCenter
- Identity Management
- Repository Creation Utility (RCU)
Fusion Middleware 11g will be the first major release to include all the components since 10.1.2.0.2 and there will be migration procedures from the various installation types (Forms, SOA, IdM etc) of 10g R2 and 10g R3.
It's good to see the "web-tier" installation type which I assume will include the WebLogic plug-in preconfigured in OHS (the version based on Apache 2). Hopefully there will also be an option not to install Web Cache if you don't need it. Quite which installer will be used for all this (OUI, BEA's or some sort of hybrid) remains to be seen.
I also welcome the appearance of the Repository Creation Utiliity (an evolution of MRCA) from the start as it suggests that the middleware data will be appropriately installed in the database tier, rather than 'embedded' in an infrastructure server as was the case with a default install of OAS 10g.
Slides from the day are available to members on the UKOUG website (check back in a day or two for those that haven't yet been published by the UKOUG office).
OFM 11g Launch Event - 1 July 2009
03 Jun 2009 by Simon Haslam (in General)
| Yesterday Oracle publically announced the launch event for Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g on 1st July, to be held in Washington DC, USA (and presumably there will be a webcast for those of us across the pond!). This time last year Thomas Kurian develivered a webcast covering the strategy for the Middleware product set following the BEA acquisition - here we are, exactly a year later, and much of the work is complete. | |  |
Certainly OFM 11g has been eagerly anticipated and is, I think Oracle would agree, long overdue...
[Read More]The Rise in Popularity of BIG-IP Load Balancers
31 May 2009 by Simon Haslam (in HA)
| In my experience the vast majority of high availability Oracle application server installations use hardware load balancers. Whilst there are software alternatives, Web Cache 10g in particular for Oracle environments, several factors make hardware appliances attractive: |  |
- they are self contained and easily sized,
- widespread usage in webserver farms makes them a known quantity,
- they tend to be treated as 'fit and forget',
- relatively inexpensive,
- basic load balancing is a mature technology.
Servers using new Intel 5500 Processors are on their way
13 Apr 2009 by Simon Haslam (in General)
| Servers incorporating the new Intel 5500 series 'Nehalem' processors are now appearing - the parts are listed with distribution (e.g. HP DL380 G6 or BL460c G6 blade, IBM x3650 M2, Sun TBC - see Sun UK launch) and deliveries are expected within a few weeks. This is excellent news for customers aiming to get more out of their Oracle Application Server licences! |  |