Simon Haslam's Oracle Fusion Middleware blog

OUGN 2013 - Conference Experience

I've not been to Norway since I was a child so it was a new experience for me to visit Oslo for the Oracle User Group Norway (OUGN) Spring Seminar earlier in the week. 

I was invited to OUGN a couple of years ago by Norwegian fellow Oracle middleware specialist, Jon Petter Hjulstad from e-vita. Timing didn't work out for me last year but I made a point of blocking out the week this year. If I'm honest I didn't know that much about it but fancied a change of scenery and had never been on a cruise before (it's known fondly as "the booze cruise" because onboard alcohol is duty-free not, as I'd thought, because it was populated by battle-hardened DBAs!).

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Oracle Database Appliance X3-2: Official Launch

Today was the official launch of the Oracle Database Appliance (ODA) X3-2 in a webcast delivered by Oracle President Mark Hurd and Database Senior VP Andy Mendelsohn, and they were joined with a panel of 3 customers. You can replay the webcast here.

This announcement has brought together a set of recent improvements to ODA:

  • hardware component updates,
  • an optional additional storage array,
  • a virtualisation option to allow you to run the database and other products in VMs,
  • a licence change to allow you to run Oracle Traffic Director (OTD) on ODA (not just Exalogic),
  • the packaging up of WebLogic and for ODA.
ODA X3-2 Launch

I have covered all of the above, except the new OTD licence entitlement, in previous posts. Instead let's think about where ODA, and specifically the WLS+Database combination on ODA, might be most useful to customers, by looking at its key benefits.

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Oracle Database Appliance X3-2 - Initial Impressions

Today Oracle has released an updated version of the Oracle Database Appliance (ODA), consistently named X3-2 like the other Exa systems. Regular readers will know that I have relatively recently developed an interest in the ODA since Oracle started discussing running components of the Fusion Middleware stack on it.

Here are my initial impressions of the new hardware, based on the publically available technical specifications (e.g. data sheet) and in comparison to the previous version.

A hardware update has been inevitable for some time but I thought this was going to be simple processor/motherboard/chipset refresh as the Intel X5675 processors in the first version of ODA were getting relatively old (important when you license software by core). This indeed is partly what has happened to the ODA hardware, but certainly not the full story...
 Oracle Database Appliance X3-2
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Oracle Fusion Middleware Partner Community (SOA and WebLogic) Forum in Faro

Last week I attended Oracle's Fusion Middleware Partner Community event in Vilamoura (near Faro, Portugal). This is maybe my fifth or sixth forum in succession now so I thought I'd outline the latest one to show why I find them so useful.

Boats in Valamoura harbour, February 2013

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Oracle Middleware Partner Community Awards 2012

Last week I attended the Oracle Partner Community Forum (SOA and WebLogic) in Portugal. Whilst I picked up lots of new nuggets of information from my peers and Oracle product management, one thing that caught me completely by surprise was being given an Oracle WebLogic Partner Community Award for "Outstanding WebLogic 12c Contribution 2012."

I was quite touched by this - compared to the heady days when I used to work at a big SI (Logica) as small niche player recognition and thanks are relatively hard to come by! There are also a lot of very dedicated professionals out there and I'm only a tiny part of the whole Fusion Middleware community. I am honoured though and (in topical Oscars style..!) am very grateful to everyone who's helped me out on UKOUG SIGs and conference over the last year, in particular the Middleware Sunday 'crew': Jacco Landlust of course, Frank Munz, René van Wijk, plus those who I often call upon to bounce ideas around with, like Ronald van LuttikhuizenAndreas Chatziantoniou, Markus Eisele, Chris Muir, Steve Millidge and others whom I've almost certainly missed. Finally, Middleware Sunday wouldn't have been possible without Oracle's support, so a big thanks back to Jürgen Kress for that!

I was also very pleased to see...

 WebLogic Partner Community Award - Outstanding WebLogic 12c Contribution 2012
WebLogic Community award


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