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• Greetings!!!!

  - by [email protected]

  Greetings everyone!If you're reading this, hopefully it's because you have been following our series of webcasts on Oracle 11gR2 that we've been hosting on Wordpress. If you found us some other way, well that's even better - the more the merrier as they say.In either case, welcome to our new blog!!! Over the next few days, Ill move the old posts from wordpress to here its all in the one location.Right! Who are we? The authors of this blog are the ANZ Inside Consulting Team.Currently, this is made of of:Tom JurcicYasin MohammedAndrew ClarkeRene Poels and me - Alex BlythBasically, our role in Oracle is to help users of our technologies get the most of their existing investments as well as what's new, old, blue, what have you...Ideally, this is all going to be technical in nature and not of a marketing nature (we'll leave the marketing up to others).For now, there's obviously not much here. But that won't last too long. In the mean time, those who are interested can find replays and slides of our previous webcasts on the "Oracle 11g Webcasts" page.Till next timeAlex

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• Anatomy of a serialization killer

  - by Brian Donahue

  As I had mentioned last month, I have been working on a project to create an easy-to-use managed debugger. It's still an internal tool that we use at Red Gate as part of product support to analyze application errors on customer's computers, and as such, should be easy to use and not require installation. Since the project has got rather large and important, I had decided to use SmartAssembly to protect all of my hard work. This was trivial for the most part, but the loading and saving of results was broken by SA after using the obfuscation, rendering the loading and saving of XML results basically useless, although the merging and error reporting was an absolute godsend and definitely worth the price of admission. (Well, I get my Red Gate licenses for free, but you know what I mean!)My initial reaction was to simply exclude the serializable results class and all of its' members from obfuscation, and that was just dandy, but a few weeks on I decided to look into exactly why serialization had broken and change the code to work with SA so I could write any new code to be compatible with SmartAssembly and save me some additional testing and changes to the SA project.In simple terms, SA does all that it can to prevent serialization problems, for instance, it will not obfuscate public members of a DLL and it will exclude any types with the Serializable attribute from obfuscation. This prevents public members and properties from being made private and having the name changed. If the serialization is done inside the executable, however, public members have the access changed to private and are renamed. That was my first problem, because my types were in the executable assembly and implemented ISerializable, but did not have the Serializable attribute set on them!public class RedFlagResults : ISerializable        {        }The second problem caused by the pruning feature. Although RedFlagResults had public members, they were not truly properties, and used the GetObjectData() method of ISerializable to serialize the members. For that reason, SA could not exclude these members from pruning and further broke the serialization. public class RedFlagResults : ISerializable        {                public List<RedFlag.Exception> Exceptions;                 #region ISerializable Members                 public void GetObjectData(SerializationInfo info, StreamingContext context)                {                                info.AddValue("Exceptions", Exceptions);                }                 #endregionSo to fix this, it was necessary to make Exceptions a proper property by implementing get and set on it. Also, I added the Serializable attribute so that I don't have to exclude the class from obfuscation in the SA project any more. The DoNotPrune attribute means I do not need to exclude the class from pruning.[Serializable, SmartAssembly.Attributes.DoNotPrune]        public class RedFlagResults        {                public List<RedFlag.Exception> Exceptions {get;set;}        }Similarly, the Exception class gets the Serializable and DoNotPrune attributes applied so all of its' properties are excluded from obfuscation.Now my project has some protection from prying eyes by scrambling up the code so it's harder to reverse-engineer, without breaking anything. SmartAssembly has also provided the benefit of merging so that the end-user doesn't need to extract all of the DLL files needed by RedFlag into a directory, and can be run directly from the .zip archive. When an error occurs (hey, I'm only human!), an exception report can be sent to me so I can see what went wrong without having to, er, debug the debugger.

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• Weblogic domain scale up using EM Grid Control 11gR1

  - by dmitry.nefedkin(at)oracle.com

  As you know a weblogic domain consists of set of servers running independently or in a cluster mode, sharing the distributed resources. And in most environments weblogic  cluster consists of multiple managed servers running simultaneously and working together to provide increased scalability and reliability.  These servers can run on the same machine, or be located on different machines.  It's a common task to increase a cluster's capacity by adding new machines to the cluster to host the new server instances.  You can do it by manually installing weblogic binaries to the new host and use pack/unpack commands to add a managed server to this new host.  But with Enterprise Manager Grid Control 11gR1 (EMGC) there is  another way - Fusion Middleware Domain Scale Up  procedure. I'm going to show you how it works.Here is a picture of  my medrec_oradb weblogic domain, what is registered in EMGC. It contains an admin server and a cluster MedRecCluster with  the single managed server MS1. Both admin and managed servers are on the same host oel46-vmware, it's a virtual machine with OEL 4.6 that runs inside our Oracle VM infrastructure.  And here are the application deployments, note that couple of applications are deployed to the cluster.First of all I have to prepare a new machine that will host new managed sever of my cluster. I created new VM with OEL 5.4 using the corresponding Oracle VM template available in Oracle E-Delivery site for Oracle Linux and Oracle VM and named it wls1032. Next step is to install Oracle EM Grid Control 11gR1 Agent to this new host.  You can download it from the OTN page and install it manually,  or you can use Agent Installation Deployment procedure available in EMGC  (Deployments->Agent Installation->Install Agent). Anyway, when you agent is up and running on the new machine, you will see it in EMGC Console in the Targets->Hosts subtab.Now we are ready to scale up our weblogic domain. Click the Deployments tab in Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control, and then click Deployment Procedure. Select a Fusion Middleware Domain Scale Up procedure from the list, and click Schedule Deployment. The first page of the FMW Domain Scale Up Wizard is displayed and you can proceed with the deployment process.Select the domain from list, enter the working directory on the admin server host, and also fill the weblogic credentials for the administration server console and the OS credentials for the  admin server host.  Click Next button.  The next step allows you to configure you domain, to add a new manager server to the cluster you should select the cluster in the tree and click Add Server button. Select the newly added server in a tree, choose the target host and  enter the configuration details of your managed server. You can also add new machine and node manager details.  Please note that you cannot change the values in  Domain Location and Fusion Middleware Home fields, so these locations on the target host will be the same as for the admin server host.   Working directory on the target host should have enough free space to store FMW home binaries and domain configuration files.  In my experience the working directories should have at least 3 Gb of free space.  The last thing you should fill is the OS credentials for the target host. The next steps allows you to schedule the execution of the procedure, it is started immediately in my example. The last step is just a review the configuration for the domain scale up. Click Submit to launch the process. You can track the status of the procedure execution by selecting Deployments->Deployment Procedures->Procedure Completion Status in the EMGC Console.As you can see in the picture below, the procedure consists of the many steps, and I'm going to share my experience about the issues that I had at some of the steps. Please keep in mind that you can always continue the execution from the last successfully completed step by clicking Retry button.Check OUI Prerequisites  step may fail if the target host does  not pass prerequisites checks for Weblogic Server installation such as amount of RAM, linux packages installed, etc. Create FMW Clone Archive step may fail if you do not have enough free space in the working directory on the administration server host.Transfer cloning archive to targets  step  may fail if the EMGC agents on the admin server host or on target host are not secured.   You should secure the agent by issuing ./emctl secure agent  command from $AGENT_HOME/bin directory and entering the agent registration password.Both Transfer cloning archive to targets and Apply Clone at target hosts steps may fail if you do not have enough free space in the working directory on the target host. The most complicated issue I had on the Run Inventory Collection  step. The step failed and I noticed that the agent on the target server is also failed with the following error in the $AGENT_HOME/sysman/log/emagent.trc  log file:2010-12-28 11:50:34,310 Thread-2838952848 ERROR upload: Failed to upload file A0000008.xml: Fatal Error.Response received: 500|ORA-20603: The timezone of the multiagent target (/Farm_Localhost_MedRec_medrec_oradb/medrec_oradb,weblogic_domain)is not consistent with the timezone (America/Los_Angeles) reported by other agents.2010-12-28 11:50:34,310 Thread-2838952848 ERROR upload: 1 Failure(s) in a row or XML error for A0000008.xml, retcode = -6, we give up2010-12-28 11:50:35,552 Thread-2838952848 WARN  upload: FxferSend: received fatal error in header from repository: https://oel46-vmware:1159/em/uploadFATAL_ERROR::500|ORA-20603: The timezone of the multiagent target (/Farm_Localhost_MedRec_medrec_oradb/medrec_oradb,weblogic_domain)is not consistent with the timezone (America/Los_Angeles) reported by other agents.2010-12-28 11:50:35,552 Thread-2838952848 ERROR upload: number of fatal error exceeds the limit 32010-12-28 11:50:35,552 Thread-2838952848 ERROR upload: agent will shutdown now2010-12-28 11:50:35,552 Thread-2838952848 ERROR : Signalled to Exit with status 55. Too many fatal upload failures2010-12-28 11:50:35,552 Thread-2838952848 ERROR upload: 1 Failure(s) in a row or XML error for A0000008.xml, retcode = -6, we give up2010-12-28 11:50:35,552 Thread-3044607680 ERROR main: EMAgent abnormal terminatingI checked the timezone of my domain target inside EMGC repositoryselect timezone_regionfrom mgmt_targets where target_type = 'weblogic_domain'  and display_name = 'medrec_oradb'"TIMEZONE_REGION""America/Los_Angeles"Then checked the timezone of my agents and indeed, they differedselect target_name, timezone_region from mgmt_targets where type_display_name = 'Agent'"TARGET_NAME"    "TIMEZONE_REGION""oel46-vmware:3872"    "America/Los_Angeles""wls1032.imc.fors.ru:3872"    "America/New_York"So I had to change the timezone on the wls1032 host and propagate this changes to the agent and to the EMGC repository. Here was the steps:issued system-config-date command on wls1032.imc.fors.ru  and set timezone to "America/Los_Angeles"propagated the changes to the agent bu executing ./emctl resetTZ agent  command from $AGENT_HOME/bin directoryconnected to EMGC repository as sysman and executed the following PL/SQL block:   begin      mgmt_target.set_agent_tzrgn('wls1032.imc.fors.ru:3872','America/Los_Angeles');      commit;   end;After that I had to clear the pending uploads on wls1032.imc.fors.ru:  rm -r $AGENT_HOME/sysman/emd/state/*  rm -r $AGENT_HOME/sysman/emd/collection/*  rm -r $AGENT_HOME/sysman/emd/upload/*  rm $AGENT_HOME/sysman/emd/lastupld.xml  rm $AGENT_HOME/sysman/emd/agntstmp.txt  $AGENT_HOME/bin/emctl start agent  $AGENT_HOME/bin/emctl clearstate agentThe last part of this solution was to resync the agent in EMGC console by clicking Agent Resynchronization button (please leave "Unblock agent on successful completion of agent resynchronization" checkbox checked in the next screen).After that I issued ./emctl upload command from $AGENT_HOME/bin on the wls1032 host,  and my previous error disappeared,  but I catched another one: EMD upload error: Failed to upload file A0000004.xml: HTTP error.Response received: ERROR-400|Data will be rejected for upload from agent 'https://wls1032.imc.fors.ru:3872/emd/main/', max size limit for direct load exceeded [7544731/5242880]So the uploading XML file size was 7 Mb, and the limit on OMS was 5 Mb.  To increase the max file size limit to 20 Mb I had to connect to the OMS host and execute the following commands from $OMS_HOME/bin directory: ./emctl set property -name em.loader.maxDirectLoadFileSz -value 20971520 -module emoms ./emctl stop oms ./emctl start omsAfter that I issued ./emctl upload command from $AGENT_HOME/bin on the wls1032 one more time and it completed successfully.   The agent uploaded the configuration information to the EMGC  repository and I was able to see the results of my weblogic domain scale-up in EMGC Console.DeploymentsSo, now the weblogic cluster contains 2 managed servers located on the different hosts. This powerful feature of the Enterprise Manager Grid Control  is a part of  the WebLogic Server Management Pack Enterprise Edition.

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• Squeezing hardware

  - by [email protected]

  It's very common that high availability means duplicate hardware so costs grows up.Nowadays, CIOs and DBAs has the main challenge of reduce the money spent increasing the performance and the availability. Since Grid Infrastructure 11gR2, there is a new feature that helps them to afford this challenge: Server PoolsNow, in Grid Infrastructure 11gR2, you can define server pools across the cluster setting up the minimum number of servers, the maximum and how important is the pool.For example:Consider  that "Velasco, Boixeda & co"  has 3 apps in a 6 servers cluster.First One is the main core business appSecond one is Mid RangeAnd third it's a database not very important.We Define the following resource requirements for expected workload:1- Main App 2 servers required2- Mid Range App requires 1 server3- Is not a required app in case of disasterThe we define 3 server pools across the cluster:1- Main pool min two servers, max three servers, importance four2- Mid pool, min one server max two servers, importance two3- test pool,min zero servers, max one server, importance oneSo the initial configuration is:-Main pool has three servers-Mid pool has two servers-Test pool has one serverLogically, we can see the cluster like this:If any server fails, the following algorithm will be applied:1.-The server pool of least importance2.-IF server pools are of the same importance,   THEN then the Server Pool that has more than its defined minimum servers Is chosenHope it helps 

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• Oracle Database Machine and Exadata Storage Server

  - by jean-marc.gaudron(at)oracle.com

  Master Note for Oracle Database Machine and Exadata Storage Server (Doc ID 1187674.1)This Master Note is intended to provide an index and references to the most frequently used My Oracle Support Notes with respect to Oracle Exadata and Oracle Database Machine environments. This Master Note is subdivided into categories to allow for easy access and reference to notes that are applicable to your area of interest. This includes the following categories: • Database Machine and Exadata Storage Server Concepts and Overview• Database Machine and Exadata Storage Server Configuration and Administration• Database Machine and Exadata Storage Server Troubleshooting and Debugging• Database Machine and Exadata Storage Server Best Practices• Database Machine and Exadata Storage Server Patching• Database Machine and Exadata Storage Server Documentation and References• Database Machine and Exadata Storage Server Known Problems• ASM and RAC Documentation• Using My Oracle Support Effectively

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• UPK Professional Customer Success Story: Medtronic

  - by [email protected]

  In case you missed the live event, be sure to listen to last week's UPK Customer iSeminar featuring Medtronic. This was the first iSeminar in our quarterly series to showcase UPK Professional (UPK and Knowledge Pathways). Donna Miller and Staci Gilbert gave viewers an inside look at samples of Medtronic's content as they shared their experiences, methodology and best practices for use of the solution. Here are some highlights of the call: • Medtronic initially purchased UPK Professional to support a multi-year, global SAP rollout for 9,000 end users located in 24 countries. • As time went on, they expanded their use of UPK Professional to include several of their other enterprise applications: PeopleSoft, Siebel CRM, Hyperion Financial Management, a number of SAP bolt-ons, Documentum, TrackWise, and many others. • In combination with their Saba LMS, UPK Professional has allowed Medtronic to create, deploy, track and certify consistent end user training for critical transactions and processes across their organization worldwide - essential for a company in a heavily regulated industry. • For key pieces of content or certain end user populations, some Medtronic business units localize/translate the global UPK content. Staci demonstrated examples of their SAP content which has been translated into Japanese. • In the live SAP environment, end users rely on UPK's context sensitive in-application performance support. Medtronic has found this to be very helpful post go-live, giving just-in-time support so end users are confident in a new system or when performing tasks they don't often touch (at quarter or year end). UPK also serves as Medtronic's internal Google. • Medtronic has realized savings on many fronts: reduction in support calls due to in-application performance support, elimination of their training clients, and speedier training (1.5 days rather than 5-7 days) of temporary workers by moving from ILT to a blended solution that includes UPK simulations for eLearning. Thanks again to Donna and Staci for an exceptional presentation. They offered so many great examples for anyone who's looking for ways to get more out of UPK or interested in learning about UPK Professional: Knowledge Pathways. - Karen Rihs, Oracle UPK Outbound Product Management

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• ORA-4030 Troubleshooting

  - by [email protected]

  QUICKLINK: Note 399497.1 FAQ ORA-4030 Note 1088087.1 : ORA-4030 Diagnostic Tools [Video]   Have you observed an ORA-0430 error reported in your alert log? ORA-4030 errors are raised when memory or resources are requested from the Operating System and the Operating System is unable to provide the memory or resources.   The arguments included with the ORA-4030 are often important to narrowing down the problem. For more specifics on the ORA-4030 error and scenarios that lead to this problem, see Note 399497.1 FAQ ORA-4030.   Looking for the best way to diagnose? There are several available diagnostic tools (error tracing, 11g Diagnosibility, OCM, Process Memory Guides, RDA, OSW, diagnostic scripts) that collectively can prove powerful for identifying the cause of the ORA-4030.    Error Tracing   The ORA-4030 error usually occurs on the client workstation and for this reason, a trace file and alert log entry may not have been generated on the server side.  It may be necessary to add additional tracing events to get initial diagnostics on the problem. To setup tracing to trap the ORA-4030, on the server use the following in SQLPlus: alter system set events '4030 trace name heapdump level 536870917;name errorstack level 3';Once the error reoccurs with the event set, you can turn off  tracing using the following command in SQLPlus:alter system set events '4030 trace name context off; name context off';NOTE:   See more diagnostics information to collect in Note 399497.1  11g DiagnosibilityStarting with Oracle Database 11g Release 1, the Diagnosability infrastructure was introduced which places traces and core files into a location controlled by the DIAGNOSTIC_DEST initialization parameter when an incident, such as an ORA-4030 occurs.  For earlier versions, the trace file will be written to either USER_DUMP_DEST (if the error was caught in a user process) or BACKGROUND_DUMP_DEST (if the error was caught in a background process like PMON or SMON). The trace file may contain vital information about what led to the error condition.    Note 443529.1 11g Quick Steps to Package and Send Critical Error Diagnostic Informationto Support[Video]  Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM) Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM) works with My Oracle Support to enable proactive support capability that helps you organize, collect and manage your Oracle configurations. Oracle Configuration Manager Quick Start Guide Note 548815.1: My Oracle Support Configuration Management FAQ Note 250434.1: BULLETIN: Learn More About My Oracle Support Configuration Manager    General Process Memory Guides   An ORA-4030 indicates a limit has been reached with respect to the Oracle process private memory allocation.    Each Operating System will handle memory allocations with Oracle slightly differently. Solaris     Note 163763.1Linux       Note 341782.1IBM AIX   Notes 166491.1 and 123754.1HP           Note 166490.1Windows Note 225349.1, Note 373602.1, Note 231159.1, Note 269495.1, Note 762031.1Generic    Note 169706.1   RDAThe RDA report will show more detailed information about the database and Server Configuration. Note 414966.1 RDA Documentation Index Download RDA -- refer to Note 314422.1 Remote Diagnostic Agent (RDA) 4 - Getting Started OS Watcher (OSW)This tool is designed to gather Operating System side statistics to compare with the findings from the database.  This is a key tool in cases where memory usage is higher than expected on the server while not experiencing ORA-4030 errors currently. Reference more details on setup and usage in Note 301137.1 OS Watcher User Guide Diagnostic Scripts   Refer to Note 1088087.1 : ORA-4030 Diagnostic Tools [Video] Common Causes/Solutions The ORA-4030 can occur for a variety of reasons.  Some common causes are:   * OS Memory limit reached such as physical memory and/or swap/virtual paging.   For instance, IBM AIX can experience ORA-4030 issues related to swap scenarios.  See Note 740603.1 10.2.0.4 not using large pages on AIX for more on that problem. Also reference Note 188149.1 for pointers on 10g and stack size issues.* OS limits reached (kernel or user shell limits) that limit overall, user level or process level memory * OS limit on PGA memory size due to SGA attach address           Reference: Note 1028623.6 SOLARIS How to Relocate the SGA* Oracle internal limit on functionality like PL/SQL varrays or bulk collections. ORA-4030 errors will include arguments like "pl/sql vc2" "pmucalm coll" "pmuccst: adt/re".  See Coding Pointers for pointers on application design to get around these issues* Application design causing limits to be reached* Bug - space leaks, heap leaks   ***For reference to the content in this blog, refer to Note.1088267.1 Master Note for Diagnosing ORA-4030

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• ASP.NET Localization: Enabling resource expressions with an external resource assembly

  - by Brian Schroer

  I have several related projects that need the same localized text, so my global resources files are in a shared assembly that’s referenced by each of those projects. It took an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to have my .resx files generate “public” properties instead of “internal” so I could have a shared resources assembly (apparently it was pretty tricky pre-VS2008, and my “googling” bogged me down some out-of-date instructions). It’s easy though – Just change the “Custom Tool” to “PublicResXFileCodeGenerator”:    …which can be done via the “Access Modifier” dropdown of the resource file designer window:   A reference to my shared resources DLL gives me the ability to use the resources in code, but by default, the ASP.NET resource expression syntax: <asp:Button ID="BeerButton" runat="server" Text="<%$ Resources:MyResources, Beer %>" />   …assumes that your resources are in your web site project.   To make resource expressions work with my shared resources assembly, I added two classes to the resources assembly: 1) a custom IResourceProvider implementation:   1: using System; 2: using System.Web.Compilation; 3: using System.Globalization; 4:   5: namespace DuffBeer 6: { 7: public class CustomResourceProvider : IResourceProvider 8: { 9: public object GetObject(string resourceKey, CultureInfo culture) 10: { 11: return MyResources.ResourceManager.GetObject(resourceKey, culture); 12: } 13:   14: public System.Resources.IResourceReader ResourceReader 15: { 16: get { throw new NotSupportedException(); } 17: } 18: } 19: }   2) and a custom factory class inheriting from the ResourceProviderFactory base class:   1: using System; 2: using System.Web.Compilation; 3:   4: namespace DuffBeer 5: { 6: public class CustomResourceProviderFactory : ResourceProviderFactory 7: { 8: public override IResourceProvider CreateGlobalResourceProvider(string classKey) 9: { 10: return new CustomResourceProvider(); 11: } 12:   13: public override IResourceProvider CreateLocalResourceProvider(string virtualPath) 14: { 15: throw new NotSupportedException(String.Format( 16: "{0} does not support local resources.", 17: this.GetType().Name)); 18: } 19: } 20: }   In the “system.web / globalization” section of my web.config file, I point the “resourceProviderFactoryType" property to my custom factory:   <system.web> <globalization culture="auto:en-US" uiCulture="auto:en-US" resourceProviderFactoryType="DuffBeer.CustomResourceProviderFactory, DuffBeer" />   This simple approach met my needs for these projects , but if you want to create reusable resource provider and factory classes that allow you to specify the assembly in the resource expression, the instructions are here.

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• Oracle TechCast Live: "MySQL 5.5 Does Windows"

  - by bertrand.matthelie(at)oracle.com

  @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }a:link, span.MsoHyperlink { color: blue; text-decoration: underline; }a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed { color: purple; text-decoration: underline; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Interested in MySQL on Windows? Join our next Oracle TechCast Live on Tuesday January 11th at 10.00 am PT! MySQL Product Manager Mike Frank will then tell you all about the major MySQL 5.5 performance gains on Windows.   In case you're not familiar with the Oracle TechCast Live events, they're akin to online "fireside chats" with experts about new tools, technologies and trends in application development. They also include live Q&A sessions, and you can ask questions via Twitter & Facebook. You can check out a few archived sessions here.   Get ready to ask your questions to Mike!   We hope many of you will join.

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• Virtualization in Solaris 11 Express

  - by lynn.rohrer(at)oracle.com

  In Oracle Solaris 10 we introduced Oracle Solaris Containers -- lightweight virtual application environments that allow you to consolidate your Oracle Solaris applications onto a single Oracle Solaris server and make the most of your system resources.The majority of our customers are now using Oracle Solaris Containers on their enterprise systems for applications ranging from web servers to Oracle Database installations. We can also make these Containers highly available with Oracle Solaris Cluster, the industry's first virtualization-aware enterprise cluster product. Using Oracle Solaris Cluster you can failover applications in a Container to another Container on a single system or across systems for additional availability.We've added significant features in Oracle Solaris 11 Express to improve and extend the Oracle Solaris Zone model:Integration of Zones with our new Solaris 11 packaging system (aka Image Packaging System) to provide easy software updates within a zoneSupport for Oracle Solaris 10 Zones to run your Solaris 10 applications unaltered on an Oracle Solaris 11 Express systemIntegration with the new Oracle Solaris 11 network stack architecture (more on this in a future blog post)Improved observability with the zonestat management interface and commandsDelegated administration rights for owners of individual non-global zonesTight integration with Oracle Solaris ZFS to allow dedicated datasets per zoneWith ZFS as the default file system we can now provide easy to manage Boot Environments for zonesThis quick summary is just to whet your appetite to learn more about Oracle Solaris 11 Express Zones enhancements. Fortunately we can serve a full meal at the Oracle Solaris 11 Express Technology Spotlight on Virtualization page on the Oracle Technical Network.

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• Great VirtualBox Review

  - by [email protected]

  Great review of VirtualBox - specifically for developers - on the Dr. Dobbs World of Software Development site.  Get it here.Enjoy!

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• Oracle Insurance Gets Innovative with Insurance Business Intelligence

  - by nicole.bruns(at)oracle.com

  Oracle Insurance announced yesterday the availability of Oracle Insurance Insight 7.0, an insurance-specific data warehouse and business intelligence (BI) system that transforms the traditional approach to BI by involving business users in the creation and maintenance."Rapid access to business intelligence is essential to compete and thrive in today's insurance industry," said Srini Venkatasantham, vice president, Product Strategy, Oracle Insurance. "The adaptive data modeling approach of Oracle Insurance Insight 7.0, combined with the insurance-specific data model, offers global insurance companies a faster, easier way to get the intelligence they need to make better-informed business decisions." New Features in Oracle Insurance 7.0 include:"Adaptive Data Modeling" via the new warehouse palette: Gives business users the power to configure lines of business via an easy-to-use warehouse palette tool. Oracle Insurance Insight then automatically creates data warehouse elements - such as line-specific database structures and extract-transform-load (ETL) processes -speeding up time-to-value for BI initiatives. Out-of-the-box insurance models or create-from-scratch option: Includes pre-built content and interfaces for six Property and Casualty (P&C) lines. Additionally, insurers can use the warehouse palette to deploy any and all P&C or General Insurance lines of business from scratch, helping insurers support operations in any country.Leverages Oracle technologies: In addition to Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, the solution includes Oracle Database 11g as well as Oracle Data Integrator Enterprise Edition 11g, which delivers Extract, Load and Transform (E-L-T) architecture and eliminates the need for a separate transformation server. Additionally, the expanded Oracle technology infrastructure enables support for Oracle Exadata. Martina Conlon, a Principal with Novarica's Insurance practice, and author of Business Intelligence in Insurance: Current State, Challenges, and Expectations says, "The need for continued investment by insurers in business intelligence capabilities is widely understood, and the industry is acting. Arming the business intelligence implementation with predefined insurance specific content, and flexible and configurable technology will get these projects up and running faster."Learn moreTo see a demo of the Oracle Insurance Insight system, click hereTo read the press announcement, click here

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• When to favor ASP.NET WebForms over MVC

  - by P.Brian.Mackey

  I know Microsoft has said "ASP.NET MVC is not a replacement for WebForms". Some developers say WebForms is faster to develop than MVC, but I believe this all comes down to comfort level with the technology; so I don't want any answers in this direction. Given that ASP.NET MVC gives a developer more control over our application, why is WebForms not considered obsolete? When should I favor WebForms over MVC for new development?

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• Coherence Special Interest Group: First Meeting in Toronto and Upcoming Events in New York and Calif

  - by [email protected]

  The first meeting of the Toronto Coherence Special Interest Group (TOCSIG). Date: Friday, April 23, 2010 Time: 8:30am-12:00pm Where: Oracle Mississauga Office, Customer Visitation Center, 110 Matheson Blvd. West, Suite 100, Mississauga, ON L5R3P4 Cameron Purdy, Vice President of Development (Oracle), Patrick Peralta, Senior Software Engineer (Oracle), and Noah Arliss, Software Development Manager (Oracle) will be presenting. Further information about this event can be seen here   The New York Coherence SIG is hosting its seventh meeting. Date: Thursday, Apr 15, 2010 Time: 5:30pm-5:45pm ET social and 5:45pm-8:00pm ET presentations Where: Oracle Office, Room 30076, 520 Madison Avenue, 30th Floor, Patrick Peralta, Dr. Gene Gleyzer, and Craig Blitz from Oracle, will be presenting. Further information about this event can be seen here   The Bay Area Coherence SIG is hosting its fifth meeting. Date: Thursday, Apr 29, 2009 Time: 5:30pm-5:45pm PT social and 5:45pm-8:00pm PT presentations Where: Oracle Conference Center, 350 Oracle Parkway, Room 203, Redwood Shores, CA Tom Lubinski from SL Corp., Randy Stafford from the Oracle A-team, and Taylor Gautier from Grid Dynamics will be presenting Further information about this event can be seen here   Great news, aren't they? 

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• Installing Multiple OWB Patches

  - by [email protected]

  When an OUBI bug requires a fix to the Oracle Warehouse Builder (OWB) code, the fix is delivered as an MDL export file that will need to be imported and deployed in OWB. If more than one bug is being patched, then a recent question came in that asked if it would be possible to import one after the next, and then do the deploy steps once? The answer is Yes, all of the imports can be done before any of objects are deployed. Once all of the objects have been deployed, then the TCL scripts that need to be rerun can be run, and then the objects that were changed can be deployed. The order that the MDL files are loaded does not matter unless the same object is in two or more MDL files. In that case, the latest MDL file should be loaded last. For example, if two MDL files both contain changes to the SPLMAP_F_RECENT_CREW mapping, and one was created on January 2, 2009 and the second one was created on March 14, 2009, then the January 2 file should be loaded first and the March 14 file should be loaded second. Note that if the MDL files are always loaded in the order that they were created by Release Services, then this will work correctly.

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• The 2010 Life Insurance Conference - Washington, DC

  - by [email protected]

  How ironic to be in Washington, DC on April 15 - TAX DAY! Fortunately, I avoided IRS offices and attended the much more enjoyable 2010 Life Insurance Conference, presented by LIMRA, LOMA SOA and ACLI. This year's conference offered a variety of tracks focused on the Life Industry including Distribution/Marketing Marketing, Administration, Actuarial/Product Development, Regulatory, Reinsurance and Strategic Management. President and CEO of the ACLI, Frank Keating, opened the event by moderating a session titled "Executive Viewpoint on new Opportunities." Guest speakers included Ted Mathas, President and CEO of NY Life, and John Walters, President and CEO of Hartford Life. Both speakers were insightful as they shared the challenges and opportunities each company faces and the key role life insurance companies play in our society and the global economy. There were several key themes that were reiterated in multiple sessions throughout the conference - the economy is on the rebound, optimism is growing, consumer spending is up and an uptick in employment is likely to follow. The threat of a double dip recession has seemed to passed. Good news for our industry, and welcomed by all in attendance. Of special interest to me, given my background, was some research shared by both The Nolan Group and Novarica in separate sessions. Both firms indicate that policy administration upgrades/replacement projects remain a top priority in 2010. Carriers continue to invest in modern technology. Modern ultra-configurable systems enable carriers to switch from a waterfall to an agile project methodology, which often entails a "culture change" within an organization. Other themes heard throughout the two-day event: Virtually all sessions focused on People, Process and Technology! Product innovation, agility and speed to market are as important as ever. Social Networks and Twitter are becoming more popular ways of communicating with both field and dispersed staff. Several sessions focused on the application, new business and underwriting process. Companies continue looking for ways to increase market agility, accelerate speed to market, address cost issues and improve service levels across the process. They recognize the need to ease the way to do business with both producers and consumers. Author and economic futurist Jeff Thredgold presented an entertaining, informative and humorous general session on Wednesday afternoon that focused on the US and global economies, financial markets and retirement outlook. Thredgold did not disappoint anyone with his message! The Thursday morning general session was keynoted by Therese Vaughan (CEO - NAIC) and Thomas Crawford (President of C2 Group). Both speakers gave a poignant view of the recent financial crisis and discussed "Putting the Pieces Back Together." Therese spoke of the recent financial turmoil and likely changes to regulations to the financial services sector. Tom's topics focused on economic recovery and the political environment in Washington, and how that impacts our industry. Next year's event will be April 11-13, 2011 in Las Vegas. Roger A.Soppe, CLU, LUTCF, is the Senior Director of Insurance Strategy, Oracle Insurance.

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• Why Oracle Delivers More Value than IBM in Data Integration Solutions

  - by irem.radzik(at)oracle.com

  For data integration projects, IT organization look for a robust but an easy-to-use solution, which simplifies enterprise data architecture while providing exceptional value-- not one that adds complexity and costs. This is a major challenge today for customers who are using IBM InfoSphere products like DataStage or Change Data Capture. Whereas, Oracle consistently delivers higher level value with its data integration products such as Oracle Data Integrator, Oracle GoldenGate. There are many differentiators for Oracle's Data Integration offering in comparison to IBM. Here are the top five: Lower cost of ownership Higher performance in both real-time and bulk data movement Ease of use and flexibility Reliability Complete, Open, and Integrated Middleware Offering Architectural differences between products contribute a great deal to these differences. First of all, Oracle's ETL architecture does not require a middle-tier transformation server, something IBM does require. Not only it costs more to manage an additional transformation server including energy costs, but it adds a performance bottleneck as well. In addition, IBM's data integration products are complex and often require lengthy professional services engagements to integrate. This translates to higher costs and delayed time to market. Then there's the reliability factor. Our customers choose Oracle GoldenGate over IBM's InfoSphere Change Data Capture product because Oracle GoldenGate is designed for mission-critical systems that require guaranteed data delivery and automatic recovery in case of process interruptions. On Thursday we will discuss these key differentiators in detail and provide customer examples that chose Oracle over IBM in data integration projects. Join us on Thursday Feb 10th at 11am PT to learn how Oracle delivers more value than IBM in data integration solutions.

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• Ignoring Robots - Or Better Yet, Counting Them Separately

  - by [email protected]

  It is quite common to have web sessions that are undesirable from the point of view of analytics. For example, when there are either internal or external robots that check the site's health, index it or just extract information from it. These robotic session do not behave like humans and if their volume is high enough they can sway the statistics and models.One easy way to deal with these sessions is to define a partitioning variable for all the models that is a flag indicating whether the session is "Normal" or "Robot". Then all the reports and the predictions can use the "Normal" partition, while the counts and statistics for Robots are still available.In order for this to work, though, it is necessary to have two conditions:1. It is possible to identify the Robotic sessions.2. No learning happens before the identification of the session as a robot.The first point is obvious, but the second may require some explanation. While the default in RTD is to learn at the end of the session, it is possible to learn in any entry point. This is a setting for each model. There are various reasons to learn in a specific entry point, for example if there is a desire to capture exactly and precisely the data in the session at the time the event happened as opposed to including changes to the end of the session.In any case, if RTD has already learned on the session before the identification of a robot was done there is no way to retract this learning.Identifying the robotic sessions can be done through the use of rules and heuristics. For example we may use some of the following:Maintain a list of known robotic IPs or domainsDetect very long sessions, lasting more than a few hours or visiting more than 500 pagesDetect "robotic" behaviors like a methodic click on all the link of every pageDetect a session with 10 pages clicked at exactly 20 second intervalsDetect extensive non-linear navigationNow, an interesting experiment would be to use the flag above as an output of a model to see if there are more subtle characteristics of robots such that a model can be used to detect robots, even if they fall through the cracks of rules and heuristics.In any case, the basic and simple technique of partitioning the models by the type of session is simple to implement and provides a lot of advantages.

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• Spotlight on Claims: Serving Customers Under Extreme Conditions

  - by [email protected]

  Oracle Insurance's director of marketing for EMEA, John Sinclair, recently attended the CII Spotlight on Claims event in London. Bad weather and its implications for the insurance industry have become very topical as the frequency and diversity of natural disasters - including rains, wind and snow - has surged across Europe this winter. On England's wettest day on record, the county of Cumbria was flooded with 12 inches of rain within 24 hours. Freezing temperatures wreaked havoc on European travel, causing high speed TVG trains to break down and stranding hundreds of passengers under the English Chanel in a tunnel all night long without heat or electricity. A storm named Xynthia thrashed France and surrounding countries with hurricane force, flooding ports and killing 51 people. After the Spring Equinox, insurers may have thought the worst had past. Then came along Eyjafjallajökull, spewing out vast quantities of volcanic ash in what is turning out to be one of most costly natural disasters in history. Such extreme events challenge insurance companies' ability to service their customers just when customers need their help most. When you add economic downturn and competitive pressures to the mix, insurers are further stretched and required to continually learn and innovate to meet high customer expectations with reduced budgets. These and other issues were hot topics of discussion at the recent "Spotlight on Claims" seminar in London, focused on how weather is affecting claims and the insurance industry. The event was organized by the CII (Chartered Insurance Institute), a group with 90,000 members. CII has been at the forefront in setting professional standards for the insurance industry for over a century. Insurers came to the conference to hear how they could better serve their customers under extreme weather conditions, learn from the experience of their peers, and hear about technological breakthroughs in climate modeling, geographic intelligence and IT. Customer case studies at the conference highlighted the importance of effective and constant communication in handling the overflow of catastrophe related claims. First and foremost is the need to rapidly establish initial communication with claimants to build their confidence in a positive outcome. Ongoing communication then needs to be continued throughout the claims cycle to mange expectations and maintain ownership of the process from start to finish. Strong internal communication to support frontline staff was also deemed critical to successful crisis management, as was communication with the broader insurance ecosystem to tap into extended resources and business intelligence. Advances in technology - such web based systems to access policies and enter first notice of loss in the field - as well as customer-focused self-service portals and multichannel alerts, are instrumental in improving customer satisfaction and helping insurers to deal with the claims surge, which often can reach four or more times normal workloads. Dynamic models of the global climate system can now be used to better understand weather-related risks, and as these models mature it is hoped that they will soon become more accurate in predicting the timing of catastrophic events. Geographic intelligence is also being used within a claims environment to better assess loss reserves and detect fraud. Despite these advances in dealing with catastrophes and predicting their occurrence, there will never be a substitute for qualified front line staff to deal with customers. In light of pressures to streamline efficiency, there was debate as to whether outsourcing was the solution, or whether it was better to build on the people you have. In the final analysis, nearly everybody agreed that in the future insurance companies would have to work better and smarter to keep on top. An appeal was also made for greater collaboration amongst industry participants in dealing with the extreme conditions and systematic stress brought on by natural disasters. It was pointed out that the public oftentimes judged the industry as a whole rather than the individual carriers when it comes to freakish events, and that all would benefit at such times from the pooling of limited resources and professional skills rather than competing in silos for competitive advantage - especially the end customer. One case study that stood out was on how The Motorists Insurance Group was able to power through one of the most devastating catastrophes in recent years - Hurricane Ike. The keys to Motorists' success were superior people, processes and technology. They did a lot of upfront planning and invested in their people, creating a healthy team environment that delivered "max service" even when they were experiencing the same level of devastation as the rest of the population. Processes were rapidly adapted to meet the challenge of the catastrophe and continually adapted to Ike's specific conditions as they evolved. Technology was fundamental to the execution of their strategy, enabling them anywhere access, on the fly reassigning of resources and rapid training to augment the work force. You can learn more about the Motorists experience by watching this video. John Sinclair is marketing director for Oracle Insurance in EMEA. He has more than 20 years of experience in insurance and financial services.

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• Presentaciones del Customers Day sobre E-Business Suite

  - by [email protected]

  Ya están disponibles las presentaciones del Customers Day sobre E-Business Suite, celebrado el pasado 10 de marzo de 2010. En ellas se tratan temas como la política de soporte de por vida de Oracle, la Release 12 del software, las Aplicaciones Analíticas Preconstruidas e Hyperion. Presentacion EBS Customers Day 1 Lifetime SupportView more presentations from oracledirect. Presentacion EBS Customers Day 2 Vision R12View more presentations from oracledirect. Presentacion EBS Customers Day 3 Casos de Exito R12View more presentations from oracledirect. Presentacion EBS Customers Day 4 Aplicaciones Analiticas PreconstruidasView more presentations from oracledirect. Presentacion EBS Customers Day 5 HyperionView more presentations from oracledirect.

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• EL FUTURO DEL CLOUD, A DEBATE EN EL XX CONGRESO NACIONAL DE USUARIOS ORACLE

  - by comunicacion-es_es(at)oracle.com

  Normal 0 21 false false false ES X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} ¡Vuelta a un mini Oracle OpenWorld! La Comunidad de Usuarios de Oracle celebrará en Madrid los próximos 16 y 17 de marzo su XX Congreso Nacional, donde estarán representadas TODAS las áreas de Oracle (aplicaciones, tecnología, hardware y canal). Bajo el lema "Agilidad, innovación y optimización del negocio", contaremos con prestigiosos ponentes internacionales como Massimo Pezzini, vicepresidente de Gartner; Rex Wang, experto en Cloud Computing y vicepresidente de marketing de producto de Oracle; y Janny Ekelson, director de aplicaciones y arquitectura FedEx Express Europa. A parte de los más de 15 casos de éxito, en las más de 40 presentaciones programadas, el Cloud Computing será uno de los temas estrella junto a la estrategia en hardware de Oracle tras la adquisición de Sun. ¡Os esperamos!

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• Stir Trek: Thor Edition Registration Opens March 17th

  - by Brian Jackett

  Registration for Stir Trek: Thor Edition opens at 12:00am “Thors"day March 17th.  Stir Trek is now in its third year and this is the second year I’ve helped with planning.  For those unfamiliar the Stir Trek conference here is the description from the website. Stir Trek is an opportunity to learn about the newest advances and latest trends in Web and Mobile development. There will be 30 Sessions in six tracks, so you can pick the content that interests you the most. And the best part? At the end of the day you will be treated to a private screening of Thor on its opening day!     Last year Stir Trek: Iron Man Edition sold out well before the conference and had a long waitlist.  Based on CodeMash selling out in just 3.5 days earlier this year I highly recommend you register early.  We also have a star studded list of speakers ranging from international experts to local leaders.  This will be the best $35 you spend all year.   Easter Egg:  I originally had an idea that we should start selling tickets at 1:30am rather than 12:00am.  If you can figure out why I proposed 1:30am leave a comment below.  Any good sleuths will find this riddle elementary.         -Frog Out

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• Adventures in MVVM &ndash; ViewModel Location and Creation

  - by Brian Genisio's House Of Bilz

  More Adventures in MVVM In this post, I am going to explore how I prefer to attach ViewModels to my Views.  I have published the code to my ViewModelSupport project on CodePlex in case you'd like to see how it works along with some examples.  Some History My approach to View-First ViewModel creation has evolved over time.  I have constructed ViewModels in code-behind.  I have instantiated ViewModels in the resources sectoin of the view. I have used Prism to resolve ViewModels via Dependency Injection. I have created attached properties that use Dependency Injection containers underneath.  Of all these approaches, I continue to find issues either in composability, blendability or maintainability.  Laurent Bugnion came up with a pretty good approach in MVVM Light Toolkit with his ViewModelLocator, but as John Papa points out, it has maintenance issues.  John paired up with Glen Block to make the ViewModelLocator more generic by using MEF to compose ViewModels.  It is a great approach, but I don’t like baking in specific resolution technologies into the ViewModelSupport project. I bring these people up, not to name drop, but to give them credit for the place I finally landed in my journey to resolve ViewModels.  I have come up with my own version of the ViewModelLocator that is both generic and container agnostic.  The solution is blendable, configurable and simple to use.  Use any resolution mechanism you want: MEF, Unity, Ninject, Activator.Create, Lookup Tables, new, whatever. How to use the locator 1. Create a class to contain your resolution configuration: public class YourViewModelResolver: IViewModelResolver { private YourFavoriteContainer container = new YourFavoriteContainer(); public YourViewModelResolver() { // Configure your container } public object Resolve(string viewModelName) { return container.Resolve(viewModelName); } } Examples of doing this are on CodePlex for MEF, Unity and Activator.CreateInstance. 2. Create your ViewModelLocator with your custom resolver in App.xaml: <VMS:ViewModelLocator x:Key="ViewModelLocator"> <VMS:ViewModelLocator.Resolver> <local:YourViewModelResolver /> </VMS:ViewModelLocator.Resolver> </VMS:ViewModelLocator> 3. Hook up your data context whenever you want a ViewModel (WPF): <Border DataContext="{Binding YourViewModelName, Source={StaticResource ViewModelLocator}}"> This example uses dynamic properties on the ViewModelLocator and passes the name to your resolver to figure out how to compose it. 4. What about Silverlight? Good question.  You can't bind to dynamic properties in Silverlight 4 (crossing my fingers for Silverlight 5), but you CAN use string indexing: <Border DataContext="{Binding [YourViewModelName], Source={StaticResource ViewModelLocator}}"> But, as John Papa points out in his article, there is a silly bug in Silverlight 4 (as of this writing) that will call into the indexer 6 times when it binds.  While this is little more than a nuisance when getting most properties, it can be much more of an issue when you are resolving ViewModels six times.  If this gets in your way, the solution (as pointed out by John), is to use an IndexConverter (instantiated in App.xaml and also included in the project): <Border DataContext="{Binding Source={StaticResource ViewModelLocator}, Converter={StaticResource IndexConverter}, ConverterParameter=YourViewModelName}"> It is a bit uglier than the WPF version (this method will also work in WPF if you prefer), but it is still not all that bad.  Conclusion This approach works really well (I suppose I am a bit biased).  It allows for composability from any mechanisim you choose.  It is blendable (consider serving up different objects in Design Mode if you wish... or different constructors… whatever makes sense to you).  It works in Cider.  It is configurable.  It is flexible.  It is the best way I have found to manage View-First ViewModel hookups.  Thanks to the guys mentioned in this article for getting me to something I love using.  Enjoy.

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• American Modern Insurance Group recognized at 2010 INN VIP Best Practices Awards

  - by [email protected]

  Below: Helen Pitts (right), Oracle Insurance, congratulates Bruce Weisgerber, Munich Re, as he accepts a VIP Best Practices Award on behalf of American Modern Insurance Group.     Oracle Insurance Senior Product Marketing Manager Helen Pitts is attending the 2010 ACORD LOMA Insurance Forum this week at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada, and will be providing updates from the show floor. This is one of my favorite seasons of the year--insurance trade show season. It is a time to reconnect with peers, visit with partners, make new industry connections, and celebrate our customers' achievements. It's especially meaningful when we can share the experience of having one of our Oracle Insurance customers recognized for being an innovator in its business and in the industry. Congratulations to American Modern Insurance Group, part of the Munich Re Group. American Modern earned an Insurance Networking News (INN) 2010 VIP Best Practice Award yesterday evening during the 2010 ACORD LOMA Insurance Forum. The award recognizes an insurer's best practice for use of a specific technology and the role, if feasible, that ACORD data standards played as a part of their business and technology. American Modern received an Honorable Mention for leveraging the Oracle Documaker enterprise document automation solution to: Improve the quality of communications with customers in high value, high-touch lines of business Convert thousands of page elements or "forms" from their previous system, with near pixel-perfect accuracy Increase efficiency and reusability by storing all document elements (fonts, logos, approved wording, etc.) in one place Issue on-demand documents, such as address changes or policy transactions to multiple recipients at once Consolidate all customer communications onto a single platform Gain the ability to send documents to multiple recipients at once, further improving efficiency Empower agents to produce documents in real time via the Web, such as quotes, applications and policy documents, improving carrier-agent relationships Munich Re's Bruce Weisgerber accepted the award on behalf of American Modern from Lloyd Chumbly, vice president of standards at ACORD. In a press release issued after the ceremony Chumbly noted, "This award embodies a philosophy of efficiency--working smarter with standards, these insurers represent the 'best of the best' as chosen by a body of seasoned insurance industry professionals." We couldn't agree with you more, Lloyd. Congratulations again to American Modern on your continued innovation and success. You're definitely a VIP in our book! To learn more about how American Modern is putting its enterprise document automation strategy into practice, click here to read a case study. Helen Pitts is senior product marketing manager for Oracle Insurance.

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• Who Are the BI Users in Your Neighborhood?

  - by Brian Dayton

  Forrester's Boris Evelson recently wrote a blog titled "Who are the BI Personas?" that I enjoyed for a number of reasons. It's a quick read, easy to grasp and (refreshingly) focuses on the users of technology VS the technology. As Evelson admits, he meant to keep the reference chart at a high-level because there are too many different permutations and additional sub-categories to make such a chart useful. For me, I wouldn't head into the technical permutations but more the contextual use of BI and the issues that users experience.  My thoughts brought up more questions than answers such as: Context: -          HOW: With the exception of the "Power User" persona--likely some sort of business or operations analyst? -          WHEN: Are they using the information to make real-time decisions on the front lines (a customer service manager or shipping/logistics VP) or are they using this information for cumulative analysis and business planning? Or both? -          WHERE: What areas of the business are more or less likely to rely on BI across an organization? Human Resources, Operations, Facilities, Finance--- and why are some more prone to use data-driven analysis than others? Issues: -          DELAYS & DRAG ON IT?: One of the persona characteristics Evelson calls out is a reliance on IT. Every persona except for the "Power User" has a heavy reliance on IT for support. What business issues or delays does that cause to users? What is the drag on IT resources who could potentially be creating instead of reporting? -          HOW MANY CLICKS: If BI is being used within the context of a transaction (sales manager looking for upsell opportunities as an example) is that person getting the information within the context of that action or transaction? Or are they minimizing screens, logging into another application or reporting tool, running queries, etc.?   Who are the BI Users in your neighborhood or line of business? Do Evelson's personas resonate--and do the tools that he calls out (he refers to it as "BI Style") resonate with what your personas have or need? Finally, I'm very interested if BI use is viewed as  a bolt-on...or an integrated part of your daily enterprise processes?

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