The latest Specializations Catalog offers a great overview of all qualifying specializations. Key updates for this issue include the announcement of Oracle Commerce 11 and Oracle WebCenter Content 11g criteria updates.

OPN Cloud Connection is the new community for partners to engage with Oracle and other partners. Leverage this unique opportunity and ask your partners to place their cloud questions directly to the Oracle experts!

Next week (Nov. 10-14), 3.500 Devoxxians from 40 different countries will come to sunny Antwerp to attend the 13th edition of Devoxx (Belgium). Devoxx covers a broad range of topics ranging from Java SE, Mobile and Web Development, Embedded... to Java on the Server. This year Server-side Java track has very good contents including a good Java EE 8 coverage. Also, this year, you have the possibility to ask, in advance, questions to any of the speaker. For that, just check a session page and click on 'Send a question to the speaker'.

You can check the full Devoxx agenda here but here are the sessions that will discuss Java EE 8.

• Java EE 8: let's get concrete by Johan Vos and various Java EE Specification Leads.
  Tuesday 09:30 - 12:30 (Room 8)

  This University session is fully devoted to Java EE 8. During 3h, various specifications lead will outline, in some details, their plans for Java EE 8. If you are new to Java EE 8, this should be a good introduction! 

• The Future of MVC in JAX-RS (BoF) with Michal Gajdos
  Tuesday at 19:00 - 20:00 (BoF 2)

• JCP, Adopt-a-JSR, and You (BoF) with Heather VanCura
  Tuesday at 21:00 - 22:00 (BoF 2)

  This is not a pure Java EE 8 session per say but some of the discussed points (e.g. Adopt-A-JSR) will be important for Java EE 8.
  

• HTTP 2.0 comes to Java. What Servlet 4.0 means to you by Ed Burns
  Wednesday at 14:00 - 15:00 (Room 8)
  

• Java EE Game Changers by David Blevins
  Wednesday at 15:10 - 16:10 (Room 8)

• The Future of Java in the Enterprise (Bof) with Anatole Tresch et al.
  Wednesday at 20:00 - 21:00 (BoF1)

• A first look at JSON-B and JSON-P 1.1 by Martin Grebac and David Delabassee
  Thursday at 17:50 - 18:50 (Room 4)

•  The path to CDI 2.0 by Antoine Sabot-Durand
  Friday at 09:30 - 10:30 (Room 5)
  

• MVC 1.0 (JSR 371) by  Manfred Riem
  Friday at 10:45 - 11:45 (Room 4)

And this is just for Java EE 8! Here are some other Java EE related sessions that are worth to mentions too.

• Three hours to build a Java EE application (Hands-on Lab) by Antonio Goncalves et al.
  Tuesday at 09:30 - 12:30
  

• Going farther with CDI 1.2 by Antoine Sabot-Durand
  Tuesday at 13:30 - 16:30 (Room 5)
  

• Concurrency in Enterprise Java by Alexander Heusingfeld
  Wednesday at 16:40 - 17:40 (Room 7)

• Pico Services with Java EE 7 on Java 8 and Docker by Adam Bien
  Wednesday at 12:00 - 13:00 (Room 8) 
  

• Pushing Java EE outside the Enterprise Space: Home Automation by David Delabassee
  Thursday at 14:00 - 15:00 (Room 7)
  

• 50 JMS 2.0 Best Practices in 50 Minutes by Nigel Deakin
  Thursday at 16:40 - 17:40 (Room 4)

Again, this is just an overview, make sure to check full agenda here.

Also, we are still working on the details but do expect some Java EE 8 coverage during the Devoxx Hackergarten.

Oggi le medie imprese possono lavorare come le aziende di maggiori dimensioni presenti nel mondo.

La tua attivitàè iniziata con un'idea, un'ottima idea. La tua azienda è cresciuta. Ed è cresciuta ancora. Poi le cose sono diventate complicate. Ora devi fare in modo che la tua azienda operi in modo più intelligente. Le soluzioni cloud Oracle che supportano 100 moderne best practice sono la risposta.

Hai perso uno di questi webcast? Li puoi vedere on demand QUI

Egyre többen térnek át Database 12c verzióra, azon belül is a nyáron megjelent 12.1.0.2 patchsetre, amihez már megvásárolható a Database In-Memory opció is.

Kiváló anyagokat találhatunk az upgrade és migráció témához Mike Dietrich blogján: https://blogs.oracle.com/UPGRADE/, például:

• Upgrade, Migrate & Consolidate to Oracle Database 12c Refreshed 5-AUG-2014

• Hitchhiker's Guide to Upgrades Upload: 9-AUG-201

Aki most tervezi az áttérést Oracle Database 12c verzióra, vagy már upgrade-elte rendszerét erre a verzióra, keressen meg bátran, beszéljük meg a lehetőségeket és a tapasztalatokat.

The average citizen has a limited understanding of the child welfare system; much of it based on “worst case” news stories that lack context. Allowing these misconceptions and stereotypes to persist is damaging to the system. Social media provides an opportunity to bypass traditional media channels and enables Child Welfare Agencies to build and manage a brand for the child welfare system that strengthens communities by educating and encouraging participation. 

Leveraging Social Media to Connect, Educate, and Strengthen the Community They Serve

Social Media is a new concept for Government. Child Welfare Agencies are beginning to embrace technology to connect with the community they serve. Each day Child Welfare Employees do many good things than never make the news. HHS Agencies are leveraging social media such as Facebook and Twitter to promote the positive things that the HHS Agency is doing. Whether it is promoting children for adoption; increasing foster care capacity; creating communities of practice that enables providers or working with the community to promote their brand. The right tools allow monitoring of social networks to understand impact, sentiment, and participation. With the power of social media, these outreach campaigns can trigger conversations about the value of the system in supporting children and families.

Focus on Campaigns that Work Best:

Abuse of alcohol and drugs has had a dramatic effect on foster care, particularly in the past 20 years. With increasing frequency, children are coming into care because their parents are addicted to alcohol or drugs. Agencies are looking at technology to modernize the way they outreach and recruit foster and adoptive parents.

Child Welfare Recruitment Managers embrace the value of automating campaigns and recruitment strategies. Technology allows them to connect with individuals that they have not had access to in the past. Outbound campaigns allow recruitment managers to nurture new individuals through the process, no matter how or through what channel the individual chooses to engage with the agency. Once they know someone is interested they can deliver the right content in the context the individual is at during their particular stage in the journey.

Often, the public is not familiar with the mission of a child welfare agency.  Having a social media presence allows individuals to be a voyeur and slowly become educated about the agency. Individuals are curious by nature and as the agency promotes articles that highlight how foster care kids are graduating as valedictorian of their high school class; bios of children that are available for adoption; or success stories about foster care parents and CASA volunteers they become more open to the message. Over time, Child Welfare Agencies are able to educate the individual and nurture them until they are comfortable and ready to take that next step whether is just to find out more information, take a training course, or decide to adopt a child in foster care.

Technology provides recruitment managers with data and metrics to determine which campaigns and strategies are most effective, so they can double down on what works and move valuable resources from ineffective marketing campaigns. They can leverage social media to build targeted campaigns towards specific populations, demographics, and communities.

The Future of Connecting and Strengthening the Community:

When it comes to harnessing the power of social media, the majority of Child Welfare Agencies are just getting started. Child Welfare Directors understand that advances in technology have changed not only the way we communicate with each other but it has changed the way the community interacts with government.

Social media’s unique ability to connect people and create communities can serve the needs of the child welfare system. Allowing virtual communities to come together and transform the way the agency connects with the community they serve. These communities can be public groups to encourage participation or private groups so current stakeholders have a forum to communicate. Confidentiality is still perceived as a challenge, whether it is the inbound or outbound message. Automated tools are available that ensure CW Agency complies with confidentiality polity to review posts before publishing messaging. Technology also enables the Agency to determine which posts need immediate response and which to label as customer service issues.

CW Agencies can take advantage of being able to listen and analyze what is being said about the agency around key topics. This allows the agency to proactively respond correct erroneous information and publish public service announcements when needed.

Automated tools make it easy for a child welfare agency to manage the agency’s social presence, provides insights about the work they are doing and how to better communicate with their community while providing the metrics to measure what is working. 

Les solutions Oracle pour Cloud Privé permettent de transformer les organisations IT en apportant une architecture agile, évolutive et mutualisée permettant de répondre à leurs besoins et objectifs.

Inscrivez-vous au séminaire web du 18 novembre 2014 pour comprendre la solution Oracle de cloud privé bases de données (DBaaS): les caractéristiques, les enjeux, les bénéfices, etc...

In Oracle Payables, a payment has a functional dependency on invoice, i.e. the payment needs to be accounted to same liability account as the invoice has been accounted for. In such a scenario, invoice is referred to as the upstream transaction and the payment as the downstream transaction.

In a business flow prior entry application, the upstream accounting is mandatory for the downstream transaction accounting to go through. The accounting journals must be created in each ledger (primary, ALC and secondary) for all upstream transactions to have the accounting to be created in all the related ledgers of primary ledger for the downstream transaction.

Similar dependencies are there for other transactions also like Invoice Cancellation, Prepayment Application, Payment Cancellation, Payment unclearing etc.

Business flow failures generally have the error:

• Error 0 : This line cannot be accounted until the accounting event for the application Payables that it references has been fully accounted.

Old Method:

In order to resolve this situation, users needs to identify and account all upstream transactions before accounting the downstream transactions.  This was more complex for transactions that referenced one or more 11i transactions as the upstream transaction and in some cases it was mandatory to have Hot Patch applied or SLA: Upgrade Historical Subledger Transaction Accounting Program ran to cover the period related to the upstream transaction.  This was required even for accounting a single downstream transaction.

New Method:

With the exciting enhancement delivered via Patch 19568225, downstream transactions failing business flow for an upgraded upstream transaction can be successfully accounted using ON-LINE accounting of the downstream transaction.

With on-the-fly upgrade, a new profile option SLA: On-the-fly Upgrade of Historical Subledger Accounting Distributions is introduced which when set to Yes will cause a dedicated procedure to identify the few upstream transactions missing XDL and populate them on the fly, prior to accounting the downstream transaction, and this is transparent to the user. Thus the volume of transactions which "require" upgrade is reduced from a huge number (across multiple years and applications) to just a few upstream transactions which are related to the current downstream transaction.

Key benefits of this enhancement:

• Prior to the enhancement, even if there is a single upstream transaction in payables which is missing distribution links, users would be required to apply the hot patch for the entire non-upgraded date range, till the period containing the upstream transaction. e.g. consider the earliest upgraded period is JAN-14. If user pays an upgraded invoice from 11i which has a GL date as JAN-2000, then when using hot patch or the On-Demand distribution links upgrade users would need to upgrade the transactions for around 13 years of invoices and payment both. Hence, accounting a single transaction required upgrade for all of the transactions for over 13 years, which due to data volume and complexities of upgrade be very time consuming.
  
  
• Also, hot patch required that all the data be upgraded for 'all' applications (not just payables), which adds to the time and complexity of upgrade.
  
  
• Also, even if there is a single transaction in the overall time duration which when upgraded (to create XLA_DISTRIBUTION_LINKS records for the upstream transactions) which would cause the Hot patch or On Demand XDL upgrade to error out (XLA_DISTRIBUTION_LINKS_U1 violation), the entire concurrent process would fail. Scanning the entire time duration for corruptions causing failure in XDL population, fixing the same, and restarting the upgrade is often complicated and requires development intervention over bugs, which causes delays with accounting the downstream transactions. 

Please review R12: Important Enhancement ON-THE-FLY Upgrade of Historical SLA Distributions (Doc ID 1938253.1) for full details.

If you have any questions or comments on this new functionality please post in the dedicated Payables Community thread.

Presenting at Sangam14 - Sunday November 9th 2014 in Bangalore, India is our own AnbuKartikeyan Jagadeeswaran.

Join him as he presents his white paper 'Leverage Endeca extension with iProcurement to Increase Operating Profit'.

Sangam is the largest independent Oracle Event in India and this is its 6th Annual Oracle Users Conference.  Beginning Friday, November 7th there are a variety of great topics and events. 

To get more information and to Sign Up Now! click here.

The guest producer for the the latest OTN ArchBeat podcast is Oracle ACE Director Gurcan Orhan, a business intelligence specialist and the 2011 recipient of the Oracle Excellence Award for Technologist of the Year in the Enterprise Architect category. Gurcan regularly works with Oracle Data Integrator, so naturally he wanted his podcast to focus on a discussion of that product. For the panel, he gathered an impressive group of other BI specialists.

The timing for this conversation coincided with Oracle OpenWorld 2014, so on Monday September 29, 2014 the five panelists and I crowded into my hotel room just a few blocks from the big event. As you'll hear, the conversation is wide-ranging and candid -- just what you would expect from this collection of outspoken experts. Listen!

(L-R) Christophe Dupupet, Michael Rainey, Stewart Bryson, Cameron Lackpour, Gurcan Orhan

Be a Guest Producer for an ArchBeat Podcast

You pick the topic. You pick the panelists. Click here to learn how you can be a guest producer for an OTN ArchBeat Podcast.

I've used Softcard (fka Isis) before, and it works just fine.  But ApplePay is a much faster experience, taking just two steps instead of four or five.  I've not used CurrentC yet since its still in pilot, but I understand its similar to the Starbucks approach, taking at least three steps.  But these companies have different goals for their mobile payment platforms, and thus have different experiences.

I believe Softcard's goal is to profit from offers made via their application. Not only do they handle payment, but they also link consumers to coupons and deals from retailers.  This helps retailers drive demand, and helps consumers save money.  This means the experience must appeal to both retailers and consumers.

ApplePay, on the other hand, does not address coupons and offers.  Its experience is streamlined to appeal to consumers, with little regard to the needs of retailers (although "fast" probably appeals to both parties).  While the banks are currently covering Apple's fees, those fees may eventually be added to existing card fees that retailers pay.  This is why retailers are less excited about ApplePay.

And that's where MCX enters the picture.  Members are refusing to accept ApplePay in the hopes that CurrentC will eventually take off.  CurrentC's goal is, first and foremost, to minimize card fees.  Their second goal is to support the retailer's marketing activities with coupons, offers, and loyalty programs.

Then there are lots of other emerging payment methods popping up everywhere.  The latest is MasterCard's trial with the Nymi wristband.  I mentioned the ApplePay two-step which is "tap and touch."  What if you could drop the second step?  This wristband uses heartbeat authentication instead of a fingerprint, so you can simply tap to pay.  I guess I'll have to trust to science on that one.  If it works, I'm guessing the technology will go into smartwatches.

Of course none of these approaches really changes anything for online purchases, which have been the same payment experience since the start. What concerns me is that as we tighten security in stores, fraud is just going to move online.  (Reminds me of treating my yard for fire ants only to have my neighbors complain about the sudden ant problem.)  I guess we'll cross that bridge next year.

Oracle Database 12c is on its way to becoming “the new black” of the Database world, but can you demonstrate your expertise with this groundbreaking database release?

Let's take a closer look.

Top 5 Reasons to Upgrade Your Oracle Database Certification

5. Enterprises are adopting the latest release of the world’s #1 Database to manage critical and complex workloads. Release 12.1.0.2 includes the anticipated Oracle Database In-Memory feature,which accelerates the performance of Oracle Database applications.

4. DevelopingOracle Database skills leads to higher average salaries for DBAs, according to the 2015 Robert Half International Salary Guide for North America.

3. There is now only ONE exam you need to pass to upgrade your OCP certification(s) to the latest release (no matter which release you're certified on). Yes, you heard us right! Only ONE exam.

2. Oracle recently announced new requirements for re-certification. Get ahead of your expiration date by upgrading your certification today.

1. Purchase anUpgrade Certification Discount Packageto save 20% on the training, ePractice exams (where available) and exam vouchers to earn your Oracle Database 12c certification.

Upgrade Your Certification Today - Start by Viewing  Exam Details

• Oracle Database 12c Administrator Certified Professional - upgrade from 7.3, 8, 8i, 9i, 10g, 11g
• Oracle Database 12c Administrator OCP - upgrade from Oracle9i, Oracle Database 10g or 11g DBA OCA

Access Other Helpful Resources

• Blog: FAQs on Upgrading your Certification to Oracle Database 12c
• Webinar: Upgrade Your Certification to Oracle Database 12c (Recorded)
• Certification Discount Packages: If you would benefit from training, purchase it together with the certification exam voucher and save 20%.

Northumbrian water are responsible for the water and sewage services of 4.5 million people in the UK, and Grant Ronald from Oracle's Mobility and Development Tools Product Management team was fortunate enough to be engaged with them to understand how they embraced mobile to help their customers and employees.  In particular their use of mobile access to Oracle's EBusiness Suite Procurement using Oracle's mobile framework showed a great return in investment by allowing products and parts to be purchased and approved in drastically reduced timescales using mobile.

To help others learn from Northumbrian Water's experience, we are running a live webcast on the 18th November, including interviews with NWs CIO, development and strategy lead, as well as hearing from Oracle's architects who were involved in the project.

A chance to learn directly from a successful MAF implementation running essential services for a leading UK services company.

Webcast: Empowering Users with Oracle EBS Endeca Extensions

Date: November 20, 2014 at 11:00 am ET, 10:00 am CT, 9:00 am MT, 8:00 am PT, 8:30 pm, India Time (Mumbai, GMT+05:30)

This one-hour advisor webcast is recommended for line of business managers and functional users. You will learn how EBS extensions for Endeca can help you discover and act on your most immediate business transactions - have a real-time “conversation with the data” to hone in on the most important issues. These extensions are part of our ongoing development to improve your “Ease of Use” and deliver more value to existing EBS users.

Registration: Empowering Users with Oracle EBS Endeca Extensions

For the schedule of all Webcasts and the recordings of previous Webcasts, view: Advisor Webcasts: Current Schedule and Archived Recordings Doc ID 740966.1.

Ops Center packs a lot of information into a browser window. The upside is that you have a lot of information available, but the downside is that some of the information is presented using icons that can be confusing at first look.

The incident icons are one example of this sort of concentrated information. If you select an asset in Ops Center, you'll see a set of icons in the top-right section of its display:

These icons indicate the number of critical, warning, and info-level incidents on the selected asset. You can click any of the icons to go to the incidents tab:

There's also another set of icons in the top left that give you a broader picture of the incidents in your environment:

The first two icons show you how many unassigned critical and warning-level incidents there are in your environment. The middle icon shows the number of relayed incidents. The right two icons show how many critical and warning-level incidents have been assigned to you (that is, whoever is currently logged in.) Clicking on any of the icons takes you to the relevant section of the message center.

The Managing Incidents how-to has more information about these icons and about how you can manage incidents in Ops Center.

Quelle est la suite ?

A présent que l'on a accéleré la cadence des processeurs Oracle, ajouté plus de flux d'exécution (coeurs) pour pouvoir traiter une nombre plus important de tâches en parallèle, élargi les mémoires tampons de premier niveau des processeurs (caches de premier/second/troisième niveau), commencéà déplacer la base de données entièrement en mémoire, commencéà introduires des optimisations pour la base de données directement au sein du système d'exploitation, que peut-on optmiser de plus ? Si vous êtes curieux, pour pourriez jetter un coup d'oeil àcette courte vidéo, où quelques détails importants vous sont révélés, sur comment des applications, et en particulier le système de base de données Oracle, va profiter de l'accélération introduite au niveau du silicium.