Systems

The month's principal product announcement was surely the latest version of Solaris, release 11.2. The company launched this latest and major update via a webcast featuring Oracle President Mark Hurd and EVP John Fowler. Solaris 11.2 is a modern cloud platform that melds efficient virtualization, application-driven software-defined networking (SDN) technology and a full OpenStack distribution. This powerful combination of an enterprise-class operating system and other components creates a highly efficient, compliant, secure, open and affordable software platform for cloud computing. The webcast is available for on-demand replay.

In other Systems news, Oracle announcedOracle Virtual Compute Appliance X4-2. Engineered for easy application virtualization, it accelerates time-to-application use by enabling rapid, repeatable, full-stack virtual infrastructure deployment. It enables rapid, repeatable software-defined infrastructure deployment for virtually any x86 application and workload. An easy-to-deploy, integrated system with the elasticity needed for cloud computing, customers can go from power on to production in about an hour and deploy ready-to-run virtual machines in just a few minutes. 

Fujitsu and Oracle announced worldwide availability of enhanced Fujitsu M10-1, M10-4 and M10-4S servers equipped with the new SPARC64 X+ processor, which has 16 cores and runs at speeds up to 3.7 GHz, providing up to 30 percent more processing power than the previous SPARC64 X processor. The new Fujitsu M10-4S server supports mixed SPARC64 X and X+ chassis in a single system, protecting previous IT investments. In addition, the modular design and Physical Partition Dynamic Reconfiguration feature allow the Fujitsu M10-4S to grow by adding processors, memory and I/O with virtually no downtime.

Customer success was underlined as Oracle announced that customers across the globe are adopting Oracle ZFS Storage Appliances for Oracle Database backup environments. Prominently featured in this announcement was EMEA-based customer DB Schenker Rail

Oracle Database, Middleware and Technology

The company continues its expansion of its Cloud Computing capabilities. Oracle announced the availability of Oracle Database Backup Service and Oracle Storage Cloud Service. Part of Oracle's commitment to providing the industry’s broadest and most advanced cloud portfolio, the new services deliver the flexibility to easily move critical applications and data from on-premises to the cloud and vice-versa.

Security is a critical topic these days, and there were two relevant product announcements from the company this month:

• As organizations increasingly adopt cloud and mobile applications, user identities are proliferating and becoming unmanageable. With the latest updates to the Oracle Identity Management platform, Oracle is providing organizations with new and enhanced features to further secure enterprise, cloud and mobile applications.
• The company also introducedOracle Mobile Authenticator, a new component of Oracle Access Management Suite. Using this product, an employee’s or consumer’s personal phone or tablet can be turned into a second factor authentication device, eliminating the complexity associated with supplying, maintaining and revalidating security devices such as tokens or smart cards.

Also underlining the ever-increasing importance of mobile function within software, Oracle announced new mobile capabilities to its industry-leading Oracle Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) System. The new capabilities are available on iOS and Android mobile devices. The latest release features two new mobile capabilities designed to help organizations capitalize on Oracle’s enterprise planning, reporting and financial close applications on-the-go: the first is a new mobile app, Oracle EPM Mobile, that allows managers and executives to participate in EPM workflows and approvals from smart phones and tablets; the second capability provides business users with easy access to the rich functionality of Hyperion Planning from tablet devices.

Oracle increased its big data capabilities via the announcement of Oracle NoSQL Database 3.0. With this latest release, Oracle offers developers an enhanced NoSQL solution for building high performance, next generation applications. The combination of security, availability, scalability, and data model flexibility delivers a comprehensive high performance NoSQL solution for application developers.

Customer success for Oracle Fusion Middleware came in the form of two announcements:

• Nearly 5,000 organizations are choosing Oracle SOA Suite, the industry’s most complete and unified application integration and SOA solution. Among featured customers were Fluid-e and Norway Post
• Over 4,500 organizations spanning nearly every industry are using Oracle Data Integration to cost-effectively manage and create value from ever-growing streams of structured and unstructured data. ICON plc was featured as an EMEA-based customer among them

Applications

Cloud Computing also figured strongly among the SaaS announcements from the Corporation this month:

• Adoption of sales force automation (SFA) applications by sales reps remains one of the top challenges for today’s sales organizations. In the latest release of Oracle Sales Cloud, Oracle announced major enhancements, which centre squarely on improving sales productivity (efficiency, effectiveness, and on-boarding), improving the SFA mobile experience for sales representatives and sales managers, and minimizing the need for system training, data entry and reporting chores.
• With the acquisition of BigMachines, Oracle added a key component to its cloud-based Customer Experience suite of products that manages the customer lifecycle. Oracle CPQ Cloud (BigMachines) streamlines the sales process from inquiry to order by enabling sales staff and partners to generate sales quotes, orders and proposals quickly and accurately—from anywhere, on any device. Oracle announced that Oracle CPQ Cloudhas continued its rapid pace of innovation in development, providing customers with new capabilities that improve sales force performance. 

In the Supply Chain arena, Oracle introducedOracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne In-Memory Planning Advisor to help organizations address this challenge and achieve real-time visibility into supply and demand planning. Utilizing the extreme performance delivered only by Oracle Engineered Systems, the new Oracle In-Memory Application enables real-time insight into supply and demand; allowing organizations to make faster, better decisions that maximize revenue and increase profits.

To define and benchmark the key attributes of modern, technology-enabled finance, Oracle and Accenture co-sponsored a global study with Longitude Research, entitled “Empowering Modern Finance: The CFO as Technology Evangelist.” Respondents included 1,275 CFOs, senior finance executives and line of business executives from organizations around the world, 670 of which are employed by businesses of varying sizes operating across multiple industries in EMEA.-- 100 of those surveyed in the region were senior non-finance executives. The study found that while the modern CFO is a technology evangelist who recognizes the value of digital and cloud technologies for the finance function and the business as a whole, but a gap remains between CFO ambitions and reality.

Partners

Oracle partners and Diamond-level members are using Oracle Cloud to speed time to market, grow and capitalize on new business opportunities, and deliver exceptional customer value. They’re doing that in conjunction with Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), which offers a wide range of cloud programs and enablement resources. “Oracle’s partner community is an invaluable asset to the company,” said Oracle President Mark Hurd. “They offer knowledge that is critical to the success of our customers. Partner adoption of Oracle Cloud solutions has been tremendous and we will continue to provide the resources and technology they need to grow their business and deliver value to customers with Oracle Cloud.”