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· One min read

You can find online the top 10 presentations of Oracle Open World 2005:

  1. Optimizing the Optimizer: Essential SQL Tuning Tips and Techniques
  2. 10 Things We Like About Oracle Database 10g Release 2
  3. PeopleSoft Enterprise, JD Edwards, and Oracle E-Business Suite Integration with Oracle Fusion Middleware
  4. The Future of Database and Information Technology
  5. Understanding Shared Pool Memory Structures: Tips on How to Optimize Usage and Avoid Errors
  6. Take the Guesswork Out of Database I/O Tuning
  7. Tuning Oracle SQL in the Real World
  8. What They Didn't Print in the Doc: High-Availability Best Practices from Oracle Maximum Availability
  9. Performance Diagnostics Demystified: Best Practices for Oracle Database 10g
  10. Best Practices for Oracle Database 10g Backup and Recovery

Enjoy!

· 2 min read

You have probably heard about Web Tools Platform (WTP), this project extends Eclipse with various tools for developping J2EE applications. It contains editors for HTML, JSP, XML and so more... In addition to various wizards to create Web Services, EJB, Connector and more... WTP allows developers to package the application using J2EE standard packagind: EAR,WAR,RAR,JAR and deploy and run the application from the IDE.

The challenge here is not how you build J2EE components using an IDE, but more how do you package, deploy and run your application easily from the IDE. Eclipse WTP allows you like Oracle JDeveloper does, to package the various J2EE components in standard archives (JAR, WAR, EAR, RAR, ...) and deploy them to a J2EE container. WTP project has a very nice list of containers you can deploy to: Oracle, IBM, BEA, JBoss, Tomcat, ...

With the latest build of Eclipse WTP (Release 1.0M8), Oracle Application Server 10g is now part of the default server list. So if your are an OracleAS user you can now use WTP and start to run and debut your application running in OracleAS from Eclipse.

What do you need to start using WTP and OracleAS:

  1. Download and install Eclipse WTP 1.0M8 from Eclipse site.
  2. Download and install OracleAS 10g (OC4J 10.1.3 Developer Preview 4) from OTN
  3. You must set a administrator password for OC4J using the start command
  4. Done! You can now use OC4J and Eclipse. I have a viewlet that shows the basic steps to create and run your first Web application.

OC4J configuration

Update (Nov,18) : I forgot to mention the Oracle Application Server Adapter tutorial from the Web Tools project.

· One min read

I am using internally Blojsom for blogging about the product I am taking care of: OC4J and especially the Web Services stack. In this post I am quickly documenting, as the title says, how to install Blojsom on OracleAS 10g.

1-Download​

The first thing to do is to download the product itself, just download the Blojsom quickstart from sourceforge.

2-Deploy​

Since, Blojsom is distributed as a WAR file you have nothing special to do, just deploy it. Anyway I have created a viewlet  that shows step by step deployment using Oracle Enterprise Manager.

So the application link will be: http://localhost:8888/blojsom/

Note: if you want to use the command line utility (admin.jar) or the Ant deployment task, you should package the Web archive in an EAR file.

3-Update the home page​

The easiest way will be to just change the index.html page to redirect to the default blog. The index.html page to be modified is in:

  • $ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/home/application/blojsom/blojsomXXXX/index.html where blojsomXXXX is the name of the Web application generated during deployment.
4- Start blogging...​

This is it...

· 3 min read

I would like react to last week marc andreessen's words (netscape founder during the php/zend conference andreessen basically says that PHP will beat Java and succeeds where Java is not. Most of the reasons that Andreesen used to justify this saying are because of PHP simplicity. Do you think he is talking about the language or the application server -yeah, let's call it this way... (J2EE...)..

Let's talk about J2EE first, it is true that when you take a look to the learning curve of J2EE and PHP it is a no brainer.. PHP is effectively more simple. But we can start with the acronyms themselves: J2EE==Enterprise, where PHP==Personal Home Page ( since then renamed Hypertext Processor). So from the origins the 2 technologies were not here to achieve the same goals. But PHP has proven that it could be used for complex application/Web sites, and still keep it simplicity.

So PHP is simple this is true, but Java on the server could be also. I think that the complexity comes from the fact that J2EE its expert always see an application as a enterprise application, and what that means in term of life cycle, development process, packaging and so on....    Why am I saying that it is coming from the expert? Just take a look to a PHP tutorial and a J2EE one? This is clear that you must be a very good and experienced developer to start with J2EE... But this is is not coming from the technologies, but mainly the way we talk about it. I think we should talk a little more about simple development with Java. For example focusing o JSP and JSTL for simple stuff. I agree that putting too much logic in JSP and reduce the number of layer is 'bad' for complex applications, but it could be used for some. Why do we need to always package a WAR or EAR file? Yes you can technically deploy exploded archive and modify the information after the fact. This is not necessary the best practices but it could be useful for some applications (not necessary only in development environment.

About the language itself, sure that Java is more complex, it is considerate as a System Level Language, where PHP is a scripting language. Do we still compare Shell and C? No we need both of them isn't?

In the same time, Java as a language must be simplified, or let be more precise... I think Java developers need the simplicity of scripting languages such as PHP but with the power of Java under the cover. And this is happening right now. JavaScript is now integrated to Java 6, Groovy provided a well integrated JVM with a very powerful and simple syntax. Grails -Groovy On Rails- provided a simple framework for CRUD applications.

Still skeptical about the simplicity of PHP, try it...

Still skeptical about Java being simple, try a scripting language... for example Groovy

In conclusion the platform of my dream should:

  • Keep the simple case simple
  • Made the impossible possible

And I am sure that Java is the good language and platform for that; but Groovy and other scripting languages will help. And I will also continue to develop using PHP too. And both worlds will coexists and be integrated using Web Services and or JSR-223.

· 4 min read

I am just coming back for Toronto where I have been presenting Oracle Developer Day: SOA for J2EE Developers. As part of this exercise I have introduced Web Services and related technologies/standards.

A person in the audience asked me:

But can I do SOA Today? Are Web Services are mature enough?

I think that is a very interesting and valid question. The answer is certainly: 

  • Yes you can, and I would add, yes you should!!

Web Services are  definitively big actors in Service Oriented Architecture since by definition they are loosely coupled, implementation agnostic and facilitate reusability. In the same time the concern of this person are justified since some important pieces of infrastructure are yet available in vendors solutions. Or if they exist they are proprietary and won't allow interoperability of the service with other stack... Losing interoperability is a big deal when you talk about Web Services since most of the time, if the designers want to use Web Services it is to be able to reuse it in various applications, independently of the platform where this application is running.

Why I have answered Yes?​

· 4 min read

This morning I have been talking about the Oracle Database and Web Services. If you are Oracle 10g developer (Database or Application Server) you probably already know that you can publish PL/SQL stored procedure as Web Services... One of the new feature of our OracleAS 10.1.3 release is the fact that now you can publish SQL and DML as well. In this post I am quickly explaining the basic steps to publish a query as Web Service.

· One min read

Oracle Developer Day](http://www.oracle.com/webapps/events/EventsDetail.jsp?p_eventId=9691&src=1587968&src=1587968&Act=43) is a free, hands-on workshop that will give you insight into the latest technologies in SOA and Java. You can choose from one of two topics:

  • Track 1: Emerging SOA and J2EE technologies: EJB 3.0, JavaServer Faces and BPEL
  • Track 2: Rapid J2EE Application Development for Forms and Designer Developers

Here the list of dates and cities:

· One min read

Another nice day in San Francisco; I have been in booth duty most of the day and I have finished the day with a first presentation, with George Trujillo about J2EE Deployment strategy. This presentation I hope was interested for the quite big audience, the long Q&A session -1h, it is nice to be the last in the room- was very good since I talk with various Oracle customer about J2EE management in perspective of the database management. The benefits of Oracle Grid Control for Database and AppServer administrators... I would invite you if you are not familiar with Oracle Grid Control to take a look to OTN.

Some of the interesting point is the announcement of the new OracleAS 10g R3, that enhanced the Fusion Middleware to deliver SOA, beside the support of J2EE 1.5, Java 5, EJB 30, JSF, I was very pleased to spend my day demonstrating our new UDDI V3 registry that continue to expend our Web Services stack by giving new services in addition to BPEL and Web Services Manager.

· 2 min read

The first Oracle World Day for me has started with finishing the various demonstrations of the J2EE Core OC4J and Web Services demonstration Pods. Tomorrow Monday, we will be showing some very cool stuff around Web Services development and management, with some good news around Web Services Registry. Also on the J2EE Core, nice demonstrations of the different services but some of the new features of the OracleAS 10.1.3 such as the new clustering framework and the usage of scripting technologies, especially Groovy, to administer and monitor OracleAS, thanks to JMX!

What about the rest of the day, I was invited to the Web Services Special Interest Group, WS-SIG, - no.. this is not a new acronym in the WS-* world-. This new SIG has been created in the beginning of the year and on the behalf of IOUG, please take a look to the WSSIG web site. IMG_6718.jpg. One of the very interesting things of this SIG is, like the J2EE SIG (Organized by OTUG, IOUG, OAUG and Oracle), developers, architects, and administrators of Fusion Middleware, the Database and Oracle Fusion applications are talking together. This reunion of people is good since we all from development to operations have a different view of systems. So during this panel we have introduced quickly the concepts, and then the audience jumped in for the Q&A session, as you can guess, we add the classical questions around Web Services for the enterprise such as what about security? Management? Life Cycle ?... and so on. We answered obviously, but I would say if you are lucky enough to be at San Francisco this week, please come to the Demo Ground especially Web Services, Web Services Manager and BPEL where you will see the Oracle products in action and you will be able to find experts to help you to answer your questions.

The main auditorium was packed to see the first keynote/show of Oracle Open World 2005, where Oracle presented some of the numerous charity efforts that it does, and offer some fun to the attendees with a nice show from Dana Carvey

What about Oracle Blog dinner?​

Mark Rittman is organizing a dinner for the different Oracle bloggers, it will be at the Paragon Restaurant at Second Street on Townsend at 8.00pm on Tuesday 20th. ( I will be there for sure...)