SOA Series, July: Why SOA is still so now

SOA has had a torrid time of it in the press. At the start of this decade, it was cutting edge. By 2005, the love affair was waning; people were growing wearied reading endless blogs, articles and press releases about the wonder of SOA. It seemed that SOA had gone from wired to tired in just 10 years, but actually, there are several reasons why SOA should still be at the front of the minds of CIOs and consultants alike. In fact, the factors that have made SOA so important - intensified global communications, ever more demanding consumer needs, increased business collaboration - are unlikely to reverse themselves. So, SOA should now be considered less a hot topic that is wearing thin, and more a central ethos that has only just begun gaining ground in what will be a very long period of influence.

Most importantly, SOA is essential to real-time event processing. Businesses need to be able to respond to consumer needs and demands almost at the moment they arise, thanks to the hyper-competition brought about by easy global trade. Having data and applications accessible and logically ordered across a business gives a business the advantage it needs to survive in this kind of supply-demand climate.

On the subject of information itself, SOA is equally as important. Put simply, in systems designed according to SOA, information is seen by all eyes across an organisation, and updated and ‘cleansed’ accordingly. It’s simple, yet effective; good information makes for better, quicker decision-making.

Finally, it’s the biggie: cloud computing. Like it or not, cloud computing is on its way in and pretty soon, no business will be able to operate whilst avoiding it entirely, either within the organisation, or where it is being used by clients. Increasingly, businesses are using cloud applications to cut costs and save storage. SOA is the only way to successfully integrate and manage services coming from IT departments or outside providers.

Oracle's Business Intelligence and Performance Management Solutions Drive Leadership in Business Analytics

As part of Oracle OpenWorld 2009, Oracle announced that its Business Analytics family of products continue to lead the industry.

Oracle's strengthened its Business Analytics position as the industry leader in vendor share, growth, performance, partner ecosystem and developer communities through continued commitment to delivering innovative products.

Business Analytics. according to a major industry analyst firm, includes the following four primary segments: Analytic Applications, Business Intelligence Tools, Data Warehousing Platform Software, and Spatial Information Analysis Tools.

Rick Shultz, Oracle Vice President, Technology Marketing, said:

"Customer adoption of Oracle's Business Intelligence and Performance Management solutions continues to outpace the overall market sector.

"Organizations in both the private and public sectors are standardizing their BI and EPM initiatives on Oracle in order to help improve enterprise decision-making and increase financial and operational performance."

Oracle showcased the success of Business Analytics throughout the OpenWorld event. In the past year alone, Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) and Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) have maintained their status as first in Financial Performance Management, rated as leading products by industry analysis reports. In 2009, Oracle has delivered seven new category-leading products into the Business Analytics family, and completed the integration of BI tools, BI Applications and EPM Applications with all of its packaged Business Applications. Testament to these successes is the number of partners gained by Oracle this year; Oracle trained over 7,000 practitioners as partners on Oracle BI and EPM software in 2009 alone.

Calsoft's Summer Reaps a few smiles

This is a quick review of an exceptional summer month for the Calsoft ES company as the team continue to work hard to satisfy customers, bringing new companies into the fray and expands across the globe.

As keen followers of this blog, here's a little bit of detail of our Month of August:

Calsoft ES

• GP Licenses for a Leading Technology Services Company, Bangladesh
• GP Reimplementation for a Communications Solutions company, UAE
• Oracle Licenses for:
  • Real Estate Company, UAE
  • Leading Customs Administrations, UAE
  • 2 Retail Companies, UK
  • Data Processing Company, UK
• Hyperion suite Licenses for 2 leading developer companies, UAE
• BI Apps services for a Leading Digital brands accessories company, USA
• Group Infrastructure set up for a leading defence and support services company, UK
• Consulting for a major building contractor, UK
• Oracle Upgrade and Platform Migration Services for a global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations, Switzerland
• Group Infrastructure set up for a leading defence and support services company, UK

That's just a little detail and we will be back with more soon

Oracle is no longer just a player

This week Intel, Oracle, BT and a number of other high-profile IT companies announced their backing of the Kantara Initiative, which aims to bring greater harmony to identity management.

The Initiative assesses ways of improving interoperability between different identity technologies and standards also addressing areas like privacy.

“Oracle’s acquisition of Sun has positioned Oracle in the identify management arena big time. Through the inclusion of Sun’s Identity Management products to Oracle’s existing IDM portfolio, Oracle now has to be seen as the market leader in this space. As such new partnerships and market dynamics are coming into play. Whereas before BT and Intel would not have partnered with Oracle, the acquisition strategy undertaken by Oracle over the past few years now sees them being the partner of choice in this space. Oracle is no longer a player with a bit of software – but a thought and market leader in the IDM space.” Simon Ellis, CTO, Inatech

OUG at Twickenham

Wednesday 24th and Thursday 25th June 2009 . The fourth OUG conference for 2009.

This week's main event focuses on a two day showcase of Hyperion and BI Products and Applications hosted at the “live Room” at Twickenham Stadium.

Like many of these events the interesting location transpires to be a large room with no windows and good air conditioning. So despite soaring temperatures and the hottest day of the summer so far..... the BI enthusiast got stuck in. The event kicked of with an inspirational Keynote speech from Oracle Senior Vice President, EPM Global Business Unit, John Kopcke. The event then the broke into a number of key streams focused on Consolidation & Reporting, Planning & Analytics, Integration & Infrastructure, General Business & education, and Business Intelligence & Essbase.

Inatech’s key offering at the event has been the broader awareness and education of the Oracle and Hyperion community on Oracle (ex Siebel) reporting tool of choice, OBIEE (Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition).

Inatech has been successfully running hands on training sessions on a monthly basis for OBIEE at a number of locations over the past few months. The sessions aim to allow users to evaluate OBIEE in far greater detail and make a informed choice on the road ahead. Inatech will continue providing free OBIEE overview training sessions for the rest of 2009. If you would like to reserve a place email Sales@inatech.com

As for Twickenham Stadium, the weather looks fantastic but someone has taken the
Grass!


Regards,
Chris Baker
Global Sales & Marketing Director

Inatech goes mad for UKOUG

Inatech will be attending the upcoming User Group (OUG) Events to provide insight to the most innovative business systems. Come and find out what opportunities are available to you and your business.

UKOUG Conference Series Scotland 2009, Radisson SAS Hotel, Glasgow
The agenda spans five streams over one day with a total of 25 sessions, covering topics in Oracle Technology DBA, Oracle Technology Developer, Applications, Business Intelligence along with a added bonus of a Partner stream.

UKOUG Conference Series Hyperion & BI 2009, Twickenham Stadium
Chris Baker (MD), Keith Rock (SD), and Inatech's partner Donald McDonald (Rosetta Stone) will be available to answer your questions.

This is the first independent two-day Conference representing the Hyperion community in the UK since the acquisition by Oracle. The event is dedicated entirely to the Hyperion & BI communities of the UK, with content covering the full Oracle EPM suite.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: John Kopcke, Oracle's Senior Vice President of the Enterprise Performance Management Global Business Unit, presenting on the future of the Hyperion and BI suite of products followed by presentations from other key speakers on Smartview and road maps, backed up with proven and compelling case studies. Also discover the importance of upgrading product Integration and Fusion.

Oracle Siebel, Ascot Racecourse
This Conference is fully focused on developing Siebel product knowledge, we are also a key sponsor.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Anthony Lye, Oracle’s SVP in charge of Siebel and CRM On Demand development. This a must-attend event for members of the Siebel community who want to hear about the product directions Oracle is following.

Inatech will be a hosting an exclusive case study presentation with one of its leading customers.

Integrating Siebel Order Management with the Web Channel at Phones4U
In this Case Study, Johnson from Phones4U and Piyush Govil, Inatech, will discuss how Siebel Order Management and Siebel Product Configuration have been used with Oracle eBusiness Suite to provide a seamless experience for customers.

Oracle’s BI Release 7.6.9 provide greater insight in business operations

Software giant announced Business Intelligence Applications Release 7.6.9 this month.

Commentators have leapt to analyse Oracle’s latest BI offering. Forrester Research analyst Boris Evelson told ComputerWeekly that the real developments in BI now are in applications, with all core functions having been addressed by previous products.

He went on to say that small to medium sized businesses will be drawn to the pre-built tooling in applications like Loyalty Analytics that this release presents. These, Evelson said, assist small businesses in getting their software running as quickly as possible. “A customer might say, ‘We're a small bank, we know everything about banking, but not CRM. We're going to trust Oracle,’" Evelson said.

Inatech’s Simon Ellis gave his view on the new Oracle offering, first outlining the practical developments of the product.

“With this release Oracle further extends its out of the box reporting platform on top of their Enterprise suite of products. This release sees additional reporting dashboards added to HR and Finance. Oracle has also now extended its technology footprint to the JDEdwards Enterprise One Financial management platform to allow advance Financial Analytics.”

All of these new features mean that customers have more and better access to information than ever before, Ellis explained: “In practical terms it is now easier than ever for customers to gain insight into their business operations by leveraging pre-built analytics on their transactional ERP systems.

“It is now even easier for Oracle Specialist Inatech to enable this insight for customers, leading to a greater ROI and lower TCO through utilising Oracle’s pre-built solution,” he concluded.

From the BI trail: Inatech on tour with Oracle in Cairo

As Oracle makes its way through the Middle East, presenting on Business Intelligence, Inatech has made its mark on the conference trail.

Last week, Srinivasan Mohandas gave a presentation in Cairo as part of Oracle’s conference tour. The presentation, entitled “Migration to Oracle BI EE from Discoverer - Helping you navigate”, introduced Oracle Discoverer users interested in exploring Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition to the newer software product.

The presentation gave potential Oracle BI EE users a taste of the software, highlighting its basis on modern web services oriented architecture. Its comprehensive suite of BI capabilities from interactive dashboards to disconnected analytics, and its emphasis on streamlining and efficiency.

The presentation also argued the benefits of migrating from Discoverer to BI EE. Mohandas pointed out to the audience that with BI EE, users have support for multiple, simultaneous heterogeneous data sources, all presented in a semantic business view; a powerful metadata design tool; and a full-feature ad hoc query tool, all topped off with a built-in integrated dashboard for the speedy publishing and sharing of reports.

Finally, the presentation covered Inatech’s award-winning four-stage process for assisting clients in migrating from their old system to BI EE.

The presentation was met with interest and enthusiasm from the audience.

Businesses sing praises of cloud computing regardless of challenges

Predictive analytics software producer SPSS has this week made its case for cloud computing at its user conference in Prague.

In an interview with Silicon.com, CEO Jack Noonan said: “The whole cloud thing is a terrific deployment opportunity for this kind of technology.

“The greatest thing that ever happened to SPSS was the web."

Noonan went on to explain that a service orientated architecture approach would be fundamental in allowing SPSS technology to improve the data businesses have access to for their CRM and ERP systems. Furthermore, the conference included many glowing references to cloud computing in terms of its possibilities for data predictions from SPSS clients.

Car manufacturer Fiat has been using SPSS PASW Modeler technology, and customer intelligence manager at Fiat Giovanni Lux claims this has increased customer retention by between six and seven percent.

Insurance group RSA’s analytics manager Simon Dudley said that RSA “bought into the whole vision of being a predictive enterprise,” and that RSA plans to expand their SPSS technology in future.

While cloud computing, and in turn, data prediction, have both created excitement in all IT sectors, the risks have not yet fully been explored, and so it seems short-sighted to leap into the cloud without waiting to see how the technology pans out.

Inatech’s Simon Ellis, CTO, said: “Cloud computing brings both benefits and challenges to both customers and infrastructure suppliers. For example, cloud computing allows organisations to size for environments only when they need them, saving massively on infrastructure spending and with cloud computing they can essentially get capacity on demand.

Ellis was as interested and enthusiastic as anyone else in the IT sector, but highlighted some reservations about the new technology.“At last the vision of real GRID computing can start to be realised; but not without another set of challenges,” he conceded.

“For example, how do organisations (both suppliers and clients) measure usage and licence compliance?”

Concluding, Ellis summed the prospects and problems of cloud computing up thus: “With new operating models come new operating challenges.”

Company confidence in the crunch

The recession has drawn one thing to the minds of business people more than anything else; risk.

It was the careless disregard and disproportionate view of risk, after all, that unleashed the recession in the first place, and now with budgets ever-tightening, it is risk that everyone is trying to avoid.

Over-managing risks, however, can be just as destructive as paying no attention to them at all. Srihari Vedante, CEO of Inatech Solutions Ltd., explained in CEO Today that too much caution can be a killer during a crunch.

“It is becoming apparent,” Vedante writes, “as some businesses turn sensible caution into nervous inertia, that board directors have a responsibility to look beyond the immediate fear that surrounds the global economy and look to energise their organisations.”

This seems simple in principle, but balancing risk is just one of the tasks facing organisations today. Vedante goes on to highlight the melee of responsibilities businesses must meet:

“Businesses today are under greater pressure than ever to perform and innovate. On a daily basis, executives are faced with challenges such as competing for entry into a new, more buoyant market, coping with red tape, responding to shareholder pressure to speed up the supply chain, and trying to find the most cost-effective way to be sustainable.”

It is challenging enough to keep the day-to-day running of a business going, without worrying about risks, and so how can companies ensure that the risk is taken care of whilst their staff concentrate on meeting targets? Vedante considers wisely-chosen partnerships as key to eliminating some risk:

“It is vital that you learn from your partners’ experience – this is not the time to let your suppliers cut their teeth on your project,” he writes.

The emphasis is on efficiency and experience when it comes to partners. This way, businesses can work safe in the knowledge that the services they are paying for are foolproof and cost-effective.

“It is key to select partners who have first-hand knowledge of the type of programme you are undertaking. Anyone you hire to deliver a project must contribute more than you could do yourself, forewarn you of the pitfalls, help you through the hurdles, and suggest shortcuts.”

Further, whilst Vedante emphasises that cutting-edge technology alone is not always the answer to all of an organisation’s problems, business intelligence is an effective method in eliminating risks, spotting problems and improving the decision-making process:

“Business intelligence tools are taking centre stage in decision-making and directors are pouring through a sea of data gathered in order to inform their strategic choices.”

In summary, Vedante’s recession survival tactics are simply to make use of good partners and good data; something Inatech is renowned for providing. Check out the full article here.

Culture of ignorance threatens IT security

New figures released this week reveal that half of UK security managers are worried about end-users’ lack of security awareness.

A poll conducted by Infosex Europe of 700 security professionals reveals that the biggest concerns of security managers are a lack of security training for end-users, and an unsupportive company culture when it comes to security. Further, 46% of respondents have concerns over the poor understanding of employees over security policy, made worse by a lack of accountability over security.

A survey of security professionals stating that businesses do not have secure enough systems is hardly surprising, but these figures are all the more alarming when taken into account with the paper published by independent security expert group Jericho Forum this week. The paper stated that cloud computing has massive implications for security, and that the expansion of the cloud throws up all sorts of possible security breaches.

In amongst those security threats are loss of data confidentiality and integrity, which presents a major concern for businesses. The Jericho Forum advocates a thorough approach to security in cloud computing that starts from the beginning, rather than ad hoc solutions as and when problems arise.

When it comes to cloud computing, a holistic approach is necessary; there is no point implementing the technology without having networks secured first. Additionally, staff worldwide need to understand the security implications and maximise cloud computing. Perhaps most important of all is the need to continually ensure that, with all data stored in the cloud, it is safe. It is nearly impossible to ensure this without round-the-clock monitoring. Technology can only do so much human beings can ensure security is consistently working. The problem with automatic security alerts is they often come once the threat has entered the system too late to prevent data loss.

Security blogs:

http://www.itsecurity.com/blog/

http://www.itsecurityportal.com/

http://theitsecurityguy.blogspot.com/

http://newsteam.scmagazineblogs.com/

Microsoft unveils business intelligence changes

Microsoft revealed on 27th January that it will be changing its business intelligence strategy. The IT giant will be incorporating Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 into Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Enterprise edition, rebranded as PerformancePoint Services.

Over the next ten years, Microsoft will continue to support customers using Office PerformancePoint Server 2007. In mid-2009, PerformancePoint Server 2007 Service Pack 3 will be released, which allows users to update to the current Planning Server. Following the release of SP3, Microsoft will no longer offer a stand-alone version of Office PerformancePoint Server 2007.

Ravi Sankar of Inatech outlined what this means for users: “Monitoring & Analytics will live on and is to be incorporated into future versions of MOSS Enterprise. So M&A is staying but will be considered a part of MOSS, to be known as ‘PerformancePoint Services’.

“The Planning part of the PPS product is being retired. Naturally, it will still be supported up until its end-of-life but that will be it. Aside from a to-be-released SP3 no further PPS Planning development will happen.

“Budgeting & forecasting functionality as is currently provided by Planning will no longer be part of the MS BI stack.”

Kurt DelBene, Senior Vice President of Microsoft Office Business Platform Group, explained the advantages of the changes: “We frequently sum up our mission as bringing ‘BI to the masses’,” he said. “Incorporating Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 features into Office SharePoint Server helps us fulfill that mission and sets us apart from many of the BI vendors that require the purchase of specialized applications.

“Analyst firms have told us that BI solutions offered by these other vendors are typically only adopted by about 20 percent of employees at any given company. Part of the reason for such low adoption rates is the expense of licensing additional seats and the learning curve required to become a proficient user.

“Microsoft’s BI solution, on the other hand, relies on familiar, widely used tools such as SharePoint Server and Microsoft Office Excel. The ease of use and broad accessibility of our BI offering is part of the reason behind our success.

“The way we look at it, the more employees who have access to business data, the greater a company’s ability to anticipate changes and make adjustments.

“This move will not only provide greater access to BI features, but also will deliver them alongside the search, collaboration and content management features most people are accustomed to using in SharePoint.

OUG UK 2008 comes to a close

The 25th OUG conference ended yesterday afternoon, and the stands – including Inatech’s – disappeared back into the large fleet of vehicles at the back of the Birmingham International Conference Centre almost as quickly as they arrived. Thirty minutes after the exhibition closed most of the exhibitors and the contents of their stands had been removed.

The Inatech led the final presentation of the day. Hosted Piyush Govil and assisted by Balaji Perumal: Integrating Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) with Application Express (APEX) for MultiFormat Reports.

The presentation involved a live demonstration of application express and turned into a working session for the remaining interested delegates.

Further information on this presentation can be obtained from sales@inatech.com.

Today we are all back in the office tidying away the exhibition props for another year. So goodbye and Merry Christmas to Birmingham for another year........P.S we have already booked our stand for 2009!

Best of Breed needs to lead integration

Oracle is leading industry change as it announces some of its final purchases for technology integration to expand its existing product portfolio to represent the ‘Best of Breed’ following a lengthy period of development and acquisition.

The move by Oracle to integrated the industry’s leading project management tool, Primavera, is of no surprise, instead a well calculated move as the IT industry is shaken by the slowdown in the global economy. The database provider has for sometime been developing a new model for business which will see it make the most of applications it has to ensure synergy with the industry.

This consolidation of ‘Best of Breed’ embraces the concept of niche player partnership rather than pour money into bespoke development. Oracle has identified its customer’s requirements and addressed the need for standardisation across the industry following a bout of continuous growth. IT suppliers are working with processes which have a standard functionality however many applications need to be standardised to maximise productivity and integration with broader systems.

We will soon see significant change in the technology industry as we enter another cycle; IT professionals are aware of the current financial conditions affecting all industries therefore ‘best practice’ will begin evolve and alter the approach to systems maintenance and development. The existence of bespoke IT systems and applications specific to an organisation are becoming extinct as costs of ownership and skills required for maintenance increase.

During this time financial institutions will continue to struggle if they persevere in bucking the trend opting to develop their own unique systems which involve increased skills costs. With this the industry is being compromised by the specialist nature of these financial systems. The integration of Primavera into Oracle’s product portfolio follows PeopleSoft and Siebel’s acquisition with mutual benefits to all parties including customer-base expansion and quality offering.

The integration of these products gives independent systems integrators like Calsoft and Inatech, greater choice and opportunity to implement IT projects seamlessly due to the consolidation of the Oracle applications.

Vedante Srihari, Head of Calsoft Enterprise Solutions and Managing Director of Inatech solutions