Some random thoughts on OOW17

Oracle Open World 2017 has come and gone already, but it left behind some really interesting points worth revisiting.

The conference spans so much, but I want to focus mainly on the topics related to my own expertise (Integration, Java, Application Development). So let's cut to the chase and take a look at the highlights:

• Focus is on Developers - the Java & Open Source movements seem stronger than ever, with JavaOne recovering a leading role this year and OracleCode summoning enthusiastic crowds on its first appearance at Open World. Also, Oracle has visibly placed a lot of importance on programs such as the Developer Community space, Developer Champion award, etc.
• Oracle PaaS has finally broken through - with increased maturity in most of the services, plenty of customer success stories and some nice improvements to the licensing model, PaaS adoption has become increasingly viable. This is an especially important moment for integration-focused partners, as in my opinion those who are able to better cope with the paradigm shift will be able to take full advantage of the growing market.
• Modern Architectures are at the Center of Innovation - Hybrid, Distributed, Serverless, Reactive, API-Driven are all architectural qualities associated with innovative systems and solutions. I attended a good number of excellent sessions on these kind of topics, whereas concepts such as SOA, BPM,  etc. have gone from being household names in years past to practically disappearing from the conference's agenda (this doesn't mean that such technologies can be pronounced dead already, but they definitely have ceased to be pillars of a so called "modern architecture"). I was also glad to see some of my peers incorporating OMESA (http://omesa.io) into their presentations; I still think this open project has lots of potential, but we definitely need to go back to the drawing table and grow it with these recent trends in mind.
• Embracing New Technologies is Cool - This year we had lots of sessions and quite some chatter about diverse tools and technologies such as Blockchain, Chatbots, Cloud-Native Microservices, Kubernetes, Kafka, Spark, just to name a few. Although we might not want to go jumping into every bandwagon, it's always interesting to consider and learn new things. Thus, I'm glad Oracle's encouraging it by providing a forum in this kind of event.

So,  Oracle has delivered as always one of the most relevant, memorable & eventful conferences of the year. This is definitely an interesting time to be a software engineer

Thanks for reading!

ODC Appreciation Day : Deploying a Project to OACCS from Oracle DevCS

Hello dear friends from the Oracle Developer Community. Today is ODC Appreciation Day 2017 and so I'm gonna share this little piece about one of my favourite product features: deploying applications to OACCS from Oracle DevCS 

This is actually a very simple capability, which I got to test again as recently as last week during OOW2017. But as trivial as it may seem, the fact that it's works seamlessly speaks volumes about the integrated nature and efficiency of Oracle's Cloud Development Platform.

So, if your Cloud services are correctly configured, it is as easy as to create a deployment profile for any of your applications and selecting "Application Container Cloud" as your deployment target:

Then the next time your deployment job runs, the selected build will be automatically deployed to OACCS according to the profile you configured.

It's Cloud + DevOps at its best, making life easier for both Developers & Administrators.

Well, this was quite a short post but enough to say #ThanksODC while highlighting a cool product feature.

Thanks for reading!!

A Quick Recap of Oracle PaaS Community Forum 2017

I've been attending this conference 3 years in a row now, and strongly believe that if you're part of the Oracle Middleware / PaaS partner community, it's the one you really don't want to miss throughout the year.

The focused content, networking opportunities and VIP access to the top Oracle PMs & Architects obviously make coming to this event a great investment, but this year we also got the Community Day with lots of best practices presented by Oracle ACEs and the first OMESA workshop, which I will go back to in a second.

As always, huge props are in order to the unwavering excellence of Jürgen and his team when it comes to organizing and hosting the forum. Location has always been fantastic, but this year for me it was awesome to travel away from the cold and into a sunny resort. I also got to play this year's first rounds of outdoor tennis during the weekend, even hitting some balls with a couple of peers.

This time around I couldn't stay for the workshops the last two days, but anyhow, I have two key takeaways from my personal experience at the conference this year:

1. OMESA (Open Modern Enterprise Software Architecture) can and should become the next big thing. Even though the content is still a work in progress, and the workshop at Split came as a first experiment, you could just feel the knowledge, experience and talent oozing out of the conference room where we sat to discuss the guidelines to this project. With Luis Weir as a driving force and a strong core of lead Architects from all over the place, this group has all the tools to exercise constructive thought leadership and deliver meaningful assets to the IT community. 
2. Oracle PaaS is truly finding ways to deliver. Although we're all supporters, many of us have also been overly critic in the last year; however, the maturity they were able to showcase at this event together with the actual numbers to back it up was really commendable and uplifting. Moreover, in this edition we were finally able to hear several success stories from the partners themselves, some of which have gone to great lengths (AMIS, Opitz, e-Proseed, Avanttic, etc.) to influence the market and position PaaS solutions among their customers.

Split + PaaSForum, what a great and inspiring way to start the year. Until the next time!!

Some Thoughts on OUGN Spring Seminar 2017

This was my second year aboard the Color Line ferry for the OUGN Spring Seminar. Happily, it was also the conference's 10th year anniversary, so all the speakers and attendees were in for a special treat this time around.

I must say that in my opinion this is one of the most special Oracle conferences out there, obviously due of the venue, but also because of the consistently excellent technical level of both presenters and attendees, which together with the intimate setting always end up producing excellent discussions, passionate conversations and a very high quality learning experience overall.

I was selected to deliver two presentations at this event: DevOps for Oracle FMW with the orawls modules & Advanced Cloud Design Patterns, and it was a blast to do it alongside my good friends Ronald and Simon respectively.

My company, Sysco, had as always a huge presence at the event, being one of the main sponsors, bringing a lot of people in and providing several speakers for many of the tracks.

This edition's big takeaway for me was the presence of a brilliant and highly-driven crop of young multi-national speakers, most of them presenting at OUGN for the first time. This guys and girls, coming from such distinct places as Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, Holland, Norway, Croatia, Spain, etc.,  (and many of them travelling with own funds), are bringing a lot of excitement and value into the Oracle Community with fresh topics and disruptive ideas about the newest technological developments and trends. They are also quickly becoming household names, which means that people are actually signing up to conferences to hear what they have to say. So hopefully we'll see many faces from this new generation joining the ACED ranks in the near future.

Thanks for reading!!

"De núvols i falles" - Oracle FMW Forum 2016 Recap

 For the second year in a row, I've had this incredible opportunity to take part in Oracle EMEA's Partner Community Forum. This time around I do come from Europe, as I'm currently living and working in beautiful Norway with Sysco Middleware AS. OFM Forum is always an exciting place to be and a most worthy experience, so here's my recap for this edition, I certainly hope you will enjoy it:

Something great about this event is that everybody knows we can always count on Jurgen to pick a superb location for it. Valencia is no exception, as it is a stunning city with so much sights, culture and a very unique Spanish flavour.

For me, being a Mexican, staying in Valencia was particularly enjoyable, since I had the chance to hear and talk some Spanish, eat a lot of paella & bocadillos, drink horchata, attend bullfights and soccer matches. I even brought my wife with me for this trip, so she could also enjoy and take a little breather from our adaptation process to the Nordic lands; I was even allowed to bring her along for one of the networking events, so she could meet some of my friends and colleagues, which was great and a lot of fun for me.

It also happened that during the same week, traditional and super famous local festivity "Las Fallas" would be taking place. So add a little pyrotechnics, parades, light shows and fiesta to the mix and you will end up experiencing a really colourful fortnight.

But besides all the wonderful entertainment, what we really were for in Valencia was to talk extensively about technology and strategy with fellow partners, ACEs and Oracle's top Middleware people for sales, product management, education, channels and architecture.

The conference agenda was packed again this year, with a lot of knowledge and insight being shared by some of the top Oracle speakers in the world. It was no surprise that the main discussion threads veered around some topics which have become increasingly familiar and relevant for IT practitioners:

-Cloud

-Digital Transformation

-Enterprise Mobility

-APIs

-UX / CX

An important thing to note for the moment being, is that as broad as these subjects may be, most of the buzz and the investment are coming down to one particular element: PaaS (Platform as a Service)

So if you attended OOW last year and/or any recent major Oracle conference, you will surely know that all the roads are leading to PaaS right now, whether we're talking about integration, API management, mobile backends, analytics, IoT, PaaS4SaaS, etc.

It can be a little overwhelming, since the number of available options seems to be growing by the minute. For example, in this event we were introduced to brand new features in API Cloud Service, as well as to BAM's heir apparent: Insight Cloud Service.

The sheer number of cloud services in Oracle's PaaS offering, as well as their customer appeal, use cases, practical applications, touching points and possible overlapping have been common arguments which we've been having for quite some time and which are getting hotter as the platform keeps widening. In fact, just a week before OFM Forum I had some lengthy discussions about all this with fellow friends/ACEs at OUGN (article coming soon).  

For this reason, the most hyped presentation of them all was the ACED production, where my good friend and showman extraordinaire Lucas Jellema, along with Lonneke Dikmans, Torsten Winterberg and some others would join their creative and brilliant minds in an audacious attempt to orchestrate live interaction between at least eight different cloud services:

In spectacular fashion and despite the wi-fi challenges, they did manage to pull it off, implementing a fun and easily understandable social-driven scenario which showcased many of Oracle PaaS's multiple facets, so kudos to them!!

Another interesting development is the release of Oracle Cloud Machine, which customers may lease in order to setup their own Oracle-powered private clouds with all of the management and UI features from Oracle's public cloud. Its another strategic move by the vendor to keep enticing customers, especially those who are a bit reluctant or slow on their transition to the cloud.

The last couple of days are for workshops, and though not everybody's able to stay, it's really worth the effort if you have the chance. This year I feel like I made a very wise choice by switching to Weblogic Multitenancy 12c, where our instructors put together a really great and well prepared workshop so we could learn and play a little with WLS's new and exciting capabilities. After trying it out, I can immediately think of a lot of use cases for leveraging multitenancy / virtual containers, and I can't hardly wait for it to be supported for the rest of Fusion Middleware components such as SOA, OSB et al.

Well, this is it, so I really hope to be back next year, and again I tip my hat to Jurgen and the rest of the Oracle staff for putting together a great event and showing us such a great time as well.

Thanks for reading!!

P.S. Here's a short video we improvised with a couple of friends at the location, where we share some additional opinions about the conference:

https://youtu.be/3NMtfHHbWJU

And don;t forget to visit SOA / PaaS Community!!:

https://paascommunity.com

Anchors aweigh: Recap of OUGN 2016

Let me start by saying that OUGN Spring Seminar has been one of the most memorable experiences I've had as a conference attendee / speaker.

I believe most of us in the Oracle community have heard the stories about this event, told by the people who have been here before, and it is definitely one of the most coveted slots throughout the year for speakers / ACEDs who wish to take part of this unique setup.

Fortunately for me, I just moved to Oslo in the past few weeks, and my new employer, Sysco AS,  happens to be one of the main sponsors of the seminar, so when a last minute chance to present on the boat came up, I was obviously all for it!!

Before boarding the Oslo - Kiel cruiser, OUGN organised a really nice speaker dinner at picturesque Aker Brygge, where I was really happy to see some familiar faces from friends I had met at previous events and which were now in Oslo for the Vårseminar. I was also surprised to realise all the different countries and regions represented by the speakers attending the conference, from Argentina to Mexico, USA, Holland, India, Portugal, Russia, Croatia, UK and much more.

The next day it was really swift to get onto the ship. I must say that I was really pleased with the excellent organization and logistics provided by OUGN's board. I've had the chance to be part of the organising committee for Oracle User Group conferences in the past, in my hometown of Mexico City, so I'm quite familiar with the hard work and the challenges this implies, though what we used to do is far from this scale. That being said, what the Norwegian User Group pulls off every year is truly commendable and one of a kind. One really outstanding element, which I think every conference should adopt, is the fact that the seminar was almost 100% paperless, as everything we needed was included in the guidebook app.

Once on board, the fun got started in every way imaginable. The mix is just perfect as you have sponsors, customers, speakers, colleagues and friends altogether with nowhere else to go. So, there was a time for everything, from doing business and attending excellent sessions to having drinks with friends, going on the sun deck to appreciate the mesmerizing landscape or  even late night singing and dancing at the multiple clubs available.

I really had a great time and met so many new friends; every meal was delicious and I was every minute in the company of very interesting and fun people, so i didn't really sleep much as I didn't want to miss out on all the fun!!.

I also enjoyed preparing and presenting my session about Oracle MCS, where I was really happy to see many of my good friends come and support me. I'm also glad the topics showcased stirred some discussion, as it is always a learning experience having people question and challenge what you're bringing to the table.

A couple of good tips for presenting on a boat are: avoid any live demos requiring fast internet connectivity and beware of motion sickness!!

Last but not least, it was really cool to see many of my Sysco Middleware teammates also presenting at the conference: Jon Petter, Oleg, Dalibor and Cato all had great sessions, and I'm sure the rest of our multinational and highly skilled team will follow on the same footsteps the next years.

Well, it was a blast and I'm really looking forward to hopefully coming back on 2017!!

Thanks OUGN & Sponsors, and congratulations on a fantastic fortnight!!, and thank you dear reader for going through this quick post =)

Comments and questions are welcome as always.

Oracle ICS Update - On premise Agent now Available

Hello appreciated readers, here's hoping to a fun and successful 2016 for you all!!

And for us Oracle FMW practitioners, there are some very exciting news to begin the year:

Yours truly has been following for a while the development and growth of Oracle's iPaaS platform: "Integration Cloud Service". And it's been a long wait, but at long last the ultra hyped On-Premise Agent has been released and is now available for all ICS subscriptions.

There are some other cool and useful new features in this release (e.g. content based routing, new adapters, etc.), which we will surely discuss during the next few weeks in a different post. However, in our humble opinion the Agent is a transcendent piece of the puzzle, which will open up a whole new set of use cases and possibilities for the implementation of cloud-driven integrations with ICS.

So, what does this mean?, let's look at it graphically:

Oracle ICS was an already powerful yet simple to implement tool, suited perfectly for Cloud to Cloud Integrations but somehow limited in its potential to participate in hybrid solutions (those which also include on-prem interaction).

The obvious problem here is that we know Hybrid Architectures are still predominant among organizations in the midst of a cloud adoption strategy.

And that's why the Agent is a real game-changer:

As it will allow not only direct integration with on premises Apps through ready made adapters, but also the potential of allowing seamless interaction between existing SOA Suite implementations and cloud based solutions, for example:

In the image above we see a highly complex hybrid solution, where ICS is positioned as the cornerstone for integration purposes. A very plausible scenario and definitely an interesting and disruptive paradigm shift.

So that's it for this first post of the year; but we will make sure to take a deep dive into this new technology and deliver a detailed how-to for our loyal readers.

For more information on this topic go to Oracle Technology Blogs:

https://blogs.oracle.com/integration/entry/new_agent_simplifies_cloud_to

Until the next time!!

Reseña de SOALatam (SOA, Microservices & API Management Latin American Conference)

Hola estimados lectores, bienvenidos de nuevo a este blog de tecnología Oracle!!

En esta ocasión haremos una breve reseña sobre uno de los mejores y más sorpresivos eventos de este 2015: La conferencia sobre SOA, Microservices & API Management en Lima, Perú.

http://www.soalatam.com/

Para empezar, les cuento que un servidor tuvo la oportunidad de jugar un papel pequeño en la organización del evento, donde entablamos charlas con los organizadores, aportamos ideas, referencias y mucha promoción en redes sociales, blogs,etc. 

Desde el principio nos pareció una gran idea llevar a cabo una conferencia sobre estos temas en latinoamérica, sobe todo después de ver el gran interés que había generado el malogrado Simposio de SOA & Cloud Computing en México hace un par de años (evento que terminó por no llevarse a cabo debido a problemas de logística). Esto dicho, el gran reto consistía en lograr la presencia de suficientes speakers internacionales de nivel, así como en lograr el "quorum" requerido; esto en un lapso no mayor a 3 meses.

Y en ese sentido el comité organizador realizó un espléndido trabajo, que dio como resultado un gran evento que no solamente se concretó, sino que terminó rebasando cualquier parámetro esperado tanto por asistentes como por conferencistas. 

Acá los puntos más relevantes que se me vienen a la mente sobre la conferencia:

• La lista de speakers - Contar con gente de la talla de Thomas Erl y Frank Munz sin duda engrandece cualquier conferencia; pero además de ellos, y siendo el evento en latinoamérica, resultó sumamente agradable toparse con expositores de habla hispana (mexicanos, españoles, colombianos, peruanos, etc.), cuyas presentaciones, dominio de los temas y del escenario dejaron un gran sabor de boca en la audiencia.
• El público asistente - Ya que este era un evento con costo, los presentes y/o sus compañías hicieron una inversión significativa para poder estar allí. Además de que los lugares para la conferencia estaban agotados, el interés, participación y nivel de compromiso de las personas a lo largo del día fue realmente notable.
• El networking - La buena elección del lugar, el formato del evento y la excelente organización dieron tiempo y lugar para intercambiar contactos, establecer nuevas relaciones, entablar interesantes charlas, etc.
• La temática del evento - Pues a todos nos dejó contentos y sorprendidos el nivel de conocimiento e interés que existe en latinoamérica para temas novedosos como Docker, API Management, Arquitectura Bimodal, DevOps, etc.

Extendiendo este último punto, para mí el mejor momento del día se dió en el panel de expertos sobre "transformación digital", donde tuve el honor de participar junto a otros 4 conferencistas y al CIO de una importante corporación peruana.

Al dar todos nuestras opinones, queda claro que a dicha transforrmación la tenemos en la puerta, por lo que necesitamos estar preparados, ser innovadores y buscar nuevos niveles de conocimiento y especialización. Esto último también constituye una gran oportunidad para todos aquellos profesionales de TI, quienes en los próximos años se deberán comer este nuevo mercado a pedazos.

A todo esto, para finalizar les platico que la exposición que a mí me tocó dar fue sobre API Management, la cual hice en conjunto con mi buen amigo y co-autor Rolando Carrasco de México. 

En ella hablamos sobre el tema de manera agnóstica, pero también mencionamos la solución de Oracle para dicha tecnología, la cual conocemos muy bien al grado de literalmente haber escrito el libro sobre ella:

https://www.packtpub.com/application-development/oracle-api-management-12c-implementation

Al final regalamos algunos libros, playeras de los #SOAMythBusters (nuestro blog alternativo) y respondimos una serie de preguntas interesantes.

Pues eso es todo, espero hayan disfrutado la reseña y nos vemos a la próxima!!

Oracle Cloud Solutions: ¿Qué hay de nuevo en PaaS / iPaaS?

El pasado 20 de Mayo tuvimos un Webinar (patrocinado por ORAMEX / LAOUC), en el cuál se detallaron las nuevas propuestas de Oracle en cuanto a PaaS / iPaaS, las cuáles ya están en el mercado o están bien próximas a estarlo.

Si te perdiste el webinar o quieres volver a verlo, en la siguiente liga lo encontrarás en su totalidad; junto con toda la serie de videos publicados por el grupo de usuarios Oracle de México:

A lo largo de dicha sesión se hicieron una serie de preguntas por parte de los asistentes, las cuales contestaremos a continuación:

1. ¿iPaaS integra la nube de Oracle con nubes de otros proveedores y también de aplicaciones dentro de la nube de Oracle?

Respuesta: iPaaS (ICS) es una excelente opción para conectar aplicaciones cloud-to-cloud dentro de la nube de Oracle, ya que existe toda una variedad de conectores prefabricados para llevar a cabo dicha integración (e.g. HCM, RightNow, Eloqua, CPQ). De igual manera, se pueden conectar aplicaciones SaaS de otros proveedores, tanto a través de los conectores disponibles (Salesforce, Success Factors, etc.), como de APIs o web services diseñados para ello.

2. Con respecto a BPM en la nube, ¿Qué versión es la que se va a liberar?

Respuesta: Oracle Process Cloud Service (PCS) es una solución PaaS cuyo enfoque es algo distinto a la solución de BPM tradicional (on-premise), aun cuando su funcionalidad intrínseca está definitivamente basada en dicho producto. Este es un caso muy similar a ICS - SOA Suite; en realidad no estamos hablando del mismo producto pues la interfaz de usuario, modelo de licenciamiento, etc. son muy distintos. En ambos casos, lo que hay debajo del telón está montado sobre las últimas versiones disponibles (12c); sin embargo, siendo este un modelo 100% cloud, estas ofertas sin duda van a ir evolucionando de manera muy dinámica según el ritmo de innovación del mismo fabricante.

3. Si tuviéramos los servicios de Taleo & Fusion HCM como ejemplo, hay alguna integración "natural" que no sea ICS o es necesario ICS??

Respuesta: En este caso si lo que se busca es una integración "natural", lo mejor sin duda sería hacerlo por medio de ICS; es verdad que hay otras opciones de integración (SOA Suite, batch, punto-a-punto, etc.), sin embargo en un contexto de Cloud-to-Cloud dichas alternativas conllevan un costo, esfuerzo y complejidad poco deseables, sobre todo considerando que la solución iPaaS ya está disponible.

Para mayores referencias recomendamos la siguiente serie de artículos sobre Cloud Integration, la cual está disponible en Oracle OTN en español:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/es/articles/cloudcomp/oracle-database-cloud-integration-2370526-esa.HTML

Hasta la próxima!!

A First Glance at Oracle Stream Explorer 12c

The brand new Oracle Stream Explorer 12c has been released today. The idea behind this product, which gives it a lot of relevance, is to bring simplicity, usability and enterprise readiness to Event Processing.

We have talked before about Industrial SOA, and the impact that such concepts as: IoT, Social Media, Mobile, Fast Data bring to the table. With this in mind, we have to acknowledge that enterprises nowadays, constantly find themselves dealing with huge, endless amounts of data in motion.

Oracle's pitch in this sense, with Oracle SX, is to put this Real Time Streaming Intelligence in the hands of Business Users and Integrators, who can instantly determine the business value of the information and its relevance as business opportunities and threats.

So let's take a look at the product istself:

As you can see, Oracle SX looks really cool!!, and the first thing we must say in this regard, is that the product's user interface has been entirely built using Alta UI. Hence we are practically guaranteed a very favorable user experience which is not only nice, but will also help us position the tool in our clients.

Functionality-wise, SX abstracts event processing capabilities to a degree in which the user requires no knowledge whatsoever of Real Time Event Driven Architectures, Continuous Query Language (CQL), Java Event Server or the semantics of Event Stream Processing Application Models.

Basically, Stream Explorer introduces three main concepts that we must understand in order to configure the scenarios we want:

• Exploration: An application that correlates events from streams, data from data sources, even other Explorations. It uses filters, groupings, summaries, ranges, and more to Identify, Qualify and Expose a Real Time Business Solution.
• Stream: An incoming flow of events that you want to analyze, for example a stream of JMS, EDN events, or simulated Business events from a CSV file.
• Reference: A connection to static data that is joined to your stream to enrich it and/or to be used in business logic and output.

So, in order to work with my data on Stream Explorer, I would start by creating Streams and References, after which I would assemble specific Explorations based on my information and visualization requirements. Once I begin publishing my explorations, the data will start flowing in real-time:

As you can see in the image above, we can tag our components for ease of discovery, and we can also customize some graphs, summaries and filters.

Some of the main features of Oracle SX include the following:

• Dynamic uploading of CSV files, JMS, EDN, HTTP Publish and Subscribe and REST are all supported.
• Reusable Business Solution Patterns are available for users to select a familiar solution analysis and simply apply the relevant Stream.
• Drafting and Publishing of Explorations enables rapid prototyping of solutions.
• Exploration chaining, which provides a very simplistic approach to complex solution
  solving, by enabling a streaming flow of resultant live output data between different distinct artifacts.
• The export feature provides a mechanism to pass any Exploration, through a created jar file, for use in Oracle JDeveloper.
• The product is Both On-Premise and Cloud enabled, keeping the same UI. It can also be deployed as standalone integrated in the SOA stack or lightweight on Embedded Java.

In conclusion, Oracle SX seems to be a revolutionary offering, very easy to use and attractive enough for customers so it can generate immediate interest. It also spans several use cases and industries, and the ease of deployment and configuration would make it very quick and simple to for example deliver a very good-looking PoC.

I will surely be playing a little more with it and post my findings and opinions, so if you're interested keep tuned!!

Thank you very much for your kind attention, comments and questions are welcome as always.

Budapest Tales - Recapping an Unforgettable Fortnight at #ofmForum

Budapest is a pearl of a city. Flanking the Blue Danube from either side, it is all bridges and landscapes and landmarks. The "Paris of Eastern Europe" may strike you at first as a town belonging to a distant past, yet it is so trendy and avant-garde once you get to know it.

And it was a perfect venue for this year's Oracle Fusion Middleware Partner Community Forum. The 20th edition of the conference brought together technicians from all over the world, and whilst most of them are natives of EMEA countries, there was a also a strong US contingent of Oracle employees, as well as a surprising party of Latin American professionals.

The first two days of the event were held at majestic Boscolo hotel, with a stacked program consisting of briefings, breakout presentations, use cases, live demos and networking lapses. Having never been to an OFM Forum before, what really startled me was the generalized quality and relevance of the presentations. Even Oracle itself seems to recognize this gathering as a huge opportunity, bringing some of its top guns loaded with red-hot information to discuss with the community members. I've been in Beta Programs, CABs and Councils before, but this is just a different atmosphere.

Networking at #ofmForum is also something else, as I got to meet and talk with people I admire and respect so much, such as Lucas Jellema, Luis Weir, etc., and of course Jürgen Kress, our conference chair, who does such an exceptional job leading the community and really goes out of his way to ensure these events are not only succesful, but also extremely pleasant and memorable for everyone involved. This guy combines german precision with heart and passion, which is such a powerful mix; with his help we have managed to get so much exposure, so we're truly grateful for that.

Timing was also perfect for me in this occasion, since I was able to spend lots of time with Luis, whom I will be helping produce his second book on the topic of SOA / API Management Strategy. Thanks buddy for giving this huge opportunity to Rolando Carrasco and yours truly. Besides discussing the book, we had a lot of fun talking about technology, tweeting our brains out, sightseeing and doing lots of cool stuff in the city. One more thing I can say about Luis is that he is such a challenging guy, so driven, so hungry for knowledge and answers; I really enjoyed watching him give the Oracle guys a run for their money at the conference and the  workshops.

The people who like me, signed up for the SOA track, spent the last couple of days at the Oracle office doing hands-on work and giving feedback for groundbreaking products like ICS and Stream Explorer. I will be writing much more about these tools on days to come so stay tuned. A great thing about the change of location, was that we got to walk back to the center of the city just along the Danube river, with a setting sun, a multicolored sky and a mind at ease after a full day of hard and fulfilling work.

So, the big topics which made my short list for this week are: API Management, Cloud Integration, Mobility, Adaptive Case Management, Rich UIs and IoT; also considered were Ruin Bars, Goulash Soup, Thermal Baths and Palinka. As soon as I arrive home, but after suitable rest, I will start looking into my notes for each of this subjects (the first ones) and putting them together into specific posts.

Thanks once more for your kind attention, comments and questions are welcome as always; until next time!!

Oracle Integration Cloud Services (ICS) Beta Program

Hace un par de semanas estuvimos en Redwood Shores, California, participando en el Beta Program de Oracle Integration Cloud Services.

Esta fue una experiencia formidable, a partir de la cual tuvimos la oportunidad de conocer mejor y evaluar un producto nuevo y sumamente innovador, además de interactuar con product managers, miembros del equipo de desarrollo de Oracle, clientes, partners, ACEs,y demás.

Como parte del programa, se contó con la participación de profesionales provenientes de muy distintas latitudes como: México, Brasil, Australia, Colombia, USA, India, China, Europa, etc., lo cual definitivamente enriqueció de forma sustancial la dinámica que Oracle tenía prevista.


Si bien aún no podemos revelar grandes detalles técnicos por motivos de confidencialidad, lo que sí podemos decir es que el producto se libera este año y traerá consigo grandes oportunidades para la innovación, especialmente en proyectos de "Cloud Integration".

En este mismo blog, hace aproximadamente seis meses, ya le habíamos dado un buen vistazo a esta solución de iPaaS, la cual está llamada a ser el "Hub" de integración por excelencia en la nube para los clientes Oracle:

http://oracletechnocore.blogspot.mx/2014/08/cant-hardly-wait-oracle-cloud-ipaas-to.html

Sin embargo, lo que pudimos ver y utilizar en Oracle Headquarters, superó incluso la gran expectativa con la que ya íbamos allá.

Una vez que suceda el lanzamiento de Oracle ICS, estaremos publicando gran cantidad de artículos referentes a esta nueva tecnología, los cuales ya se están preparando; mientras tanto, si están interesados en temas de Integración Cloud con Oracle, los invito a revisar los artículos técnicos publicados en OTN por un servidor, como parte de la serie en español "Oracle Cloud Integration":

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/es/articles/cloudcomp/oracle-database-cloud-integration-2370526-esa.html
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/es/articles/cloudcomp/oracle-cloud-to-cloud-2370530-esa.html

Hasta la próxima!, preguntas y comentarios son como siempre bien recibidos.

Oracle SOA Suite 12c: SOA Industrial y Productividad para el Desarrollador

El pasado 17 de Diciembre de 2014 tuvimos el primero de una serie de Webinars gratuitos, los cuales están enfocados a compartir conocimiento con la comunidad de desarollo Oracle en Latinoamérica.

Dicho webinar fue entregado por un servidor, con el apoyo de ORAMEX y LAOUC.

En la siguiente liga pueden encontrar la grabación completa del Webinar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z68_fgKWlRU&feature=youtu.be

La idea de esta presentación es dar a conocer y analizar con cierto nivel de detalle las principales características de Oracle SOA Suite 12c, en especial aquellas que están enfocadas a facilitar el trabajo de los desarrolladores y proveer herramientas poderosas para las implementaciones SOA que llevamos a cabo en el día a día.

Adicionalmente, uno de los objetivos del webinar es seguir profundizando sobre el concepto de SOA Industrial, el cual ya se ha revisado con anterioridad en este blog.

En la siguiente entrega de Oracle Techno Core, resolveremos las dudas que en su momento fueron planteadas por la audiencia de esta presentación.