The Evolutionary Path: Things You

Can Do Today to Prepare for

Oracle Fusion Applications
An Oracle White Paper
January 2009 (a new revision)
Note:
"The following is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended
for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is
not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not
be relied upon in making purchasing decision. The development, release, and
timing of any features or functionality described for oracle's products remains at
the sole discretion of oracle."

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 2

 The Evolutionary Path: Things
You Can Do Today to Prepare for
Oracle Fusion Applications

Executive Summary .......................................................................................... 4

Introduction ....................................................................................................... 4
Oracle Applications Unlimited ................................................................... 5
Oracle Fusion Middleware .......................................................................... 5
Oracle Fusion Applications ......................................................................... 5
Best practices...................................................................................................... 5
Keep Current with the Oracle Applications Releases ............................. 6
Inventory your Enterprise Business Assets .............................................. 6
Inventory your Customizations.............................................................. 6
Inventory your Master Data ................................................................... 7
Prepare your Roadmap for the Future ...................................................... 7
Leverage Future-proof Solutions and Technology Today .......................... 8
Rethink your ―Customization‖ Strategy .................................................... 8
Scenario 1: Composite Applications...................................................... 9
Scenario 2: Self-Service Applications for a Larger User Population
(Internal and/or External) .................................................................... 10
Scenario 3: Empowering Information Workers Through Advanced
User Interfaces ........................................................................................ 10
Consolidate your Master Data .................................................................. 12
Embrace SOA-Based Integration ............................................................. 13
1. Option #1: Consider Prebuilt SOA Integrations .......................... 14
2. Option #2: Build your Own SOA ................................................. 15
a) SOA-Enablement of Oracle Applications Unlimited –
―Bottom-Up‖ approach .................................................................... 15
b) Consider Business Process Analysis – ―Top-Dow‖ approach17
Extend your Business Intelligence Applications Portfolio ................... 19
Adopt Enterprise Reporting and Publishing .......................................... 20
Secure your Global Enterprise.................................................................. 20
Increase Information Worker’s Productivity .......................................... 21
Incorporate Google-like Search ................................................................ 23
Consider Grid Infrastructure .................................................................... 24
Centralize your Applications Lifecycle Management ............................ 25
Summary ........................................................................................................... 27

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 3

 The Evolutionary Path: Things
You Can Do Today to Prepare for
Oracle Fusion Applications

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Oracle’s next-generation applications, known as Oracle Fusion Applications, are
being designed to harness best of business capabilities from all of our applications
into a complete suite delivered on Oracle’s open technology. Until then, there are a
number of things you can do to get ready. These steps will not only prepare your
organization for the power of Oracle Fusion Applications but more importantly
will help optimize your business procedures and reenergize your enterprise with
Oracle Applications Unlimited today.

INTRODUCTION
Oracle’s next-generation enterprise applications plan to merge the best features
from Oracle’s product lines—Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle’s PeopleSoft
Enterprise, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, JD Edwards World, and Siebel
applications—into a new enterprise software line called Oracle Fusion
Applications, based on Oracle Fusion Middleware. This is not just a vision for the
future, but some of these features are being incorporated into the newest releases
of Oracle Applications Unlimited today.
This paper explains how Oracle Applications customers can benefit from next-
“I’m excited by the steps Oracle is taking to
prepare its customers for the future of
generation technology today through Oracle Fusion Middleware. It also discusses
Oracle Applications. It is providing some of the business practices to consider while creating your roadmap for the
customers with numerous choices for future.
moving forward through Oracle Fusion
Middleware, Oracle Applications Integration
Architecture, and the upcoming Oracle
Fusion Applications. At the same time,
Oracle is providing a means for customers
to move forward at their own pace by
protecting current application investments
through the Oracle Applications Unlimited
and Lifetime Support programs.”

– Floyd Teter
System Engineer for Institutional Business
Systems, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Figure 1: Things you can do today to prepare for the Oracle Fusion Applications

But first, the following concepts and terminologies require further definition:
1. Oracle Applications Unlimited
2. Oracle Fusion Middleware
3. Oracle Fusion Applications

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 4

Oracle Applications Unlimited
Oracle Applications Unlimited is Oracle’s commitment to continue providing
enhancements to current JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, JD Edwards World, Oracle
E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, and Siebel product lines beyond the delivery of
Oracle next-generation of enterprise applications. Oracle Applications Unlimited
will provide customers with more visibility into our existing product road maps
and help them achieve continual success with their current applications by
delivering dedicated, world-class development and support for years to come.
Applications Unlimited is driven by Oracle’s commitment to protecting its
customers’ investments. In 2007-2008, Oracle delivered significant releases for
each of its product lines – Oracle E-Business Suite 12, PeopleSoft 9.0, Siebel 8.1.1,
JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.0 and JD Edwards World A9.1. The next releases for
each of these product lines are currently in development. Oracle is giving
customers the option to choose what is best for their business. Customers can
continue to derive value from their existing applications - which Oracle plans to
continuously update - or they can upgrade to future technologies if there is a
business case to do so. It is entirely the customer’s choice.

Oracle Fusion Middleware

Oracle Fusion Middleware is a family of middleware products that enables your
organization to run, secure, adapt, and expand its business. It is the world’s fastest-
growing family of middleware solutions, spanning everything from service-oriented
architecture (SOA), portals, and process management to application infrastructure,
identity management, content management, and business intelligence.

Oracle Fusion Applications

Oracle Fusion Applications are being designed to unify best-of-business
capabilities from all Oracle Applications in a complete suite delivered on Oracle’s
open technology. The goal of Oracle Fusion Applications is to help customers
transform their business into a next-generation organization. This next-generation
organization will have more adaptable business processes, more productive people,
and more manageable systems. Next-generation adaptability will come from a native
service-oriented architecture that allows for easier integration with other
applications and configurable business processes. Embedded business intelligence,
a rich, pervasive, and personalized user experience, and enterprise 2.0 business
processes will power next-generation productivity. Finally, centralized security, audit,
and controls, and the ability to deploy applications on premise, as a service, or
through business process outsourcing will deliver next-generation manageability.

BEST PRACTICES
Efficiently and accurately completing an upgrade project that is critical to the
business requires project planning. The sheer size of the project and the number of
individuals involved can make completing the project properly more challenging.
Among the best practices and common sense initiatives that this paper
recommends for our applications customers are to keep current with the latest
applications releases; get a complete inventory of enterprise assets, and start
leveraging future-proof solutions and technology today.

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 Keep Current with the Oracle Applications Releases
As with any upgrade and given the current economic climate, customers must
justify their upgrade expenses and therefore it is fundamental to evaluate both your
business and IT drivers, which will vary from one customer to another. However,
it is still important for customers to plan to upgrade to the latest releases of Oracle
Applications Unlimited: Oracle E-Business Suite 12, PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.0, JD
Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.0, and Siebel 8.0 applications. Each of these releases
represents a significant investment in providing new functionalities, which,
although they vary from one product to another, all have in common the uptake of
the next-generation platform—Oracle Fusion Middleware—today.
For example, Oracle E-Business Suite 12 is the first release that runs on the latest
release of Oracle Application Server 10g, and that is one of the technical highlights
of Release 12. This goes along with Oracle Applications’ theme of delivering the
Oracle Superior Ownership Experience through the simpler deployment of Oracle
E-Business Suite with the latest Oracle Technology Stack.
Similarly, PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.0, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.0, and Siebel
Customer Relationship Management 8.0 all have the ability to run on the latest
release of Oracle Application Server 10g as well as leveraging Oracle Business
Intelligence Publisher for standard reporting out of the box. In addition,
PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.0 has made a significant investment in the uptake of
Oracle SOA Suite, particularly Oracle BPEL Process Manager, to deliver prebuilt
samples of BPEL code for industry-specific functionality for the financial and
communication sectors.
Truly, each of the latest applications releases has made a significant step toward
Oracle Fusion Applications by adopting many of the components of Oracle
Fusion platform already.

“Managing the migration of a complex Inventory your Enterprise Business Assets

application portfolio starts with the creation
A critical step in the preparation phase is to complete an asset ―discovery,‖ which
of a detailed inventory of all assets
should deliver an accurate snapshot of what applications assets are in the live
involved. However, this is only the
beginning: The inventory must be kept environment. This paper focuses on two very important assets of any company:
active over time. Four key inventory classes customization—including interfaces, processes, and business flows—and data.
underpin Enterprise Platform Migration.”

Inventory your Customizations

- Andy Kyte, VP, Gartner
Here are some of the details that need to be compiled for your customizations:
Gartner ITxpo, May 2007 - Barcelona
“Enterprise Platform Migration: The Great 1. Type of customization, such as reports, screens, functional configurations,
IT Planning Challenge” or interfaces between systems
2. Functional overview
3. Owner of this asset
4. Technology used to build the customization
5. For interfaces, it is important to note the interface/integration type:
a. Volume and frequency
b. Sync or async, point-to-point or hub-and-spoke integration
c. Technology used, such as electronic data interchange (EDI), file
transfer etc….

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 6

“Getting the right data quickly and consistently Inventory your Master Data
for all applications continues to be a key
challenge for many enterprises.” An enterprise has three kinds of actual business data: transactional, analytical, and
master. Transactional data supports the applications. Analytical data supports
Forrester, January 2006 decision-making. Master data represents the business objects—such as customers,
products, suppliers, and employees—involved in transactions and the analytical
dimensions—hence its importance for any business.
IT landscapes have grown over the last several decades into complex arrays of
different systems, applications, and technologies. This fragmented environment
has created significant data problems such as duplication, inaccuracies, and
incompleteness.
This is the best time, especially in preparation for Oracle Fusion, to invest in
consolidating and cleansing your master data. And the first step is to get a good
inventory of your master data by compiling and identifying the followings
characteristics:
1. Type of data, such as customer, product, or supplier
2. Owner of this asset—that is, which application is the master of this data
3. Where this data is being used
4. Who cleans this data

“Oracle has brought industry and solution Prepare your Roadmap for the Future
expertise at regular intervals into our
Do nothing is just not an option to survive the economic climate or to stay
business transformation to provide insight
into new technologies. The Oracle Insight
competitive in your market. Now is the time to plan and prepare for your future.
program has been instrumental in jointly To help you with this process, Oracle has set up a new program, called Oracle
developing strategies to solve our Insight that offers a structured approach for engaging application installed-base
emerging business challenges.” customers in a conversation about aligning their strategy and plans with Oracle’s
direction.
– Norm Fjeldheim
CIO, QUALCOMM Oracle Insight is a collaborative program that harnesses the best minds across
Oracle. It explores your specific plans, and, as a result, Oracle will help you extend
and evolve your IT portfolio to align with Oracle’s strategy for Oracle Applications
Unlimited and Oracle Fusion Middleware. Through a series of discovery sessions,
“Oracle Insight created a new relationship
between Bausch & Lomb and Oracle. It was
the program assesses where you are today from a technology uptake and
used to build momentum in key focus application support/upgrade perspective.
areas, such as upgrades, release testing,
Oracle starts the process with an interactive discussion with business and IT
investigation into technology components
(SOA, grid, middleware). With this
executives about industry trends, best practices, long-term vision and strategies,
foundation, B&L began to understand and issues that may affect your organization’s ability to achieve its goals. This
Oracle’s strategic directions and align to conversation determines where to mutually explore how applications and
them.“ technology can support your objectives and strategic goals.

– Aldo Cistrone Upon completion of the collaborative engagement, Oracle provides you with a
Director, Bausch & Lomb road map for maximizing the return on your Oracle investment.
Not only do we provide recommendations on areas where you can receive
business benefits today but we also answer questions about what our strategy
means to you. Additionally, we introduce the adoption of new applications, new
solutions and technologies in the context of your IT and business roadmap.

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 7

LEVERAGE FUTURE-PROOF SOLUTIONS AND TECHNOLOGY TODAY
Oracle is developing the unified next-generation Oracle Fusion Applications by
integrating the ―best of the best‖ software capabilities and business practices across
its portfolio of applications. Oracle Fusion Applications plan to deliver this
functionality by using Oracle Fusion Middleware.
Therefore, as part of the ―evolutionary path‖ to the future, our customers should
start evaluating the benefits of Oracle Fusion Middleware and how it might apply
to their business challenges today.
Oracle Fusion Middleware is a complete product line that includes a process
orchestration modeling tool, idendity management, data hubs, industry-specific
analytics, XML reporting, and much more.
This paper shows how some of these capabilities can be incorporated into your
applications and IT infrastructure. Leveraging the next-generation technology
today helps you to:
1. Extend the value of your current applications investment today
2. Gain IT and operational skills today in preparation for the future

Rethink your “Customization” Strategy

After you have completed an inventory of your customization, as discussed earlier
in this paper, you should review it to see if the functionality in the latest Oracle
Applications releases will enable you to retire any custom code. This effort will
streamline your upgrade path and ensure that you have the newest features at your
disposal—and you can often avoid the need for intrusive customization by
considering the following recommendations:
1. Use the configuration and parameterization capabilities of the latest
releases.
2. Use the personalization capabilities in the latest releases.

Figure 2: Rethink your “customization” strategy

Those customers who want the ability to extend their applications to support their
organization’s competitive differentiators should evaluate the capabilities of Oracle
Fusion Middleware, which is unique in the comprehensiveness of its integrated,
standards-based developer and business analysis tools. Specifically, Oracle Fusion

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 8

Middleware offers the following capabilities to all Oracle Applications Unlimited
applications (Oracle E-Business Suite; Siebel, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards product
lines) customers today:
o Oracle Application Developer Framework (Oracle ADF), the
development framework for Oracle Fusion Applications
o Oracle WebCenter, the collaborative portal environment for Oracle
Fusion Applications
o Oracle SOA Suite, including Oracle BPEL Process Manager, which can
be used for human workflow extensions and orchestration of Web
services as part of user interface extensions
o Oracle Business Activity Monitoring, which can be used to drive
additional visibility and transparency into application workflows
o Oracle business process management solutions, which enable, from a top-
down perspective, organizations to model business processes and
orchestrate individual services into an end-to-end business
o Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition, the same
technology that underpins Oracle’s business intelligence applications
today for Oracle Applications Unlimited and tomorrow for Oracle Fusion
Applications
o Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher (also known as Oracle XML
Publisher within the applications customer base), which can be used today
for your enterprise reporting and publishing
With Oracle Fusion Middleware certification and embedded functionality, you can
build extensions that survive the upgrade to Oracle Fusion Applications while
getting the value of your current Oracle Applications investment today.
Leveraging Oracle Fusion Middleware should be a key consideration when
building new functionality to extend existing business functionality such as
 New screens
 New reports
 New business intelligence or analytics capabilities
 New business processes
 New integrations and interfaces to existing or legacy systems
Let’s look at three common use cases in which Oracle Fusion Middleware can be
of concrete benefit to Oracle Applications Unlimited customers.

Scenario 1: Composite Applications

In a service-oriented architecture (SOA) world, composite applications are

applications that deliver novel and extended functionality but interface with Oracle
Applications via Web services for back-end capabilities.
Example

A real customer example was to develop a module for automating the management
of warranty claims—functionality that is outside the capabilities provided by

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 9

 Oracle Applications today. Such a warranty management application includes a
Web site where customers can submit claims and check claim status. Oracle ADF,
together with Oracle WebCenter, would be the best choice for implementing such
customer functionality as the front end to interacting with Oracle Applications via
Web services.
In addition, the composite application provides a claims workflow user interface
for caseworkers. Implementing this is easy: leverage the human workflow
capabilities of Oracle BPEL Process Manager, part of Oracle SOA Suite, while
interacting directly with Oracle Applications at the back end.
As you can see, building composite applications can benefit from the use of Oracle
ADF, Oracle WebCenter, and Oracle SOA Suite. These technologies are beneficial
for communicating with Oracle Applications via Web services.

Scenario 2: Self-Service Applications for a Larger User Population (Internal and/or

External)

Self-service applications extend the capabilities of Oracle Applications to a larger

user base, mostly via the Web. A real customer example (from DeVry University)
is the recruiting department who has a difficult time accessing the standard Oracle
CRM screens to get leads, status leads and to follow up on leads, especially for field
advisors who had very poor connectivity due to location and lack of high speed
“The Oracle Fusion Middleware provides broadband.
standard’s based powerful tools to unlock
many of the features in Oracle E-Business
DeVry University had developed a custom web JSP based application utilizing
Suite that are buried under the standard back end services to retrieve and update information from the Oracle E-Business
interface through application specific Suite Student System together with Oracle CRM module. The access time for an
connectors and other productive advisor through the company portal dropped from 10+ minutes for a single lead to
enhancement features.” less than 30 seconds over a Sprint wireless card.
– Sam Tong Example
IT Director, DeVry University
A good example that is very familiar to most Oracle customers is the
OracleMetaLink system. At the moment, Oracle itself is implementing a new
version of OracleMetaLink on top of Siebel Support Web services, using Oracle
ADF with Oracle Web Services Manager to secure Siebel Web services. A benefit
of Oracle ADF is also that user interface components built with it can be reused
easily in different contexts. For example, user interface elements that are custom-
built for call center agents can be easily adapted and reused for customer self-
service on the Web. Oracle ADF provides important features for easily creating
maintainable variations of user interface elements.

Scenario 3: Empowering Information Workers Through Advanced User Interfaces

Last but not least, the Oracle Fusion Middleware toolset provides capabilities for
user interface (UI) enhancements that wouldn’t be possible with native Oracle
Applications tools.
Examples

1. One example of such a user interface enhancement is an Ajax-style UI.

For example, let’s say you want to give your employees an ―autosuggest‖
capability such as Google’s for searching your employee directory stored
in your Oracle Applications human resources module. Oracle ADF is an
effective tool for implementing such advanced UI features.

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 10

 2. Oracle Fusion Middleware provides business activity monitoring (BAM),
the ability to deliver to business users dashboards, real-time gauges of
their transactional systems and business processes. Executives often see
great value in dashboards, because they foster transparency of the
business. BAM is an excellent tool for instrumenting workflows and
activities within Oracle Applications and enhancing the user interface via
real-time dashboards.
Summary

As you can see from the use cases and examples, Oracle Fusion Middleware lends
itself more to substantial user interface extensions than to simple page
customizations or personalization.

Figure 3: Rethink your extension strategy

The native applications tools and technology such as Oracle Forms/Oracle

Applications Framework for Oracle E-Business Suite and PeopleTools for
PeopleSoft Enterprise applications are appropriate for customizing applications’
internal functionality, because these tools have a strong integration with
applications infrastructure such as menus, security, and look and feel. For
composite applications, Web self-service extensions, and UI enhancements outside
of the capabilities of native tools, Oracle Fusion Middleware toolset is the right
choice today.
The rest of this paper explores areas that make lot of sense for customers to
evaluate and embrace today.

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 11

 Consolidate your Master Data
“Oracle Customer Data Hub proves
Oracle’s ability to integrate with third-party
Most companies do not intentionally build systems and business processes that
datasources. It gives us a single view of our encourage multiple versions of master data (customers, suppliers, products,
guests yet allows us to continue to use accounts, and more), but as companies evolve, systems proliferate. There is a
applications from a variety of vendors.” natural fragmentation of data, data quality practices, and contributing business
processes. Proactively managing data quality is critical for operational and analytical
— Patrick Piccininno
VP, Information Technology,
systems integrity.
IHOP Corporation Oracle provides a complete master data management (MDM) solution to help our
customers consolidate, cleanse, and synchronize their master data. Key solution
components include Oracle Customer Data Hub, Oracle Product Hub, and
Oracle’s Hyperion Data Relationship Management. By using these together with
Oracle Fusion Middleware offerings, customers can create a quality data
foundation for application deployments, business process optimization, and SOA
initiatives.

Figure 4: Consolidate your master data

Oracle’s recommendation for our Oracle Applications customers is to seriously

think about using Oracle MDM to centralize and cleanse their distributed master
data before going to Oracle Fusion Applications. Two key reasons why this is a
good idea: (1) it brings real business value to the enterprise now, and (2) it
facilitates the move of all your master data into the Oracle Fusion data model prior
to the actual upgrade to Oracle Fusion Applications. This is a powerful approach
that brings increased business flexibility now and lowers the cost of upgrading to
Oracle Fusion in the future.
As you start your migration to Oracle Fusion, one of the primary steps is core data
migration. Therefore, it is fundamental to have the most accurate master data. This
way, before you start the migration process to Oracle Fusion Applications, you can
be assured that your master data is unique, certified, and unified. In fact, for
customers looking to migrate to Oracle Fusion Applications, this is a unique
opportunity to master your key enterprise business entities, which will increase
data quality, provide trustworthy information, and lead to robust business
processes—thereby enabling you to run your business better.
This transition can be accomplished in three straightforward steps:

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 12

 1. Deploy Oracle MDM data hubs to manage as many master data entities as
possible (customer, product, supplier, chart of accounts etc…).
2. Utilize Oracle Application Integration Architecture (details can found in
section - Consider the Oracle Prebuilt Integrations) to integrate the
master data with existing business processes and Oracle Applications.
Oracle plan to provide out-of-the-box integrations between Oracle MDM
data hubs and Oracle Applications, including Siebel Customer
Relationship Management, Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft
Enterprise, and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne.
3. Upgrade the Oracle MDM data hubs to the Oracle Fusion versions as
soon as they are available. When this second generation of master data
management applications is released, Oracle plan to provide the upgrade
scripts to move the existing master data to the Oracle Fusion Data Model.
At the end of this process (highlighted by Figure 4 below), customers will have all
of their existing Oracle Applications connected to their master data in the Oracle
Fusion Applications model. In addition, significant business value will have been
realized by the Oracle MDM solution itself.

Figure 5: Oracle Master Data Management (MDM) to Oracle Fusion MDM

Embrace SOA-Based Integration

Given Oracle’s recent applications acquisition strategy and the company’s desire to
make the shift to the SOA world, Oracle has embarked on several projects and
initiatives to embrace the SOA approach:
1. Oracle is developing the next generation of business applications—that is,
Oracle Fusion Applications—with SOA design principles in mind. This
approach will also enable third-party developers to extend the capabilities
of Oracle Applications to add, for example, industry-specific functionality
or custom services.
2. Oracle’s desire is also to SOA-enable the current Oracle Applications
Unlimited by exposing its core functionality as services that can be
consumed by outside applications and hence play a role in the SOA
world.
3. Oracle is providing a standard method of integrating business application
functionality from Oracle E-Business Suite and product lines such as

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 13

 PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, and Siebel. This initiative has already begun
under the umbrella of Oracle Application Integration Architecture, which
is closely tied to Oracle Fusion Middleware and, in particular, Oracle SOA
Suite.
Based on Oracle’s own experience in embracing SOA-based integration, the
following recommendations may help customers with the adoption of an SOA-
based approach:
1. Consider the Oracle prebuilt SOA integrations
2. Build your own SOA and Oracle SOA Suite and there are 2 design
priniciples to achieve this:
a. ―Bottom-Up‖ approach, by leveraging the Oracle Applications
SOA capabilities as further discussed below.
b. ―Top-Down‖ approach, by consider business process analysis
(BPA) tools to model and simulate your business processes

.
1. Option #1: Consider Prebuilt SOA Integrations

Oracle’s recommendation is to consider the various prebuilt SOA-based

extensions and integrations, such as Oracle Application Integration Architecture,
before embarking on new development yourself.

“Oracle Application Integration Oracle Application Integration Architecture

Architecture will help us solve our
Oracle removes some of the key inhibitors to SOA by providing both a prebuilt
problems with integrating our front- and
back-office systems. By leveraging an SOA and industry-optimized service-oriented applications, all built around an SOA
open, standards-based architecture, we will governance model that encourages effective design and reuse. The result is Oracle
have the flexibility to make discrete Application Integration Architecture, providing all the components of SOA in one
changes without disrupting the entire integrated whole.
business process.”
Oracle Application Integration Architecture is a comprehensive set of products
– Brian Simmermon, CIO, that delivers sustainable business-process-based integrations across Oracle
Subaru of America, Inc. Applications as well as third-party and custom applications. With its open,
standards-based foundation, Oracle Application Integration Architecture enables
you to create streamlined business processes that span application boundaries
while greatly shortening time to value.
Oracle Application Integration Architecture helps you gain greater business agility
with the applications you have today.
Oracle offers three components with Oracle Application Integration Architecture:
1. Process Integration Packs (PIP)
2. Foundation Pack (FP)
By offering prebuilt Process Integration Packs, Oracle intends to help significantly
reduce the cost of deploying and maintaining process-driven integrations while
supporting a more adaptive application infrastructure.

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 14

 “After considerable architectural and By offering the Foundation Pack Oracle intends to provide a new approach to
functional consideration, ScriptPro
business process integration across disparate applications. It combines the power
determined that the Oracle Application
of Oracle’s Fusion Middleware along with a set of best in class application Objects
Integration Architecture vision provided the
opportunity to leverage our
& Business Services that together, form the building blocks for a new generation
Siebel Customer Relationship Management of composite applications allowing customers to leveraging existing investments to
investment, as well as a flexible mechanism fulfil mission critical business processes.
for adapting to changing business drivers.”
While Foundation Pack is dependent on Oracle Fusion Middleware, there is no
– Chris Duffy, VP, Information dependency on our application products because of its application independent
Systems & CIO, ScriptPro design. Similar to our Process Integration Packs, Foundation Pack is designed to
work in heterogeneous environments
Finally, with its Oracle SOA Suite foundation, Oracle Application Integration
Architecture enables Oracle customers to more easily transition to an SOA and
achieve their SOA goals. It also gives them a start toward deploying a business
process platform, with the overall objective of migrating their current applications
to Oracle Fusion Applications.

Figure 6: Oracle Application Integration Architecture (AIA)

For more information on Oracle Application Integration Architecture, please refer

to the white paper ―Offering Seamless Cross-Application Business Processes Using
Oracle Application Integration Architecture‖.

2. Option #2: Build your Own SOA

In addition to Oracle Application Integration Architecture’s methodology and

prebuilt processes, customers can leverage the SOA capabilities within both Oracle
Applications Unlimited and Oracle SOA Suite to develop SOA-based composite
applications today.

a) SOA-Enablement of Oracle Applications Unlimited – “Bottom-Up” approach

Oracle has invested heavily in getting Oracle Applications ready to play a role in
the SOA world, as evidenced by the following capabilities:
1. Each application in Oracle Applications Unlimited has a standards-based
approach to exposing Web services (natively or through the ―adapter‖) that
can be consumed by Oracle SOA Suite.
The Oracle Applications adapters expose the existing assets, such as native
APIs and express them as Web Services Description Languages (WSDLs)

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 15

that can be invoked by other Oracle Fusion Middleware products such as
Oracle SOA Suite (Oracle BPEL Process Manager, Oracle Enterprise Service
Bus, and so on). As you will see below, Web-services-enabled applications
will eventually minimize the need for adapters, but most organizations expect
that the adapters will continue to play a key role in their integration
infrastructure for years to come.
a. The Siebel product line provides this capability through its
WSDL 1.1 standards-based Web services. Siebel 7.8+ has native
support for Web services and can be directly integrated with
Oracle Fusion Middleware components such as Oracle BPEL
Process Manager and Oracle Enterprise Service Bus. Prior to
Siebel 7.8, the Oracle Adapter for Siebel is needed for
integration.
For further details, please visit our Oracle Fusion Middleware and
Siebel CRM Best Practice Center on OTN:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/fmw4apps/siebel/ind
ex.html
b. Oracle E-Business Suite provides this capability through Oracle
XML Gateway, service bean architecture or through the Oracle
E-Business Suite adapter. The Oracle E-Business Suite adapter
enable reuse of existing assets, such as PL/SQL APIs, concurrent
programs, interface tables, views etc… by exposing them as
services that can be integrated with Oracle Fusion Middleware
products such as Oracle BPEL Process Manager and Oracle
Enterprise Service Bus.
For further details, please visit our Oracle Fusion Middleware and
Oracle E-Business Suite Best Practice Center on OTN:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/fmw4apps/ebs/index.
html
c. PeopleSoft Enterprise provides this capability through its
Integration Broker. PeopleTools 8.4.6+ has native support for
Web services and can be directly integrated with Oracle Fusion
Middleware products such as Oracle BPEL Process Manager and
Oracle Enterprise Service Bus. Prior to PeopleTools 8.4.6, the
Oracle Adapter for PeopleSoft is needed for integration.
For further details, please visit our Oracle Fusion Middleware and
PeopleSoft Enterprise Best Practice Center on OTN:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/fmw4apps/peoplesoft
/index.html
d. The JD Edwards product line provides this capability through its
integrated Business Services capability beginning with JD
Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools 8.97. Also, the Web Services
Gateway can be used to SOA enable JD Edwards
EnterpriseOne.
The Oracle Adapter for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne is not
needed for integration with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.9, 8.10,

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 16

 and 8.11. It is advisable for customers to upgrade to JD Edwards
Tools 8.95 to integrate with Oracle BPEL Process Manager and
Oracle Enterprise Service Bus.
For further details, please visit our Oracle Fusion Middleware and
JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Best Practice Center on OTN:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/fmw4apps/jde/index.
html
2. Each application in Oracle Applications Unlimited has a services repository—
that is, a catalog for all interfaces:
a. For Oracle E-Business Suite, it is called the Oracle Integration
Repository. It houses all the existing integration points—that is,
public interfaces (Web services, open interface tables, PL/SQL APIs,
Java APIs, and so on) and is hosted online for Release 11.5.10
(http://irep.oracle.com) and shipped with Release 12.
b. For PeopleSoft Enterprise and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, it is
called the Integration Services Repository and is available online. This
repository already contains more than 1,500 Web services.
c. For Siebel Customer Relationship Management, it is called the Service
Repository (SR), is available online, and currently contains more than
1,500 Web services.
APIs that are exposed through the Oracle Integration Repository are
accessible as standards-based services through Oracle BPEL Process
Manager. There are more than 1,000 predefined business events in the
Oracle E-Business Suite Business Event System that can be leveraged to
produce and consume services. PeopleSoft Enterprise already has more
than 1,500 Web services, the JD Edwards product line has more than 200
core Web services, and the Siebel product line has more than 1,000
business events.
Oracle BPEL Process Manager, a component of Oracle SOA Suite, which is part
of Oracle Fusion Middleware, provides a comprehensive, standards-based, easy-to-
use solution for creating, deploying, and managing cross-application business
processes with both automated and human workflow steps—all in a service-
oriented architecture. Oracle BPEL Process Manager consumes services from
various applications and orchestrates them into a business process. Its native
support for standards such as BPEL, JCA, JMS, Web services, XML, XPATH, and
XSLT makes it an ideal solution for creating integrated business processes that are
portable across platforms. It fully leverages sophisticated features of the underlying
Oracle Fusion Middleware platform such as security, scalability, and high
availability.
To learn more about Oracle SOA Suite, please go to:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/soa/index.html

b) Consider Business Process Analysis – “Top-Dow” approach

So far we have seen how to enable application services to participate in enterprise-

wide cross-application processes—starting with the building blocks that are the

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 17

services or the proprietary APIs and all the way up to building full composite
applications—a bottom-up approach to building SOA applications.
At the same time, organizations can start by modeling business processes and
orchestrating individual services into end-to-end business processes that can be
monitored, optimized, and easily changed—a top-down approach to SOA design.
Here we describe how Oracle Business Process Analysis Suite, which is among the
Oracle business process management solutions, enables you to build and extend
business processes that involve Oracle Applications across your organization or
even to your business partners.
In addition, Oracle Business Process Analysis Suite is innovatively integrated with
Oracle BPEL Process Manager to provide closed-loop business process
management (BPM) capability. With this integration, you can do the following:
 Model and simulate with Oracle Business Process Analysis Suite.
Model and then simulate business requirements to analyze your business
processes. You can do that by using Oracle Business Process Analysis
Suite, which has the same metadata format as the process execution
engine—Oracle SOA Suite—and helps business and IT seamlessly
collaborate.
 Implement, deploy, and execute with Oracle BPEL Process
Manager: With Oracle BPEL PM, you can generate an outline model of
business requirements and business process; use tools to integrate the
business process with interfaces or services of existing systems and
applications; and implement business process, define business rules
associated with process, and map data.
 Monitor and optimize with Oracle Business Activity Monitoring.
Make processes visible for end users, and monitor the efficiency of
business processes in real time and historically. Oracle Business Activity
Monitoring captures executed process data in real time and feeds that data
back into the simulation engine for real-world planning. Oracle Business
Activity Monitoring is part of Oracle SOA Suite.

Figure 7: The Oracle business process management solution and the business process lifecycle

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 18

 To learn more about the Oracle business process management solution, go to
http://www.oracle.com/technologies/bpm/index.html

“With Oracle’s prebuilt analytic solutions Extend your Business Intelligence Applications Portfolio
for sales, marketing, and service, we were
Oracle has always been a strong believer in prebuilt business intelligence
able to deploy a powerful BI solution in less
than three months. Verizon Business
applications, and this has been demonstrated by several prebuilt, role-based
employees across the enterprise are now business intelligence offerings. Now Oracle takes this one step further by
empowered with relevant, complete providing this intelligence not just for one single business application but also for a
information tailored to their role.” solution that spans multiple datasources and business applications. This solution
− Rob Moore lacks the barriers of traditional business intelligence solutions that are typically
Executive Director, Verizon Business
confined to one subject or functional area, are difficult to use and maintain, and
cannot provide insight across the company value chain. Oracle business
intelligence (BI) applications provide the answer to this critical business challenge.
Oracle Business Intelligence Suite was developed with the assumption that data
resides in multiple places and multiple business applications such as Oracle E-
Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise, Siebel Customer Relationship Management,
SAP, or JD Edwards EnterpriseOne as well as in legacy applications. It is built on
the Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition platform, the same
technology used for Oracle Fusion Applications. In fact, Oracle business
intelligence applications are already available today for Oracle Fusion and can be
leveraged by all Oracle Applications customers. Of course, these BI applications
plan to continuously evolve, offering more coverage for specific industries as well
as across industries.

Figure 8: Extend your business intelligence portfolio with Oracle BI applications

So by extending your business intelligence today with Oracle BI applications, you

get one step closer to Oracle Fusion Applications. You gain value today from these
applications while gaining the IT and operations skills required for Oracle Business
Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition.
To learn more about the Oracle business intelligence applications, please go to
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/bi/bi-applications.html and
http://www.oracle.com/appserver/business-intelligence/bi-applications.html

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 19

 Adopt Enterprise Reporting and Publishing
“Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher
opens up completely new possibilities for
Your enterprise must produce a wide range of reports and documents to support
the generation of business documentation internal operations and management, customer communications, and government
and the presentation of business reporting. Each document type requires a different delivery method: daily
information across divisions.” management reports must be delivered to a Web portal, operational reports are
sent via e-mail, checks and labels must be printed, and individual customers
– Dieter Schuster,
request different delivery methods for their invoices.
IT Manager, Ziemann+Bauer GmbH
Traditionally, supporting all these requirements has required several reporting and
publishing solutions. Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher (or Oracle XML
Publisher) provides the solution to run and deliver your business documents in all
the formats described above and more.
Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher incorporates the principles Oracle is
carrying forward into Oracle Fusion. It integrates today with Oracle E-Business
Suite and the JD Edwards and PeopleSoft product lines (integration with the
Siebel product line is planned). By adopting Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher
now, you can not only shed multiple third-party solutions but can also put in place
a cornerstone piece of Oracle Fusion technology today.

Figure 9: Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher provides a complete reporting solution today and beyond

To learn more about Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher, please go to

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/xml-publisher/index.html

Secure your Global Enterprise

Security in Oracle Applications today is based on application-specific tools and
technologies that were developed over many years when there was a lack of
enterprise security standards. Now enterprise customers are dealing with a variety
of complex technologies in distributed and heterogeneous environments that put
an additional burden on application developers.
Today, the Oracle recommendation is for those Oracle Applications customers to
start leveraging Oracle Identity and Access Management Suite, which is part of
Oracle Fusion Middleware. Customers can start the process of externalizing and
centralizing their user management today, with Oracle Identity and Access
Management Suite, and be ready for Oracle Fusion Applications.

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 20

 Figure 10: Centralized identity management for applications

To learn more about Oracle Identity Management, please go to

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/id_mgmt/index.html

"Oracle WebCenter Suite reflects Oracle’s Increase Information Worker’s Productivity

effort to provide a common interaction
As organizations continually reinvent themselves and strive for higher levels of
pattern for its wide array of applications, as
efficiency and productivity, the demands on information workers are constantly
well as third-party applications regularly
accessed by knowledge workers. . . Oracle increasing. Unfortunately, in today’s business environment, it is unusual to find an
WebCenter Suite will serve as the UI shell organization that has a totally homogeneous software infrastructure. Rather, it is
for the next-generation Oracle Fusion very often the case that the various lines of business within the organization have
Applications….Oracle WebCenter Suite independently sourced very different software packages to meet their specific
represents one of the first moves by a
tactical or strategic needs.
major application vendor to incorporate
technologies associated with the Web 2.0 Whether due to an attempt to purchase the ―best of breed‖ or simply because of
movement.” consolidation of organizations that have standardized on different vendors, it is
becoming increasingly common for businesses to end up implementing several
— David Gootzit
different enterprise application suites across their organization.
Principal Research Analyst,
Gartner Group, December 2006 For example, a large sales and manufacturing organization may have its business
information compartmentalized as follows:
 Sales force employee information within PeopleSoft Human Resources
Management System
 Customer relationship/purchasing within the Siebel Customer
Relationship Management Orders modules
 Invoicing and financial processing in Oracle E-Business Suite
 The warehousing and manufacturing systems within the JD Edwards
EnterpriseOne environment

Although the choice of application was seen as optimal for the specific
requirement, this topology significantly decreases the productivity of end users
who need to perform transactions across these functions, as the users themselves
effectively become the point of contextual integration. That is, as users perform a
task that transcends the boundaries of the individual application, they have to
remember the purpose and operation of each of the different suites, remember
their multiple logins, and also be conversant with how to find the data they are

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 21

 seeking. In short, they lose the connection to the task in hand as they jump
between multiple applications.

Figure 11: Unify user interactions and empower your information workers with Oracle WebCenter

The introduction of Oracle WebCenter Suite to the organization described above

would allow for the development of a user-driven, transactional application that
would improve productivity by bringing the required information to the users (as
they perform the task at hand) rather than sending them off to find it. This
situation is outlined in the following scenario:

1. The sales manager of the company described above has received notification
(via the integrated workflow process) of a large product order from a member
of the field force. Given the size of the deal and the strategic nature of the
customer, the rep is requesting approval for a significant discount on the
order. Quite naturally, the sales manager would like to discuss the deal with
the rep before signing off on the discount. Not only does the application,
based on Oracle WebCenter, display the rep’s contact details from the HRMS
system but the manager is also able to determine if the rep is currently online
and either chat with that person directly via instant messaging or automatically
dial the contact phone number listed for a voice conversation.
2. Having discussed the deal with the sales rep, the sales manager is further able
“The vision is compelling, combining
to see the strategic nature of the client by viewing its relationship history
transactional, collaborative, and analytical
directly in the same page. The client has been a great repeat customer and
modes of working into a single interface,
rather than requiring users to jump back
certainly deserves the requested discount, but the size of the order itself may
and forth between unintegrated enterprise, be a concern. Is there sufficient inventory to cover the order, or will a back
desktop, and Web applications. … Further, order be required? Again, the integrated application is able to present this
Oracle WebCenter gives developers detail directly in context by exposing the relevant product information from
complete control of how different elements
the inventory system. There is sufficient inventory on hand, so the order is
are combined, regardless of source, and
approved and the information sent off to the order entry and financials system
allows interfaces to be personalized by
business users at the individual, group, and
for processing.
organizational levels.”

In this simple sales scenario, the manager was able to be notified of the order,
Jim Murphy,
discuss it with the rep, investigate the customer’s order history, determine if there
Research Director
was sufficient stock on hand, and finally approve and instigate the order/invoice
AMR, October 2006 processing—all within the context of the current transactional application. The

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 22

 fact that four quite disparate enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems were
accessed was completely transparent to the manager.
And, because Oracle WebCenter is a core component of Oracle Fusion
Applications, the applications you build with Oracle WebCenter today plan to
seamlessly blend with both the current and future applications from Oracle.

To learn more about Oracle WebCenter, go to

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/webcenter/index.html

Incorporate Google-like Search

With the popularity of search engines on the Internet, the power of effective
“Enterprise search has moved beyond
search technologies such as ―google-like‖ search has become clear to everyone.
simply offering faster access to
information. Instead, we see search and Business users are adept at using search technology on the internet, and they
indexing capabilities deployed to help expect similar search experience within Enterprise Applications (e.g. Oracle E-
companies manage the rising tide and Business Suite, Siebel, etc.).
growing risks posed by unstructured
information.”
But search within enterprises differs radically from public Internet search. The
information that businesses store and use for decision making is scattered across
Forrester Wave, 2008, millions of documents and data fragments. Many documents are confidential or
private - access to these must be controlled to ensure that only documents such as
invoices or expense reports etc…. that the user is authorized to see are returned by
the search engine.
“For every 1,000 workers, Enterprises
waste $2.5 million per year due to an
inability to locate and retrieve information.”

IDC,

The High Cost of Not Finding Information

Figure 12: Incorporate Google-like search in enterprise applications

With the introduction of Oracle Secure Enterprise Search (SES), you can now
incorporate a simple, fast and secure ―google-like‖ search for a variety of Oracle
Applications (e.g. Oracle E-Business Suite, Siebel, etc.).
Oracle Secure Enterprise Search is a standalone product that provides a simple to
use, yet powerful way of searching all your data. Oracle SES is a self-contained
product that can crawl and index any content and returns Internet-like search
results. It also provides a query service API that can be plugged easily into various
components to get a search service.
There are two modes in which enterprise application search can be deployed: the
SES standalone case and the embedded search case. In the standalone case, users
can come directly to the search site and search for application data, while in the

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 23

embedded case the user is inside the application context and performs a search
through the application.
Enabling search for Enterpise Applications enhances users’ experience by
providing:
o Direct Navigation: Users can go directly to an application menu function
or option based on keywords. For example, typing in ―notifications‖
should be able to provide a link that can take the user directly to his / her
―notifications‖ page within the Employee Self-Service menu in E-
Business Suite.
o Speedy and Secure Information Retrieval: Users can quickly search and
retrieve relevant application’s transactional and non-transactional data in
the context of application sources, using simple keyword input or in
combination with advanced search criteria, much in the way they use
traditional search engines. Because most of the time we are dealing with
protected application sources, the underlying access and security policies
from each application must be enforced.
o Unified Search across multiple application modules: Users can use Oracle
SES as a single point of searching and accessing information across
multiple application modules. Thus users need not have to know which
application module contains the relevant information before searching.
This also helps in collating information from multiple application modules
in a single screen without having to first navigate to each module.
o Visualization: Finally, the visualization of information specific to a
datasource can further enhance the productivity of the end user. For
example, instead of showing a standard hit list for human resources people
results, it might be more useful to show a simple table for each hit that
contains all the relevant information (e.g. name, address, contact
information, etc.) upfront in an easy-to-understand format.
Please refer to the whitepaper ―Searching Enterprise Applications with Oracle
Secure Enterprise Search‖ on how to leverage Oracle SES with Oracle
Applications. Further details on Oracle E-Business Suite integration with Oracle
SES can be found here ―Datasheet: Oracle E-Business Suite Secure Enterprise
Search‖.

Consider Grid Infrastructure

Today most organizations have underutilized servers with little or no resource
sharing from one application to another. Due to an inflexible IT infrastructure that
was planned on a per-application basis with a one-time budget, buyers have sized
their servers to support peak capacity.
As a result, IT organizations now manage inflexible silos of servers, software, and
storage dedicated to individual applications—and organizations must manage their
infrastructure at a lower cost.
Imagine instead an infrastructure of standard, inexpensive, reusable components
with a central management console to automate hardware, software, and storage
procedures and policies. Such an infrastructure simplifies the IT environment,
reduces cost, and frees up staff to focus on value-oriented activities. By virtualizing

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 24

 resources, the IT organization is better able to implement SOA, the ―next big
thing‖ in enterprise software.
When choosing an SOA strategy, corporations must rely on solutions that ensure
data availability, reliability, performance, and scalability. They must also avoid
―weak link‖ vulnerabilities that can sabotage SOA strategies.
Hence, one of our recommendations in preparation for the future is to
incrementally standardize, virtualize, consolidate, and automate your enterprise
architecture, reducing costs in the process using grid computing.
Grid computing provides the solution, enabling scalability, reliability, and high
availability within a service-oriented architecture that can be fully monitored and
serviced with a single management tool called Oracle Enterprise Manager.

Figure 13: Consolidate your IT landscape by using grid infrastructure

To learn more about Oracle Grid Computing, go to:

http://www.oracle.com/technologies/grid/index.html

Oracle Application Management Packs Centralize your Applications Lifecycle Management

extend Oracle Enterprise Manager to
provide complete, integrated, and A key goal of Oracle Fusion Applications is to focus on delivering the Oracle
application-specific management. Superior Ownership Experience in application manageability. We are standardizing
on Oracle Enterprise Manager as the base platform for building Oracle Fusion
application management tools. To build the bridge necessary to facilitate customer-
driven, incremental adoption of Oracle Fusion technologies, we are applying some
of our latest ideas back to the current generation of applications so that there will
be a continuous road map into Oracle Fusion.
Oracle Enterprise Manager is Oracle’s flagship management product. It provides
enterprise-class capabilities that are required for managing today’s complex,
heterogeneous data center environments, with their collections of applications,
middleware, databases, servers, storage, and network devices. It offers a complete
set of advanced management tools that include application performance
management, configuration management, service-level management, event
management, job management, diagnostics, patching, and provisioning—all built
on an integrated architecture that simplifies deployment and promotes ease of use.
It also offers integration capabilities to coexist with help desk and other
management tools you have deployed.
Through Oracle Application Management Packs, you can start centralizing the
management of your existing packaged Oracle Applications on Oracle Enterprise

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 25

Manager, immediately reaping many of the benefits of improvements promised by
Oracle Fusion Applications. These management packs complement existing
bundled application tools, such as Oracle Application Manager and Oracle’s Siebel
Server Manager and PeopleSoft Performance Monitor that provide tactical
administrative functions. The packs leverage Oracle Enterprise Manager’s
advanced capabilities to facilitate proactive management and Information
Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices implementation. When
you combine the functionality of the packs with other Oracle Enterprise Manager
tools, you can use a single console to gain complete visibility into your entire
application infrastructure, including all your application instances; the SOA-based
fabric you use to connect your applications; Oracle and non-Oracle databases and
middleware; and your servers, storage, and network devices, all of which influence
your application’s performance and availability but are not handled by the bundled
tools.

Figure 14: Centralize system management with Oracle Applications Management Packs

In addition to gaining advanced management capabilities, you can also smooth the
transition to Oracle Fusion Applications through Oracle Enterprise Manager. As
you modernize your application infrastructure by using Oracle Fusion Middleware
technologies such as Oracle BPEL Process Manager, Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle
Identity Management, Oracle Content Manager, Oracle Portal, and Oracle
Business Intelligence Suite, you can plug these technologies into Oracle Enterprise
Manager and manage them together with your existing applications as a single
logical system, achieving management simplicity and minimizing the deployment
risks associated with adopting new technologies. Ultimately, when you decide to
adopt Oracle Fusion Applications, you can plug these applications into Oracle
Enterprise Manager as well and manage them alongside your existing applications
during the transition period when old and new applications coexist.

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 26

 Figure 15: Common capabilities of Oracle Applications Management Packs

To learn more about the Oracle Applications Management Packs, go to

http://www.oracle.com/enterprise_manager/applications-management-
packs.html

SUMMARY
As you have seen in this paper and as part of the ―evolution path‖ to the future,
Oracle’s strongest recommendations are for customers to (1) keep current with the
Oracle Applications Unlimited releases and (2) to start evaluating the benefits of
Oracle Fusion Middleware and how it might apply to their business challenges.
This paper has demonstrated how leveraging the next-generation technology today
will help you to:
1. Extend the value of your current applications investment
2. Gain IT and operational skills in preparation for the future
To summarize, the recommendations in this paper will not only help your plan for
migrating to Oracle Fusion Applications but, more importantly will extend the
value of your Oracle Applications Unlimited today. You can
1. Increase data quality and provide trustworthy information with Oracle
master data management, which will lead to robust business processes
enabling you to run your business better today and will also help make
your data migration to Oracle Fusion Applications a lot smoother
2. Reduce integration costs with Oracle Application Integration Architecture
and extend with Oracle SOA Suite
3. Make better business decisions with Oracle business intelligence
applications
4. Improve flexibility and reduce costs of custom reporting investment with
Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher
5. Improve security with Oracle Identity Management

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 27

6. Increase information worker’s productivity by unifying user interactions
with Oracle WebCenter as well as introducing google-like search
capabilities using Oracle SES
7. Unify system management across your applications, middleware, and
database with Oracle Enterprise Manager.

The Evolutionary Path to the Fusion - Page 28

The Evolutionary Path: Things You Can Do Today to Prepare for the Future
January 2009
Author: Nadia Bendjedou

Oracle Corporation
World Headquarters
500 Oracle Parkway
Redwood Shores, CA 94065
U.S.A.

Worldwide Inquiries:
Phone: +1.650.506.7000
Fax: +1.650.506.7200
oracle.com

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