Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g, the latest upgrade of Oracle's middleware platform, includes tools that allow the enterprise to collaborate and trade information more effectively, while attempting to simplify the processes involved in development, IT governance and other areas. Perhaps in a nod to economic realities, Oracle is not radically changing the pricing structure of Middleware 11g from its predecessor, according to an executive.Oracle's
latest platform rollout, Fusion Middleware 11g, embraces new elements such as
social networking, even as some of its features seem geared toward businesses
looking to streamline their processes in the midst of a recession.
Oracle Middleware 11g's enhancements, designed to simplify day-to-day
aspects of enterprise networks such as IT governance, service-oriented security
and development, can be placed within five modular groups:
Oracle SOA Suite 11g: A single-process platform designed to bring
system, human and "document-centric processes" under the same
umbrella while deploying an EDA (event-driven architecture) with a library of
SOA (service-oriented-architecture) capabilities.
Oracle WebLogic Suite 11g: Adds layers of operational insight and
automation to the business processes via a number of Oracle tools, increasing
server uptime and reliability.
Oracle Identity Management 11g: An
integrated Identity Management Suite, with tools such as Deployment
Accelerators, Universal Federation Framework, and a unified user interface
based on Oracle's ADF (Application Development Framework) Faces.
Oracle Development Tools: These include
Oracle JDeveloper, Oracle Application Development Framework and Oracle TopLink.
The last of these elements, Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g, includes Oracle WebCenter Spaces, a social networking
application that allows businesses to create communities within which to
communicate, as well as share documents and other business-related information.
While not an integration of a separate social networking application or site
into its software, as Salesforce.com did with Twitter, Oracle's incorporation
of some social networking elements into its newest middleware suggests that
developers continue to see social networking as valuable within the enterprise
context.
Indeed, Thomas Kurian, senior vice president of server technologies for
Oracle, cited the new platform's enterprise portal, social computing and Web
portal abilities as a key development, saying during a Q&A session with
eWEEK and other media outlets that they "give the people the ability to
interact with other people and the information processes they need."
Another key benefit, Kurian said, comes from the platform's application grid
and identity management capabilities, which "lower the cost of deploying
in an operational environment." He added, "The application grid takes
a pool of machines and/or storage and puts those machines together into a
cluster that gives you better performance and reliability."
Cost, of course, is a prime issue for the enterprise as during the worldwide
recession. In that spirit, Middleware 11g has been given roughly the same
pricing structure as its predecessor, so as to not impede cash-strapped
businesses potentially looking for an upgrade. A higher price, Kurian said,
"causes people to be slower to upgrade to the new versions."
The company has high hopes for adoption of its newest platform.
When Oracle
announced the launch of its Fusion Middleware 11g platform in a presentation in
Washington on July 1, Oracle President Charles Phillips described it as
"a major launch of a key product line, a foundation for how we will deploy
technology in general."
Building on previous versions of Fusion Middleware, the newest iteration has
been optimized for increasingly virtualized data centers, with a focus on
providing enterprises with a continual stream of real-time information and the
infrastructure for agile business applications.
On the developer side, the Middleware 11g has been designed with developers'
needs in mind, specifically with regard to building rich Internet applications,
application customization and systems consolidation. Developer tools range from
common metadata management to ALM (application lifecycle management).
Middleware 11g also utilizes the newer capabilities found in many enterprise
data centers.
"It takes advantage of multicore processors, with new levels of caches,
such as [Level 1] and L2 caches," Phillips said during his presentation.
"We took advantage of 64-bit addressing this will allow you to address
larger spaces in data and memory."
Enterprise Applications 
