Using Web 2.0

When I started this blog, I said I wanted to see what what tools worked and what didn't.

Initially I used Google's blogger tool to write, post and edit my posts. Although it does what it says on the tin, its single biggest draw back is that its stateless. Unless your device (PC, iPhone, PDA) has a connection to the web you cannot do anything.

Although a wireless network was available in all conference locations, and my hotel room allowed me to join CNET's free wireless service, at times network contention meant that the connection would get dropped or would time out while trying to retrieve an URL.

In order to get round this problem I initially used notepad to capture notes and when connected used blogger to create the posts. Then I came a across a product called MS Windows Live writer and have to say I have really enjoyed using it. I used it to capture notes in a presentations and key notes which I then could easily edit quickly in the familiar MS gui. It allows the writer to keep a number drafts open which you can switch between. You can insert hyper links, and other objects such as tables, maps, video or pictures.

I tried to use my iPod touch to post but found that it would not connect to the Oracle wireless wan - and as its completely stateless this meant it couldn't be used to capture and post blogs. Back home I had a look at the blogger interface for the iPhone and it look great. The iPhone soft keyboard isn't the best interface though.

I also used Google's Picasa 2.0 to post pictures. I wasn't happy with the results but this just be my lack experience of using the tool.

I allow used my face book account to update my status. This meant I could put short notes about what I was doing or how I has feeling - sometimes directly from my mobile. Other Web 2.0 tools such as twitter can be used for this type of interaction but I'm not sold on the idea of sms everyone I know 50 times a day. 

One of the challenges about running a blog, is the feeling that your posting items to an audience of one - the writer. Without any feed back, you do question your sanity. I did get three pieces of feedback - from my wife, a mad yank called flatcap and a LPFIT release manager. I suppose I could have provided rss feeds so that updates could be posted directly into iGoogle and the like, so making them more accessible.

The overall balance though is positive. I believe that I offered colleagues and family an insight into what was going on in San Fran and what I was doing. As far as I know this is the first time someone at CFH has tried anything like this I would encourage others to give it a go. If anyone found it useful as useful I'll find out over the next few weeks. 

Out and about at Oracle World

Inside Moscone North key note areana, near the front waiting for Sun key note

One end of Howard street, closed for 10 days. Behind the screen were the food halls.




Leaving the Larry Elision key note.






The branded Moscone West hall, in total five hotels all three Moscone hall have to used to provide rooms for the conferance.

Back Home

We'll I'm back home in London now. I'll do some wrap up posts over the next days on the event itself, what is was like to blog, which tools worked and which didn't.

I suppose the next big question I've got answer is do I start another more general blog. As an CFH employee do I need permission or do I write under a pseudonym something I'd feel uncomfortable doing.

I'm also interested to know if anyone ever did read this - apart from my new friend Flatcap..

And the Survey Results Say..

None of the above

The answer is Apple Crisp.

Question

After the last session I have a question:

What is the difference between a ESB and classic Integration Engine?

The only answer is that I seem to get is that an Integration engine tends to be propriety, and not as elegant.

Anyone got any thoughts?

Distributed Computing - ESB, SOA, BPEL & Web Services

Why do we need distributed processing:

Integrate with Legacy, Leverage Partner Applications, Use Internet applications

What is SOA ?

They come in two flavours

Asynchronous  - Long Running - Mortgage applications

Synchronous - Quick response such Travel Reservations

Integration patterns based around Orchestration.

SOAP, XML, WSDL, UDDI, Internet when combined create a Web service.

 

What is BPEL?

Takes advantage of Web services, implements the client for SOA

Partner links based upon WSDL

Web service and distributed fault handling

Orchestration of Web Service

Can be Asynchronous or synchronous:

BPEL is coded as an XML document

Process steps are called activities

Oracle SOA Components (Found in 10.3 upwards)

BPEL Process Manager

• Context state preserved by dehydration
• Adapters for connection to non Web Services Components

ESB Implementation

Web Service Manager

• Security
• Monitoring

Web Service implementation of a Rules Engine

Related tools

Oracle Service Registry

JDeveloper BPEL and ESB designer tools

A survey

Please read the following recipe.

300g/10½oz plain flour, sieved pinch of salt
175g/6oz unrefined brown sugar
200g/7oz unsalted butter, cubed at room temperature
Knob of butter for greasing
450g/1lb apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1cm/½in piece
50g/2oz unrefined brown sugar
1 tbsp plain flour
1 pinch of ground cinnamon

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
2. Place the flour and sugar in a large bowl and mix well. Taking a few cubes of butter at a time rub into the flour mixture. Keep rubbing until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
2. Place the fruit in a large bowl and sprinkle over the sugar, flour and cinnamon. Stir well being careful not to break up the fruit.
3. Butter a 24cm/9in ovenproof dish. Spoon the fruit mixture into the bottom, then sprinkle the flour/sugar mixture on top.
4. Bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes until the top is browned and the fruit mixture bubbling.

Now please answer the following question:

If I followed the recipe above I would be baking a;

Apple Pie
Apple Cumple
Apple Cumble
Apple Cobler

Answers on a post card to Larry Ellision..

I'll explain when I get home.

Party Night Tonight

We're all off the Cow Palace this evening for an Billy Joel and Stevie Nick's. Prince has followed up on his threat to never play again - or perhaps he heard there would be nerds for love open source present and they might infringe upon his copyright.

Dashboards for Healthcare

By accident we saw this late addition  to the programme, Mark Pamler from vizmetrics.com ran a presentation showing 'how to cut the fluff, visualise your programme and get results.

For a dash board project to succeed there are 5 essential D's.

Defined Need  - The Audience and the stakeholders of the reports. Define the target of who will use the dashboard. A clear definition of the need for the information provided.

Decision Metrics - how do list you out the metrics. Bring all the reports an organsisation already being produced. Plus the collective wish list of new reports.

Data. Where is the data, erp, staff systems, clinical apps, offline sources such as spreadsheets. Keep focus on the need not where the data is persisted.

Design. The objective is create high density dashboards. The human eye can cash large amount of information - don't turn the dash board into individual power point slides or web screens. Select the correct chart type. Mark suggested not to ever use pie charts. Remember to use the real estate on the screen effectively. Try to bring the needs together in groups.

Delivery. Don't get carried away with technology. Some stakeholders need it on paper, others want real time whizz bang. Think about web delivery or PDF output.

Dell and Elision Key Notes

Michael Dells key note was the best of the bunch. To packed hall he went through what Dell see as the key issues facing the industry over the next four years. Along with his CTO a range of new hardware (both server and clients) were given a workout. Highlights included a new type of PC - a deviced which you streamed data to. In effect it was hybrid wyse device with PC internals except missing a hard drive. This gave the benefits of response to the user while maintain the support convience of a thin client device.

The last area of concern for the planet. Michael demanded that the IT industry reduce its carbon foot print. He challenged his competitors to more than Dell were doing in terms of the environment. He called us the 're' generation.

However Larry was a bit of a let down. He's not a great presenter and talked to the slides - which included Monday's announcement about the adoption of Zen in the VM space.

The Sun key note - and the headline is 'Dell to Support Solaris'

Early start for the first key note, and I've got a front row seat for Jonathon Schwartz. Will this be about Sun as a hardware vendor or as the leaders in the Java world?

We have dry ice  now being pumped on the stage. The not so subliminal  messages loop on the screens. The session music is much less drum and bass (it actually compressed my lungs last year)and more trippy dance. When your in keynote hall the sessions feel more than a gig than a serious business. When this room is full up to 15000 people come to listen to Larry and his merry gang, which is more than most bands play to. I seem to have sat myself down right into the Oracle Japan delegation, I won't mention the war.. The music, then volume picks up lights on and we're off.

Boring! he's going to talk about the economics of open standard. Geek alert..He's got a pony tail!!! How can a man with a pony tale be taken seriously at this level.

Michael Dell walks on to the stage - Dell is going to support Solaris on its servers. 

Demo of remote control software.

XML and Oracle

The final session yesterday (sorry late post) was on Oracle XML database. The first to say is Oracle XML is not a separate product, but functionality embedded with the database, some of which has existed since version  9.

Oracle 11g has introduced a raft of new features to support XML, and also brings orders of magnitude improvements in performance. 11g also has an XML parser built into the database engine. This allows the XML to be processed quicker with specific memory management optimisations.

In previous versions either structured (that is xml data with an associated schemer) or unstructured XML was supported. Now in version 11 supports binary XML has been added. XML data can now be treated as if it was SQL data, with store, query, update and transform now being manipulated by SQL

Is any one reading this?

This post does what it says on the tin? Reply through the comments.

Sharing Patient Records in Tennessee

Today's final session described the success of a clinical record sharing solution in Tennessee. Up to 2 million patients (Medicare, Blue Cross participants and Nisson employees) are part of solution which allow care professionals to access in real time the patients complete record.

The solution has been live for two years with real reductions in the cost of delivering care with improved patient outcomes.

The session didn't concentrate upon technologies, although HTB, is a key component.

It's not clear to me if the US has a more relaxed IG framework on the basis of healthcare being paid for - so a patient has to except the terms and conditions of the provider organisation. Certainly in this case patients had to opt out of the service, but under 1% did so.

Oracle Healthcare strategy

Neil de Crescenzo the Oracles VP for Healthcare introduced the Healthcare track with a thought provoking presentation some of key issues facing the industry.

Oracle see three pressures upon the health care industry:

1. Increasing demand for healthcare, from an aging population, new drugs, chronic diseases and consumers awareness of illness
2. Growing Environmental Pressures, from consumers asking for value for money, infectious diseases and bio terrorism, rising medical malpractice and legislation and audit demands
3. Worsening Healthcare Economics from 'to do more with less' with staff shortages,  matching limited (or finite) resources with growing demand from patients.

The Presentation then stepped through how Oracle can help  the Provider, Payers and Life science sectors:

Providers are focused on three major areas

1. Providers want to ensure quality of care and patient safety.
2. To attract and retain the healthcare workforce
3. To mitigate cost and comply with regulations

The NHS mentioned in relation of the Electronic Staff record saving $250 million. Simon Fletcher was awarded a prize last night. 

Consumers wish to direct their own care. But consumers are not given the correct information to make the informed decisions - this information needs to be integrated held by multiple entities, but this makes this it hard for consumers to channel this data.

So BI is becoming a top priority, which will give:

Performance management ( to see better quality outcomes)

Need for greater insight beyond CEO and CMO

Analytics increasingly delivers  capabilities that will enable a more effective healthcare system.

Integrated analytics would see information held in Benchmark systems, Omic's,  Clinical systems, billing and ERP being combined and reported upon,

The second sector was the payer market, which includes increased consumerism citizen services which greater transparency and choice. Service such as choose and book would fit into the area.

The final section of the presentation look at Life Sciences sector.

To wrap up Oracle are going to provide support more for personalised healthcare systems.

Healthcare

This morning we met with Penny Lie Oracles VP for Healthcare strategy. It was an opportunity to find out the direction of Oracle's heath applications and how they could be implemented to support PSIS or BT London integrated solution.  We briefly discussed Oracle's support for the RHIO's in the States and other markets.

This afternoon the healthcare track begin

Database Sizing

Interesting session about real world techniques to successfully size database components.

In summary there are four stages:

determine application service level agreements that the database has to meet

understand the i/o bandwidth limitation of the all the components (disk, fibre, switches networks..)

The final designs must be validated to the database is actually capable of scalin and for it to meet its availability and throughput targets.

And finally test test test.

Virtualisation

This morning announcement that Oracle were moving into the virtualistion market seems to have been missed at the conference. As the product is available for free download on Wednesday I expect that Larry Elision will be talking about it during his key note then, so we will see.  If I was VMware I'd start to worry.

At last years keynote Larry Elision announced the Unbreakable Linux program as Oracle moved into the OS market. Today's announcement add's their proposition so that now you can buy the complete solution from end to end on Oracle supported products. You can have a solution running on a grid of cheep Dell servers running Unbreakable Linux, with fusion acting as the middleware, the data in a 11gr2 on a RAC instance. The application might be Peoplesoft with Hyperon BI tools.

This is same approach as  Microsoft, a soup to nuts supplier, from OS to applications. Oracle claim there solutions are based upon open standards so we'll have to see this changes now that they have solution in all area, and they get tempted to supply products that lock in the customer.

IBM buys Cognos.

Is is coincidence that IBM choose this morning to bid for Cognos? Were they trying to overshadow any announcements made here. After SAP's purchase of Business Object's are there any independent enterprise BI vendors left?

Mark Hurd (HP CEO) talked in his key note about what's going to happen to all the cash sloshing around the industry. He saw three potential outcomes

• Pay out larger dividends to the shareholders
• Commence a share buy back
• Spend the money on takeovers

The last few day has seen a sell off in the tech sector ( Apple has lost $40 since last Tuesday) on fear of in reduction of financial services IT spend. But if Mark's right then there a strong reasons to stay long in technologies in the medium term.

Larry Elision also mentioned in his key note last night that tech stocks were over valued in the bubble and seemed to be warning everyone that to buy on fundamentals not on hype.

Overwhelming

Unless you are here shear size of this event is hard to explain. How many other IT conferences require the a main road to be closed to ten days

Howard Street now is restaurant

City taxis and buses are plastered with the red Oracle brand. Street corners and lights carry flyers

As well as all three massive Moscone centre halls and floors, at least three large hotels are hosting events.

In total 30000 have passes. I should imagine another 10000 are working to run the event.

Of course its just not a celebration of the database, with other product streams such as Peoplesoft and Seibel also have major conference tracks.

Oracle Application Integration Architecture

The first session is on AIA which is a standard based framework to create cross application business processes. The product is needs Fusion middleware components to run on.

The AIA has three components:

• Industry reference models. These are best practice guides so that the final deployed process are optimised.
• Processes Integration Packs which contain out the necessary code to create business process required without risk
• Pre built SOA that will run out of the box on Fusion middleware

The general complaint about  AIA is that currently only Siebel is supported and the PIP's don't come cheap.

Oracle have now published a foundation pack which is series of templates and vanilla processes which can be adopted by a 3rd party to meet their requirements.

Oracle has no timetable to extend AIA into other products such as Peoplesoft. The certainly had no plans to use this approach for healthcare.

What's on today agenda

After yesterdays slow start the conference proper starts today. For the most part I'm in sessions looking at Fusion middle ware tool set.

Fusion is the brand name for a wide range of Oracle middleware technologies. They are designed to support and develop and deploy then manage SOA's. At the heart of the stack is what used to be called Oracle Application Server, a Java Enterprise Application server.

What were emerging technologies a year ago such as BPEL, are now becoming mainstream at this year event.

The first key note

So the Conference begins properly. Delegates are asked to Que. At 5:30 we start to filter into the Moscone North hall for the first keynote. This room is a very impressive structure that measures something like 800 foot by 300 foot. This is the hall were Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone. I wonder if Does Larry have a distortion field as well?

We're met as we walk in with the sound of a loud beat pop combo calling themselves Gear Driver.

The promos start, with only five's minutes to go. Looks like 'who lit the fire is going to be theme of the week'. I hate Billy Joel....
Wedged under our seats are large pieces of card - I wonder why?

We're being told to sit down. The reasons for the cards are becoming clear - there going to be used in a stunt. When held up they form the number 30. We held them up and the guy giving orders is happy.

All of a sudden its become Sunday night live - will this go straight over my head... Is it like 'Not the nine o'clock news' but American?

Larry and the rest of the Oracle board walk in to polite applause.

Larry's reading holding notes...but doesn't seem to be using them.

The keynote is dedicated to Robert M Milner Oracle Co founder who died 10 years ago today, which is rather ironic because he died exactly 20 years after constituting Oracle on on the 11th November '77.

Larry is telling is the genesis story of how Oracle started. In the days of lore when Larry was only a programmer not a manager. Larry has a very odd little laugh - quite disconcerting, I wonder if he had the same laugh then. He also has a habit of speaking really really quickly when he gets excited (that happened three times tonight).

thigs that we learned...
The initial capital put into the the company was $2000.
Larry pitched a relational database to the CIA and called it Oracle. They bought it for $48000.
Version 2 of Oracle was version really version 1.
Looking back on it they were working on lots skunk works projects for the USA intillegence community. ( No doubt today they would be vilified like Haliburton)
We're getting the recuitment tale for all of orginal employees. The canadian programmer, a proper sales man who sold Larry a pizza. The finacial officer...blah blah we're only in 1981! I'm getting hungry and the food dosen't get served until Larry wraps up.
He off...

Part 2.
We get a couple of promo's on Oracle support for the community. One thing that caught my interest as a parent was Oracle's Thinkquest programme. This allows young people from all over the world to collaborate on projects using tools and technologies provided by Oracle. This is something I'll asking more about when I get back home and talking to my children about.

The second promo showed earnest Oracle staff doing their bit for their community. I'll also be following this up to when I get home to see when exaclty my favorate Oracle rep can come and paint my youngest son's school.

Its a small (oracle )world

Jim Landmark - worked on the programme in the IDX days

Oracle Health Care Industry Group

This does exactly what it says on the tin. This is a group of users in health care who originally used Peoplesoft but whose range of interest has expanded to included other areas such as BI and technology. The group allows healthcare users to share best practice through a web site, monthly conference calls and an at their annual conference. At the moment the group is focused on the US but want to expand to Canada and further internationally

Mary Kilmer from Oracle presented on their support for Health care and Life sciences. This is one the seven industries Oracle now focuses on. This seems to be after Larry Elision refocused Oracle in this area. The health care industry work stream starts on Tuesday so I will come back to this subject later in the week.

As the use of Oracle tools and technologies expand in the NHS, I would have thought that this sort of group needs to be created in the UK. Perhaps CFH and Oracle should work together to encorage the creation of a UK chapter?

Its a small world

A recuring post of the people I've bumped into at Oracle world.
Dave Bowen - From the Great Ormand Street Hospital in London

Plane's trains and Automobiles

Need to work out how to add comments! Seems i'm in the user's account.

The shortest jumbo flight ever.

As the engines spooled up and down the 747 punched its way through the mist and clouds sliding down the glide slope into SFO. Then the engines suddenly generate their pretake off roar, the nose points up and I gripped the seat rest as the landing is aborted.

The pilot comes on 'For those among you who didn't realise that we're climbing and not landing, had to go abort the landing so we're going around. Nothing to worry about I'll be back in a second'

Apart from the engines the cabin is very quite. Finally the engines slow down and we level out.

'Hi everyone this is the captain. Sorry about that but the air traffic control got that all wrong and we got too close the plane landing in front of us. Well we haven't got much fuel, and the weather is getting worse so we're going to divert to Oakland - I'll talk to again once we're on the ground'

This time we land no problems.. we taxi to a quiet corner of the apron.

'Hi your captain again can everyone stay in our seats. Homeland security will want to come on board to make sure every thing's ok. Also there are no facilities here for us, so we're going to refuel and fly back over to SFO'.

Now if you look at Google earth you can see that SFO and OAK are only 5 miles apart, separated by the bay. This is probably going to be some sort of record for number of people commuting between Oakland the San Fransisco in one vehicle.

As I look out of window, SUV are driving around the plane, parking up and shining lights through the aircraft windows. I'm not sure what they thought they could see....

'This is the chief steward, they cannot find any steps so Homeland security cannot get on board, so if you want to stretch you legs please do.'

Roll forward 60 minutes..

As the engines spooled up and down the 747 punched its way through the mist and clouds sliding down the glide slope into SFO. Then the engines suddenly generate their pretake off roar, the nose points up and I gripped the seat rest as the landing is aborted.

Again we've been given the go round by SFO air traffic control.

'Hi this is your pilot if I hadn't seen for my self I wouldn't have believed it but we've told to go around again but no worries it all under control'

Roll forward 10 minutes

We're on the ground. Except we're on the short runway. We slowed down like a fighter on an aircraft carrier catching an arrested wire. Still we're here - only two hours late.

As we taxied a bazaar game of one up manship started between the crew...

'This is the pilot - after flying for BA for 10 years I've only had go round 4 times and two of those were today'
'This is your captain - after flying for BA for 17 years I've only had go round 7 times and two of those were today' He also sounded the evening events had led to him missing a hot date and he was off to air traffic control to exact some revenge - statements such as 'not knowing what there doing', 'out of depth' may have passed hs lips.
'This is your chief steward - after flying to 22 years ( well that should 22 years be serving drinks and telling passengers to put their seat up) and that's only the second and third time I've had to go around.'

For the record that was my forth and fifth- Hongkong, Copenhagen, London City but who's boasting.

E health Insider Awards

Last night it was the annual e-health Insider awards and one of the project I've worked on was short listed - Not only that but it actually won in its class. So with my bib and tucker on and with an invitation to BAFTA tightly clasped to my chest as I set of to Piccadilly .

The nomination was for an implementation CSW CaseNotes, being used in Tower Hamlets to support a health process called Single Assessment for older people - or SAP. This particular project is close my heart as it was one the first things I was asked to work on picked up when I joined the programme and I'm still involved with it today. The project allows health and social workers to provide joint care to an important group of patients, offering them better care. Even better was that it won.

The CFH programmes has taken a great number of criticisms which does get you down, so what was so brilliant about last night was that something CFH and BT have designed and deployed together has made a direct difference to patients lives through its use. This is why I've come to work every day - and sometimes it nice to see the end the product helping professionals make a difference to the people they treat.

Anyway well done to BT, CSW, Tower Hamlets care community and my colleagues in CFH.

From Subscriber to Publisher

I've been a user of the whole Web 2.0 experiance for at least couple of years but it is only in the last few days that I've decided to dip my toe into this wonderful world and become a producer of content.

One of the things I want to get out this this blog to be able to use the technology I own to update it. So I'm hoping to update it while listening to key notes from my tablet, or to publish pictures of Larry Elison directly from my camera while listening to his key note. Will I be able to compose a post from my iPod touch? Or will the interface be too unforgiving of my poor typing?

These are the questions that I'll try answer for my self or at least be better placed to understand when others decribe their frustations.

First Post

Hi the purpose of this blog, is to post my thoughts and experiences at this years Oracle world so my colleagues, friends and family can be kept up to date on my week in San Fransisco.