Fall 2004 presentation handouts by the following topics:

Database Tools/XML, Java, XML Development, Database Administration, and Collaboration!

Keynote Presentation by Tom Kyte, Vice President, Core Technologies, for Oracle GEH
Understanding by Design: Why Understanding Is Different from Knowing
Many developers and DBAs (not all, but many) approach the database with little or no understanding of how it actually works. Developers approach Oracle assuming it must work just like SQL Server, or even worse, with the frame of mind that says, "It doesn't matter how it works, I'm using a layer of abstraction to protect me." DBAs approach the server sometimes with a cursory knowledge of how things work, leading them to do things like, "We can skip backing up undo data—it isn't our stuff, we don't need it" or erasing archives because they ran out of space. This presentation will discuss some of these foibles and explain how not understanding how the database actually works will lead to disaster. Actual cases (with names removed of course) will be used as examples. Additionally, some examples of things you just might not know about yourself will be explored. Oracle is big, and it is a moving target. Understanding it is an ongoing process that we need to continually do.

Database Tools/XML

Managing XSQL Using Oracle JDeveloper
Mark Tomlinson, Oracle Support Services
The XSQL servlet tool allows the processing of SQL and formatting of the output in XML. The XSQL servlet also supports XSLT transformations on the resulting output. This presentation will explain how JDeveloper provides an easy interface for building, testing, and deploying XSQL applications and integration with J2EE container datasources.

Digging Deeper into Your Data: Advanced XML Manipulation
Eric Cohen, CASEtech, Inc.
Your XML is probably not working hard enough. This presentation will show you how to use the advanced features of XSL translation to manipulate data in XML files. It will give you a greater understanding of how XSL can be used to simplify and speed up development.

What's in My Oracle Toolbox?
John Flack, Synectics for Management Decisions, Inc.
This presentation will look at the commercial, noncommercial, and handmade tools that are used everyday. Specifially, it wil feature all-around tools like TOAD, editors like Programmer's File Editor and Notepad, and tools you get for free with Oracle, like SQL*Plus. The presenter will also show a few tools he wrote, such as PL/SQL packages for handling delimited lists and parsing phone numbers and addresses.

Attack of the Killer BLOBS!
Mary Wagner, Delaware Department of Transportation
This session will cover how to integrate the use of JDBC with Oracle9i PL/SQL and the BLOB datatype to manage file uploads as BLOBS within an Oracle9i database. The following topics will be covered: 1.) Creating an UPLOADS table within the database to store file uploads, with a BLOB datatype; 2.) Creating a PL/SQL package, which includes stored procedures that will be called from JDBC for uploading, viewing, and removing records from the UPLOADS table; 3.) Creating java servlets, JSPs, and data access objects which will call the PL/SQL stored procedures to manage the UPLOADS table through a web-based user interface.

Back to top

Java, XML Development

Repository-Based Application Development
Paul Dorsey, Ph. D., Dulcian, Inc.
As systems become larger and larger, the difficulty in creating and maintaining them increases exponentially. This presentation will describe a simple application repository built to support a complex set of similar order entry applications for a family of products. Once the architecture had been created and the business rules gathered to work in an Oracle Forms environment, it was possible to rehost the entire application in a JSP/Struts environment with only a few weeks of effort.

Building Production Web-Based Applications in JDeveloper
Paul Dorsey, Ph. D., Dulcian, Inc.
There is a dizzying array of alternatives for building web applications. In addition to the J2EE and .Net technology stacks, Oracle professionals build systems using Forms, Portal, PSPs, and, most recently, HTML DB. This presentation will provide an overview of the various alternatives for building web-based production applications and discuss why using JDeveloper with Struts and the Application Development Framework—Business Components (ADF BC) provides the most robust, complete, and technologically sound alternative. In addition, a simple overview of the JDeveloper 10g architecture will be included, along with tips about how to get started building applications in this environment.

Re-engineering Oracle Forms Business Logic for SOA Through J2EE and Web Services
Sri Rajan, Churchill Software
Newer IT initiatives, such as Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) and Web Services, represent an innovative approach to expose module and application-specific business logic for standards-based re-use for new J2EE-architected applications. This session will examine a real-world Oracle Forms application that contains pent-up business logic at various levels in the Forms Object Navigator hierarchy. It will consider how Web Services, and SOA in general, provide a standards-based means to expose business rules and the processes they represent for organization-wide leverage.

Database Administration and Tuning

Cooking with Oracle 10g Datapump, with a Dash of 10g Scheduler
Erik Cohen, SAIC
For the first time in many years and versions/releases, Oracle has upgraded and enhanced the exp/imp utility technology. This presentation will examine the features that are new and those which are unchanged. In addition, demonstrations will be provided using the new features, as well as using the new scheduler to highlight the product. Discussion will include using the new command line clients, expdp and impdp, as well as the DBMS_DATAUMP API. In addition, the Enerprise Manager interface will be examined.

Oracle Database Replication Performance
Robert Prentiss, Lockheed Martin
Typical voice and data networks are managed by a hierarchical system of operations control nodes, each responsible for its portion of the overall network. The local area networks (LANs) that exist within each facility must be managed locally. The challenge is to share network management data from each of the low-level control nodes up to its parent network control node for monitoring and to peer nodes for the purpose of backup and fail-over. This presentation describes an approach to sharing this data using Oracle's replication capability and presents performance results to document the soundness of the approach.

Taming the VLDBeast
Leslie Tierstein, Vision Chain, Inc.
This presentation will discuss "Best Practices" learned in implementations of very large database (VLDB) data warehouses for consumer packaged goods companies. It covers techniques that warehouse designers and implementers can use to optimize Oracle database design; performance of the Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) engine; use of BI tools for reporting/query; integrating 3rd-party tools; and managing user expectations for the project.

Oracle DBA: Friend or Foe—Understanding Your DBA and Being an Effective DBA
Manny Fu, I.P.S., Inc.
This presentation is for DBAs (new and experienced), people thinking of becoming a DBA, as well as developers and managers of all levels who work with DBAs. Topics address what it takes to be an effective DBA (from a technical and personality standpoint), what to expect from your DBA as a developer, manager, or CIO, the developer and manager's responsibilities to the DBA, and what to look for when hiring a good DBA.

Back to top

Collaboration

Getting Your Portal Application to Oracle10g from 3.0.9
David Booth, Sabre Systems, Inc.
Many Oracle Portal developers and Oracle DBAs were suddenly faced with a quandary when Oracle released the 9.0.2 version of Oracle9iAS. The presenter faced this problem with a system that has four installations of Oracle9iAS accessing three separate Portal repositories. When the Oracle Application Server Portal Upgrade Guide Oracle 3.0.9 to 10g was published in April 2004, he was able to successfully upgrade from Oracle 3.0.9 to 10g, and he created a road map of the process. This presentation centers on this road map and what “best practices” to follow to make the Oracle 3.0.9 to 10g transition as smooth as possible.

Best Practices in Implementing Discoverer
Jeff Hohman, Oracle Corportation
This presentation will discuss the best practices of implmenting Discoverer within your company. This is based on the presenter’s experience and that which he has observed and learned from other corporations around the globe.

Oracle Application and Sarbanes-Oxley/COBIT (Audit, Security, and Controls)
Murli Manickam, Epsilon
Designing, implementing, and managing a marketing database is an art in itself. Marketing departments are not getting the required support from their traditional-thinking IT departments, and thus are looking outside for help from marketing database solution providers. This presentation talks about one such marketing database solution, driven by Oracle9i, and highlights the marketing database architecture and implementation strategies.

Back to top