Oracle contractor jobs market expected to grow in 2008

Oracle finished with a crescendo in 2007 with record profits and substantial growth, however the benefits for Oracle IT contractors have yet to materialise so far in 2008.

Oracle's success in 2007 was primarily due to their acquisitions strategy incorporating selling industry-specific applications to their existing database, middleware, ERP and CRM customers.

As a result of this strategy, Oracle experienced an impressive reported growth over rival competitor SAP.

In addition to selling applications to their existing customers, Oracle for 2008 are now selling industry-specific solutions to banking, telecommunications, retail, Government, utilities and health care industries.

It is no surprise that the strategy for the year ahead is further growth and by selling to their existing customers it is likely to allow Oracle to leverage relationships, leverage support and leverage existing products.

For many Oracle IT contractors this increase in market growth has yet to materialise in increased vacancies nor has it meant an increase in pay. Oracle professionals in permanent positions have also not benefited financially.

Due to the growth of Oracle software, the continued investment in key corporate and public sector strategic ERP projects and the general skills shortage across the IT market, the demand for Oracle skills is likely to start showing levels of growth in 2008. It is already the second highest demanded IT Skill for Contract Jobs in 2008.

Highlights from the latest Oracle salary information, show the following (source: ITJobsWatch):

- Average annual salary for the last 3 months for a permanent Oracle job was: £46,244

- This has remained relatively static over the last 12 months

- The average Oracle contractor daily rate for the past three months was £418. This is comparable to the amount it was in the same period last year

- The exception is Oracle EBS - Permanent Oracle EBS consultants have enjoyed a healthy 12.57% rise in their salary to £58,243 whilst contractors have seen a rise of 4.59% to £439 per day.

Anthony Sherick, from Technojobs told us:

"Over the past 12 months the Oracle jobs market has remained relatively static in terms of remuneration. However, with the growth in demand, we at Technojobs have started to see the number of Oracle jobs advertised increasing."

"The candidates in an even stronger position are those that gain experience in different areas and implementations of Oracle, which can often be done through contracting. Additionally it is worth considering evolving Oracle experience with consulting skills and project manager skills, which will open more job opportunities and in parallel a higher salary in 2008".

Source: www.contracteye.co.uk

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Practice Test for Oracle 11g DBA OCA Exam 1Z0-047

uCertify, a reputed name in the preparation of certification exams, announced the pre-release of the Exam Simulation PrepKit for Exam 1Z0-047 for the Oracle OCA 11g certification.

The full version will be released on 19th March 2008. There is a huge discount offer of 50% for the customers who place their orders before the release date.

The 1Z0-047 exam also provides credit towards, Oracle Database: SQL Certified Expert, Oracle 9i DBA OCA and Oracle PL/SQL Developer Certified Associate certifications.

The PrepKit has been developed keeping in mind the latest exam trends by Oracle. There is a huge demand for professionals proficient in Oracle. This certification exam provides an opportunity to Database Administrators to test their skills and get recognition from the world leader, Oracle.

The PrepKit for the 1Z0-047 contains four full-length practice tests, which include 250 challenging and interactive questions along with 150 study notes that simulate the real exam. The 1Z0-047 exam is an elective one. This Oracle Database certification demonstrates the powerful SQL programming language and helps you to master the key concepts of a relational database.

The PrepKit for exam 1Z0-047 is bundled with a variety of tests such as pre-defined tests, diagnostic test and a final test. You can also customize the tests according to your needs. Detailed result analysis of all the tests taken will help you to focus on your weak areas, so that you can overcome your shortcomings.

There are also a lot of helpful resources such as Technical Articles on different important technical topics, Tips and Tricks, Things to practice etc.


In addition to this, the PrepKit has been refined with new features, such as 'Study Note Search.' Through the 'Study Notes Search' feature, you can enhance your understanding of the technical terms and definitions by searching with the help of keywords. You can also generate a test based on specific study notes to evaluate your knowledge.

Roy Wood, an IT expert, remarked in his blog, "I thought the final test was a bit more difficult than the practice tests which was probably by design. Also, I noticed there was a "learn" function for each test question, which was accompanied by a thorough explanation."

He further added, "There was also a means to create your own tests, add your own questions, provide immediate feedback, tagging, print, review questions, and make notes online – this flexibility was a nice surprise." To read more about his reviewed uCertify Oracle PrepKit, visit Roy Wood's blog: http://esofthub.blogspot.com/2008/01/it-certification-self-help-portal.html

More information and a free to download version of the PrepKit is available at:
http://www.ucertify.com/exams/Oracle/1Z0-047.html

About uCertify:
Conceived in 1996, uCertify.com specializes in the development of computer assisted test preparation software. The company provides exam simulation PrepKits for various Oracle certification exams of OCA DBA 9i, OCP DBA 9i,Oracle PL/SQL Developer, OCA DBA 10g, and OCP DBA 10g and other significant certifications exams.

Contact:
http://www.ucertify.com

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Oracle tackles the context conundrum

The trouble with keeping data in a standard relational database is that such information does not typically come with machine-readable descriptions of what the data is. Searching through an Air Force database will not provide any indication that what you are looking at is an Air Force database.

As long as the database is used by its intended audience, this lack of database self-awareness is not a problem. But when another system needs to access the data, how will it make sense of the columns and rows of data? It is this semantic cluelessness that slows the process of gathering intelligence from the data.

At least one commercial database vendor is addressing this problem. Oracle is using two Semantic Web tools for the job: the Resource Definition Framework (RDF), support for which was added in Oracle 10g, and the Web Ontology Language (OWL), added in Oracle 11g.

RDF is the starting point.

“By storing RDF and applying rules to it, you can infer new information” and render explicit context about the data, said Xavier Lopez, director of spatial and semantic technologies at Oracle.

RDF offers the ability to link two data elements along with a term that describes the relationship between the two. The resulting three terms are called a triple. For instance, the database can ingest this statement: Lopez works at Oracle. “Lopez” would be the subject, “Oracle” the object and “works at” the predicate tying together the two, according to the description of RDF from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which oversees the framework (GCN.com, Quickfind 960).

But that’s just the start. Having these relationships in machine-readable language allows further reasoning about the data — making it machine-readable by other systems.

“Once you have triples in the database, you can start doing things you couldn’t do before,” Lopez said. “It is essentially designed to find patterns. Previously, it was available everywhere, but you couldn’t find patterns. Now you can find patterns across it.”

Unlike the traditional data cubes used in data mining applications, the schema of the data does not need to be established beforehand, making ad hoc queries a lot easier to execute.

Lopez has seen customers compile billions of triples. After enough data has been rendered into this format, additional inferences can be made.

For instance, if you have “Xavier works at Oracle” and “Oracle is a software company” then an inference could be that Xavier works for a software company.

This is a simple example, but a logical step-by-step process can generate new information.

And this is where OWL comes in.

OWL extends the range of inferencing that can be done on a dataset, Lopez said. Another W3C standard (GCN.com Quickfind 961), OWL is a “richer rule base,” he said. It offers sets of hierarchies that allow data to be described in terms of property characteristics, equalities and inequalities, data types, and restrictions on how the data can be defined.

Oracle has tools that can render standard relational data into the RDF format. And many software tools exist that parse unstructured data from Web sites, e-mail messages, blog sites and any other text-based documents into the RDF format.

Author: Joab Jackson @ www.gcn.com

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