Paetec uses Oracle SOA to automate ordering

Oracle and Paetec Communications today announced that Paetec has deployed Oracle’s Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) applications, enabling the competitive service provider to more efficiently automate the full service delivery process, from sales and contracts right through to provisioning the service.

By deploying Oracle systems throughout its back office, Paetec also has enabled more rapid and efficient integration of U.S. LEC, the competitive services provider with which it is merging, said Bob Moore, Paetec’s chief information officer. Using the Oracle E-Business Suite will enable the company to have a single, consolidated view of customers as it continues to work to consolidate databases and merger OSSs, he said.

While Paetec has used Oracle systems in the past, including Siebel order management and customer care products, Portal Software billing and revenue management and MetaSolv service fulfillment products, using SOA applications to tie everything together “supercharges our relationship with Oracle,” Moore said.And most importantly for Paetec, which differentiates itself in the competitive market by offering complex services tailored to enterprise needs, tying everything together enables rapid, paperless, automated ordering, Moore said.

“We have the sales force mechanized and the contract process mechanized, but then [the sale] goes to an order group, given how complex Paetec’s service line is, since we differentiate by being high-tech and high-touch,” Moore said. “The one piece that has been missing has been automated paperless ordering system. Generally how people do it is to pick your package, then someone in the back end takes it and connects the dots.”

Using Oracle SOA will also enable Paetec to continue its practice of providing profit assistance online, as that is integrated within the Oracle workflow of the sales process, Moore said.

“The sales reps take a building block approach from the ground up of what they are selling, and the costs are built into this,” he explained. “We do margin approvals based on that. What makes ours special, and one of the things that has always differentiated us, is the high-touch value collaborative sale. It enables us to keep really good margins and be good selling to the enterprises, which is one reason for churn that is industry low.”

By tying together systems using Oracle Fusion Middleware, account reps can sit down with customers and do point-and-click building blocks of service components to quickly process a completely customized contract, Moore said.

Paetec is rolling out these systems now and will connect them using the Oracle SOA applications by the first quarter of 2008. The company will be able to integrate U.S. LEC customers into the process, even before it moves billing data from the system that U.S. LEC used onto a different billing system that Paetec is using.

“The most disruptive thing you can do to a customer is change billing systems,” Moore said. “This way, the consolidated view of the customer lives within Oracle – all the workflow, ordering from business and systems perspective is all Oracle – things flowing in and out of billing system and in and out of the order system are all Oracle. That doesn’t mean we won’t consolidate our billing systems at some point, but we don’t have to do that right away.”

Author: Carol Wilson

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Oracle refutes 'SSH hacking' slur

An investigation by Oracle has revealed the none of its systems were involved in launching a recent brute force attack on secure servers around the net.

From the beginning of May until earlier this week, "compromised computers" at Oracle UK were listed among the ten worst offenders on the net for launching attacks on servers which run SSH (secure shell) server software, according to statistics from servers running DenyHosts software to block SSH brute-force password attacks. DenyHosts is a script for Linux system administrators designed to help thwart SSH server attacks. Around 6,800 users contribute to the data it collects.

Oracle servers - recorded as active since 3 May - featured at number nine of DenyHosts list. The listing implied a computer (or multiple computers) at Oracle UK been compromised for weeks, allowing hackers to gain access to Oracle's bandwidth to hack other boxes elsewhere on the net.Following our inquiries last week, Oracle supplied us with a holding statement saying it was investigating the problem. The database giant concluded this investigation early this week. It says none of its systems were responsible for the attack.

"Security is a matter we take seriously at Oracle and our first priority is meeting customer needs and reducing their risk. As soon as Oracle was made aware of the situation we began an investigation, which is now complete. Oracle can confirm that none of its systems were responsible for an SSH brute force attack and the allegation of compromised computers at Oracle has been removed from the Deny Hosts website," it said.

So if DenyHosts's listing was erroneous how did the entry for the database giant get there in the first place. Reg reader Stephen has one theory:

"There are a couple of issues in the present DenyHosts that could cause a group to insert their favourite bad-guy site into the DenyHosts database. They all seem to be related to regular expression problems".

"I confirmed that one could insert false sites in by just spamming a bunch of sites with echo "string from oracle IP" as listed above. It is probably not the cause for this issue, but could be used as a cover," he adds.

We were unable to contact DenyHosts at the time of writing so the exact cause of the Oracle listing remains unclear.

Author: John Leyden

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Oracle says CEO plans to sell up to 100 mln shares

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq:ORCL - news), the world's third-largest software maker, on Friday said Chief Executive Larry Ellison adopted a plan to sell up to 100 million of the company's shares over the next nine months.

Ellison also plans to gift almost 2 million shares to the Ellison Medical Foundation, which supports biomedical research.

Oracle said if Ellison completes all the sales and gifts detailed in the plan, he would own about 1.173 billion shares, or 22.7 percent, of Oracle's outstanding stock.

Based on their closing price of $20.61, the 100 million shares would be worth $2.06 billion. Earlier on Friday, Oracle's shares rose to their highest level in more than five years.

The Rule 10b5-1 trading plan adopted by Ellison allows corporate officers and directors to conduct prearranged stock trading if they don't have material, nonpublic information.

Forbes magazine ranked Ellison as the fourth-richest American in its annual list last September.

Reporting by Justin Grant and Lewis Krauskopf

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