Oracle Acquires Leader in Application Configuration Management

In its first acquisition of 2009, Oracle purchases mValent, a company whose configuration management solutions can promote efficiencies within Oracle Enterprise Manager. Even as it envelops smaller companies, Oracle may also be looking towards a future where cloud computing dominates the enterprise IT scene.

Despite the economic doldrums seizing most of the IT industry, the Oracle acquisition machine is alive and well. The company’s purchase of mValent, a provider of application configuration management solutions, is designed to enhance Oracle Enterprise Manager’s configuration-management capabilities across IT environments.

Announced on Feb. 4, the complete transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2009, according to a statement released by Oracle. As to be expected, financial details were not disclosed.

The move represents Oracle’s first acquisition of 2009. In 2008, they took over 11 companies, including Lodestar and Interlace Systems.

With mValent technology in place, enterprise users should be able to collect and harmonize data from even the most complex of systems. Ensuring consistent configurations across IT environments would also lead to both improved productivity and application uptime.

Oracle Enterprise Manager enhanced with mValent will also simplify systems’ root-cause analysis and automate remediation of issues caused by configuration changes. mValent’s customer base before the acquisition included Direct TV, Blue Cross Blue Shield Michigan, and Kohl’s.

“Effective application configuration management is increasingly important as businesses look to improve operating efficiencies,” Richard Sarwal, senior vice president of Oracle Applications and Systems Management, said in a statement. “This acquisition is consistent with Oracle’s strategy for delivering cost-effective solutions for managing applications that enable customers to adopt new, innovative technology with reduced risk.”

In addition to its focus on enhancing its own product line through acquisition, Oracle has also been casting an eye towards paradigm shifts within enterprise IT. Even as CEO Larry Ellison denounced cloud computing as “gibberish” in Sept. 2008, Oracle has perhaps begun to embrace the model as a means of ensuring future survival.

Author: Nicholas Kolakowski @ www.eweek.com

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Oracle Supports 100 Million Subscribers

Oracle recently completed an extensive performance and scalability benchmark exercise for Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management 7.3.1 that demonstrated its ability to support 100 million subscribers. Scalability of this magnitude is vital to meeting the needs of tier-one communications service providers and those looking to consolidate multiple billing applications into a convergent platform.

· In addition, this week Oracle will propose a series of industry benchmark standards to the TM Forum through its Revenue Management Initiative. These benchmark standards will provide service providers with a consistent way to validate and measure the scalability performance of products marketed to meet the business requirements outlined by TM Forum's Enhanced Telecom Operations Map (eTOM) and Telecoms Application Map (TAM), with particular focus on the billing and revenue management segment.

Benchmark Details

· Conducted at IBM labs in Beaverton, Ore., the benchmark included various workloads such as rating, billing, invoicing and customer service activities using a variety of plans modeled after real-life communications industry business processes.

· The results demonstrated near-linear scalability from 33 million to 66 million, and to 100 million subscribers. At 100 million subscribers the application processed 176 million call-detail records per hour. Further, the test proved that the application can bill all 100 million subscribers in approximately 14 hours – meeting the needs of even the world's largest service providers.

· These results were four times higher than any achieved before and demonstrate the capability of the IBM Power 570 server and the Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management application running on the AIX 6.1 operating system to manage and deliver a real-life workload in a high-end production environment with excellent performance.

· The benchmark tested Oracle's application running on a database cluster of IBM POWER6 processor-based Power 570 servers, with IBM AIX version 6.1 operating system and IBM PowerVM virtualization technology, hosted by an IBM DS8300 storage subsystem.

Source: www.hardwarezone.com

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Louis Vuitton Pacific Series: Pataugas by K-Challenge has tough race with BMW Oracle Racing

Pataugas by K-Challenge was racing today its 3rd match against the American team of BMW Oracle Racing, with Russell Coutts at helm. After a long wait for the team members, racing has finally been able to be launched this afternoon, and all races were completed (start for Pataugas by K-Challenge at 4:40pm).

Unfortunately, the French didn´t get a new point today, which means they will have to race in the “silver fleet” in Round Robin 2, and to finish in the two firsts to reach the quarter finals. This scenario is for sure longer, but all is still possible for the French team.

Gilles Favennec, Pit : “we didn´t look bad in front of them, but we found ourselves on the wrong side of the race course at the start, and then, they end up in front of us at the first mark. They will remain in front of us after that, and even if we come back a bit on the downwind leg, this will not be enough to put pressure on them. It is a big team, but we were consistent, and we are not far from getting there. In fact, I´m quite satisfied about the team because the manoeuvres are better and better, and we manage to organize ourselves together, which is a good thing for the future. The bad point is that we really needed that point to avoid the silver fleet, where there will be four teams. But even if the way is longer, it still exists. We all improved a lot the past three days, even if we don´t see that in our results. We are better in the manoeuvres, in the communications, which is what we needed to work on at the beginning. We are still confident for what is coming up, we have everything in our hands.”

Philippe Mourniac, Navigator: “the important event in today's match is that we wanted the right side of the race course like BMW Oracle Racing. But they made a better job than us in getting it, and we found ourselves on the left. From that moment we were a bit late to come back, and when the first crossing happens, we are four lengths behind, which is not a lot, but enough to make the race easy for the Americans until the end.

If we end up in the two firsts of the silver fleet, everything is possible and clocks will be reset for the quarter finals. We will have three matches in Round Robin 2, we need to win at least two. So we still have our cards in our hands, but the coming days will be a bit less comfortable than if we had entered the gold fleet directly.”

Pataugas by K-Challenge will race tomorrow against Emirates Team New Zealand for its last match in Round Robin 1.

Race details:

Mark 1 : 13 seconds for BMW Oracle Racing
Mark 2 : 27 seconds for BMW Oracle Racing
Mark 3 : 37 seconds for BMW Oracle Racing
Finish : 54 seconds for BMW Oracle Racing

Author: Stephanie Nadin @ www.bymnews.com

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