APPLICATIONS

Oracle Senior Vice President of Server Technologies Andy Mendelsohn, recognized as one of the top database innovators in the world, gave an overview and demonstration of Oracle 10g Grid technology, business intelligence and collaboration capabilities at Open World Latin America in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Grid computing, he emphasized "will have the most profound impact on the data center since the mainframe." While enterprise grid computing is a relatively new concept, the challenges confronting IT managers today are the same in Brazil and Latin America as they are in Europe and the United States, according to Mr. Mendelsohn. Mr. Mendelsohn attributed these challenges to "islands of computing," various separate information systems added over the years for discrete purposes. Each system was sized for peak loads, which led to expensive, inflexible, fragmented systems that are underutilized most of the time and "ripe for change," according to Mr. Mendelsohn. Business managers are increasingly looking to their IT managers to come up with a solution to these high cost, inflexible and inefficient systems. Oracle Enterprise Grid Computing, the coordinated use of many small servers acting as one large computer, can simultaneously solve these problems. Oracle provides the software that makes it possible to use many servers acting as one and eliminate data fragmentation. Mr. Mendelsohn used Mercado Libre -- the largest online auction site in Latin America -- as an example of a customer who is moving to Oracle Enterprise Grid Computing. Mercado Libre saved US $500,000 in hardware costs using Oracle Real Application Clusters, Intel and Linux to consolidate and standardize their infrastructure. As a result, they have the ability to add capacity on demand to keep up with their rapid growth. "When you build a building, you want each floor to be the same and not dramatically different," explained Mr. Mendelsohn. "The same is true when you are creating the data center of the future. You want to use standard components and at the lowest cost." After demonstrating all of the Oracle 10g family of products -- the database, Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control, the application server and Oracle Collaboration Suite -- Mr. Mendelsohn offered advice to the audience on how to make an enterprise grid a reality in their organizations. "In order to get started, identify consolidation projects in your organization. Continue to invest in low-cost, standard infrastructure and put a focus on developing with web services. Finally, migrate to Oracle 10g." Oracle OpenWorld 2004 Sao Paulo continues through Thursday, October 28, 2004, at the Transamerica Expo Center in Sao Paulo, Brazil.