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SAN FRANCISCO, ORACLEWORLD - Grid computing software provider Platform Computing Inc. (Booth 2416), today announced planned support for Oracle(R) Database 10g. Platform's technology helps organizations integrate and optimize their distributed IT assets, enabling higher utilization, improved service levels and reduced costs. The joint solution of Platform software and Oracle Database 10g will enable customers to simplify their scheduling environment and efficiently manage grids across a virtualized, heterogeneous environment. "The majority of businesses require processing complex business flows, including both database and operating system batch jobs. Oracle and Platform Computing can greatly simplify manageability of these complex job flows by providing a centralized management tool," said Ian Baird, chief business architect, Platform. "With this solution, we can integrate all Oracle and non- Oracle scheduling requirements, which will help our customers meet critical service needs and dynamically realign IT resources to respond to changing business needs." A typical characteristic of a grid environment is the existence of distributed resources (such as computers, databases and storage) that need to be coordinated for computational processing. Each of these different resources has different resource managers that are used to mediate user access to the resource, implement policies, and efficiently provision the resource. To provide this capability in environments that host multiple databases and multiple compute engines for non-database computations, Platform will create an integrated solution that combines the scheduling capability in Platform JobScheduler(TM), grid-enabled enterprise batch process automation software. This solution will virtualize the grid environment by transparently communicating with the underlying resource managers on behalf of the user. The planned integration will enable companies to simplify their scheduling environment. Users can design and monitor the scheduling and execution of Oracle Database jobs and batch application jobs using Platform JobScheduler. Multiple types of jobs, including Oracle Database jobs or normal command-line executables, can be scheduled using the same scheduling solution. Jobs across the enterprise can be stored in a central repository and a single graphical interface can be used for scheduling and managing these jobs. Database jobs can be incorporated into complex business flows, which can be used to trigger other jobs or job flows. "Partners such as Platform Computing that integrate their technology and test for performance, interoperability and scalability, have proven very beneficial in mapping out our technology to meet customer demands," said Benny Souder, vice president Distributed Database Development at Oracle. "We believe this feature-rich new version of our Oracle Database, along with Platform's grid-enabled scheduler, delivers on the promise to provide an accelerated path to enterprise grid computing for our mutual customers." The Oracle Database 10g Partner Beta Program was designed to give Oracle customers and partners an early look at some of the new key systems management and grid related features of Oracle Database 10g. The beta program gives partners a head start on developing solutions for customers that deliver improved manageability, margins and reduced administration costs.