ENGINEERING

Thousands of companies in the healthcare, travel and technology industries are using Oracle Application Server 10g's Grid Computing, Business Integration, J2EE and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) capabilities to integrate legacy systems, automate business processes and modernize information technology (IT) infrastructures. The industry's most comprehensive application platform suite, Oracle Application Server 10g provides a wide-range of technologies including Business Integration, Business Process Management, Business Intelligence, Identity Management, J2EE, SOA development and Enterprise Portals. These features enable organizations to deploy applications and integrate systems in a highly scalable, available and manageable grid computing environment. "Oracle Application Server 10g enables organizations to maximize their legacy systems and other technology investments, while at the same time modernizing their information technology infrastructure using Service Oriented Architectures to gain a competitive advantage," said Thomas Kurian, senior vice-president, Oracle Server Technologies, Oracle Corp. "Recent deployments in dozens of industries with hundreds of companies of all sizes demonstrate the wide applicability of Oracle's Application Platform Suite." Customers Cite Strength of Application Platform Suite Capabilities Organizations representing a number of vertical industries in North America, Europe and Asia have gone live on Oracle Application Server 10g and cite the product's ability to meet their unique needs as the key differentiator for their selection of Oracle's product offering. Aloha Airlines Soars with Integration Aloha Airlines provides frequent, convenient, all-jet service connecting the five major airports in Hawaii and U.S. mainland destinations in California and Nevada, as well as Canada. Given the highly competitive nature of the airline industry, Aloha Airlines determined it could gain a competitive advantage by integrating its legacy systems into an agile, J2EE-based SOA using Oracle Application Server 10g and Oracle Database 10g. The tight integration of data and applications provides employees and partners with accurate and timely information that can, in turn, be used to deliver higher degrees of customer service. "Working with the integration capabilities of Oracle Application Server 10g, we are implementing a SOA that will provide us with a competitive edge while making it easier for our network of partners to share information," said Soren Burkhart, CIO and senior vice president of Business and Technology Integration, Aloha Airlines. "Using the application platform suite, we experience increased flexibility when integrating data and applications, allowing us to meet our current technology goals, while planning for our future needs." Spheris Grows with Grid Spheris is the world's second largest outsourced medical transcription company, boasting 79 percent revenue growth and working with practitioners in more than 300 health systems, hospitals and group practices. To prepare for rapid growth, Spheris streamlined its IT resources by migrating from BEA WebLogic and SonicMQ to Oracle Application Server 10g and deploying Oracle Real Application Clusters on Linux. Together, these technologies give Spheris the ability to scale its systems to meet changing business needs. Spheris is also using the portal capabilities of Oracle Application Server 10g to deploy an internal portal. Identity management features are utilized as well and the company plans to implement the product's business intelligence capabilities next year. "We successfully executed on this all-encompassing IT consolidation in only 10 months and within the budgeted amount we forecasted," said David Denise, vice president of applications, Spheris. "Our migration to the Oracle platform has resulted in significant cost savings and provides us with the ability to scale our infrastructure in tandem with our business requirements." Xerox Moves to SOAs Xerox Corporation is a $15.7 billion technology and services enterprise that helps businesses deploy smart document management strategies. SOAs and Web services play an important role in the company's overall IT strategy. For example, Xerox leveraged Oracle's Web services and SOA technology to deliver order status information from its ERP module of Oracle E-Business Suite to its end-user interface on Xerox.com. With the new system, Xerox is able to provide end users with timely and accurate order information. "Oracle's Web services technology made it possible for us to successfully execute our IT strategy," said George Thor, Platform Architect, Xerox. "Our initial Web service was created using Oracle JDeveloper and PL/SQL, but our more recent Web services were written in JAVA using a standard editor. It was very simple to take JAVA classes and create Web services using the Oracle J2EE WebServicesAssembler. Creating Web services this way, easily allowed us to integrate into our existing source code control and deployment scripts."