Tag Archives: UKOUG

2017 into 2018 as a Geek

30 Saturday Dec 2017

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It seems that it becoming common for people to write a personal review of the year. If you’re old school Christmas Card sort then it gets printed and put in the card. If you’re a bit more hip then it’s a Facebook post. For those trendier than that, who knows?

Anyway, I thought I’d use my blog to reflect on what has happened and what we hope to be upto in 2018.

So the big headlines for us …

  • 1st book published as a co-author about ICS, started another book project which should be finished in 2018.Artwork-front
  • Packt have been talking to me about another book project (even though my contribution to book 2 not yet finished!) Have to admit what is being suggested is intriguing and a bit different
  • Then there was the UKOUG Journey to the Cloud event. Having been postponed because of venue flooding it was good to see this happen. Not to mention it being one of s number of events I have presented at this year.39178284831_45be4e943c_m
  • We attended and presented at the Oracle EMEA Partner Conference for the 1st time and presented with my co-author on ICS.
  • Contributions to supporting the UKOUG as part of a SIG committee member, reviewed for Oracle Scene. Being involved in a SIG committee also meant helping plan the conference.
  • Writing hasn’t just been about the books, we continue to write our own blog posts, content for Oracle-integration.cloud plus several journals including Oracle Technology Network,
  • Presenting at Oracle Open World for the 1st time, and signing copies of our book on ICS
  • Promoted from an Oracle Ace Associate to a full Oracle Ace.

So where will 2018 take us, well somethings we’re confident of …

What do we hope to pull off …

  • Another year presenting at Open World,
  • UKOUG Tech 18 presentations
  • Articles for Oracle Scene
  • Submissions accepted at Oracle Code London
  • Presenting at Oracle EMEA Partner Conference

A busy 25 hours at UKOUG Conference

05 Tuesday Dec 2017

Posted by in General, ICS, Oracle, Technology

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I’ve just come to the end of a very busy 25 hours at the UK Oracle User Group (UKOUG) Conference in Birmingham. Four presentations – interestingly the same subject area, that of Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC) / Integration Cloud Service (ICS) started and ended the day.  Between this we also covered some approaches to start working towards Microservices in a Monolith World and Oracle Messaging Cloud.

Below are the presentations on the Microservices and ICS/OIC. The piece on Oracle Messaging Cloud was largely demo based, so rather than sharing the presentation slides, which won’t tell you too much. The best way to find out about this is to read the 2 articles about the capability in the OraWorld magazine (issues 6 & 7). With issue 7 perfectly timed by becoming available in the last couple of days.

With the Oracle Messaging Cloud article, there is one word of caution. When the article was written and submitted I used a free cloud service (which using contemporary terminology we’d describe as Serverless) called WebScript.io.  The WebScript piece served to make it easy to consume the webservice calls illustrating the PushListener feature.  This service however is being closed down – a shame as it was an elegantly simple solution.  Given this I am currently working on a blog post which will show how another services can take the place of WebScript.io; whilst not finalised, this maybe Google Cloud Functions.

If this wasn’t enough we also squeezed in the keynote presentations, a meeting with several other contributors to OMESA (Open Modern Enterprise Software Architecture) , a lunch conversation with our Publisher (Packt) and several other Oracle book authors, Oracle Ace dinner (great food with a lot of brilliant & friendly people), some very valuable incidental conversations and some work for a customer.

Microservices in a Monolith World

Look at Oracle Integration Cloud – its relationship to ICS. Customer use Cases an Insight into why ICS

hAPI times – latest contribution to Oracle Scene

22 Wednesday Nov 2017

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My latest contribution to the Oracle Scene journal is available at here. This article looks at the evolution of APIs, and a look at modern API Gateway capabilities. The article uses an analogy to explian the capabilities in a non-techie way.

In addition to my article the team I’m part of get a mention for their wins at this years Partner of the Year awards.

I’ll be presenting at UKOUG Conference with …

18 Saturday Nov 2017

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I will be presenting at the UKOUG Conference this year as an Oracle Ace and Snr Consultant from a award winning Partner of the Year. I’ll be speaking about:

  • ICS (now part of Oracle Integration Cloud)
  • Microservices and WebLogic
  • Oracle Messaging Cloud Service

I also have colleagues from Capgemini covering IaaS and SaaS among other things. I hope that we see you in Birmingham. Full details of my sessions :

Integration Cloud Service (ICS) Customer use Cases an Insight Into why ICS

04/12/2017 09:00 &

05/12/2017 09:00

In this session the presenters will talk about several applications of Integration Cloud Service (ICS) with customers from Capgemini. Whilst presenting the use cases, the reasoning for adopting ICS over other integration options will be explained and some of the design considerations that had to be addressed in the application of ICS. Whilst looking at the example cases, factors involved in deciding which iPaaS offering to adopt based on needs.
This session will be presented by Phil Wilkins one of the authors of the book Implementing Oracle Integration Cloud Service and supporting blog.

Microservices in a Monolith World

04/12/2017 15:25

Whilst microservices are mainstream thinking, many organisations make significant long term investments in application containers such as WebLogic and can be resistant to moving on from such investments. So how do we realise the microservice thinking with such constraints? This presentation looks at several approaches that can allow us to leverage microservice thinking without sacrificing the existing investment.

Why Should I Consider Oracle Messaging Cloud Service as an Integration Solution?

04/12/2017 17:55

Oracle Messaging Cloud Service is an often-overlooked service in the family of iPaaS options, but why? So, what makes it worth considering and makes it more contemporary than JMS with Java Cloud Service? This presentation will look at what differentiates MCS from JCS and Event Hub and others and does it offer that makes it distinct and worthwhile option?

UKOUG Conference

12 Wednesday Jul 2017

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As part of the UKOUG SIG committee for middleware I have had the opportunity to contribute to the planning of the conference in December (Tech17). The agenda looks really exciting with a range a high class submissions covering on-premises to cloud, from micro to monolith, API to application, source to SOA.

Presenters go from newbies to world class names, not to mention key Oracle product managers.

Here are a couple of tweets from the planning day …

 

 

UKOUG Tech16 Presentation Slides, Apex & Oracle Cloud

15 Thursday Dec 2016

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My presentation for UKOUG Tech 16 can be seen by following the link – Introduction to SOA CS. or see below   It was a tremendous 4 days (if you include the Tech stream’s Super Sunday).  If you are a UKOUG member and didn’t make it to the conference I’d look out for the material to be become available.

Whilst I’m not a big Apex fan (stitching business logic into the persistence layer feels wrong to a middleware person), i did attend the keynote session which covered Apex’s history and future direction, and there are some very exiciting things coming and if everything materialises as I understand it then some big steps to getting developers engaged with Oracle cloud offerings.

Oracle has done a lot of work on the middleware layer with apps container (using common Docker configurations without needing to worry about Docker), Kafka, Node.js and others to engage developers and provide the means to offer a polyglot microservices platform that is not just attractive to  the traditional Oracle customer base but also those wanting the middle ground of supported open source. What Oracle are missing is the means to get developers trying the technology and being creative with it. Amazon and Red Hat have got this by offering limited footprints for a long time. Oracle offer 30 day trials which is fine to do a project sponsored PoC. But to hook grass roots users you need a lengthy period where people in spare time can built some cool/geeky solutions.

Now this maybe down to the fact that Oracle cloud is built on their Exa machines with clever on silicon security features, and Oracle can’t manufacture it quick enough. Whereas other cloud providers work with largely commodity components. But if they want to challenge Amazon as Ellison says they need to change this.

 

New Kid on the Block and others

12 Monday Sep 2016

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So no new blog entries as I have been busy publishing elsewhere, with the Oracle User Group we appear in the latest edition of the Oracle Scene Journal:

UKOUG Scene Issue 61

click on the image to open the journal properly

We also have a submission in for the November edition, which will be published before the user group’s Tech 16 conference – which I will be presenting at.

UKOUG Tech 16

We have been posting a lot on our website that supports the book – oracle-integration.cloud. Lots of useful references to supporting resources, and some blog posts providing supporting information (and more in the pipeline). Not to mention with pressing on with the last couple of chapters.

Then finally a webinar, the first in a series for the UKOUG about adopting cloud – details at – http://www.ukoug.org/events/ukoug-applications-journey-to-cloud-webinar-1/. The webinar was recorded and the presentation that went with it are accessible if you are a UKOUG member.

Review of Oracle API Management 12c

22 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by in Book Reviews, Books, General, Oracle, Packt, Technology

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3635en_4575_oracle20api20management2012c20implementation_0My review of the Oracle API Management 12c has been published the the UKOUG at http://www.ukoug.org/what-we-offer/news/review-of-oracle-api-management-12c-implementation/ – rather than repeat the review here, I’d recommed people go read the page.  But I will say here is that it is an excellent book.  The book can be found at:

Along with a range of other book sellers.

Another Oracle Scene in the pipeline

15 Friday Jan 2016

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We’ve just passed the submission deadline for the next edition of Oracle Scene. So the submitted articles have been shared with the review team. I have to admit, I look forward the week after the deadline, a chance to read the raw articles before all the art work is applied, layout applied etc.

Each article teaches you something new and you’re reminded just how big the Oracle ecosystem is (something that is easy to forget when you’re working day to day in your own specialism).

The review process does throw up the odd bump – the occasional article that reads more like an Infomercial (which usually result in a recommendation not to include) and occasionally the article where you’re not entirely sure what the author is trying to get across. But these later scenarios, the reviewers will make suggestions on how to refine a submission.

The sense of joy and reward in reviewing is easily beaten by submitting an article and seeing it published and feeling the published article in printed form.  Don’t just take my word for it – Martin Widlake writes about it on his blog here.

Ios58cover‘ve had 1 proper article in Oracle Scene here and a couple of smaller pieces such as book reviews included.  The reward of being published can only be topped by your article being used to inform the cover art.  I have been fortunate enough to have achieved that with an article for the Oracle Apps User Group (OAUG) with an article called Journey To The Cloud.  2015winterinsight-optThe only down side is OAUG are more restrictive on access, and you have to be a member to see the article.

 

So go on, write an article – I hope that i’ll be reviewing it in the near future.