ERP Associates, Inc.

Fusion Middleware
Oracle Fusion Middleware the family of standards-based software products included in Oracle Application Server 10g: Application Development Tools and J2EE Application Server; Web Services infrastructure; Enterprise Service Buses and Integration; Business Process Management and Activity Monitoring; Business Intelligence Tools; Security and Identity management; Enterprise Portals and Mobile – as well as Data Hubs and Oracle Collaboration Suite.

For detailed information, see http://www.oracle.com/products/middleware/index.html.
Fusion Architecture “Stack”
The Fusion Architecture products can be thought of in terms of a stack of architectures that include Service Oriented architecture, Information architecture and Grid architecture.
• Service-Oriented Architecture
  o SOA facilitates the development of enterprise applications as modular business services that can be easily integrated and reused, creating a flexible and adaptable IT infrastructure.
  o This Services approach has been called “The foundation of the next evolution of Enterprise Applications.”
  o For more information, see http://www.oracle.com/technologies/soa/index.html.
• Information Architecture
  o Oracle seems very big on how information is architected. I’m not sure exactly what this covers beyond a solid data model and data definitions.
• Grid Architecture
  o The promise of Grid Architecture is the ability to add or remove capacity to an application by assigning or removing additional servers dynamically. Oracle’s 10g database supports this, along with Oracle’s application server.
Principles of Fusion Architecture
• Service Enabled for maximum flexibility in Applications
• Enable flexible, adaptable business processes.
• Deliver actionable business insight
• Consolidate and deliver quality information
• Enable employees to share information and collaborate
• Deliver better security and ownership experience

Components of Fusion Architecture
BPEL Process Manager
• Orchestrates business processes
• Supports standard BPEL capabilities natively
Business Activity Monitor
• Provides real-time business analytics
• Presents real-time Key Performance Indicators
• Integrated with BPEL Process Manager
Web Services Manager
• Provides security and control over who can access what web service, how they are accessed, and where they are reused
• Defines policies and enforces them at runtime
Grid Computing
• Allows spreading database processing across multiple servers
• Greatly improves performance
• Greatly improves scalability and availability
• Protects from planned and unplanned downtime
• Allows you to proactively manage SLA’s. New capacity can be added “on the fly” during peak times.
Middleware Suite
• Completely Standards Based
• “Hot Pluggable”, in that you can use Oracle’s component, or any other vendor’s component as long as it supports the standard
• Oracle still hadn’t decided if they would support non-Oracle databases, though.

Oracle Applications Strategy
Key Areas:
• Protect investments in JDE, PS, Oracle and exploit existing application functionality
• Integrate and Extend
  o Integrate existing applications with Fusion architecture
  o Extend Core functionality
  o Extend to other business partners and applications
• Evolve to a unified suite with the best of functionality through Fusion Architecture

How Fusion will impact PeopleSoft applications
• A Unitifed Interface Repository is being built as a single directory for all web services, business processes, business models, scheduled jobs, etc.
• BPEL can be used now to define cross-application business processes
• Applications can be integrated into a single portal
• User access can be managed centrally through Oracle Identity Management
• Business Activity Monitoring is being incorporated into the 8.9 PeopleSoft Supply Chain Module
• Data hubs can be used to consolidate information across all applications
• Soon PeopleSoft administration and monitoring can be done through Enterprise Service Manager