Monthly Archives: October 2005

OWB 10.1.0.4 released for Windows

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The latest “patch” (and you’ll see why this is in quotes shortly) to OWB 10g Release 1 has just been posted in Metalink (patch number 4703215).

It’s a slightly odd patch, seeing that it requires installation into a new Oracle home and the patch installation notes read more like a major upgrade. It’s a 528MB patch… That’s a full installation mind you! Paul Narth posted in the OTN forums that there is an in place repository upgrade so you can patch from 10x to 10.1.0.4 for the repositories.

Other than just a bunch of bug fixes, why patch to 10.1.0.4?

    Two reasons:

  • Paris is “wicked late” pushed out to Calendar Year 2006
  • It will run on Oracle DB 10gR2 which 10.1.0.3 and prior DO NOT

Best Coverage of Oracle Streams?

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I see there is a book on Streams from Rampant but I’ve heard mixed reviews of Rampant books… I will probably end up buying it (only $12 at Amazon right now) but wanted to ask if anyone has any book suggestions with great detail and examples on Oracle Streams… I’m sure I can sort through some of the OTN material and the manual, but I’d like another resource. Thanks for any recommendations readers have in this regard!

See some of you at UKOUG in just a few days!

VMWare player changes software demos!!

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As reported by Slashdot, VMWare just released a free VMWare “player” that will play any VMWare machine. I’m quite surprised, but pleasantly! This means that ISVs, consultants, and trainers can all prep an absolutely “perfect” PC at a point in time and distribute it to others in a method that ENSURES that it will fire up and work correctly. The days of “installing” software demos is done… Demos have to be WICKED easy and this does it! This will be invaluable to setting up classrooms on my OWB Workshops / Courses! Hooray!

It’s brilliant!

OWB Paris : Virtual User Group Meeting

Bayon Technologies, Inc. is sponsoring an informal web conference for OWB Paris Beta members. Open ONLY to beta program participants, it’s an opportunity for OWB’ers around the world to both share and learn about current “in the field” experiences with Paris.

I’m limiting it to 10 participants to ensure the “informal” nature of the meeting will remain effective (any bigger it would need a little more formality). I’ll offer up my experience with a couple of “gotchas” and some experiences with the new dimensional operators.

If you’re interested, please fill out the survey below so I can select a time and send out an email with the virtual conference details. I look foward to hearing about everyones experience with Paris! I’ll email out the details when I return from UKOUG (approximately Nov 7th).

OWB Paris Virtual User Group Meeting Signup

Blogs without Comments are SUPER LAME!

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It’s been more than 85 blog posts that my readers have been forced to read my partially useful, mostly correct, blah blah blah without a voice. That’s right, readers have been forced to accept what I write as gospel because I’ve been afraid to open it up to the masses that will correct me. Errr…. that, or I’ve been “crazy lazy” (that’s a technical Oracle term) about getting a couple of nice Comment Templates setup in my blogging software.

Well, enough is enough…

I’m leading a revolt of my own blog readers! Leave a comment below telling me just how much you’ve loathed me for not allowing comments. Or, you can just say HI! I leave it to you… 🙂

Rambling aside, comments are VERY MUCH welcome and many many apologies for my template lazy-ness.

Thoughts on "BI for the masses"

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Oracle has a star database. As Charles Phillips refers to the database, it’s the 747 of databases. The products that the Oracle Data Warehousing/Business Intelligence teams pump out are quite capable and are feature rich. There is little that I can NOT provide for my customers using this stack of powerful tools (Oracle DB, Oracle Warehouse Builder, Oracle Discoverer/Portal/BI Beans).

That being said, I’ve realized how inaccessible these tools are for “the masses.” The qualified, smart, analytical masses that need easy to use tools to build help them collect, analyze, and report on their organizations information. They are complicated, require rather extensive knowledge of “Oracle-isms” etc. To date, there are very few BOOKs on any Business Intelligence specific Oracle product. Books reflect a large network of solution providers and consultants. ie, other providers who have picked their preferred tool and are committing to learning, using, and teaching it to customers. Large communities of providers, training resources, and books reflect a support network and makes uptake of a technology MUCH MUCH easier for customers. They don’t have to learn from the manual which is VERY difficult… They can learn from the distilled knowledge of others, in a more participatory manner.

From a idealogical perspective, I’m not exactly drawn to Microsoft products. However, they are having significant success in building this ecosystem around their BI/SQL Server offering. While there exists NO BOOK on Oracle Warehouse Builder and only ONE BOOK on Discoverer here is a list of the scheduled books for Analysis Services 2005 release in BETA.

That’s right, there are 11 books being written about similar Microsoft products while their product is still in BETA! What does the Oracle BI/DW community think about this? I REALLY REALLY have to get comments going on my site… 🙁