Optimise Your Oracle Investment

OracleSceneServing the Oracle Community
Autumn 13 Issue 51
Creating Statistics For
a Database?
Histograms in 12c
Advanced Analytics in Oracle 12c
Understand the Oracle Data Miner
tool and new in-database features
The Tools of Fusion:
Oracle JDeveloper and Oracle ADF
Keep your skills up to date
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An independent publication
not affiliated with Oracle Corporation
This edition’s
sponsors:
Welcome to
the future
of 12c

At VIP Apps Consulting we appreciate the need to maximise your current
investment in your business systems. Using our AMOBI methodology, we can
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Are you really working your Oracle Investment?

Inside this issue
Oracle Scene Editorial Team
Editor
Geoff Swaffer
Email: editor@ukoug.org.uk
Deputy Editor
Brendan Tierney
Email: deputy@ukoug.org.uk
UKOUG Contact
Brigit Wells
Email: brigit@ukoug.org
Sales
Isabella Grantham
Email: isabella@ukoug.org
Project Manager
Lavinia Mildwater
Email: lavinia@ukoug.org.uk
UKOUG Governance
A full listing of Board members, along with
details of how the user group is governed,
can be found at:
www.ukoug.org/about-us/governance
UKOUG Office
UK Oracle User Group, User Group House,
591-593 Kingston Road, Wimbledon
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Future Oracle Scene issues
Issue 52
Content deadline: 17th January 2014
Publish month: March 2014
Photography
Pages 05 & 06: Liesbeth Verdegaal
Page 11: Steve Walke
08
TECH13 - THE NEXT BIG THING
15
32STREAMLINING EPM
DEPLOYMENT
by Jennifer Toomey
38LEARNING THE FUSION
TECHNOLOGY STACK
by Grant Ronald
OracleScene©
UK Oracle User Group Ltd
The views stated in Oracle Scene are the views of the
author and not those of the UK Oracle User Group Ltd.
We do not make any warranty for the accuracy of any
published information and the UK Oracle User Group
will assume no responsibility or liability regarding the
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and views stated herein are those of the author(s) or
publisher and are not intended to be the opinions,
statements, positions, or views of Oracle Corporation.
TECHNOLOGY
Fine Tuning your Data Stack for Success by Dermot O’Kelly 12
Row Limiting, PL/SQL WITH SQL, and Temporal Validity: Three in 12c
by Melanie Caffrey 18
Drive Value From Your ERP with a Post Implementation System
Assessment (PISA) by Dale Kaplan 24
New Features of Oracle Advanced Analytics in Oracle 12c
by Brendan Tierney 28
APPLICATIONS TRANSFORMATION
Achieving Procurement Excellence Through Oracle Fusion
by Jaskirat Singh & Anurag Kalita 44
EVENTS
Tech13: New Conference, New Location: Manchester 10
ADVERTORIALS
Cognizant: Redefining Enterprise Transformations 23
VIP Apps: Maximise your Return on (Oracle) Investment (ROI) 40
REGULAR FEATURES
News and Reviews 06
UKOUG Supplier Guide 45
www.ukoug.org 03
AUTUMN 13
Welcome to Oracle Scene
HISTOGRAMS IN 12c
by Jonathan Lewis
Follow us @UKOUG
OracleScene
D I G I T A L
View additional content and get more from your
Oracle Scene at: www.ukoug.org
Usability – Ignored by Developers and Undervalued by Managers 48
Getting the Most Out of My Oracle Support 52
What Does It Take to be Part of The IT Gold Rush? 55
Event Driven Architecture using Fusion Middleware 59
Three Real Reasons to Run Database Applications on Flash Storage 63
Book Review of Getting Started with Oracle Event Processing 11g 65
Using XA for Batch – Bad Idea? 67
Storage Performance: It’s All About Balance… 70
Top Ten Secrets of Successful Oracle ADF Projects 73
How the Oracle DML Logging Feature can be used within Oracle
Data Integrator Interfaces and Knowledge Modules 77

04 www.ukoug.org
AUTUMN 13
Welcome to Oracle Scene
OracleScene
First word
You may have noticed over the past few months
that Oracle has released version 12c of their
database. With this release we have a new
architecture and lots of new or enhanced features.
In this edition of Oracle Scene, we have a number of
articles that look at some of these features.
You can use these articles to help you get started with the
new release. In addition to the 12c launch, many other Oracle
products have been updated and released. It has been a busy
few months for Oracle.
In addition to the print publication, we have a bumper digital
edition of Oracle Scene. This is available on the UKOUG website.
Do check out all the excellent articles that are available in the
digital edition covering application development, applications,
management and more.
Over the coming months, many of you will be upgrading to
and using 12c or one of the many newly released products. You
will be learning lots, discovering many hidden features and
tricks, identifying work arounds, finding out how to get different
products to work together and so on. Our 12c supplement is
a great place to start. Check it out online at www.ukoug.org/
what-we-offer/oracle-scene.
Oracle Scene is a great place for you to share your discoveries
and experiences, by writing a short or long article about them.
This is what being part of a user group is all about, sharing
our knowledge. Content can be submitted all year round to
articles@ukoug.org.uk. Information about editorial deadlines,
article guidelines etc. can be found on the UKOUG website.
I would like to thank all of you who have contributed articles to
Oracle Scene, our readers and the advertisers.
ABOUT
THE
DEPUTY
EDITOR
Brendan Tierney
Consultant, Oralytics.com
Brendan is an Oracle ACE Director, independent consultant and lectures on
Data Mining and Advanced Databases in DIT in Ireland. Brendan has extensive
experience working in the areas of Analytics, Data Mining, Data Warehousing, Data
Architecture and Database Design for over 20 years. He has worked on projects in
Ireland, UK, Belgium and USA. He started working with the Oracle 5 Database, Forms
2.3 and ReportWriter 1.1, and has worked with all versions since then. Brendan is the
deputy editor of the UKOUG Oracle Scene magazine and is the deputy chair of the
OUG Ireland BI SIG. Brendan is a regular presenter at conferences in Ireland,
UK, Norway, Brazil and USA, including Oracle OpenWorld.
Contact the deputy editor at: deputy@ukoug.org.uk

JDE13 & OUG Ireland 2014
www.ukoug.org 05
Join us at the Madejski Stadium on 12th–13th November
for another fantastic year of JD Edwards content. JDE13
is all about Onwards, Upwards, Edwards with an agenda
packed with presentations on upgrading, going mobile
and implementation.
Don’t miss out on Oracle keynotes John Schiff & Denise
Grills, opening motivational speaker ex-referee Graham
Poll and user stories from Tupperware Products, Sinclair
International, Aggregate Industries and Calor Gas.
www.jde13.ukoug.org
UKOUG JD Edwards Conference 2013
View the agenda and register online now!
Calling all papers…OUG Ireland 2014
The key event for the Oracle community in Ireland is back
for its tenth year. Get involved to learn, share, network,
and join the celebrations!
We’ve now opened our call for papers inviting
submissions covering Oracle E-Business Suite,
Applications Transformation, BI and Oracle Database.
We would especially like to receive papers in the
following categories:
• Customer stories
• Real life business experiences
• Innovative ideas
• Updates
• Latest information and developments
• Hints and tips on issues that may be faced in the
work environment
OUG Ireland 2014 | 11th March | The Convention Centre, Dublin
More information about submitting papers can be
found here: www.oug.org/Ireland14/papers

06 www.ukoug.org
AUTUMN 13
News and Reviews
OracleScene
for a smooth
conference registration
1. Make sure you create an online account by
going to www.ukoug.org and clicking the
‘Join UKOUG’button in the top right corner.
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password function on the UKOUG website.
Feature in the next
We’re looking for compelling stories
about your experiences with your
Oracle products – from a technical
and/or functional perspective.
Whatever your story and whether
it’s good news or bad, future plans,
innovative use of your applications,
integrations with other solutions,
we want to know about it. Send your
submissions to:
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OracleScene
Serving the Oracle Community
Autumn 12 Issue
48
Confused
by UPK?
Tim Poynter sheds some light
on UPK Professional Cheshire Shared Services
From
Systems Integration to
Employee Self-Service Jonathan LewisOn Star Transform
ations
in Standard Edition
www.ukoug.orgAn indep
endent publication
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with Oracle Corporation
The Road AheadFor BI Apps
This edition’ssponsors:
68217
UKOU
G Oracle
Scene
48_AR
TWOR
K 48PP_
MM_12
1012
amend
ed.indd
1
12/10/2
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12:02
OracleScene
Serving the Oracle Community
Spring 13 Issue 49
Oracle Business Analytics
2013 trends
product direction
Oracle ADF
Everything a server administrator
needs to know
Taking the Direct Path
More from James Morle
on
efficient table scanning
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An independent publication
not affiliated with Oracle
Corporation
Mobile:
the Enterprise
Gamechanger
This edition’s
sponsor:
UKOUG
_Oracle
Scene[4
9]_ST3-
PA v2.indd
1
01/03/20
13 16:43
Article
submissions
deadline:
17th Jan 2014
Publish
month:
March 2014
All About
High Availability
The day started with an overview,
followed by descriptions of the advanced
clustering features built into WebLogic,
the integration with the Oracle database
(particularly RAC) and after lunch, moved
into handling HA in the layered products
like SOA, BPM, OAM and EM 12c. We
also squeezed the usual Support and
discussion sessions in between. As a
couple of delegates pointed out on the
post-event questionnaire, the scope was
probably a little ambitious as any one of
the subject areas could have filled a day
itself. It did mean that the SIG had a bit
of a whirlwind feel to it, but as someone
else wrote, there was a “really good mix of
very experienced presenters who were up
for interactive discussions”.
In an effort to build on the opportunities
to interact with your peers and speakers,
we are trying something different at the
next SIG.The morning consisting of a couple
of main presentations with some 10 minute
“Quick Bites”and in the afternoon we will
have a “PerformanceTuning Clinic”. In this
session the speakers will answer performance
questions suggested by the audience, giving
advice with possible solutions.
The next SIG is on 9th October in Reading
and we hope you can join us then. Register
at www.ukoug.org.
The last UKOUG Application Server and Middleware SIG, held on 19th June in London, was themed
around High Availability (HA).
Pictured left:
Jon Reddy
Pictured centre:
Bernardo Mirones
Pictured right:
Rob Honeyman
4. Check with your main contact to see if a
conference ticket is available for you to
use this year. If not, contact us and we will
work out the cheapest way for you
to attend.
If you have any questions, please contact our
membership team on +44 (0)20 8545 9670
or info@ukoug.org and they will be able to
help you.
Top tips
www.ukoug.orgAn Independent Publication
not affiliated with Oracle Corporation
IN THIS ISSUE
focus
OracleScene
Lots of 12c topics forthe DBA, Architect,
Developer and
Data Scientist
Supplementsponsor:
Autumn 13
Oracle Database 12c Supplement
Brought to you by Oracle Scene
An in depth look atOracle Database 12c
12c Special!
We had more 12c content than we could fit in one
edition so we’ve created a 12c supplement.
Dive in and discover more articles on new features
and more via the UKOUG website:
www.ukoug.org/what-we-offer/oracle-scene

News and Reviews
www.ukoug.org 07
Get your hands
on this hot offer!
UKOUG SIGs are the perfect way to
prepare for Tech13. Learn about and
discuss some of the key conference
topics, share experiences and build your
network with fellow delegates, users,
Oracle representatives and partner
members in a relaxed,
informal atmosphere.
Our Technology SIGs include:
• Solaris SIG Meeting
• Database Server SIG Meeting
• Application Server Middleware
SIG Meeting
• Availability Infrastructure
Management SIG Meeting
• Oracle Spatial SIG Meeting
• Higher Education SIG Meeting
• Application Express (APEX) SIG Meeting
UKOUG Platinum membership provides
you with:
• 10 passes to any Special Interest Group
(SIG) meetings*
• Two full conference tickets to use at any
UKOUG conference** including Tech13
And many other member benefits. Find
out more about Platinum membership:
www.ukoug.org/membership
The cold weather may be on its way, but we have many Special
Interest Group (SIG) meetings this autumn to get you warmed up
and ready for the UKOUG Technology Conference 2013 in December.
For a spec-tech-ular offer quote “WarmUp” on your application before 30th November 2013 to save the admin fee.
Contact our membership team today at info@ukoug.org
*Up to four passes can be used at any one SIG event **All tickets are fully transferrable between colleagues
social media followers – thank you!
10,000
The last few weeks have seen us celebrate
the birth of the Royal Baby with an offer
on Gold membership and this autumn we
have hit 10,000 worldwide followers on
Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ and
YouTube combined.
This makes the global Oracle community
stronger than ever, better enabling
members to make connections, share
information and take part in topical
discussions online.
Of course, we’re not stopping there, so if
you’re on social media make sure you’re not
missing out. Connect with UKOUG today
and help us get to the 20,000 milestone!
UKOUG is encouraging all those
interested to start using Twitter hashtags
when they tweet about UKOUG and our
events in order to interact with us and our
presenters, attendees and other interested
parties. View the full list of the hashtags
at www.ukoug.org/hashtags.
UKOUG’s 30th year is turning into a big one!
SAVE UP TO 40%
Remember all our members can claim
discounts on all Oracle titles from our
selected publishers.
Why not purchase a book and immerse
yourself as the evenings draw in to
improve your knowledge on the Oracle
products you work with? We have
discounts from McGraw-Hill,
Packt Publishing, O’Reilly, Pearson
Education and Sideris.
Log into the members area of the
UKOUG website (www.ukoug.org)
to access the discount codes or
contact Karina on
+44 (0)20 8545 9674.
Don’t forget about your
publisher discounts!
Shhh!don’t tell anyone...
6 Secrets to Better Networking at Conferences
www.ukoug.org/what-we-offer/news/6-secrets-to-
better-networking-at-conferences
P.S.We don’t really mind if you share ☺

08 www.ukoug.org
AUTUMN 13
Focus on: Tech13 Conference
OracleScene
First came the
12c launch in July.
Then came Oracle
OpenWorld in
September.
Tech13 – Oracle Explored
As you would expect,
Tech13 will offer three
and a half days of world-
class technical education
for IT professionals and
practitioners.
And for 2013 we have our best conference
programme yet! There will be inspirational
sessions from more than 150 leading speakers
including: Jonathan Lewis, Tom Kyte, Pete
Finnigan, Carl Dudley, Joel Goodman, Mark
Rittman, Adam Leventhal, Larry Carpenter and
many more.
The conference programme is a great opportunity to listen to,
and interact with, some of the leading thinkers and practitioners
in the Oracle workplace today. We have keynote addresses
from Andrew Sutherland, Dermot O’Kelly, Tom Kyte, Mike
Durran, Chris Armes and Regis Louis, case studies, roundtables,
deep product exploration, hands-on labs and a wide range of
collaborative and networking opportunities.
Register today
www.tech13.ukoug.org/register

www.ukoug.org 09
The next big thing is...
Hands-on learning
For those looking for in-depth knowledge, our Masterclasses
suite will provide attendees with an enhanced learning
experience. Sessions include:
• Understanding Optimizer Statistics
• Oracle Database Backup and Recovery Workshop
Exciting entertainment
We like to treat Tech13 attendees like VIPs. And this year we are
exclusively hiring out the National Football Museum for our
delegates to enjoy an evening of entertainment.
“The Database stream will have some great
content. Last year it was all about – what’s
coming? This year – there will be some
excellent demonstrations, and it’s a great
chance for delegates to ask questions about
different features.” Joel Goodman, Oracle
1
DECEMBER
2
DECEMBER
3
DECEMBER
4
DECEMBER
M A N C H E ST E R
C E N T R A L
1 - 4 D E C 2 0 1 3
More content added
Tech13 will deliver more targeted content than ever seen
before at a UKOUG event. Three days just wasn’t enough!
Seven extra tracks on offer on Super Sunday.
Super Sunday includes:
• Hands-on Engineered Systems
• Analytics – Pulling the Threads Together
• Two Database Technology tracks
• Real World Lesson from ADF Ninjas
• Extending APEX out of the Box
• WebLogic
As well as the traditional style of conference
presentation Tech13 also offers:
Interactive sessions
Have your say in the Roundtable discussions. Topics include:
• Licensing Management
• Virtualisation QA
• Debate: Does Oracle Ignore Hints?
Highlights of this year’s Technology Conference

We aim to make Tech13
the best Oracle technology
conference in the world!
It will be held in
Manchester, at Manchester
Central, an iconic business
resort in the heart of the
city. Centrally located in
the UK and easy to reach
using city’s extensive multi-
modal transport network.
10 www.ukoug.org
AUTUMN 13
OracleScene
13 New
conference
M A N C H E STE R C E NTR A L Petersfield M2 3GX
NEW VENUE: Manchester Central

www.ukoug.org 11
New
location Manchester
Tech13 is all about hands-on learning, deep product exploration,
countless opportunities to build relationships with a community of
Oracle experts and peers.
But if you need a break from the conference, Manchester has a lot to
offer. From events and attractions to fine dining and a great night out;
discover things to do in Manchester.
1. Explore the people’s history
Reopened in 2010 after a £12.5 million development,
The People’s Museum, Manchester’s only national
museum, is dedicated to telling a 200-year tale of
British democracy. Dry and dusty it isn’t. Interactive
exhibits bring political history to life, while a brand
new wing, fused to the Grade II-listed Pump House
and complete with a sunny riverside café, lets light
flood inside. www.phm.org.uk.
2. Nightlife in Manchester
The Manchester nightlife scene is cool, eclectic
and undeniably charming. With so many bars in
Manchester the choice can be overwhelming, so
we have handpicked a few places:
• The Whim Wham Cafe
“Epicurean Eatery and Gin Saloon”offering up
traditional British food-fare and a thoughtfully
stocked bar.
• The Briton’s Protection
Winner of ‘The Best Pub in Manchester’title for
the past 2 years, this tardis-like boozer next to The
Bridgewater Hall boasts over 200 whiskeys, great
ales, a beer garden and two roaring fires.
• Tib Street Tavern
There are no gimmicks, it’s not attempting to be
a theme bar nor does it offer fancy cuisine, just a
good old fashioned selection of beers, spirits and
wines from around the Continent.
3. Make inroads to the ‘cultural corridor’
Infamous for its thundering traffic, Oxford Road
nevertheless packs in so many galleries, museums
and theatres that locals talk of it as Manchester’s
‘cultural corridor’. At the northern end of the main
arterial route connecting the centre to south
Manchester is Cornerhouse, the city’s acclaimed
contemporary art complex, while at the other is
the red-brick Whitworth Art Gallery. In between are
theatres, the Manchester Museum and the University
of Manchester’s campus, a quadrangle of Gothic
buildings designed by Alfred Waterhouse.
4. Fascinated by science or intrigued by industrial life?
Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry has
a range of captivating exhibits for you to feast your
eyes on. Afterwards take in the spectacular views of
the stars within the planetarium. The Museum of
Science is a fantastic day out if you are planning on
extending your trip.
5. Support one (or both) of Manchester’s FCs?
Both sets of fans are well-catered for by their teams
with tours, museums and of course the obligatory
shops, selling the latest strip. Manchester United fans
can take the popular behind-the-scenes stadium tour
and trot down players’tunnel or visit the impressive
museum. No devoted football fan should miss the
National Football Museum, which holds both the
FIFA and FA collections, including the hallowed ball
used in that World Cup final (1966), while changing
exhibitions will add interest to permanent displays.
Register today at www.tech13.ukoug.org/register

12 www.ukoug.org
AUTUMN 13
Technology
OracleScene
Fine Tuning your Data
Stack for Success
applications. To understand how these elements work together
to provide optimal IT solutions, let’s compare each component
of the Oracle stack to talented sections of a world-class
philharmonic orchestra.
Consider how each section of an orchestra
– be it the strings, brass, or woodwind
instruments – can give an inspiring musical
performance in its own right, so too can each
layer of the Oracle stack provide best-of-
breed performance for its specific functions.
When these components are combined together, however,
the true benefit of Oracle’s comprehensive solutions becomes
apparent, much like the combined instruments in an orchestra
create magical symphonies.
When writing a symphony, a composer must imagine how all of
the instruments under his or her direction will sound together;
while each section does contribute some incredible sounds, the
full force of the piece only shines through when played in unison.
Likewise, the Oracle stack is developed by a single development
organisation and the technology behind it has been designed
to optimise the entire stack. Vertically integrated components
are finely tuned to work optimally together between, within,
and across every layer. They are engineered together, undergo
A recent article in the McKinsey Quarterly revealed a concern,
shared by many CEOs, that while their competition puts
more and more pressure on them to keep up, they are too
preoccupied with ‘keeping the lights on’IT projects to embark
on truly innovative technology initiatives. There is no doubt
that businesses need to focus on keeping their IT resources
up and running, but their investment in technology shouldn’t
stop there.
It’s no surprise that organisations that view IT tools as more
than just a set of resources that fill one-dimensional operational
roles will experience a higher level of innovation in their
organisation. Companies that simplify IT will find the time to
take advantage of their technology resources and ultimately
create added value internally and for their customers. For
business leaders currently struggling with complexity in their
organisations, this course of action is extremely attractive.
To add to the issue of complexity in the IT space today, greater
challenges are expected in the near future in the form of Big
Data. While businesses everywhere have been exposed to
the Big Data explosion, estimates indicate that 85 per cent of
the world’s current data warehouses will not be able to meet
expected information volume and complexity demands by 2014.
For companies, the choices they make today can either prepare
them to take advantage of this information explosion and get a
jump on the competition, or keep them lagging behind.
At Oracle, our goal is to help customers simplify their IT
experience. We offer complete hardware and software stack
solutions that include storage platforms, servers, virtual
machines, operating systems, databases, middleware and
Is your IT department focused on making your business more
competitive, or are you caught up trying to maintain the status quo
with your technology infrastructure?
Dermot O’Kelly, Senior Vice President Oracle UK, Ireland and Israel Technology

Technology: Dermot O’Kelly
www.ukoug.org 13
testing together, certified to work together, upgraded together
and supported together. These comprehensive engineered
systems deliver extreme performance, and provide cost-effective
solutions for customers who do not have to invest their resources
integrating each layer of the stack.
That being said, just like guest musicians can join an orchestra
missing a few players, so too can third party data centre
components be integrated into the Oracle stack. Because
our solutions are built on open source platforms, there is no
customer lock-in. If they choose to, customers can swap out any
layer of the stack and replace it with another vendor’s products.
With flexible, high-performance solutions
like these, Oracle makes IT simpler, and helps
users avoid the compromises associated with
most proprietary systems.
Businesses that adopt our products can take the complexity
out of their technology solutions, and therefore reduce the
portion of their IT budget that goes into maintaining day-to-
day operations. Managing the performance, configuration,
provisioning, and patching of IT systems from a single
application, for example, allows users to invest time and effort
into growing their top line. Oracle is in a unique position to
offer customers these complete solutions because it is the only
provider that owns all the layers in its technology stack.
To achieve this, Oracle has spent over US$24 billion in RD since
2004, investing in product innovation and cross-layer integration
in the course of developing its next-generation technologies.
Ultimately, what sets the Oracle stack apart is that it has been
engineered for choice. Customers who take advantage of this
flexibility will simplify their IT infrastructure, thus paving the
way for them to drive innovation and achieve measurable
success. Let’s make music together!
Join us at an Oracle Day coming to a city near
you where you will hear direct from companies
that have simplified IT to drive innovation. Learn
how technology is fuelling new business models
and opportunities.
www.oracle.com/goto/uk/OracleDays
Note from Oracle: The UK Oracle User Group will be
joining us at our events. We are very proud of our
independent user group communities and would
encourage you to come along to these events to meet
the UK Oracle User Group to find out more about the
value user group membership offers our customers.
Find out more: www.ukoug.org
ABOUT
THE
AUTHOR
Dermot O’Kelly
Senior Vice President Oracle UK, Ireland and Israel Technology
Dermot O’Kelly is Senior Vice President for Oracle UK, Ireland and Israel region and
is responsible for driving Oracle’s operations, growth and profitability across these
geographies. He also leads the close alignment of Oracle’s key accounts, and is the
Country Leader for the UK.

Technology
www.ukoug.org 15
Histograms in 12c
they can see it is necessary.This tends to reduce the occurrence
of “random”bad plans appearing due to the variability of the
samples that Oracle might take to generate a histogram – and it
may be that the best time to create some histograms is early in the
morning rather than late at night when the automatic job starts to
run. However, with 12c you’re likely to find that it is safe to let the
automatic stats collection job generate some of your histograms
– so it’s nice to know that you can set up table-level preferences
for stats collections that will tell the automatic job exactly which
histograms to collect. Here’s an example of how:
begin
dbms_stats.set_global_prefs(‘METHOD_OPT’,’for all columns
size 1’);
dbms_stats.set_table_prefs(
ownname = ‘test_user’,
tabname = ‘t1’,
pname = ‘method_opt’,
pvalue = ‘for all columns size 1 for columns n1
size 5 n3 size 254’
);
end;
/
The first call (which you need only do once) tells Oracle that the
general strategy is to collect no histograms. The second call tells
Oracle that for table T1 you want a histogram of up to 5 buckets
on column n1, a histogram of up to 254 buckets on column n3,
and no histograms on any other column.
In 12c Oracle has introduced some terrific enhancements to
histogram creation: histograms are allowed to have more
buckets, you can create accurate frequency histograms at a
much lower resource cost, and there are two new types of
histogram that eliminate various problems with the old
“height-balanced” histograms.
Background
Before talking about histograms in 12c, it’s worth making a brief
comment about a couple of features that appeared in 11g; these
are the “approximate NDV”mechanism and the “table preferences”
procedure (which only works properly in 11.2).
If you enable the “approximate NDV” mechanism through a call to
dbms_stats.set_param() or – the preferred method – dbms_stats.
set_global_prefs(), then the various calls to gather stats will use a
new mechanism to gather column stats whenever you leave the
estimate_percent at its default value of “auto_sample_size”.This
allows Oracle to collect accurate statistics using a 100% sample
size without having to do the expensive count(distinct ()) on each
column that it had to do in earlier releases of Oracle. In particular, of
course, the automatic overnight stats collection job ought to do a
better job with the newer, faster, more accurate mechanism.
A piece of advice that I’ve often given to clients has been to disable
automatic histogram generation, and then do something to create
histograms programmatically for the few special cases where
One of the most challenging problems a DBA has to face is defining
a strategy for how and when to create statistics for a database; and
one of the hardest parts of the problem is dealing with histograms
which can be very expensive to create while still leaving the DBA
facing unstable execution plans.
Jonathan Lewis,
Freelance Consultant, JL Computer Consultancy

16 www.ukoug.org
AUTUMN 13
Technology: Jonathan Lewis
OracleScene
Having set the background – let’s move on to the things that
12c does better.
Enhancements
The first enhancement is simple – you can specify up to 2,000
buckets for a histogram in 12c. The default, if you don’t change
it, is still 254. Frankly this is likely to be sufficient in many cases,
and I don’t think many people will need to increase the value
beyond 500 (In part for reasons I’ll mention shortly). If you are
tempted to set the bucket count up to 2,000 remember that the
calls to gather stats save the old stats to some history tables
before overwriting them – and I have seen several complaints
in the past from people who have noticed that their sysaux
tablespace has become huge with wri$_optstat_histgrm_
history (the histogram history) as the single largest table in
the tablespace.
The first enhancement is simple – you can
specify up to 2,000 buckets for a histogram
in 12c.
The next enhancement is a relatively simple change to efficiency
and precision for frequency histograms – Oracle has overloaded
the “approximate NDV”mechanism to accumulate enough
information to create a frequency histogram at the same time
as it counts the number of distinct values for a column.
The original mechanism used to create a hash table of 2^64
buckets, but applied a cunning algorithm that allowed it to
represent the full data set (approximately) by recording a
maximum of just 16,384 hash values. In 12c Oracle records the
number of rows that appeared for each of these hash values,
and a rowid to point back to a row with the actual value. If, at
the end of the build the number of hash values hasn’t exceeded
the number of buckets requested for the histogram, the
contents of the hash table can be converted into a very accurate
frequency histogram by looking up each of the rowids, and then
sorting the hash table by lookup value. The time required to
create a frequency histogram is the time to do a full tablescan
plus the time to look up the N (up to 2,000) rows by rowid.
In 12c Oracle records the number of rows
that appeared for each of these hash values,
and a rowid to point back to a row with the
actual value.
New features
But we don’t just get a faster, more accurate, frequency
histogram – Oracle gets even smarter with the contents of
the hash table. Imagine you have asked for a histogram of 50
buckets, and Oracle finds that the hash table holds 3,000 hash
values – far more than you had hoped for. Possibly you requested
50 buckets because you knew that almost all the data would be
one of 50 critical values. Oracle will compare the total number
of rows in the table, with the number of rows in the largest 50
hash buckets, and if the left-over rows in the other 2,950 buckets
account (in this case) for less than 1/50th of the data Oracle
will build a “Top-N”frequency histogram – setting up histogram
information that reflects the top 50 buckets and allows for “a
little spare data”.
The algorithm is a little more subtle than the description I’ve
given as the histogram has to reflect the low and high values
for the column, so Oracle may have to inject a couple of “rogue”
buckets into the histogram, but the basic principle is this: if you
have a data set which you know has N popular values and a load
of rows that represent no more than 1/Nth of the data, then
create a histogram with N (plus a couple for safety) buckets, and
you will get a histogram that is a good model for your data.
The final new feature of 12c is the “Hybrid”histogram – so-
called because it combines features of the frequency histogram
and the height-balanced histogram. The hybrid histogram
is something that Oracle will generate if you’ve requested a
histogram and the data pattern doesn’t allow Oracle to create
a frequency or Top-N histogram. It can be expensive to create
a hybrid histogram because Oracle has to sample the data and
run a query that uses an analytic sum() function – the larger the
sample becomes the more expensive the query.
Older versions of Oracle also run an analytic query (using the
ntile() function) against the data, so the amount of work to
generate a hybrid histogram is not different from the height-
balanced version. The difference is in what Oracle does with the
data. This is best described with a small example that gives the
flavour of the mechanism. Imagine that (after sorting) I have the
following 20 values for a column:
32 33 33 33 33 33 33 33 33 34 34 34 35 35 35 35 35 35 35 36
To create a height-balanced histogram of 4 buckets Oracle would
record every fifth entry (20 rows / 4 buckets) = 5 rows per bucket,
plus the first entry to show that the first bucket wasn’t completely
full of 33s, so we’d get the following selection as our histogram:
32 33 33 33 33 33 33 33 33 34 34 34 35 35 35 35 35 35 35 36
32 33 34 35 36
Unfortunately Oracle only considers a value to be special
(popular) if it appears in at least two consecutive positions
in this list. So, from the perspective of the height-balanced
histogram there’s nothing particularly skewed about this data
– even though we can see that 33 and 35 occur rather more
frequently than the other values.
A hybrid histogram of 4 buckets starts off with the same unit of
5 values as its basic measure but doesn’t follow the fixed bucket
size. After counting through five values it gets to a 33, but then
keeps going until it reaches the last 33, remembering the size of
the bucket and the number of 33s; then it counts 5 values which
takes it to a 35, and keeps going to the end of the 35s –

Technology: Jonathan Lewis
www.ukoug.org 17
and so on, to give us the following:
32 33 33 33 33 33 33 33 33 34 34 34 35 35 35 35 35 35 35 36
In this case we run out of data before we run out of buckets –
which isn’t’too surprising since the algorithm tends to make
buckets larger than the expected size as it works along the
data. You’ll notice that I’ve also highlighted the first value in the
list, again to show that the first bucket does have some values
in it that don’t match the high value. The data stored as this
histogram looks like this:
(32,1) (33,8) (35,7) (36,1)
As you can see from this little example, I’ve managed to capture
both of my popular values, even though in this case they appear
only as single end-point values in the histogram. As a general
rule, the hybrid histogram tends to capture more popular values
for a similar amount of work than the equivalent height-
balanced histogram – and thanks to the end-point counts it
captures better information.
Hybrid histograms are a significant step forward from height-
balanced histograms; bear in mind, though, that it’s still a data
sample – the smaller the sample the more variable the effect
may be on your execution plans, the larger the sample the
longer it will take to build the histogram.
Summary
In 12c a histogram can have up to 2,000 buckets. This is
probably overkill, so the default is still 254 buckets, and you
should be a little cautious about much large bucket counts.
Remember the impact this would have on the “optimizer
history”tables.
The new “Hybrid”histograms – enabled automatically if you
use the “auto sample size”option – are still as expensive to
generate as the old “height-balanced”histograms, but the
quality of information they hold is vastly superior.
If you’ve enabled the 11g “approximate NDV”then Oracle
can create accurate frequency histograms and “Top N”
frequency histograms very cheaply; combine this with
setting “table preferences”and you may find that you
can allow Oracle to deal with almost all your histogram
requirements in the overnight “autostats”collection.
Remember, though, that the picture of the data you want
Oracle to see during the day may not be the same as the
actual data content at the moment the auto stats job is
running. Despite all the improvements, you may still find
a few cases where you need to include extra calls to the
dbms_stats package in your application code (typically
during batch runs), and some of these calls may even need
to use the set_column_stats() procedure to construct an
artificial histogram.
ABOUT
THE
AUTHOR
Jonathan Lewis
Freelance Consultant, JL Computer Consultancy
Jonathan Lewis is a freelance consultant whose experience with Oracle goes back
over 24 years. He specialises in physical database design, the strategic use of the
Oracle database engine and solving performance issues.
Jonathan is the author of ‘Oracle Core’ and ‘Cost Based Oracle – Fundamentals’
both published by Apress, and ‘Practical Oracle 8i – Designing Efficient Databases’
published by Addison-Wesley, and has contributed to three other books about Oracle.
He is one of the best-known speakers on the UK Oracle circuit, as well as being
very popular on the international scene – having worked or lectured in 50 different
countries – and further details of his published papers, presentations
and tutorials can be found through his blog at
http://jonathanlewis.wordpress.com.

The latest, greatest incarnation of the Oracle database, 12c,
is chockfull of interesting and exciting new features.
This article introduces the reader to just three of them
available within SQL alone.
Melanie Caffrey, Senior Development Manager, Oracle
18 www.ukoug.org
AUTUMN 13
Technology
OracleScene
Row Limiting, PL/SQLWITH SQL, andTemporalValidity:
Three in 12c
Top-N queries can now employ simpler
syntax with the use of the new row_
limiting clause, which allows you to
limit the rows returned by a query. You
can now define a PL/SQL function in the
WITH clause of a query, and reference it
within the query, as well as any of the
query’s subqueries. And last, but not
least, temporal validity enables you to
have data visible depending on its time-
based validity, as determined by the
periods of time for which it is considered
valid. Any application can now support
a situation where it is important to
have visible only the data within a table
considered valid as of a specified time
period, instead of all the data within a
table (the current default).
To demonstrate the power of the row
limiting clause, I’ll start by querying a
table called EMPLOYEE. First the table
is queried with no row limiting clauses
and then the table is queried with the
new row limiting FETCH FIRST and
ROWS ONLY clauses, for comparison
purposes (Figure 1).
ashton%ORA12CR1 select employee_id, first_name, last_name, salary
2 from employee
3 order by salary desc;
EMPLOYEE_ID FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME SALARY
----------- ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ----------
6573 Lori Dovichi
6571 Thomas Jeffrey 300000
28 Emily Eckhardt 100000
6569 michael peterson 90000
1234 Donald Newton 80000
37 Frances Newton 75000
7895 Matthew Michaels 70000
6572 Theresa Wong 70000
6570 mark leblanc 65000
6567 Roger Friedli 60000
6568 Betsy James 60000
11 rows selected.
ashton%ORA12CR1 set feedback on
ashton%ORA12CR1 set lines 32000
2 from employee
3 order by salary desc nulls last
4 FETCH FIRST 5 ROWS ONLY;
----------- ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ----------
6571 Thomas Jeffrey 300000
28 Emily Eckhardt 100000
6569 michael peterson 90000
1234 Donald Newton 80000
37 Frances Newton 75000
5 rows selected.
FIGURE 1

Technology: Melanie Caffrey
www.ukoug.org 19
Notice how with just a few extra
keywords, FETCH FIRST 5 ROWS ONLY,
the query is limited to the Top-N records
we are interested in. This is a syntactical
simplification over, for example, the
RANK and DENSE_RANK analytic
functions also used within Oracle SQL.
This is not to say that RANK and DENSE_
RANK should not be used. (I am a huge
fan of analytic functions.) This is simply a
statement that many Top-N queries that
are interested in, say, fetching the first
five rows, and maybe the next five rows,
for example, could make good use of the
new row limiting clause syntax available
in 12c.
The FETCH clause specifies the number
of rows or percentage of rows to return.
Comparing the second query with the
first query, you can see that the omission
of this clause results in all rows returned.
The second query fetches only the top
five salary earners from the employee
table (additionally, the second query
omits any records with null salary
values, so that only real salary values are
returned). To then fetch the next top 5
salary earners, consider the following
query (Figure 2).
The differences between the third query
and the second query are the OFFSET and
FETCH NEXT clauses. The OFFSET clause
specifies the number of rows to skip
before the row limiting begins. The way
to look at this is to read it as “skip the
first five salary earners, and return the
next five salary earners only”.
Effectively calling PL/SQL within SQL
has been a challenge for many
application developers since PL/SQL was
first written. One of the challenges has
consistently been how to effectively
write SQL that calls schema-level stored
functions and procedures and ensure
that, overall, the code performs well and
is maintainable. As far as name resolution
goes, a PL/SQL function declared within a
SQL query has precedence over schema-
level stored functions and procedures.
The following query demonstrates how
you can declare a function within the
WITH clause of an SQL query (Figure 3).
This type of query is particularly useful
in a read-only database where the values
are not likely to change often while the
query is running. Keep in mind that if the
query in which you specify this clause is
2 from employee
3 order by salary desc nulls last
4 OFFSET 5 ROWS FETCH NEXT 5 ROWS ONLY;
----------- ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ----------
7895 Matthew Michaels 70000
6572 Theresa Wong 70000
6570 mark leblanc 65000
6567 Roger Friedli 60000
6568 Betsy James 60000
5 rows selected.
FIGURE 2
ashton%ORA12CR1 WITH
2 FUNCTION get_prod_name (sku VARCHAR2) RETURN VARCHAR2 IS
3 start BINARY_INTEGER;
4 length BINARY_INTEGER;
5 BEGIN
6 start := INSTR(sku, ‘***.’);
7 length := INSTR(SUBSTR(sku, start + 4), ‘.’) – 1;
8 RETURN SUBSTR(sku, start + 4, length);
9 END;
10 SELECT get_prod_name(product_sku)
11 FROM product_catalog;
12 /
FIGURE 3
not a top-level SELECT statement, but a
sub-query, then if the top-level statement
is a SELECT statement, it must have either
a PL/SQL function or procedure declared
within a WITH clause or it must specify
the WITH_PLSQL hint. If the top-level
statement is an INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE
or MERGE statement, then it must have
the WITH_PLSQL hint. This hint is not an
optimizer hint. It is used specifically for
declaring PL/SQL within SQL.
Temporal Validity is sure to be a key audit
feature as it allows you to specify valid
time periods or intervals within a table’s
data. A heap table can become a table
that supports temporal validity with the
addition of the PERIOD FOR clause, which
allows you to specify a valid start and end
period for which rows are valid and should,
therefore, be visible by an application, for
example. Consider the following CREATE
TABLE statement for a table named
EMPLOYEE_VALID, (a table that is similar
to the EMPLOYEE table used in this article’s
first three queries (Figure 4).
ashton%ORA12CR1 create table employee_valid (employee_id NUMBER,
2 first_name VARCHAR2(30),
3 last_name VARCHAR2(30),
4 hire_date DATE,
5 departed_date DATE,
6 salary NUMBER(9,2),
7 manager NUMBER,
8 department_id NUMBER,
9 PERIOD FOR emp_valid_time (hire_date, departed_date));
Table created.
FIGURE 4

20 www.ukoug.org
AUTUMN 13
Technology: Melanie Caffrey
OracleScene
The EMPLOYEE_VALID table has a valid
period of time for which data is now
considered when it falls between the
time period specified by the emp_valid_
time period created with the PERIOD
clause of the above CREATE TABLE
statement. A subset of the records from
this table reveals the following employee
start and end periods (Figure 5).
This table can now be queried using
Oracle Flashback Technology to perform
AS OF and VERSIONS BETWEEN queries
similar to the following (Figure 6).
ashton%ORA12CR1 select last_name, first_name, hire_date, departed_date
2 from employee_valid;
LAST_NAME FIRST_NAME HIRE_DATE DEPARTED_
------------------------------ ------------------------------ --------- ---------
Eckhardt Emily 07-JUL-04 01-JUL-05
Newton Frances 14-SEP-05 07-DEC-06
Newton Donald 24-SEP-06 03-OCT-10
3 rows selected.
FIGURE 5
2 from employee_valid
3 AS OF PERIOD FOR emp_valid_time TO_DATE(‘07-JUL-2004’, ‘DD-MON-YYYY’);
------------------------------ ------------------------------ --------- ---------
Eckhardt Emily 07-JUL-04 01-JUL-05
1 row selected.
3 VERSIONS PERIOD FOR emp_valid_time BETWEEN
4 TO_DATE(‘15-SEP-2005’, ‘DD-MON-YYYY’) AND
5 TO_DATE(‘15-JAN-2006’, ‘DD-MON-YYYY’);
------------------------------ ------------------------------ --------- ---------
1 row selected.
3 AS OF PERIOD FOR emp_valid_time TO_DATE (‘01-OCT-2006’, ‘DD-MON-YYYY’);
------------------------------ ------------------------------ --------- ---------
Newton Donald 24-SEP-06 03-OCT-10
2 rows selected.
FIGURE 6
Summary
So, in summary, each of these three
new 12c SQL features has their place
in terms of providing a simpler way
to code an often asked-for type of
query. The new row limiting clause
greatly simplifies the syntax required
for creating, for example, a ranked
Top-N query. You can now declare and
use a PL/SQL function or procedure
within a SQL query which cuts down
on necessary namespace resolution.
And, last but not least, you can give
your table data temporal validity and
be sure that certain table rows are
only visible when they are valid (and
not visible when they are not).
ABOUT
THE
AUTHOR
Melanie Caffrey
Senior Development Manager, Oracle
Melanie Caffrey is a senior development manager for Oracle Corporation. She is
co-author of several technical publications including Expert PL/SQL Practices for
Oracle Developers and DBAs and Expert Oracle Practices: Oracle Database
Administration from the Oak Table (Apress), and the SQL 101 series of articles
for Oracle Magazine.
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24 www.ukoug.org
OracleScene
AUTUMN 13
JD Edwards
Drive Value
From Your ERP
A PISA helps
organisations achieve
their Enterprise
Resource Planning
(ERP) goals with
minimal service
costs by identifying
value gaps within
the ERP to realise
additional returns on
investment.
Dale Kaplan,
Vice President –
Sales, Marketing and
Strategic Alliances,
CAPSCIENT
Organisations that have implemented
JD Edwards ERP software have the
potential to realise and drive additional
value from their implementations by
focusing on how those systems are
being used, operated and maintained.
New software implementation projects
define various value driver metrics as
goals to measure project success. Due
to over-riding project pressures (i.e.
time and budget constraints), it is not
uncommon that these goals become
less of a focus as system operational (i.e.
getting the system installed quickly)
and functional considerations take
precedence. At project go-live and after,
the measurement of progress against the
goals is often not performed. Investing
in large scale process improvement
initiatives to drive ERP value is costly and
requires time and resources, preventing
many organisations from taking these
next steps. A PISA provides the solution.
Many JD Edwards ERP system integrators
have formulated service offerings to
meet these type of challenges. Referred
to as Post Implementation System
Assessments (PISA), the services provided
are efficient, focused and inexpensive
as they drive significant value from the
ERP system. The success of the PISA is
based on the unbiased low-cost focused
approach to assessing the value gaps.
With that said, identifying the value
gaps can be challenging, requiring
skilled expert product-knowledgeable
resources to evaluate current system
usage, functionality usage gaps and their
alignment to best business processes.
Resources have to have deep product
and latest version release knowledge
which internal company resources may
not have. Other constraints include
internal resource time and work conflicts
that cause unavailability for these
type of projects, minimal JD Edwards
product expertise and lack of leverage
and authority to affect change within
the organisation. Those closest to the
system are typically not the best choice
for evaluating it critically, as they most
likely were the ones involved in its
implementation and may have a more
protective and biased viewpoint over how
the system is used. The PISA review is
performed by an independent third party
with an unbiased perspective which is
critical to the PISA success.
For organisations that have older ERP
systems or that are on back releases and
are planning upgrades, understanding
where and how to drive additional value
from their current state to that of the
new system prior to implementing it, is
a significant consideration and which
provides the business case justification
for moving the company forward to
the new release. For upgrades, the new
release value proposition and net change
documentation is available from Oracle,
however it still has to be correlated to
the current usage of the system to justify
the upgrade value. The PISA process can
facilitate identification of the key areas
where improvements are needed.
As an example, in an upgrade scenario,
current processes that worked may not
work in the new system or the new system
may bring improved efficient processes and
ways to do business that should be utilised
with a Post Implementation System Assessment (PISA)

JD Edwards: Dale Kaplan
www.ukoug.org 25
to drive additional value that may mean
revision to current business processes.
To summarise some of the main
hindrances to IT departments not
executing on PISA type projects are
related to time, cost, resource constraints,
other projects having a priority over funds
and resources, as well as a lack of deep
in-house expertise in the most recent
releases of the ERP software.
The PISA service offering is a focused
system review engagement of a
company’s existing ERP operations
against best-practice processes and
configurations of both the company’s
existing software release and can
include a review against the most recent
software release. The PISA identifies
areas for improvement and additional
configurations, including needed
modifications to ensure best practices. It
takes into account cost reduction through
improved software efficiencies derived
by increased system functionality usage
and alignment of new processes to the
business. Industry best practices are also
a key focus area that drives additional
incremental value.
The PISA process typically utilises
templates, questionnaires,
structured interviews, checklists,
ERP implementation best practice
knowledgebases, new version and
product net change information. The PISA
provides the necessary support, direction
and plan for execution of any system
changes and evaluates the system by
module by identifying module utilisation,
and provides the guidance needed for
implementation of the recommendations.
Customers that are upgrading their ERP
can also derive value from the PISA. As
part of the PISA evaluation, net changes
to the proposed new system version
release and identification of value drivers
to support upgrade investments can be
included. The PISA supports the scope and
planning phases of upgrades (Diagram 1).
A PISA is a focused system
review that drives ERP
value by providing specific
best-practice process and
configuration improvements
for your JD Edwards system.
The initial PISA steps include the Review
Phase, in which the original ERP project
implementation documentation is
reviewed (if available), and the design,
testing, training and other components of
the implementation that were originally
performed are evaluated. This process
allows for quick identification of areas
for further review and analysis. User
requests and reported help desk incidents
are reviewed to quickly identify system
configuration issues and areas where
additional end-user training is needed.
The PISA vendor’s expert knowledge
of ERP software, specifically Oracle,
JD Edwards and known risk areas
within each of the modules within
an implementation, allows vendor SI
consultants to focus the PISA efforts
on those risk areas as a priority.
Recommendations to mitigate those risks
can then be quickly developed as part of
the PISA report. If they do exist as gaps in
the implementation the consultant can
provide mitigation strategies upfront.
The PISA approach is to analyse the
current ‘state of the union’through
focused and planned discussion
with management, key users and
process owners, as well as system and
documentation reviews. The PISA is
divided into three tracks, that run parallel
to each other to ensure congruence
with the PISA goals, namely Project
Management, Functional and Technical.
At the start of the PISA, the Project
Manager establishes a PISA index metric
against which to determine variance from
best practices and which is used to report
system usage factors. Recommended
actions for improvement against the index
are provided (see Diagram 2). The factors
used to evaluate the PISA index may vary
by PISA SI vendor, but should include
coverage of both the functional and
technical areas of the system and cover
objective and subjective measurements. A
PISA final report is prepared and presented
to management. The PISA approach is
flexible and can include any specific items
of customer concern, for example review
of other related integrations or systems
that may impact the main system being
reviewed. Overriding the approach to
the PISA is the vendor’s implementation
DIAGRAM 1: PROCESS DIAGRAM: POST IMPLEMENTATION SYSTEM ASSESSMENT (EXAMPLE FOR JD EDWARDS ERP)

ABOUT
THE
AUTHOR
Dale Kaplan
Vice President – Sales, Marketing and Strategic Alliances, CAPSCIENT
Dale Kaplan, currently holds the position of Vice President, Sales, Marketing and
Alliances, at CAPSCIENT, a leading JD Edwards consultancy and value systems
integration firm specialising in Oracle services. Prior to joining CAPSCIENT he led
KPIT/SYSTIME’s Global Alliances, JD Edwards Global Solutions and Service Delivery,
and Organisational Development and Strategy departments. He held senior
management positions at Arthur Andersen LLP in the areas of JD Edwards Business
Consulting, Computer Risk Management and Financial Audit. He qualified as a
Chartered Accountant and holds a Bachelor of Business Science with major in
Finance from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Currently based out of
Los Angeles, he can be reached at +1.310.944.5038 / dalekap@gmail.com /
dale.kaplan@capscient.com / www.linkedin.com/in/dalekaplan
26 www.ukoug.org
AUTUMN 13
JD Edwards: Dale Kaplan
OracleScene
methodology which should be robust
enough to ensure quality project execution.
The Functional Track (see Diagram 1)
explores the following key areas of the
ERP system:
• Review of the original ERP
implementation documentation that
includes design, testing, training
and readiness assessment type
documentation.
• Review of the current open user
reported issues lists, review of
system integrities and other system
related issues that signal areas for
improvement. Evaluation of these areas
for user training deficiencies is key.
• Review of existing configurations of the
system (e.g. chart of accounts setups,
constants, automatic accounting
instructions, version, and other
significant configurable items).
• Interviews with management, business
line leaders/process owners and users.
• Review of technical items that impact
functional users – like access security,
menus and naming conventions.
• Review of functional aspects
related to RICE (Reports, Interfaces,
Customisations and Extensions).
• If upgrading, consideration for doing
net change comparisons including
demonstrations of new release versions
can assist in highlighting areas for
improvement.
• Comparison to best practices and
highlighting business process
weaknesses with recommendations
for improvement.
• Assessment of the system utilisation
percentage (i.e. to the pre-defined PISA
index metric) to enable focus on areas
that need the most attention.
• Collaboration with the Technical
Track consultants to identify similar
items for improvement that cross
application weaknesses and support
the recommendations.
• Preparation of a final PISA report.
PISA consulting specialists drive and
facilitate the PISA workshop sessions and
provide documentation post meetings that
include decisions taken, issues and risks
identified, and actions to be performed
with next steps. Along with meeting
agendas and the like, the PISA process
enables an expedited review of the ERP
system saving time, money, cost, effort and
reduction of the customer’s resource time.
The second phase of the PISA is the
Technical Track where the system is
reviewed for technical weaknesses with
focus on performance issues, system
configuration issues, security and access,
sizing, architecture and RICE elements.
Reviews of patches, upgrade approaches,
policies and procedures, backups, purging
and archiving are also evaluated. Helpdesk
issues and problems are reviewed to
identify trends that could signal quick hits
for improvement recommendations.
For organisations that have heavily
customised their systems, a detailed
assessment of those RICE elements should
be performed to evaluate if and how they
can be retired and base vanilla JD Edwards
functionality can be used in its place so
as to reduce issues with upgrades and
future patches. Review of the software
development methodology followed and
the functional and technical specifications
and documentation prepared can also
highlight weaknesses. Many of the
areas mentioned under the Functional
Track also require the involvement of
the PISA technical consultant to assist in
formulating the recommendation.
Project oversight and governance by
an assigned executive Project Sponsor
should be included at various stages of
the PISA project, typically around each key
milestone and review checkpoint to review
deliverables and provide feedback. Given
the short duration of a PISA project, at
minimum weekly status meeting should
be held, but bi-weekly or even daily “scrum”
type status meetings are recommended.
On completion of the PISA a final
report with recommendations for
both functional and technical areas is
presented to the organisation and a plan
for the execution of the recommendations
is developed.
With a structured approach to a PISA,
with defined agenda, workplan, processes
and deliverables, performed by skilled
ERP PISA experts, organisations can
quickly understand how to drive more
value from their ERP investments.
Implementing the recommendations
identified by the PISA will realise the
returns and benefits that were originally
planned to be attained from the
implementation of the system.
DIAGRAM 2: EXAMPLE OF PISA METRIC ANALYSIS

28 www.ukoug.org
AUTUMN 13
Technology
OracleScene
Oracle
Advanced
Analytics in
Oracle 12c
New Features of
By now you may have heard that
Oracle 12c has been released. In
addition to the new version of the
database we also get a new version
of SQL Developer (version 4).
Brendan Tierney, Consultant, Oralytics.com
For those of you who are interested in data mining, predictive
analytics or data science, Oracle 12c has a number of new
features for Oracle Data Miner that is part of the
Advanced Analytics Option. The purpose of this article is to
outline these new features and to give some examples of how
they can be used. The article has two main parts. The first part
looks at new features that come with the Oracle Data Miner
tool that is part of SQL Developer 4. The second part looks at
the new in-database features that come with the Oracle
12c database.
The Oracle Advanced Analytics Option consists of Oracle Data
Mining and Oracle R Enterprise (ORE). ORE is a separate product
that has a separate install for both the server and client side.
There has been no new release of ORE that coincided with the
releases of 12c and SQL Developer 4. So this article will not be
looking at what ORE can do.
New Features in the Oracle Data Miner Tool
The new features of the Oracle Data Miner tool, which comes as
part of SQL Developer 4, can be grouped into two categories. The
first category contains the new features that are available to all
users of the tool (11.2g and 12c). The second category contains
the new features that are only available in 12c. The new features
of each of these categories will be explained below.
Category 1 – Common new features for 11.2g and 12c
Database users
There is a new View Data feature that allows you to drill down
to view the table object and to view nested tables.
A new Graph Node that allows you to create graphs such as line,
bar, scatter and boxplots for data at any stage of a workflow.
You can specify any of the attributes from the data source for
the graphs. You don’t seem to be limited to the number of
graphs you can create.

Technology: Brendan Tierney
www.ukoug.org 29
A new SQL Node. This is a welcome addition, as there have been
many times that I’ve needed to write some SQL or PL/SQL to do
a specific piece of processing on the data that was not available
with the other nodes. There are two important elements to this
SQL node really. The first is that you can write SQL and PL/SQL
code to do whatever processing you want to do. But you can
only do it on the Data node you are connected to.
The second is that you can use it to call some ORE code. This
allows you to use the power of R and the extensive range of
packages that are available to expand the analytic functionality
that is available in the database. If there is a particular function
that you cannot do in Oracle and it is available in R, you can now
embed this function/code as an ORE object in the database. It
can then be called using SQL and the SQL Node.
WARNING: This particular feature will only work if you have ORE
installed on your 11.2.0.3g, 11.2.0.4g or 12.1c.
New Model Build Node features, include node level text
specifications for text transformations, displays the heuristic
rules responsible for excluding predictor columns and being
able to control the amount of classification and regression test
results that are generated.
New Workflow SQL Script Deployment features. Up to now
the workflow SQL script, I found to be of limited use. The
development team have put a lot of work into generating a
proper script that can be used by developers and DBAs. But
there are some limitations still. You can use the script to run
the workflow automatically in the database without having to
use the ODM tool. But it can only be run in the schema that the
workflow was generated. You will still have to do a lot of coding
(although a lot less than you used to) to get your ODM models
and workflows to run in another schema or database.
This will output the deployment script to a file buried deep
somewhere inside your SQL Developer directory. You can edit
this location to have a different shorter location.
Category 2 – New features for 12c Database users
Now for the new features that are only visible when you
are running ODM/SQL Dev 4 against a 12c database. No
configuration changes are needed. The ODM tool checks to see
what version of the database you are logging into. It will then
present the available features based on the version of
the database.
New Predictive Query nodes allows you to build a node based on
the new non-transient feature in 12c called Predictive Queries
(PQs). In SQL Developer we get four types of Predictive Queries.
These can be used for Anomaly Detection, Clustering, Feature
Extraction and Classification.
It is important to
remember that the
underlying model
produced by these
PQs do not exist in
the database after the
query has executed.
The model is created,
used on the data and then the model is deleted.
The Clustering node has the new algorithm Expectation
Maximization in addition to the existing algorithms of K-Means
and O-Cluster.
The Feature Extraction
node has the new
algorithm called
Principal Component
Analysis in addition
to the existing Non-
Negative Matrix
Factorization algorithm.
Text Transformations are now
built into the model build nodes.
These text transformations will

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Technology: Brendan Tierney
www.ukoug.org 31
be part of the Automatic Data Processing steps for the model
build nodes. This is illustrated in the above images.
The Generalized Linear Model that is part of the Classification
Node has a Feature Selection option in the Algorithm Settings.
The default setting is Ridge Regression. Now there is an
additional option of using Feature Selection.
New 12c In-database Features
As part of the 12c there are a number of new in-database
Advanced Analytics features. These new features can be called
using SQL and PL/SQL. These new features are separate to the
Advanced Analytics new features that come as part of the Oracle
Data Miner tool, that is part of SQL Developer. The new Oracle
12c in-Database Advanced Analytics features include:
• Using Decisions Trees for Text analysis is now possible. Up
to now (11.2g) when you wanted to do text classification
you had to exclude Decision Trees from the process. This
was because the Decision Trees algorithm could not support
nested data.
• Additionally for text mining some of the text processing has
been moved from having a separate step, to being part of
the algorithms.
• A number of additional features are available for clustering.
These include a cluster distance (from the centroid) and
details functions.
• There is a new clustering algorithm (in addition to the
K-Means and O-Cluster algorithms), called Expectation
Maximization algorithm. This creates a density model that
can give better results when data from different domains are
combined for clustering. This algorithm will also determine
the optimal number of clusters.
• There are two new Feature Extraction methods that are
scalable for high dimensional data, large number of records,
for both structured and unstructured. This can be used to
reduce the number of dimensions to use as input to the data
mining algorithms. The first of these is called Singular Value
Decomposition (SVD) and is widely used in text mining. The
second method can be considered a special scoring method
of SVD is called Principal Component Analysis (PCA). With this
method it produces projections that are scaled with the
data variance.
• A new feature of the GLM algorithm is that it will perform
a feature section step. This is used to reduce the number of
predictors used by the algorithm and allow for faster builds.
This will make the outputs more understandable and the
model more transparent. This feature is not default so you will
need to set this to ‘on’if you want to use it with the
GLM algorithm.
• In previous versions of the database, there could be some
performance issues that relate to the data types used. In 12c
these has been addressed for BINARY_DOUBLE and BINARY_
FLOAT. So if you are using these data types you should now see
faster scoring of the data in 12c.
• There is a new in-database feature called Predictive Queries.
This allows on-the-fly models that are temporary models
that are formed as part of an analytics clause. These models
cannot be tuned and you cannot see the details of the
model produced. They are formed for the query and do not
exist afterwards.
SELECT cust_id, age, pred_age, age-pred_age age_diff, pred_det FROM
(SELECT cust_id, age, pred_age, pred_det,
RANK() OVER (ORDER BY ABS(age-pred_age) DESC) rnk FROM
(SELECT cust_id, age,
PREDICTION(FOR age USING *) OVER () pred_age,
PREDICTION_DETAILS(FOR age ABS USING *) OVER () pred_det
FROM mining_data_apply_v))
WHERE rnk = 5;
• There is a new function called PREDICTION_DETAILS. This
allows you to see what the algorithm used to make the
prediction. For example, if we want to score a customer
to see if they will churn, we can use the PREDICTION and
PREDICTION_PROBABILITY functions to do this and to see how
strong this prediction is. With PREDICTION_DETAILS we can
now see what attributes and values the algorithm used to
make that particular prediction. The output is in XML format.
These are the new in-database Advanced Analytics (Data
Mining) features. Apart from the new algorithms or changes to
them, most of the other changes give greater transparency into
what the algorithms/models are doing. This is good as it allows
us to better understand and see what is happening.
Conclusion
The new features of the Oracle Data Miner tool and the
in-database new features show continued improvement
in the Advanced Analytics Option. The improvements and
new features for the Oracle Data Miner tool consist of new
features for 11.2g and 12.1c users. In particular the Graph
and SQL nodes are two very useful features. With the SQL
node we can now include R code developed using ORE,
in our Oracle data mining and data science projects. The
in-database 12.1c improvements brings greater insight
into what the functions and procedures are doing behind
the scenes. Additionally, we get some new algorithms that
increases the types of advanced analytics we can perform
on our data.
To read ‘About the Author’ please go to page 4.

Streamlining EPM Deployment
with Planning in the Cloud
In today’s
challenging planning
environment, reliance
on spreadsheets
is woefully
inadequate and
fraught with peril.
Jennifer Toomey,
Senior Principal Product
Marketing Director –
Business Analytics,
Oracle
Packaged planning and forecasting
solutions can help alleviate these
difficulties, yet may remain out of reach
for many organisations which do not have
adequate IT resources or capital budgets
to justify the investment. New Cloud-
based solutions, such as Oracle Planning
and Budgeting Cloud Service, Oracle’s first
Enterprise Performance Management
(EPM) solution for the Cloud, opens up
opportunities for organisations of all sizes
to streamline planning and forecasting,
accelerate deployment and reduce costs.
Today’s Enterprise Planning
Challenges – Drowning in
Spreadsheets
The planning environment has changed
considerably for most organisations
in today’s global economy. Global
recession, erratic growth and recovery,
market volatility all make accurate
planning and forecasting a
challenging process.
In fact, a 2010 survey by CFO
Research Services revealed
that 40% of CFOs can only
accurately forecast one
quarter into the future.
To make matters worse, a recent Oracle
survey on planning and forecasting
revealed that 93% of finance managers
globally are drowning in spreadsheets.
This was especially true in the area of
budgeting, planning and forecasting
with 75% of respondents indicating they
used spreadsheets in this area. While
spreadsheets are easy to use and are the
preferred tool of finance professionals,
they are not well-suited for enterprise-
wide processes like planning.
When organisations are overly reliant
on spreadsheets to support planning
32 www.ukoug.org
AUTUMN 13
Hyperion EPM
OracleScene

activities, they face challenges around
time, quality, flexibility and cost.
Long planning cycles result in missed
opportunities and obsolete plans. Data
integrity and quality issues show up in
the form of errors in Excel spreadsheets,
version control problems, lack of audit
trails. Disconnected processes create a
lack of flexibility and responsiveness to
changes. And finally, too much time spent
gathering information and not enough
time to analyse results in costly waste of
resources with questionable benefits.
Yet, despite these challenges with current
tools, the adoption of packaged enterprise
performance management software is
still not widespread. This is evidenced
by relatively low EPM penetration rates
among ERP install base customers.
A Shift Towards the Cloud
New technologies like Cloud make it
easier to get off of spreadsheets and
adopt best practices, such as rolling
forecasts and driving the planning process
beyond finance to the broader community
of line managers. Gaining the input and
intelligence of line of business managers
40% Can Forecast Only 3 Months Ahead
40%: 3 months or less
6 months in advance
3 months in advance
1 month in advance
12 months in advance
More than 12 months in advance
Not sure 7%
5%
20%
29%
28%
0% 20% 40%
12%
Source: CFO Research, the research group at CFO Publishing LLC
FIGURE 1: CHALLENGES IN FORECASTING
becomes much more feasible with a
cloud-based model that can be easily and
flexibly rolled out across the organisation.
Whereas a couple of years ago, we
still saw reluctance in the finance
department around adopting cloud
applications, largely driven by security
and data confidentiality concerns, this is
changing rapidly. A 2013 Gartner Financial
Executives International (FEI) CFO
Technology Study indicated that during
the next four or more years, 84% (up from
53% in 2012) believe that half of their
transactions will be delivered through
SaaS. It appears that 34% in 2012 have
made a SaaS directional decision, as there
were no “Don’t Know”responses in 2013.1
As CFOs shift their attitudes towards
Cloud, we are also seeing the SaaS model
for EPM applications gaining traction. In
the 2013 Gartner FEI study, budgeting,
consolidations and reporting selections
showed a continued movement to cloud
where almost one in five companies see
themselves using SaaS.
In conversations with CFOs, some of the
reasons they cite in favor of cloud-based
finance systems include the resource
allocation flexibility that comes with
avoiding large upfront investments, the
ability to avoid fixed capital investments
during periods of corporate or economic
uncertainty and timely access to the
latest software capabilities.
The fact that traditionally risk-averse CFOs
are open to moving their mission-critical
finance systems into the cloud should be
a clear indication to all companies that
cloud services are fast becoming the go-to
strategy for finance executives looking to
access the latest technologies quickly
and cost-effectively to support their
corporate objectives.
Lowering the EPM Adoption Barrier –
Oracle Hyperion Planning in
the Cloud
As we see our customers’attitudes and
requirements shifting towards Cloud,
we want to meet those changing needs.
Thus, Oracle is making its Hyperion
Planning solution available in the Cloud
with a service called “Oracle Planning and
Budgeting Cloud Service.”Oracle Planning
and Budgeting Cloud Service removes
the barriers to adoption of on-premise
applications and makes it much easier for
businesses of any size to deploy a world-
class planning and budgeting solution in
a matter of weeks.
“We are extremely excited
about the new Oracle
Planning and Budgeting
Cloud Service offering.
We expect this solution to
enable customers to get up
and running quickly and
streamline their planning,
budgeting and forecasting
processes, all with lower up-
front costs and investment
risk than a traditional on-
premise solution.”
Neil Sellers, Director, Qubix
Process % Using Spreadsheets
Financial Planning and Budget Control 75%
Financial Reporting and Analysis 74%
Scenario Planning 40%
Tracking KPIs 53%
Monitoring Profitability 59%
Other 3%
Source: Performance Management: An Incomplete Picture. Study carried out by Dynamic Markets for Oracle Corporation, April 2011
FIGURE 2: FINANCE MANAGERS DROWNING IN SPREADSHEETS
Hyperion EPM: Jennifer Toomey
www.ukoug.org 33
1
Van Decker, John, “Survey Analysis: CFOs’Top Imperatives From the 2013 Gartner FEI CFO Technology Study”, May 2, 2013, p.11.

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www.ukoug.org 35
Most Hyperion EPM customers have
deployed the applications on-premise.
And over the past 5 years, Hyperion EPM
applications have been available as a
hosted solution through Oracle Managed
Cloud Services (formerly called Oracle
On Demand) or many of our hosting
partners around the world. But now
we are moving our EPM applications
into the Oracle Cloud and making them
available as SaaS-based solutions. Moving
to cloud-based applications has the
potential to remove the adoption barriers
for many organisations that didn’t have
the IT resources or budget for packaged
software applications in the past.
By way of background, Oracle Hyperion
Planning is a market-leading application
that accelerates planning, budgeting
and forecasting. It’s built to leverage
the powerful Oracle Essbase multi-
dimensional analysis engine, includes a
Web or Excel interface, powerful workflow
and process management and pre-built
functionality to address the most complex
planning and budgeting requirements
and best practices in this area. Hyperion
Planning supports driver-based planning
to help connect operational assumptions
to financial outcomes, and it supports
a hierarchical planning process that
encompasses both corporate finance and
the lines of business within an enterprise.
Hyperion Planning has seen rapid
adoption over the past 10 years with over
3700 organisations having deployed the
solution. And many of these deployments
have become quite large with many over
1000 users and a few with over 5000
users. The results that our customers
have achieved with Hyperion Planning
have been impressive. Most often cited
is the ability to reduce budgeting and
forecasting cycle time. Customers have
also reduced reliance on spreadsheets and
improved the accuracy of their forecasts.
Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud
Service provides all the power of
Hyperion Planning as a cloud service
with a subscription-based pricing model.
The application can be deployed as a
standalone cloud solution, or integrated
with Oracle Fusion Financials Cloud
Service. All the infrastructure, reporting,
and data management components of
Hyperion Planning are included as part of
the Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud
Service, so everything the customer needs
Less Time Spent in Annual Budgeting and
Planning Process
15% less time spent
in manual processes
supporting annual
budgeting
Oracle Business Analysis, Customer Value Index, Interim Results, April 2013
Before
4.5
After
3.9
NumberofMonths
to run their planning process is part of
the service.
Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud
Service is built upon the robust Oracle
Cloud, and integrates with your other
on-premise and Cloud applications.
“The addition of Oracle
Planning and Budgeting
Cloud Service to Oracle’s
Cloud portfolio offers us
more choice in deployment.
We found Oracle Planning
and Budgeting Cloud Service
particularly easy to use with
good response times and all
the functionality that we
expect from a sophisticated
planning application.”
Steve Tevault, Database Administrator,
Friendly’s Ice Cream
Deploy How YOU Want
Our goal is to provide the most flexible
deployment options to our customers.
That can include on-premise deployments,
pure cloud-based deployment, or a hybrid
approach where development is done in
the Cloud, then testing and production
deployment on-premise.
Many companies are assessing Cloud
options in parallel with traditional
upgrades of on-premise solutions.
But they are wary of the integration
issues between Cloud and on-premise
solutions and do not want to be locked
into a particular approach. For many,
the flexibility of deployment holds the
key to the way forward, i.e. the ability to
adopt public, private and hybrid Clouds
as desired and to alter the mix when
business circumstances dictate. But
very few software vendors can hope
to offer this range of choice and even
fewer can leverage their own hardware
and database technology to optimise
performance. Oracle has been offering
applications in the Cloud for more than
12 years and is one of the few vendors
that can comprehensively support the
disparate needs of small, medium and
large multinational organisations in
the Cloud with flexible, modern and
secure applications.
For organisations who own or are
considering Hyperion Planning, there are
a number of options to take advantage
of the new Cloud offering. For new
applications, customers can develop
and deploy in the Cloud, or develop in
the Cloud and then deploy on premise.
Existing Hyperion Planning customers
may wish to support new divisions or
FIGURE 3: RESULTS ACHIEVED WITH ORACLE HYPERION PLANNING

www.ukoug.org 37
subsidiaries that want their own Hyperion
Planning application. They may also wish
to move their existing applications to
the Cloud, such as upgrading from an
earlier Hyperion release. And, as described
above, customers always have the option
to move back on premise if needed or as
business needs change.
Future directions – EPM in the Cloud
As our customers’attitudes shift towards
leveraging the Cloud for even their
Finance functions, Oracle is moving to
provide more flexibility and choice in
deployment options. Oracle Planning and
Budgeting Cloud Service is the first of
Oracle EPM applications to be offered in
the Cloud. In the future you will see
Oracle offering additional EPM
applications in the Cloud, providing fast
time to value, simplicity of configuration
and pre-built content for deeper
integration and easy extensibility.
ABOUT
THE
AUTHOR
Jennifer Toomey
Senior Principal Product Marketing Director – Business Analytics, Oracle
Jennifer Toomey is Senior Principal Product Marketing Director at Oracle Corporation,
with over 18 years experience in the high tech and services industries. At Oracle,
she focuses on Business Analytics and Cloud. Jennifer has a BA degree from Harvard
University and an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.
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38 www.ukoug.org
OracleScene
Learning the Fusion
Technology Stack
The Tools of Fusion: Oracle JDeveloper and Oracle ADF
In this column over
the past couple of
years, I’ve given you
an insight into how
we in Oracle use
Oracle ADF to build our
Fusion Applications.
Grant Ronald,
Director of Product
Management,
Oracle Application
Development Tools
Throughout those articles I’ve introduced
Java, ADF, JDeveloper, Groovy, Mobile,
DVT, MDS, CSS, HTML and an extra large
helping of alphabetti spaghetti acronyms
for good measure.
And herein lies an issue with which I think
many of us will empathise: Enterprise
software development isn’t necessarily
getting easier. Now, don’t get me
wrong, I’m not saying our development
environments have taken a step back
into the dark ages. On the contrary,
take it from someone who flipped
switches on a PDP-11, the JDeveloper
IDE is like something from Star Trek by
comparison. But the fact is as we explore
new frontiers, we look to innovate and
those more complex and demanding
requirements are asking more from both
tools and developers.
So how do you help developers to pick up
new technologies and keep their skills
up to date? Well that’s a topic very close
to my heart. My team is responsible for
both reactive and proactive enablement of
Oracle ADF developers. That ranges from
using social channels such as technical
blog postings and YouTube recordings, up
to Oracle University courses and all stops
in between. In this article, I’ll look at the
challenges developers face and some
new ideas we’ve been looking at for
educating our internal and external
developers on JDeveloper and Oracle ADF:
The Tools of Fusion.
I don’t know what I need to know!
Now, I am going to start by giving you a
nugget of information that might seem
obvious, but it has been a factor in many
AUTUMN 13
Technology

Technology: Grant Ronald
www.ukoug.org 39
of the customer escalations or problems
that me and my team get involved in
when in our reactive mode: you need time
to learn. I know, not an earth shattering
revelation but worth stating up front.
Does that mean Oracle ADF is difficult to
learn? Not particularly, but would you let
someone who has only done 5 days of a
database course be your enterprise-wide
DBA? No, you wouldn’t; but they could
still be productive so long as you give
them the right job to do and they can
develop their skills in a more “hands-on”
mode. And Oracle ADF isn’t any different.
You can attend a course or read a book,
and you’ll be able to build applications,
but you need time to develop those
real-world skills and the more you
develop those skills the more you get
from the power of the framework and
technologies.
But where do you start and what are the
base skills you need?
Do I need to know Java?
The most common question I hear is “do
I need to know Java?”It’s like asking an
Oracle Forms developer “do I need to know
PL/SQL”. Oracle ADF is a Java framework
so the clue is in the name and so yes, you
should have some Java programming
skills. The key point with Oracle ADF is
how much of the Java programming
language you have to know. Many of
the concepts you might already know
from PL/SQL, Ada, or whatever language
you already know, can be easily mapped
to Java. Data types, declaring variables,
assigning values, conditional statements
and loops are all pretty much of a
muchness and are the staples of Oracle
ADF coding, so it’s a case of picking up the
new syntax and some of the nuances of
the new language. And because Oracle
ADF is taking care of so much of the low-
level “plumbing”you’ll be excused from
having to discover and learn many of the
platform APIs (such as JDBC) because that
functionality can be achieved by using the
declarative elements of the framework.
Also, the more advanced features of the
Java programming language such as
concurrently/multi-threading are
unlikely to darken the door of most of
your developers.
So how much Java is enough? Personally,
coming from a PL/SQL, ADA and Pascal
background, I found that “Head First Java”
published by O’Reilly gave me enough in a
couple of days to get me up and running.
Of course that is an absolute minimum
and I was prone to write some pretty
mangled Java code but there again, I was
no different when I started out with PL/
SQL. There is no shortage of books or
online material if you are completely new
to the Java programming language and
probably the main mind shift is thinking
in a more object focused, rather than
procedural way.
But of course I’ve assumed you or your
team don’t already know Java. On the
other hand there are literally millions of
Java developers so it may be that finding
programmers with knowledge of the Java
language isn’t the challenge.
What about the Java platform?
So, I’ve talked about the Java
programming language, but Java is also a
platform. The Java Enterprise Edition (Java
EE) is a platform that includes hundreds
of APIs to implement standards such as
database connectivity, security and user
interfaces. Do you have to learn those?
As noted before, it’s not so much “do you
have to know”but more “how much”. You
may never have to write a line of JDBC,
but knowing what it is and what it does
will be a help. Java Server Faces (JSF) is
probably the key Java EE skill on which you
should have some knowledge. Whilst ADF
Faces is based on JSF and protects you
from much of the repetitious and boring
stuff, the fact that a page has a lifecycle
and that data can be kept in memory for
different lengths of time are part of the
workings of JSF that would be helpful for
you to understand.
And now I learn ADF?
So the Java language and platform are
skills that you need some experience
in, but the focus of your learning is
here: Oracle ADF. There are a number of
building blocks on which you will focus
your learning:
• JDeveloper – you might be new to
Java or maybe you are an Eclipse
developer, but you will have to learn
your way around the IDE. Where are the
preferences, how does the debugger
work, how do I refactor files, etc.
• Architecture – you need to know the
broad building blocks of both ADF
and MVC (Model-View-Controller)
architecture. Also you need to
know how you might structure an
application, package it up, how to reuse
parts of it etc.
• Declarative building blocks – don’t
fight the framework, work with it. If
the framework provides a declarative
feature then use that rather than
writing code yourself. In the end, life
will be so much easier if you do,
you just have to discover that
declarative feature.
• Oracle ADF APIs – at some point you
will be writing code and if you want to
interact with the various declarative
building blocks then you will be
coding against their APIs, so you need
awareness of those APIs.
What is there to help me learn?
Learning anything is a blend of knowledge
and experiences all coming from different
sources and learning Oracle ADF is no
different. Now, I won’t try to cover all
sources of learning (although I’ll give you
some essential links at the end) but what I
will do is cover some of the more popular
sources that I’ve seen used to good effect in
the community. In my opinion, it is the mix
of different types of delivery medium that
can be the key to successful learning.
And rather than writing long and unwieldy
links in the middle of a sentence (which
may be useless if you are reading a paper
copy of this article) I suggest googling the
terms in black italics. As way of a disclaimer
I will point out I mention my own book and
some books written by colleagues but I do
so as genuine recommended reading rather
than any selfish goal of knocking JK Rowling
off her perch!

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