Oracle outlines plans for tighter integration

Oracle has announced at its OpenWorld 2009 event in San Francisco that it is working to deliver a higher level of integration between its various product portfolios.

Oracle presidents Charles Phillips and Safra Catz highlighted a host of application releases, all of which focus on driving a more integrated Oracle portfolio.

For example, the company announced the next edition of its Primavera project management product suite, along with new releases of Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management and Primavera Contract Management.

Oracle acquired Primavera last year and said today that Primavera P6 now contains integration with Oracle products including E-Business Suite, JD Edwards and PeopleSoft.

Also significant was the launch of Application Integration Architecture (AIA) Release 2.5, which Oracle claims will improve process integration and simplify application deployments.

Version 2.5 is the most extensive Oracle AIA release to date, according to Oracle, offering 10 new cross-industry, and six new industry-specific, Process Integration Packs.

Oracle also said that the release will contain a growing library of more than 1,000 enterprise services and 100 enterprise objects.

The firm also unveiled new adaptors that will integrate Oracle content management products with its Applications ERP solutions that range from performance management, financial management and risk management to human capital management and master data management applications.

The Oracle Content Management products are part of the database firm's Fusion Middleware portfolio and run on its SOA Suite technology.

Oracle claimed that the new integration would help sales and support staff by increasing their visibility into relevant customer documents.

Content management services such as invoices, HR forms and customer contracts will now be visible and searchable from the Applications software, said the firm.

Other updates included a new component to Oracle Business Intelligence Applications Release 7.9.6.1 called Oracle Spend Classification, which is aimed at helping procurement departments categorise spend by analysing an organisation's buying patterns.

The updated Business Intelligence (BI) product will also contain an adapter to integrate the Financial Analytics module of the BI applications with Oracle's JD Edwards World Financial Management. This will give staff working with the JD Edwards software access to department spend and revenue data, the company said.

Furthermore, Oracle has expanded its BI Applications support for third-party platforms, including databases such as IBM DB2 9.5, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Teradata v13, and operating systems spanning Oracle Enterprise Linux 5, IBM AIX 6.1, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

Finally, Oracle has added business intelligence capabilities to its Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) products.

EPM System Release 11.1.1.3 will contain an ERP Integrator module that supports the bi-directional integration of financial data into Hyperion performance management applications from various enterprise resource planning systems.

The module will also strengthen integration between Oracle E-Business Suite and PeopleSoft Enterprise with Hyperion applications.