At M&S, we are going virtual all the way. We have delivered a number of virtualized environments for customers. Some have been for Oracle Middleware solutions, some for complete Microsoft domains. Some for open source system. And many for development instances.

We have tinkered with going totally virtual for own infrastructure over the years, but decided to avoid biting the bullet for a number of reasons: migration time/effort has typically been at the top of the list. But with the improvements in virtualization technology, advantages proven now over years, apparent “stickiness” of the leading players, our own maturity in this space, and general adoption by the community at large (more clearly read, “readily available support”), we are diving in.

Over the next few weeks and months, each component of the M&S infrastructure will be moved to virtual machines. Certain details of our infrastructure will not be posted on this blog for security reasons, but there are team members working on this who will try to keep the blog up-to-date. If you are interested in how things are going, feel free to contact us. We are excited about this ride.

We all heard about Topeka’s unprecedented name change to Google. But ironically, to me, Google’s logo change to Topeka today is even more surprising. It’s up to you to top all of this.

I just can’t wait for Flash on Android…and for Apple’s hand to [hopefully] get forced into supporting Flash as well.

A few of us have got some writer’s cramp (is there such a thing when typing?) from writing an excellent WebCenter 11g book.

These words are being used more and more. Of course, it was just a matter of time before the popularity and creativity of “Web 2.0″ as a buzzword was reused, extended, and blatantly copied for other innovations in the technology space.

Oracle Corporation has recently published a white paper written by M&S Consulting, where we take the opportunity to outline an integration approach to Salesforce.com using Oracle BPEL.

A Technical Case Study – Creating an Oracle BPEL adapter to integrate with Salesforce.com - Feb 2009

Below is the introduction to the article, which goes on to detail (with step-by-step screenshots) how to achieve integration with Salesforce.com…

SOA Labels

Among their many characteristics, all too often SOA projects have been labeled in their worst moments as:

• Overly complex in architecture, design, and communication to the organization
• Lacking the ability to control costs during implementation and maintenance
• Difficult to attract and retain talent with valuable experience, deep skills, and real success

It’s Not SOA’s Fault

Guess what. None of these are characteristics of SOA, but instead…

Well, this is a topic we have reviewed numerous times over the years for projects and customers. The fact is, like most important decisions, picking a winner is based mostly on your specific needs. Of the many aspects we review, we will discuss one line of thought in this article.

If there is in-house expertise in Oracle, and management is happy with the skills, productivity of existing staff, and license fees, stick with it. I don’t know many — actually, I don’t know any — CIOs or Directors in IT Management that have been berated for choosing Oracle as an enterprise-wide database platform.

That said, if the strategic decision to use Oracle database for all purposes hasn’t been made, MySQL is worth a very serious look, especially for …

In the past, there has been acquisition synergy, which sometimes meant moderate layoffs. Acquisition in this economy, for companies the size of Oracle and Sun, may broaden the definition of “moderate” layoffs a bit. In order to make this Oracle’s most successful acquisition ever (as Oracle’s president has predicted), layoffs may become an important — more so than normal — part of the acquisition synergy.  With less buyers than there were a year ago, there is only so much revenue that cross-selling and innovative product releases will earn.  Management will be making the hard decisions on what/who stays and what/who goes.

A few articles online note analyst predictions upwards of 10,000 layoffs.  I would say it is a bit too early for outsiders to reasonably predict layoff numbers (hopefully lessons were learned when people got it all wrong with Oracle’s January layoff rumors), but the “L” word is certainly on many minds these days.

Move over, for now, IBM…Oracle has taken its place as the buyer of Sun.  This may be one of the most compelling acquisitions in recent Oracle times.  In Oracle’s press release, President Safra Catz was quoted saying:

“…This would make the Sun acquisition more profitable in per share contribution in the first year than we had planned for the acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel combined.”

For implementation architects and consultants, Oracle gets one step closer to total enterprise domination.  With Oracle’s own Linux and now Solaris, the days of Oracle and OS-vendor finger pointing are numbered.  On the core database side, Oracle has now purchased MySQL (it was previously purchased by Sun), which we believe to be one of Oracle’s greatest threats.  As the database with 20/20 hindsight, a lightweight footprint (equaling fast performance), and growing popularity, Oracle has now effectively captured an important market.  Reinvention is an important innovator, and Oracle has taken a welcome leap in acquiring MySQL.

I am excited to see how Oracle will enhance MySQL and potentially fast-track high-impact features (like security) in a way that “Oracle would have done it if they could do it all over again”.

For Java and all the other technologies (hardware and software), products, etc. that are being acquired, I believe Oracle will be a responsible industry citizen, holding true to standards, enhancing community, and providing benefits/choice to customers.