After nearly eight trips around the Sun, covering just about every technological topic from ABAP to zSeries, it’s my last week at TechTarget and SearchOracle.com. And as my time here comes to an end, I find myself thinking of the tremendous amount of help that IT professionals like you have given me over the years.

I started at TechTarget during the height of the dot com bubble — a time when a rash of ill-conceived and ultimately doomed Internet companies let stock options fly like wedding rice while encouraging employees to wear roller skates to work. Back then, I didn’t even really know what an operating system was, and I thought the Love Bug worm was something you cured with penicillin.

Then the bubble burst and, at first, I feared my newfound career in technology journalism would meet an untimely end. But TechTarget survived the fallout and actually continued to grow at a rapid pace. It soon became clear that my new career would continue — if I could manage to learn more about the world of IT. And that’s where you came in.

From the Oracle DBAs in the trenches who taught me the meaning of ‘SQL Query,’ to the CIOs in the corner offices who schooled me on the necessity of ROI, you were always there, always patient and always willing to help, even if it meant answering embarrassingly basic questions like: Could you explain that to me again like I’m a three-year-old?  
 
For all your help, I just wanted to say thanks. I leave this job knowing that the Oracle user community and larger IT marketplace is filled with unbelievably intelligent people — people who taught me a great deal.   

Remember, SearchOracle.com will remain the number one stop on the Internet for Oracle professionals long after I’m gone. For now, however, please send those Oracle-related tips, comments, story ideas and feedback to news director Barney Beal.

As for me, I’ll be trading in my pen for a meat slicer and an apron. Hopefully my new customers will be as supportive as you’ve been. But somehow I doubt that’s possible.

Take care of yourselves.

– Mark

Oracle just announced that its Database Vault product is now certified to work with Oracle E-Business Suite applications, including Oracle Human Capital Management, Oracle Financial Management, Oracle Supply Chain Management and Oracle Customer Relationship Management.

E-Business Suite users can now count on Database Vault to help them better address security and regulatory challenges, according to Oracle.

Unveiled in 2006, Database Vault defends against unauthorized access to application data and harmful database changes by any users, including those with permission to access the data. According to Oracle, it can be used to enforce separation of duties within the database and to consolidate application databases.

I’d be interested to hear from Database Vault users out there. How do you like this product? What, if anything, would you change about it? Also, Database Vault is often marketed in conjunction with Oracle Secure Backup, so what do you think about that product?

U.S. district court judge Martin J. Jenkins has ordered that Oracle’s lawsuit against SAP and its TomorrowNow arm be sent to mediation, according to a court document posted on http://www.tnlawsuit.com/.

Oracle filed suit against SAP-TomorrowNow last year, alleging that TomorrowNow workers unlawfully downloaded data from one of Oracle’s support Web sites. Oracle’s original complaint alleged “corporate theft on a grand scale.”

Judge Jenkins ordered the case sent to mediation following a case management conference on Tuesday, according to reports.

A new report from Forrester Research Inc. predicts that Oracle, IBM and other large vendors are done making major acquisitions and will instead set their sites on smaller fish.Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

Of course, maybe I’m just in bitter denial. It’s just that I have grown accustomed to waking up, thinking I’m going to have an easy day at work, and then suddenly having to go crazy coming up with coverage and analysis of Oracle’s latest major buy.

If Forrester is correct, however, then it appears those adrenaline-filled days are over.

Say it ain’t so, Larry.

The Oracle Accelerate program appears to be making some forward progress.

According to Oracle, Oracle partners have created 49 new industry-specific application bundles through the program within the last five months. That brings the total number of Oracle Accelerate bundles to 90, for those that are keeping count.

The Oracle Accelerate program is geared toward midsize businesses and government entities that require low-cost and pre-configured applications that are can be deployed quickly. The vertically oriented Accelerate offerings are created by Oracle partners or resellers and then reviewed and approved by Oracle itself.

Oracle Partners are delivering the bundles across multiple industries including aerospace and defense, consumer products, automotive, engineering and construction, high-technology, industrial manufacturing, financial services, life sciences, media and entertainment, natural resources, professional services, oil and gas, public sector, travel, retail, and transportation and utilities.

The 49 new Oracle Accelerate solutions include ABS, ATOS Origin GmbH, BizTech, Business & Decision, C3, Cedar HR, Conacent, Crocus, DCS, E-Frontech, Explorer, Fusion5, Hand, Hexaware, ICE, Intelligroup, ISP3, Lucidity, Percipient, pharmasol, Pyxis Consulting Group GmbH, RCM, Satyam, Solbourne, Sonata, Terillium and Zanett, according to Oracle. 

In a recent blog post, I looked at some new survey results and asked if database administrators (DBAs) really care about installing the latest Oracle patches in a timely fashion. Here are a couple of the more interesting responses:

“My employers or customers have regularly installed the patches since the practice began, so here’s one vote in the minority,” wrote a commentator named Dave. “What the survey fails to specify is whether or not the respondents had responsibility for managing the patches. Yes, I haven’t done the patches for years - but also yes, someone else has done them.”

Meanwhile, Ravi Krish had an interesting approach to patching:

“In my last job as DBA for a huge IT consulting multinational I was leading a half yearly CPU patch application project for all the clients. We used to apply if not regularly at least half yearly the CPU patches. Quarterly is a bit too frequent and requires way too much time and effort considering there were hundreds of databases on multiple clients,” Krish wrote. “In my current job for a government agency, there has not been a single CPU applied. I’m proposing to apply one now and in future look forward to applying as they are released. There are only about 5-6 databases here and it’s not too time consuming to apply for about 5 databases every quarter.”

Thanks for writing in, folks.

Oracle E-Business Suite users take note:

The good news about the latest Oracle Critical Patch Update (CPU) is that like the last few Oracle CPUs, there aren’t any new Oracle Application Server or Developer 6i patches needed for Oracle E-Business Suite 11i, according to a recent post on Integrigy Corp.’s Oracle Security Blog.

“There is a significant Oracle Jinitiator patch that fixes a previously discussed vulnerability,” Integrigy wrote. “The key part about upgrading Jinitiator is that all previous versions must be removed from the client PC since every new version of Jinitiator is a unique install and does not remove the previous version.”

The post went on to say that for E-Business Suite Release 12 users, Oracle has created a cumulative Oracle Applications patch which was included in the 12.0.4 update.

“Oracle continues the push to keep all customers on recent versions by only certifying the CPU patches with 9.2.0.8, 10.1.0.5, 10.2.0.2, and 10.2.0.3 for the database and RUP4, RUP5, or RUP6 for the Oracle E-Business Suite 11i,” Integrigy says.

Just a heads-up.

The results of a new Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) survey suggest that the majority of Oracle-based enterprises intend to upgrade to Oracle’s Fusion middleware infrastructure within the next two years.

Now, that’s not particularly surprising. But this is:

The survey, which generated 449 responses from OAUG members, also found that two out of every five Oracle-based enterprises will increase spending on middleware in 2008, despite the fact that many enterprises still aren’t sure of middleware’s true value to their operations.

Taken together, the results suggest to me that at least some companies out there are spending money on middleware without fully understanding the reasons for doing so.  And with Oracle’s acquisition of middleware giant BEA Systems Inc. still fresh on our minds, I think the issue deserves further examination.

I’m researching a new article on the OAUG survey for publication later this week and really need to rally the SearchOracle.com troops in an attempt to understand this potential phenomenon. Do the results make sense to you? Why or why not? And why is middleware important, or unimportant, at your organization?

Maybe it’s simply a matter of business folks getting ahead of the IT groups, or vice versa. Or maybe the survey results simply don’t hold water. Whatever it is, I want to hear from you.

I just came across what is definitely the most interesting take on Sun Microsystems’ planned $1 billion acquisition of MySQL, the Swedish open source database management system provider.

In a recent column entitled “The Sun-MySQL deal stinks,” Tech industry columnist John Dvorak says that he believes Oracle founder Larry Ellison had a hand in the deal. Now that seems incredibly funny to me, but could it be true?

In the column, Dvorak rhetorically asks how a company like Sun can afford to pay $1 billion when the MySQL only brings in about $60 million a year in revenue. The answer, he said, is that the Sun couldn’t do it without Oracle’s help.

“I’m close to being convinced that Oracle wanted to buy MySQL to kill the product, but knew that it couldn’t pull off the stunt itself. It would be too obvious, especially to European Union regulators. So it sent in a stooge to do the job,” Dvorak wrote.

The columnist went on to point out that Sun would be a likely candidate for such treachery.

“This deal stinks from top to bottom,” Dvorak wrote. “Sun and Oracle, have been strategic partners for years.”

Oracle will add Captovation — a Minnesota-based vendor of enterprise content management (ECM) strategies — to its ever growing list of acquired software companies.

Oracle — which has acquired well over 30 companies over the last few years, including CRM giants PeopleSoft Corp. and Siebel Systems Inc., and just last week announced plans to acquire middleware pioneer BEA Systems Inc. for $8.5 billion — said Captovation’s software will become a key component of the Oracle Enterprise Content Management Suite. The deal is expected to close next month and financial details were not disclosed.

The company says the new addition will help Oracle ECM customers reduce transactional management costs and simplify the process of complying with federal data retention regulations. 

Oracle has done a lot to expand its content management capabilities in recent years. In 2006, Oracle acquired Stellent Inc. and last October released a new version of Oracle ECM based on Stellent’s technology.

We’ve been looking closely at Oracle’s content management plans. Here’s a list of articles we’ve run that should serve as a primer on what Oracle is doing in the space:

• Oracle’s content management software plan takes shape
• Oracle updates records management system
• Oracle Database 11g and the information management challenge
• Oracle takes on SAP with new GRC suite
• Oracle buys GRC firm LogicalApps

I’d be interested to hear comments and reviews from Oracle ECM customers. What do you think of Oracle’s offering? Does the company need to improve the ECM Suite in any way? Post your comments here and I may contact you for a possible news article on the topic.