Oracle pushes app integration
Company touts its AIA strategy, but analysts question platform’s feasibility
By Renee Boucher Ferguson prise business objects, of the Foundation Pack logic in BPEL, but [if you
Oracle is throw- services, SOA (service- will come a fundamental don’t have] a common
ing a lot of prom- oriented architecture) question about AIA: Is it definition for ‘order,’ you
ises behind its governance tools and ref- a product that can fun- haven’t abstracted any of
Application Integration erence architecture that damentally change the that away.”
Architecture. enable customers and way customers and part- “AIA is how we define
Officials with the partners to use AIA to ners build process inte- objects, how to extend
software vendor say the integrate processes and grations—and the way objects, what technol-platform is designed to applications are devel- ogy we use to do certain
eventually be a set of oped within Oracle, as functions between appli-development standards ‘The Aubrejuan suggested—or cations,” Aubrejuan said.
and methodologies for is it just another name for “We’re changing funda- Oracle, its customers and important Fusion Middleware? mentally how the best-of-
its partners. thing is not The answer may lie breed [applications] work.
It also wi ll b e a w ay that we have some where in the mid- The important thing is not o e f f i c i e n t l y b r i n g dle. that we have best-of-breed,
together the many dispa- best-of-breed, According to Oracle but that our customers
rate applications under but that our documents, the Founda- have them.”
Oracle’s ever-expanding tion Pack provides users Because of its massive
umbrella—and outside customers with a “proven reference acquisition appetite—
the Oracle pantheon as have them.’ architecture and reusable Oracle has bought some
well—in a way that Ora- Web services allowing 40-plus companies in
cle’s Fusion Middleware —PACO AUBREJUAN you to create integrations about as many months—
hasn’t been able to do. across any applications, the company has found
When Oracle an- leveraging a standards itself in a unique posi-nounced AIA at its Oracle based, service-oriented tion.
Applications User Group architecture.” Several years ago, at
conference in April 2007, Minus the Web ser- conferences and in key-the company first released vices, which Oracle had note addresses, Oracle co-a number of Process Inte- promised several years founder and CEO Larry
gration Packs—distinct ago, the Foundation Pack Ellison said an Oracle
integrations between Ora- could well describe Fusion customer straying outside
cle applications based on a Middleware. But there is the confines of E-Business
specific business process, a big difference between Suite to embrace a best-of-such as the opportunity- it and AIA, according to breed strategy was akin
to-quote process between build process-based com- Aubrejuan. to an airline using best-Siebel CRM OnDemand posite applications. “Fusion Middleware is of-breed parts to build a
and Oracle E-Business Fast-forward to Febru- absolutely the tool we use 747—slapping together
Suite. ary: Oracle is scheduled in AIA, but just having wings from one com-
A l i t t l e m o r e t h a n to release its Foundation a BPEL [Business Proc- pany and an engine from
six months later, at its Pack “any day now,” said ess Execution Language] another company.
Open World conference Paco Aubrejuan, vice engine doesn’t mean the A humorous clip from
in November, Oracle president of application applications we deliver an early 2000 OpenWorld
announced the AIA Foun- strategy at Oracle. work together,” Aubre- showed an airline doing
dation Pack—the enter- With the introduction juan said. “You can code just [CONTINUED ON PAGE 28]
