tion can be mixed and matched to make it easier for customers to build, extend, and maintain their systems. Oracle
Application Integration Architecture enables IT to create
sustainable, world-class integrations—across all Oracle,
legacy, third-party, and partner solutions. Oracle Application
Integration Architecture is made up of two primary components: the foundation packs and the prebuilt integrations
or PIPs. The foundation packs provide the building blocks
and methodologies needed to design a holistic approach to
orchestrating agile, user-centric business processes between
any applications, whether they are Oracle or non-Oracle
applications. PIPs, on the other hand, provide prebuilt integrations across specific business processes—order-to-cash,
for example—between Oracle and non-Oracle applications.
Which component is the best fit depends on customer needs.
Ciena’s situation was ripe for a PIP fix. The company’s
Agile installation had been in place for years, and the custom-built integration to Oracle E-Business Suite was returning an
unacceptably high error rate. When Oracle acquired Agile
in 2007, Ciena’s staff hoped that this would lead to a better
method for connecting the two systems. Wasim Khan, senior
manager, information systems, at Ciena, says the problems
with the custom integration led to hundreds of change orders
a week, a third of which had to be handled manually. “That
requires a lot of onsite daily support,” Khan says.
Donley made the case, both internally and to Oracle, that
Ciena should be in the early adopter program for the Agile
to Oracle E-Business Suite PIP. Ciena’s partner in the project,
Sierra Atlantic of Fremont, California, has two business
lines. It offers outsourced product development for software
companies large and small (see sidebar), and it handles
system implementation and integration for users. Oracle and
Sierra Atlantic are similar in that they both create code for
enterprise customers. Sometimes, business units from the
two companies overlap neatly. In this case, Sierra Atlantic,
while implementing Agile Product Lifecycle Management
Integration Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite for Design to
Release at Ciena, also worked with Oracle to codevelop the
PIP connecting Agile to SAP. “The business units are symbiotic and allow us to help both types of customers,” says
G.K. Murthy, senior vice president of enterprise solutions at
Sierra Atlantic. “In the case of Ciena, we have been working
with them for more than 10 years, and we understand their
business processes.”
The Oracle Codevelopment Program
Although Oracle’s in-house devel- oper team is world-class, it can’t
develop every solution to address
every customer need. When new
customer priorities arise, Oracle often
turns to partners with Oracle product
knowledge and specific industry expertise to address customer requirements.
Joe Barkai of IDC Manufacturing
Insights finds that while software companies often load products with extensive, general features and functionality,
the breadth of a solution may prevent
customers from addressing unique
industry challenges. “What I find very
important in creating relationships
between customers and software vendors is deep industry understanding,”
Barkai says.
To that end, Oracle’s Application
Integration Architecture Codevelopment Partner Program accelerates
Oracle’s integration and industry
applications’ road map and supports partners delivering services for
Oracle solutions. Partners, in turn,
develop skills in Oracle Applications,
Oracle Fusion Middleware, and Oracle
Application Integration Architecture;
influence the product road map; and
increase their sales opportunities.
Sierra Atlantic, the implementation
partner for Ciena’s Agile Product Lifecycle Management Integration Pack
for Oracle E-Business Suite for Design
to Release project, is also one of many
partners working directly with Oracle
as part of its codevelopment program.
Working with Oracle, Sierra Atlantic has developed and released the
Agile Product Lifecycle Management
Integration Pack for SAP for Design to
Release. This product was released in
January 2009. Sierra Atlantic is also
working with Oracle to build an Agile
Variant to Oracle E-Business Suite
management integration pack, scheduled for release in 2009.
Sierra Atlantic’s staffers draw on
their experience as systems integrators
to address differences between software packages and the specific needs
of industry segments and customers.
This knowledge helps Sierra Atlantic
technologists devise new programs
for software customers—and is an
example of why Oracle selected Sierra
Atlantic to be part of the codevelopment program.
G.K. Murthy, senior vice president of enterprise solutions at Sierra
Atlantic, says that a partner has to
understand integration architecture if
it is going to understand its customers’ needs. But that’s not the same
as being interested in participating in
technology development. “An engineering partner is one who understands the total journey,” Murthy says,
and he believes that Sierra Atlantic
has perspective on both fronts as a
systems integrator working with different customers.
Being able to bridge this gap
between customer needs and the
realities of the development process is
what makes the codevelopment program so valuable. And Sierra Atlantic,
as evidenced by the company’s work
with Ciena’s project, is an example of
the effort’s success.
