Oracle will offer a Bam (business activity monitoring)
tool, Business Activity Manager, as part of an upgrade to its
application server software due out in the middle of the
year.
The Bam component will run on the existing Oracle10g Application
server, released at the start of the year, and on Application
Server 10.1.2, due out this summer. It will not, however, run on
earlier releases such as Application Server 9i, said Thomas Kurian,
senior vice-president of Oracle Server Technologies.
Included in Business Activity Manager are the ability to detect,
correlate and analyse separate events such as RFID scans, bar code
readings, or events out of an enterprise application or a
supply-chain process event.
The idea is to provide businesses with near real-time data about
events happening in their business, such as the failure of a parts
shipment to arrive, and to understand how that event will affect
other parts of a business, such as its ability to deliver finished
products.
Kurian said the application is unique in that it can correlate
both traditional historical events out of a data warehouse with
real-time events.
"It is the only tool that combines both, and it can start a
business process," said Kurian.
Oracle also said its Customer Data Hub, which lets users gather
information about customers from a variety of locations and store
it in a single repository, will be offered as a standalone product
in the middle of the year. It already ships as part of Oracle's E
Business applications suite.
Pricing for the Business Activity Monitor and Customer Data Hub
will be announced nearer the products' release.
Ephraim Scwartz and James Niccolai write for Infoworld
