PTOUG

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http://www.oracle.com/dm/10q2field/38800_ev_11g_greensboro_nov09.html

PTOUG is pleased to announce that Tom Kyte (http://asktom.oracle.com) will be speaking at our April 22nd meeting.  More information to follow.

As former attendees of our last Southeastern Oracle Users Conference (SEOUC), we are hoping you will join us for SEOUC 2009, February 25 & 26, at the Renaissance Charlotte Suites Hotel. We want to make the conference even more affordable by offering you an additional $25 off the early registration rate, making your conference fee just $250 for two full days of training!  To take advantage of this special offer, when you register at www.seouc.com, use the VIP passcode SPECIAL. If you cannot attend this year, please feel free to forward this to someone who might benefit from attending this economical two-day training opportunity.

Conference highlights include Rich Niemiec’s Keynote Address, How Oracle Came to Rule the Database World, more than 40 technical presentations to choose from, vendor exhibits, and networking events that are sure to advance your Oracle knowledge.  Additional conference details, including a complete list of technical presentations and registration, are available online at www.seouc.com.

In addition to a reduced registration rate, the conference hotel rates are very reasonable at just $149/night.  To make reservations, call 704.357.1414 or 800.HOTELS1 and be sure to reference SEOUC or Southeastern Oracle Users Conference to ensure you receive the discounted rate.  Reservations must be made by Monday, January 26.

We are looking forward to seeing you again in Charlotte in February!

Linda & Shannon
SEOUC Conference Coordinators
910.632.9442

Don’t forget to submit your presentation for the upcoming 10th Southeastern Oracle Users Conference, taking place in Charlotte, NC, on February 25 & 26. The submission deadline is Wednesday, December 3.
 
Rest assured you do not need to be an Oracle expert to submit.  If you are working with Oracle products and have tips or advice you are willing to give, a story to tell, or have figured out some neat way to ‘get the job done’, consider submitting an abstract to present.

Share your knowledge by presenting at the conference. Presentations may be 60 or 75 minutes in length and may be targeted to novice, intermediate, advanced, or all attendees. Suggestions for topics are below:

• Application Development, tools, languages, modeling, design/build techniques
• Data Warehousing/BI, design philosophies, tools, case studies, migrations
• DBA, backup/recovery, network connectivity, tuning, migration, tools
• Oracle Apps, financials, supply chain/procurement, payables, HRMS, manufacturing, projects
• Professional Skills, project management, certifications, team building
• Security, database, applications, auditing, checklists
• System Architecture/Administration, hardware, networking, performance
• Other, share your success stories or tools of the trade

Submit your presentation today at www.seouc.com!  Questions?  Call 910.352.8413 or email shannon@seouc.com.

Oracle Application Express Workshop (11/20 @ 2:30pm)
Oracle Application Express (Oracle APEX), formerly called HTML DB, is a rapid web application development tool for the Oracle database. Using only a web browser and limited programming experience, you can develop and deploy professional applications that are both fast and secure. Oracle application express combines the qualities of a personal database, productivity, ease of use, and flexibility with the qualities of an enterprise database, security, integrity, scalability, availability and built for the web. You can try Application Express simply by signing up for an account at apex.oracle.com.  This workshop will provide you hands on experience with the Oracle Application Express (Oracle APEX) with expert guidance from some of Oracle’s Application Express (Oracle APEX) specialists.
http://launch.oracle.com with the PIN apex_workshop 

Charlotte Tech Day – Next Generation Data Center (11/11 @ 10am)
Morton’s Steakhouse
Next-Generation Data Center Tech Day is a half-day overview of Oracle technologies and best practices for delivering dramatic improvements in your data center operations. These information-rich working sessions feature customer success stories to illustrate how you can:
    * Improve efficiency with server clustering, load balancing, and application grid technologies
    * Drive IT agility with on-demand provisioning, automation, and real-time predictive monitoring
    * Boost availability with disaster protection, failover strategies, and quality of service management
    * Green your operations with server consolidation, virtualization, and energy-saving best practices
http://www.oracle.com/dm/09h1global/20439_ev_next-gen_data_center_oct08.html

How to Improve your most Critical Business Process (11/13 @ 8:30am)
Innsbrook Marriott, 4240 Dominion Boulevard, Glen Allen, Virginia 23060
Manoj Das, Sr. Director of Product Management and Linus Chow, a Principal Consultant at Oracle focused on the Business Process Management (BPM) Technology.  Manoj and Linus will give an overview of Oracle’s offering and how it can have an immediate impact on your company.

Charlotte Tech Day – BI/EPM (11/18 @ 10am)
Morton’s Steakhouse Southpark
Learn how the business intelligence (BI) industry continues to evolve – with Oracle Business Intelligence products leading the way.
At this event you will:
    * Learn about the Oracle Business Intelligence strategy and roadmap
    * Attend product demonstrations for an in-depth look at Oracle’s comprehensive, best-of-breed BI technology
    * Get an overview of Oracle’s hot-pluggable BI architecture with a focus on Hyperion Essbase Integration
http://www.oracle.com/dm/09q2field/22017_ev_oraclebi_technology_charlotte_nov18.html

“Leap Forward” with Oracle Identity Management for E-Business Suite (11/19 @ 12pm)
Join us for the first of four Oracle Internet Seminars addressing how Oracle’s Award-Winning Identity Management Suite has helped our Oracle Applications customers extend their existing investments and tackle their most difficult security, compliance and automation issues.
https://conference.oracle.com/imtapp/app/conf_enrollment.uix?mID=124697906

“Leap Forward” with Oracle Identity Management for PeopleSoft (12/03 @ 12pm)
Join us for the second of four Oracle Internet Seminars addressing how Oracle’s Award-Winning Identity Management Suite has helped our Oracle Applications customers extend their existing investments and tackle their most difficult security, compliance and automation issues.

Oracle Security Workshop – Charlotte Oracle Office (12/16 @ 9am)
Securing data is one of the most critical and business-sensitive issues faced by IT security architects and database administrators. Oracle offers a solid set of products for implementing high-end database security policies. This hands-on workshop offers customers a technical overview of the following Oracle 10gR2 and 11g security products:·
   Advanced Security Option – network encryption
   Transparent Data Encryption (TDE),
   Tablespace-level data encryption, encrypting backups using RMAN·
   Database Vault – provides separation of duty and lockdown capabilities against privileged database users·
   Audit Vault – provides centralized audit collection and reporting capabilities for Oracle and selected non-Oracle databases·
   Enterprise Manager Data Masking Pack – provides numerous built-in and customizable scrambling/masking functions for ensuring that sensitive production data is not visible within staging or test environments

“Leap Forward” with Oracle Identity Management for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne (12/17 @ 12pm)
Join us for the third of four Oracle Internet Seminars addressing how Oracle’s Award-Winning Identity Management Suite has helped our Oracle Applications customers extend their existing investments and tackle their most difficult security, compliance and automation issues.
https://conference.oracle.com/imtapp/app/conf_enrollment.uix?mID=124695171

Oracle Grid Control Workshop – Charlotte Oracle Office (12/18 @ 9am)
Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Release 2, is the only tool that can monitor and manage not only every Oracle software in your grid environment, but also Web applications, hosts and the network in between. Grid Control is also extensible via a comprehensive set of pre-built non-Oracle Plug-ins that can be used to monitor additional Non-Oracle components. We are offering a Hands-on workshop that will demonstrate all of these abilities and much more.

Leap Forward with Oracle Identity Management for Siebel (01/09 @ 12pm)
Join us for the final Oracle Internet Seminars addressing how Oracle’s Award-Winning Identity Management Suite has helped our Oracle Siebel customers extend their existing investments and tackle their most difficult security, compliance and automation issues.
https://conference.oracle.com/imtapp/app/conf_enrollment.uix?mID=124696376

ShareTapSAN FRANCISCO — Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison, a longtime fixture on the list of the world’s richest people, is now ensconced atop The Associated Press’ rankings of the top-paid chief executives in the United States.

Never shy about flaunting his estimated $25 billion fortune, Ellison established himself as the best-paid CEO among major U.S. companies by persuading Oracle to award him a fiscal 2008 pay package valued at $84.6 million under the AP’s calculations.

The total compensation, disclosed late Wednesday in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, catapulted Ellison to the top of the AP’s annual analysis of CEO pay.

With a pay package valued at $83.1 million, Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain held that distinction in June when the AP released its 2008 analysis of executive compensation at more than 400 large companies.

The details about Ellison’s compensation weren’t available at that time because Oracle operates on an unusual fiscal year ending in May. The anomaly lets Oracle wait until late summer to make the SEC-mandated disclosures about Ellison’s pay.

The AP’s rankings cover disclosures made within the same calendar year, meaning Ellison could be surpassed if an SEC filing during the next four months reveals another CEO received an even bigger pay package.

For now, there are only two changes in the AP’s list of the 10 best-paid executives. With Ellison taking over the No. 1 spot, Occidental Petroleum Corp. CEO Ray Irani fell out of the top 10.

In another revision lower on the pay ladder, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch now occupies the 14th spot on the AP’s list, with a compensation package valued at $30.1 million. News Corp., which operates on a fiscal year ending in June, also disclosed Murdoch’s awards this week. News Corp. is the parent company of FOXNews.com.

The AP’s calculations of total pay include executives’ salary, bonus, incentives, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock options and awards granted during the year. The formula often produces a figure that differs from the numbers listed by companies in their proxy statements.

Most of Ellison’s fiscal 2008 compensation consisted of 7 million stock options designed to give him an incentive to increase Oracle’s future market value. The options, valued at $71.2 million, vest during the next four years and expire in July 2017. Just how much Ellison makes will depend on how much higher Oracle’s stock goes beyond the options’ exercise price of $20.49. Oracle shares closed Thursday at $22.30.

The AP’s analysis doesn’t factor in windfalls that the executives generate by exercising stock options awarded in previous years.

Ellison stood out in this category too, raking in nearly $544 million by cashing in 36 million stock options during Oracle’s last fiscal year.

Excluding those stock option gains, Ellison’s latest pay package represented a 38 percent raise from fiscal 2007, when his compensation was valued at $61.2 million. That ranked Ellison as the second-best paid CEO, behind Yahoo’s then-CEO, Terry Semel, who got a package valued at $71.7 million.

While Semel resigned as Yahoo’s CEO 14 months ago under shareholder pressure, Ellison, 64, hasn’t given any indication that he plans to end his 31-year reign at Oracle any time soon.

And Oracle’s board seems eager to retain him.

Ellison recommended the size of his fiscal 2008 pay package and Oracle’s compensation committee approved it in a vote taken outside the CEO’s presence, according to the company’s SEC filing.

Oracle’s three-member compensation committee consists of talent agent Jeffrey Berg, Stanford University professor Hector Garcia-Molina and Naomi Seligman, a partner at a technology research firm.

The committee reasoned Ellison deserved to be richly compensated because the company’s fiscal 2008 profit climbed 29 percent to a record $5.5 billion, while its stock price rose 18 percent to create about $19 billion in shareholder wealth.

Ellison’s pay package is far larger than other prominent billionaires who got rich by starting some of Silicon Valley’s best-known companies.

For instance, both Yahoo Inc. CEO Jerry Yang and Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs — Ellison’s best friend — limited their compensation to $1.

But Ellison isn’t the first founding CEO to be lavishly awarded either, said Steven Hall, managing director of executive compensation consultants Steven Hall & Partners.

“When it comes to founders, we know we are usually going to see something odd,” Hall said. “In some cases, they are exorbitantly paid and in others they are paid miserly.”

Although Ellison has been a billionaire for two decades, most of his wealth remains tied up in Oracle stock. He is the Redwood Shores, Calif.-based company’s largest shareholder, at 22.6 percent, and can’t easily liquidate his holdings without hurting Oracle’s stock price.

Besides selling a big chunk of his stock options during Oracle’s past fiscal year, Ellison pledged 442 million shares of his stock — currently worth about $10 billion — to secure various lines of credit, according to Wednesday’s SEC filing.

The documents didn’t specify how much Ellison has borrowed, but he has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the past decade to acquire and build huge estates in California.

In a revealing snapshot that emerged in a lawsuit against Ellison several years ago, his accountant estimated Ellison’s annual “lifestyle” expenses at $20 million.

In the fall of 2008, MetaLink will have a new user interface. To help you prepare for the transition, you may now preview MetaLink’s new user interface and provide valuable feedback about its features.

What’s new?

MetaLink’s new user interface offers several benefits including:

• Improved Service Request creation which can be up to 15% faster in the new user interface and up to 40% faster when created from a configuration using Software Configuration Manager
• Improved Knowledge Management and Guided Search capabilities enabling you to locate relevant knowledge articles and information quickly and efficiently

Combining the new user interface with Software Configuration Manager is even more powerful:

• Proactive problem avoidance with personalized and proactive patch advice, health checks, security and product alerts that help you address potential issues before they impact your operations
• Faster problem resolution with integrated service request work flows and detailed, dynamic system configuration data, shared with Oracle Support in real-time
• Improved systems stability with proactive advice, targeted issue notification and personalized Oracle best practices, pushed to your desktop to help drive maximum systems availability
• Simplified configuration management with a single, comprehensive and personalized dashboard of configurations, projects and inventory

Important Technical Pre-Requisite
Adobe Flash 9 is required to view the new user interface. If you do not already have Flash 9 installed, you will be prompted to install it upon navigating to the Software Configuration Manager tab. Simply accept the install prompt to begin using the enhanced interface. If you are unable to install Adobe Flash 9, be sure to give us feedback using the feedback button in the upper right corner of MetaLink.

To Preview The New User Interface
To preview the new user interface, simply login to MetaLink and select the Software Configuration Manager tab and begin using the new Service Request and Knowledge screens. You can use the new user interface for your most common support tasks such as creation and updating of Service Requests and Knowledge searching.

More Information
For more information about upcoming new MetaLink features click here, or for additional details, view our frequently asked questions.

Securing data is one of the most critical and business-sensitive issues faced by IT security architects and database administrators. Oracle offers solid solutions for implementing high-end database security policies.

This hands-on workshop offers customers a technical overview of the following Oracle 10gR2 and 11g security products:
- Advanced Security Option – network encryption, Transparent Data Encryption (TDE), Tablespace-level data encryption, encrypting backups using RMAN
- Database Vault – provides separation of duty and lockdown capabilities against privileged database users
- Audit Vault – provides centralized audit collection and reporting capabilities for Oracle and selected non-Oracle databases
- Enterprise Manager Data Masking Pack – provides numerous built-in and customizable scrambling/masking functions for ensuring that sensitive production data is not visible within staging or test environments

Since seating is limited, please RSVP by July 21, 2008. 

This is a hands-on workshop.  Participants are provided with an overview of all of Oracle’s database security products listed above.   Each participant is provided with collateral containing all slides, lab exercises, and VMWare image used in the workshop.

Please contact Linda Johnson if you have any questions

Eliminating Database Downtime when Moving to Oracle 10g - featuring customer Overstock.com
GoldenGate Software Web Seminar
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 1:00 PM EST / 10:00 AM PST

Join GoldenGate Software and customer Overstock.com for this one-hour webinar event for companies who need to upgrade their business-critical systems running on Oracle 8i or 9i — but can’t take significant downtime.