Top 10 Oracle Forms Sessions at Oracle OpenWorld 2014

With dozens of ADF/Forms/Mobile/Cloud sessions planned for Oracle OpenWorld 2014, choosing which to attend can easily become an overwhelming task. Since I can relate to the chaos that occurs leading up to OOW each year, I thought I would make your lives a little easier by sharing my top ten picks of sessions to attend this year. (And to be frank it took me almost 4 days).  Life requires too many decisions as it is, so let me lighten the load a little. Also, as I am a techie, I did not include any of the keynotes, but be sure to check them out because Oracle has lined up some great speakers for this year.

But of course, before we get to the work we should start with the play. Don’t get so wrapped up in the technology that you forget to join in some of the fun! I would love for all of you to come join us and the Oracle Forms community at the ADF EMG event that ODTUG is hosting to kick off OOW14. Join us at Chevy’s Fresh Mex for some networking fun, drinks and apps (both types 🙂 ). You can register for the event here.

Now of course the best session to attend is Michael Ferrante’s “Oracle Forms Sneak Peek” that I am co-presenting. Get a first look at new features of Oracle Forms including cloud and mobile support. Space is limited, so register now! In addition to the main session, we will be conducting mini-sessions at the Oracle Forms demo ground booth (SLM-151 in Moscone South) to discuss all of your Oracle Forms challenges. Click here for more information. Even if other sessions can’t quite compare to ours, there are still some great ones to check out!

The Top 10 in no particular order are….

1. Accelerate Enterprise Mobility with Oracle Mobile Cloud Services
   Session #: 7024Deb Ayers, Oracle Product Strategy Director
   Munazza Bukhari, Oracle Director of Product Management

Learn how Oracle Mobile Cloud Service empowers developers with rapid delivery of enterprise-grade mobile applications and see a demo of the Oracle Mobile Cloud in action. I, for one, am intrigued!

2. Customer Stories: From Oracle Forms to Oracle ADF and Oracle Mobile
   Session #: 9224Markus Lohn, Esentri AG Head of Technology Consulting
   Martin Disterheft, President of PITSS America LLC

This session will teach you some best practices for transitioning to newer technologies by taking an in-depth look at two projects: Forms to Mobile and Forms to ADF/SOA. Also Martin from PITSS might put a shout out to AuraPlayer in his session, so we are fans 🙂

3. Enhance Your Mobile Experience with Oracle’s Mobile Apps and Oracle Mobile Platform 
   Session #: 7806Suhas Uliyar, Oracle VP Mobile Strategy & Product Management
   Rimi Bewtra, Oracle Senior Director
   Lyle Ekdahl, Oracle Senior VP General Manager JD Edwards

This session in Mobility is being delivered by the big guns themselves. The session will offer tips on how to leverage existing tools to extend your enterprise apps and how to harness your skills to build new mobile apps and it’s delivered by the head of mobile strategy no less!

4.  Why Developers Need Mobile Back End as a Service (MBaaS)
   Session #: 7025Munazza Bukhari, Oracle Director, Product Management

What is MBaaS you ask? Go to this session to learn all about Mobile Back End as a Service (MBaaS). Without MBaaS developers must dedicate time to building  mobile infrastructure; MBaaS solves this problem by offering built-ins for push notifications, object storage, user management, and analytics, an API designer and an API catalog.

5. Bulletproof the Oracle Mobile Platform with Integrated Security
   Session #: 6983Joe Huang, Oracle Sr Principal Product Manager, MAF, Oracle Mobile Platform
   Geoff Poremba, Oracle Director of Mobile Strategy

This is a new topic for me and one I must learn more about, so I’m especially looking forward to it. This session will cover how Oracle Mobile Suite and Oracle Mobile Security Suite can be integrated with Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Identity Management applications to protect your enterprise while undertaking mobile projects. While Mobile implementations tend to be a security weak spot, you can learn how to avoid common pitfalls and safeguard your investment.

6. Gauging Oracle ADF Application Performance: Instrumenting Your Oracle ADF Code
   Session #: 4039John King, King Training Resources Partner

John King is a top notch speaker and all around guru. This session explores the different options for tunning your Oracle ADF application as well as how they can improve your application experience.

7. Mobile Best Practices in Enterprise App Development 
   Session #: 7799Jordan Olin, Sunera Technologies Inc. Vice President MMP, Chief Solution Architect
   Greg Opie, ECS Team Director, Solutions Architecture
   Kyle Smith, Keste LLC Sr. Director
   Carlos Chang, Oracle Senior Principal Product Marketing Director — Fusion Middleware

This session should be interesting as you’ll get to hear tales from the trenches from 3 mobile project implementors. The session will begin with a short overview of Oracle’s mobile offering before Oracle partners each share their unique experiences in developing and deploying mobile apps for customers.

8.  Real-Life Oracle Mobile Application Framework: Things you Don’t Learn from the Developer’s Guide
   Session #: 4161Luc Bors, AMIS Holding B.V. Principal Consultant

When you are building your first app with Oracle MAF you will run into challenges you can’t solve simply by reading the developer’s guide (which Luc Bors wrote for MAF by the way 🙂 ). This session will give you tips, tricks and practical solutions from real-life examples.

9. Introduction to Oracle Mobile Application Framework
   Session #: 7166Shay Shmeltzer, Oracle Director of Product Management
   Simon Canil, Colab Director

Shay’s a master presenter and usually focuses on live demos with next to no slides. Come learn how to build mobile applications faster with Oracle MAF. This is a good intro for those of you beginners.

• First Programming Steps in Oracle ADF: Beyond Drag and Drop
  Session #: 3119Grant Ronald, Oracle Director of Product Management

In this session you will learn how to go beyond the drag and drop and see how to think like a programmer to begin writing code in Oracle ADF. Grant Ronald wrote the book on on ADF, so you’re guaranteed a great presentation.

Bonus Sessions

There are so many great sessions happening this year at OpenWorld that I simply could not limit myself to only the top ten. As a special bonus I’ve decided to include two extra sessions.

1. General Session: Next-Generation Application Development—The Mobile and Cloud Effect
   Session #: 7309
   
   Chris Tonas, Oracle Vice President, Mobile and App Dev Tools

Cloud and mobile are taking over the development world, which means some old problems are disappearing but new ones are popping up. General sessions are great because you hear from the executives who are actually shaping the vision for Oracle development going forward. See how these new environments impact the way you build enterprise applications and get a sneak peek into the tools, frameworks, and services Oracle is offering.

2. Simplify Enterprise Mobile Connectivity by Using Oracle Mobile Cloud Service
   Session #: 9908Deb Ayers, Oracle Product Strategy Director
   Diby Malakar, Oracle Director Product Management

Hands-on labs are a great way to learn about Oracle products and experience first hand what the presentations have been talking about. By the end of the lab you should have a full understanding of how Oracle Mobile Cloud Service can be used to insulate mobile developers from back-end infrastructures.

At OOW 2014 – Talk to the AuraPlayer experts about modernizing your Oracle Forms:

– Tips and tricks for upgrading to Forms 11g
– Plug your Forms into the Oracle Mobile Cloud
– Create web services automatically from Forms use cases

To discuss any of your Oracle Forms challenges at OOW14 email us at info@old.auraplayer.com to schedule a time or stop by the ADF EMG Meet-up on Tuesday night to talk with us and grab a beer.