Oracle's Showcasing Additions To App-Server, Collaboration SoftwareOracle's Showcasing Additions To App-Server, Collaboration Software

Oracle is reminding its customers that it's more than the maker of a pretty database. At the company's annual OracleWorld user conference beginning Monday in San Francisco, the vendor will give the expected 20,000 attendees a look at upcoming additions and enhancements to its application-server software and its recently introduced collaboration suite.

Oracle is also expected to debut a new release of Enterprise Manager, which is used to manage Oracle software within large-scale computing environments. Enterprise Manager will include a data repository for information about IT components--including non-Oracle technology such as network routers and firewalls--and IT management policies.

Planned app-server enhancements include expansion of the software's app-integration capabilities. And Oracle's database software won't be ignored. Execs are expected to highlight examples of customers using the database in clustered Linux environments and provide insight into the direction of Oracle's clustering technology, particularly for building clustered database systems using off-the-shelf hardware and software.

Lithonia Lighting, a maker of commercial and residential lighting equipment, uses the Oracle9i database and Real Application Clusters software to manage its 22 North American factories and seven distribution centers. The four-node, Linux-based system, installed last spring, resolved scalability problems Lithonia was experiencing with its Windows-based system. "After about 150 users, we ran into memory-management issues with Windows," IT director Phil Kilgore says. The Linux-based clustered database system is more secure, and batch-processing jobs run 50% faster than with the previous system, he says.

By showcasing its flagship database and other software products, Oracle hopes to give its slumping sales a boost. What OracleWorld attendees won't see, at least not in person, is CEO Larry Ellison, who's in New Zealand captaining a yacht in the America's Cup races. Ellison will deliver his keynote speech via satellite Thursday.