New Oracle E-Business Suite To Simplify Technology ManagementNew Oracle E-Business Suite To Simplify Technology Management

Oracle has announced E-Business Suite 11i.10, designed to improve business process automation and operating efficiency across an enterprise. Available in 60 days, it is aimed at helping automate administrative tasks, aggregate performance information, and perform policy-based tasks across Oracle infrastructure components by integrating Oracle Grid Control and Oracle Applications Manager.

The new version of the business suite monitors IT operations as well as business process, service, and workflow health from a single Web portal. It integrates the IT management and monitoring capabilities of Oracle Grid Control with Oracle Applications Manager's ability to diagnose and repair business applications.

The new suite is aimed at reducing operating costs and increasing operating efficiency by minimizing downtime and streamlining maintenance and support. It includes proactive patch notifications as well as detailed patch analysis, both of which can help companies plan for maintenance activities before problems occur. Included diagnostic tools minimize unplanned outages by identifying potential problems automating problem resolution.

Although they are integrated, Oracle Applications Manager and Oracle Grid Control each control specific parts of the suite. Oracle Applications Manager offers diagnostics and troubleshooting, configuration management and other systems management features. Additionally, it allows companies to map systems components to business flows and track component performance and availability. Oracle Grid Control lets administrators manage complex IT systems running a combination of Oracle and non-Oracle technologies. It is designed to reduce the cost and complexity of managing business applications across grid computing environments.

"Gartner Research estimates that as much as 70 percent of IT budgets go towards infrastructure and operations costs, and this number will likely grow as information volumes increase, business processes become more complex and enterprises continue to rely heavily on enterprise applications to run their businesses," Ray Paquet, research analyst, Gartner Research said in a statement. "Companies need comprehensive management tools that provide monitoring, automation and administration capabilities for the entire technology and applications stack -- enabling companies to not only minimize IT infrastructure complexity and cost, but also ensure the health of everyday business processes."

"Oracle is dedicated to helping its customers manage their enterprises more efficiently and cost effectively -- across both IT operations and business processes," added Cliff Godwin, senior vice president, Applications Technology, Oracle Corp. in a statement. "By seamlessly integrating Oracle Grid Control with Oracle Applications Manager we are helping companies become more agile by enabling improved operating efficiency and helping ensure business processes and flows are operating at optimal levels."