CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle Application Express Joel Kallman (Oracle) Giovanni Chierico (CERN) Oracle Open World San Francisco – 24 October 06 CERN: Globe of Science and Innovation in Geneva

2/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX Overview CERN Oracle Application Express Why we chose it IT environment Completed projects  CERN Training Application  Safety Information Registration Evaluation  The good  The bad  Is Oracle APEX good for my project?  Final thoughts Questions

3/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX CERN Centre Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire The world's largest particle physics laboratory Founded in 1954, 20 European Member States but worldwide scientific collaborations CERN's business is pure science: to provide scientists with tools to study the building blocks of matter and the forces that hold them together. These tools are Accelerators and Detectors Plays a vital role in developing the technologies of tomorrow IT: Birthplace of the Web & World’s largest scientific Grid

4/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX CERN: the LHC accelerator

5/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX Administrative Information Services 40 people group responsible for all administrative applications and corporate data at CERN covering: Finances: 1 BCHF standard budget Material: biggest scientific machine built on Earth Human Resources: 180’000 people database Experiment Support: 8’000 scientists from 75 countries

6/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX Oracle Application Express Is a rapid web application development tool for the Oracle database. DeveloperUser Oracle APEX PL/SQL Engine Oracle APEX Metadata Application Data

7/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX Why we chose it Rapid development cycle  Interface Creation  Business Logic (PL/SQL based)  Deployment Good looking results Easy integration with Oracle environment In-house Oracle expertise Bundled for free with RDBMS

8/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX IT Environment View & Controller (JEE) Oracle RDBMS Single Sign-On Foundation Oracle APEX

9/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX Applications Around 10 applications developed and put in production in 1 year. Presentation test cases: CERN Training Application Safety Information Registration

10/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX CERN Training Application Goal: Manage CERN Training courses  Create courses and sessions  Manage registrations  Manage resources (rooms,…)  Interface with financial & workflow apps  Use CERN single sign-on Size (users/population)  ~ 5500 registrations / year  ~ 250 courses Replace old Designer application  Reuse existing db Data Interface with related applications Custom components Web Course Catalog $ Registration Workflow Oracle APEX: Request & Catalog Management Charge courses Send Notifications

11/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX Integration with CERN Single Sign-on Various user profiles and access rights Linked with CERN’s Electronic Document Handling system

12/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX Context Tooltips Custom Calendar (HTP.P) CERN official holidays

13/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX CTA Project Results Investment: 6 man months Painless migration  Reused existing data repository  Links from and to related apps 1 year in production with no problems  6000 course registrations  3000 distinct trainees  100K$ transactions charged Much improved usability and efficiency

14/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX Safety Information Registration Goal: provide self-service safety training courses and tests on the web 2 different authentications:  CERN Single Sign-on (worldwide accessible)  CERN Card scanner (local self-service kiosk) Custom interface (to work with touch screens) Integrated with IT various data sources Insert data in Oracle HR, using PL/SQL APIs Provide admin/reporting tools Easy to extend with new content Card Reader Single Sign On ApEx Course Data Oracle HR CERN Access Control System Valid test

15/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX Customized input elements Customized Template for touch screen interface Multi-lingual interface

16/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX Javascript driven buttons Integration with picture database Vertical reporting

17/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX Standard SVG graph widgets

18/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX SIR Project Results Investment: 4 man months One year in production  2 different courses offered (4 more coming)  courses registered  tests passed Very few performance and stability issues

19/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX Oracle APEX Evaluation Did it meet our expectations? What have we learned from its use? How does it compare to other frameworks?

20/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX The good Quickly create web apps Professional looking results Good existing UI widgets Easy to integrate with Oracle infrastructure Painless deployment Very intuitive development interface Completely web based Full power of PL/SQL! Fast performance

21/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX The bad Difficult to reuse components  Dev time doesn’t scale with app complexity Impossible to modify/extend existing widgets Proprietary solution Tricky to debug Limited version control

22/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX JEE Comparison Effort Results Oracle APEX ? JEE Oracle APEX convenience zone Very small “entry cost” Very convenient for “simple” applications Doesn’t scale too well with app complexity

23/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX Is Oracle APEX good for my project? Multi-level Business Logic HorizontalVertical Horizontal applications Standard Interfaces “Simple” Validation & Business Logic Oracle experienced teams Oracle APEX excels with: Transaction Management Data Abstraction Pluggable Validation UI Abstraction & Metacontrol Business Logic

24/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX Final Thoughts Take full advantage of DBMS & PL/SQL!  Materialized views, DB Links, DBMS_*, Put Business logic into DB  Easier code reuse  Better exception handling  Powerful transaction management  Easier debugging Be generic  Use placeholders for generic regions  Use “conditionals”: Regions, Reports, Items, Processes … Read the docs!

25/25 CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle APEX Questions?