Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Peopletools 8.53 RVP (new recut ?)

The first Peopletools 8.53 release value proposition has been write down in July, please have a look there :
https://blogs.oracle.com/peopletools/entry/oracle_peoplesoft_peopletools_8_53
However, if you go to the given note, it's now dated from September. I do not know how far it has been modified, but if it goes like this, here are few of the new features which may change the Peoplesoft guy's life :
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1. Lifecycle Management :
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1.1. Data Migration Workbench
As far as I understand, one source, multiple targets, that's a new tool between AppDesigner (copy project) and a database refresh (customer's script only). It will do much more than the first, and will be much secure than the latter.
1.2. Update Manager :
I can understand many of the Peoplesoft's customers apply the maintenance packs when they arrive, but I like very much the idea to be able to avoid it to apply one particular fix without the need to applied dozens of prerequisites if there is already big lag. To be used carefully anyway.
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2. Server administration and Infrastructure
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* Windows Xp (already out in PT8.52) and Vista are definitely gone.
* Many versions of components currently in use in Peopletools 8.52 are discontinued (Weblogic, Tuxedo, JRE...). It could raise some issue and headache when upgrading.
* The good is that AppServer/Batch server won't need that 32bit Oracle client libraries anymore on Windows. Much less confusing now.
* A new home PS_CUST_HOME to host customers code will come around, again a new home, I'm not sure though if it will do the all picture for the better. I was already not entirely convinced by PS_CFG_HOME and PS_APP_HOME... so, one more... what will be next ?
* A new plugin for OEM GC 12c
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3. Secure by default
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* A very nice initiative here, prompting passwords for each of the well known default users when during installation (not 100% sure what means "installation", I assume it is database creation... ?).
* Salt enabled password (SHA-1)
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4. Integration technology
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* Automated Network Status and Real-Time Notification of Errors. This point has greatly been improved over the years, and it's again the case. This enhancement is now for automatization of integration network supervision (by email, I assume that's an equivalent of OEM alert if something is going wrong).
* Gateway configuration is now upgrade persistent, so far an upgrade and web redeploy overwrites the file, it should not be the case anymore.
* The Network Bulk Change also simplifies the life by deploying the changes across all the systems instead of doing it manually one by one.
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5. Peoplesoft Online documentation
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I'd say finally, we'll get a proper and nice GUI for the Online Documentation. So far it was looking so bad and not very attractive. Hopefully the Peoplebooks will also be improved in terms of response time.
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6. Others
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* Unlike in the Peopletools .852 RVP, there's not a word about PSOMV... hopefully Peoplesoft won't discontinue it.
* Back to February 2012, the document PeopleSoft Long Term Investment Plan and Roadmap [ID 1320581.1] mentioned about Peoplesoft available on TimesTen (IMDB- InMemoryDataBase), please see page 63, but it seems it has been abandoned for now.
* And obviously there are other improvements /enhancements, probably more developer related.

To be seen soon, new Peopletools release is usually coming around the OOW which is itself around the corner (30-SEPT/04-OCT).

Nicolas.

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