CERN: Building Real-World Solutions with Oracle Application Express

Joel Kallman (Oracle)Giovanni Chierico (CERN)

Oracle Open WorldSan Francisco – 24 October 06

CERN: Globe of Science and Innovation in Geneva

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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

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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

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CERN: the LHC accelerator

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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

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Oracle Application Express

Is a rapid web application development tool for the Oracle database.

DeveloperUser

Oracle APEX

PL/SQL Engine

Oracle APEXMetadata

ApplicationData

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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

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IT Environment

View &Controller (JEE)

OracleRDBMS

Single Sign-On

FoundationOracleAPEX

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Applications

Around 10 applications developed and put in production in 1 year.

Presentation test cases: CERN Training Application Safety Information Registration

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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 coursesSend EmailNotifications

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Integration with CERN Single Sign-onVarious user profilesand access rights

Linked with CERN’sElectronic DocumentHandling system

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Context Tooltips

Custom Calendar (HTP.P)

CERN official holidays

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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

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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

CourseData

Oracle HR CERN AccessControl System

Validtest

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Customized input elementsCustomized Templatefor touch screen interface

Multi-lingual interface

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Javascript driven buttons

Integration with picture database

Vertical reporting

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Standard SVG graph widgets

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SIR Project Results

Investment: 4 man months One year in production

2 different courses offered (4 more coming)

11000 courses registered 15000 tests passed

Very few performance and stability issues

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Oracle APEX Evaluation

Did it meet our expectations? What have we learned from its use? How does it compare to other

frameworks?

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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

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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

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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

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Is Oracle APEX good for my project?

Multi-levelBusiness Logic

Horizontal Vertical

•Horizontal applications

•Standard Interfaces

•“Simple” Validation & Business Logic

•Oracle experienced teams

Oracle APEX excels with:

TransactionManagement

DataAbstraction

PluggableValidation

UI Abstraction& Metacontrol

Business Logic

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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!

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Questions?