From last few months, we are trying to figure out,

• What are the hardware requirements for Fusion Applications?
• How to do a hardware sizing?
• What are the parameters to baseline optimum hardware for fusion applications?

After Oracle OpenWorld 2012 Oracle also started pushing more efforts on Fusion applications to market in Middle East… Similarly from last few months we are struggling with the ‘mysterious’ sizing requirements for Fusion Applications. I read lots of forums posts, goggled and from different people asserting what the hardware requirements for Oracle Fusion Applications are….. and we are not able to find from any of document to clearly states the overall hardware requirements essential for Oracle Fusion Applications. We can find the hardware requirements for the individual components, but we cannot simply sum up of these requirements.

Few statements lead us that it requires 128GB RAM, other claims 60GB RAM or 90GB RAM.

After searching on Oracle Support I have found MOS note: Fusion Applications – How to get Sizing Requirement? [ID 1379929.1] and the Oracle’s comments are:

 “Oracle wants to ensure that each customer is successful with Fusion Applications and as it has over a hundred different components giving a sizing estimate has proven to be a bit of a challenge.

So instead of giving a one-size fits no-one estimate Oracle has a special process in place that will lead to a proper sizing advice.

It consists of contacting your Oracle Sales / Account person who in turn engages the Oracle Fusion Applications environment sizing experts team.

Based up on your inputs they will provide a proper sizing report recommending the disk and memory requirements and CPU sizes for your configurations and usage level.”

And the Fusion Application Installation guide says “Consult an Oracle Fusion Applications sizing-certified representative to obtain specific, customized system hardware requirements.”

Till now, we haven’t heard any other comments from hardware vendor to facilitate this process like major hardware vendors are providing Hardware sizing questionnaire for Oracle eBusiness suite (refer my earlier post for eBusiness suite hardware sizing requirements)

In short, we don’t have other choice to workout except to approach Oracle Sales Team for hardware sizing recommendations…..

Update on 17-Jan-2013

Oracle has organized Fusion overview training for partners in Dubai; there was a one session for Oracle Fusion hardware sizing process and the final conclusion is that oracle has dedicated team to work for hardware sizing and they have build Set of questionnaire to ask input from customers.

Following is the update from the session:

Sizing Process Overview:

• Identify Modules
  • Identify Fusion Application Modules
  • Pricing Calculator from ASM is a great place to start
• Gather Information
  • Use sizing survey to gather sizing information
  • Users, Servers, Virtualizations, operating systems, high availability, etc
• Perform Sizing
  • Use RAS tool for Fusion applications to create sizing
  • Manual sizing will be needed for some modules
• Verify Prerequisites
  • Verify pre-requisite components using price list supplement
  • May need to consult more than one price list supplement
• Create Bill of Materials
  • Use License Configuration workbook to create overall license configuration and bill of material
• Create Pricing
  • update or create pricing calculator for technology components
• Create Overview Presentation
  • Use sizing overview presentation template to create a customer presentable sizing overview presentation
• Review with Tech Team
  • Review the sizing overview with both the applications team and the technology team

Sizing Roll-up – Process Model

Reference Architecture Sizing Tool:

I got a chance to attend Oracle Fusion CRM PartnerLab (ECEMEA PILOT) 2 days workshop organized in Dubai on 18th and 19th Dec-12 by Oracle. This PartnerLab was based on discussions, presentations, demonstrations and hands on exercises.

Following areas were covered as per agenda items with discussions, Lab and review/Q&A.

• Territory Management
• Customer Hub
• Campaign Management
• Lead Management
• Opportunity Management
• Forecasting Management
• Extensibility

Trainers were good, having good knowledge of subject, we were very excited to work on Fusion applications, my first impression directly working on Fusion CRM application was prodigious and we all attendees were trying to compare Oracle eBusiness suite vs Fusion Applications vs Siebel CRM experience. Fusion application is entirely different taste, 100% web based and look/feel is almost the same, what we are getting on social media sites like facebook/linkedin/twitter. Functionality wise i will cover later on…

I will cover few of the takeaways here from this workshop; here are quick screen grabs of Oracle Fusion Applications. Login page of Fusion CRM (the instance we got for Lab)

Lead Creation Page looks like:

Glimpse of Social Network direct integration, you can see from below screen shot

Highlights from Road Map of Oracle Fusion CRM 

Fusion Mobile R5 (Current) is having native applications on iOS, Blackberry, you can get Fusion Mobile sales on blackberry

Got a new term Social Makeable Language being referred in fusion apps development for social media.

Native MS outlook client for Fusion is available –Customers, leads opportunity will show directly in outlook and opportunity details will be directly viewable in outlook

Oracle Fusion R6 (Planned)

• In Fusions R6 marketing will support for sms
• RightNow integrated with Fusion and opportunity Reports can be viewed in RightNow
• Fusion Tap native application for ipad will be released for opportunity, leads, customers, contacts.

Oracle Fusion R7 (Planned)

• FUSE the new ‘any device’ user interface for sales team – a glimpse give a good user interface based on today requirement what common users are using in social media
• Fusion R7 will support for web landing pages and microsites

Oracle Fusion R8 (Planned)

• Fusion Mobile for Android to get real time CRM data,
• Audit Trail will also be introduced,
• Simple quote, sales agreements, pricing will be introduced,
• B2C – Person centric contact management,
• Dynamic layouts
• Oracle Social network will support custom objects,
• Outlook extensibility via Apps Composer, separate tab will be available for outlook
• Object Renaming like customers can be renamed to customer client etc

Fusion R9 and above (Planned)

• UI Refresh Look & Feel
• Cloud Onboarding – concept to give trial on cloud for prospects
• Enhanced Social ROI reporting to get what company is getting from social media
• Audit Trail on Custom Objects
• Create Incidents from Fusion
• Complex quotes for Telecom
• Student recruitment and enrolment
• Oracle Voice – works like Siri for Sales, Native application interaction

Reports and Analytics – BI Report Composer, web-based report creation/customization cycle you can see from below screen.

New Customer Creation form in Fusion CRM

In continuation of my previous post How to install Redhat Linux for Oracle eBusiness Suite R12.1.1

Following updates are done in the document v1.1

• Redhat Linux Installation
• Pre-requisite/Preparation for Oracle eBusiness suite R12.1.1
• Readiness with Oracle EBS R12 software from Media or eDelivery
• Installation of Oracle eBusiness suite R12.1.1

You can download from http://www.oraerp.com/Thread-Installation-of-Oracle-eBusiness-Suite-R12-1-1 and don’t forget to share your feedback/comments to improve this document.