Podcast: Blockchain: Beyond Bitcoin By: Bob Rhubart

Blockchain originally gained attention thanks to its connection to Bitcoin. But blockchain has emerged from under the crypto-currency’s shadow to become a powerful trend in enterprise IT — and something that should be on every developer’s radar.  For this program we’ve assembled a panel of blockchain experts to discuss the technology’s impact, examine some use cases, and offer suggestions for developers who want to learn more in order to take advantage of the opportunities blockchain represents. Listen to the podcast here.  For more information please see the Blockchain partner resource kit here

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User Experience Roadmap for the Oracle Applications Cloud

NEW STRATEGY EBOOK: The Oracle Applications User Experience (OAUX) team has published an updated cloud UX strategy ebook. In this ebook, you’ll find information about what guides the design of Oracle’s cloud UX as we continue to evolve. We write about the things we are focused on, all based on our research with Oracle’s applications users, and offer you a glimpse at the roadmap and where we’re planning to invest time and resources. You can download a copy at http://www.tinyurl.com/UXstrategy.

TAILORING YOUR USER EXPERIENCE: Perhaps you’ve already seen our recent post on Oracle platinum partner Boxfusion Consulting, which worked with members of the OAUX team to build a custom solution – based on Oracle user experience design patterns – for a customer. Boxfusion has written more about the project and offers screenshots of what they built.

FOR PARTNERS: Two new webcasts on Release 13’s visual evolution tools are now available. Customer Connect (you must be a member) has published “Oracle Applications Cloud Release 13’s Visual Evolution Tools Deliver Modern User Experience,” which highlights the expanded branding and theming controls and framework improvements that provide increased flexibility to define a customer’s own branding on the screen and reflect corporate culture and organizational needs.

HCM Talk Radio has also released an audio webcast, “Release 13 User Experience and what new visual functionality may be coming in the future.” Both webcasts are presented by OAUX team member Katy Massucco.

TIMELINE FOR VIRTUAL REALITY: Are you wondering how virtual reality (VR) might be integrated into your company’s software? Tawny Le, a member of the OAUX Emerging Technologies team, or The AppsLab, writes about her research into VR and where it will fit in enterprise systems. Her answer may surprise you.

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Creating an HCM Cloud Extension with Visual Builder Cloud Service and Process Cloud Service

In this video we create an application for managing parking spot requests. The application pulls in information about employees and locations from the Oracle HCM Cloud REST API, then expands it with custom VBCS objects for parking spots and parking spot requests. A PCS process manages the approval process for the application. Read the complete article here.

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Beyond Bitcoin: Oracle Prepare Blockchains for Industrial Use by TC Currie

There’s been a lot of talk recently about blockchains beyond its original use for supporting Bitcoin. Earlier this year, we covered a session in London where the takeaway from the panel was there are too many problems to be solved. But that was in February, and a lot has changed since then.

Judging from some of the blockchain sessions at the recent Oracle OpenWorld conference, the emerging potential uses for blockchain are kind of staggering.

Blockchain uses a technology also described as a “distributed ledger.” That’s an obvious fit for finance, which is all about ledgers, but it turns out the distributed ledger concept can be applied to — well, to almost everything.

According to BlackBook Research, 70 percent of health insurance payers are planning to have blockchain integrated into their systems by the beginning of 2019. That’s 15 months from now. Among the payers with over 500,000 members, that number climbs to 98 percent, with 14 percent currently testing blockchain systems. Read the complete article here.

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7 Things Every Developer Should Know About Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service by Jay Chugh

At Oracle Open World, Oracle launched the new and exciting enterprise-grade Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service. The launch generated overwhelming interest from press, analysts, and conference attendees as evident by standing-room only attendance in nearly all Blockchain sessions.

What was equally noteworthy was the tremendous interest from software developers.  The demos and hands-on labs showcased just how easy it is for any developer to work with Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service, unlike anything they have seen in the market so far. Oracle’s Blockchain Cloud Service enables developers to build smart contracts, integrate with existing business processes, or even create new blockchain applications within minutes, without worrying about running and managing Blockchain environments.

Based on conversations with developers that are breaking new ground in Blockchain, here is a compilation of top seven things every developer should know about Oracle’s Blockchain Cloud Service.

1. Open Source and Open Standards Based

Oracle’s blockchain is based on open source Hyperledger Fabric v1.0 code, which supports standard protocols such as REST and gRPC. For developers, it means that they have complete visibility into the product roadmap and may directly participate in development through open source community. This also means that developers can easily integrate their existing Hyperledger-based blockchain networks and applications with Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service.

1. Simpler to Develop and Deploy Smart Contracts. Read the complete article here.

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NIST Releases Blockchain Report for Business Beginners by Annaliese Milano

The National Institute of Standards and Technology – a non-regulatory agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce – has released an overview of blockchain technology, aimed to clarify the central characteristics of the technology, its limitations and common misconceptions.

The document targets beginners to blockchain, specifically organizations considering adopting the technology, and those trying to move beyond the "hype" surrounding blockchain. The authors remind readers that businesses are often tempted by new technology, but that they should be sure that the blockchain is appropriate for their operations before diving in.

"A company’s IT managers need to be able to say, we understand this, and then be able to argue whether or not the company needs to use it based on that clear understanding", said Dylan Yaga, computer scientist and one author of the report. Read the complete article here.

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10 reasons NOT to implement Blockchain now by Maarten Smeets

A secure distributed ledger with smart contract capabilities not requiring a bank as an intermediary! Also a single source of truth with complete traceability. Definitely something we want! Blockchain technology promises to make this possible. Blockchain became famous through cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and Ethereum. The technology could also be considered to replace B2B functionality. With new technologies it is not a bad idea to look at pro’s and con’s before starting an implementation. Blockchain is the new kid on the block and there is not much experience yet on how well he will play with others and will mature. In this blog I summarize some of my concerns concerning blockchain of which I hope will be solved in due time.

Regarding new/emerging technologies in the integration space, I’m quite open to investigate the potential value which they can offer. I’m a great proponent of for example Kafka, the highly scalable streaming platform and Docker to host microservices. However, I’ve been to several conferences and did some research online regarding blockchain and I’m sceptical. I definitely don’t claim to be an expert on this subject so please correct me if I’m wrong! Also, this is my personal opinion. It might deviate from my employers and customers views.

Most of the issues discussed here are valid for public blockchains. Private blockchains are of course more flexible since they can be managed by companies themselves. You can for example more easily migrate private blockchains to a new blockchain technology or fix issues with broken smart contracts. These do require management tooling, scripts and enough developers / operations people around your private blockchain though. I don’t think it is a deploy and go solution just yet.

1 Immutable is really immutable!

A pure public blockchain (not taking into account sidechains and off chain code) is an immutable chain. Every block uses a hashed value of the previous block in its encryption. You cannot alter a block which is already on the chain. This makes sure things you put on the chain cannot suddenly appear or disappear. There is traceability. Thus you cannot accidentally create money for example on a distributed ledger (unless you create immutable smart contracts to provide you with that functionality). Security and immutability are great things but they require you to work in a certain way we are not that used to yet. For example, you cannot cancel a confirmed transaction. You have to do a new transaction counteracting the effects of the previous one you want to cancel. Read the complete article here.

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