Finally My PaaS4SaaS Workshop Blog

I know this posting is a bit late but at the end of January I took part in a proof of concept workshop for PaaS4Sass and it’s been a rollercoaster ride ever since.

When I was thinking about moving to Certus one of the things that attracted me was there intent to write extensions for Oracle’s CloudApplications using the just announced PaaS4SaaS solution.

I attended Oracle Open World with an open mind and trying to learn as much as I could about the solutions. The Larry Ellison demo was really impressive but then Oracle has always been a brilliant marketing company.

I came back to UK and set about validating what was available, some of the components Database and Java Cloud had been available for a while but I wanted or would want to also use the Process and Integration Cloud offerings.

As regular readers of this blog will know, I am an OracleApplications User Experience advocate and am very committed to the user experience work that goes into Oracle Cloud Applications.  Extensions delivered by Certus will have this same user experience and I made this video on the half of Certus.

The user experience team have been given funding by Thomas Kurian who is personally committed to making PaaS4SaaS work, to carry out a number of proof of concept workshops with Oracle partners. The UX team asked Certus to be part of this. Certus have not been a development company and so in the same way customers come to us because we are the best at implementing cloud applications we looked for a partner to help us with development, and weselected eProseed who have the same commitment to UX as we do.

The workshop took place in London at the end of January with four people from each of Oracle UX, eProceed and Certus taking part. We work through a use-case taken from an existing Application from one of our customers who is considering modernising this and moving it to the cloud. In three days we were able to build a working application and prove to ourselves that when the customer says, “go” we will be able to deliver what they need.

Oracle UX team have in their blog already covered the workshop and I have also written about it in the AppAdvantage blog I am a guest author for. The following month I took part in the Partner SOA Community Forum in Budapest when we had the opportunity to work with product management teams of both the Process and Integration Cloud offerings and further validate our approach, understanding the possibilities and the constraints. The UX team also had a stand there.

I was very pleased on behalf off both Certus and eProceed to accept the first Community Cloud award. These awards are a bit like the Oscars and awarded to individuals Lonneke from eProseed and myself, however we had a similar thank you to all those involved in our acceptance speech.

The Community Leader Jurgen Kress said:

I awarded my first SOA Community Outstanding Contribution for Cloud to Debra Lilley of Certus Solutions and Lonneke Dikmanns of eProseed because they not only took on board the messaging of PaaS 4 SaaS from the last Oracle Open World, but also their collaboration between an Applications partner and a Middleware partner, sought out answers and training and with Oracle Development giving feedback and  validating their approach in this area. All good things but bringing that back to the community and sharing is the outstanding contribution.

I have written a White Paper, which will be published for Collaborate in a few weeks and Certus along with Oracle UX Will be presenting this twice both for  OAUG and Quest. I’ve also had an article published in this month’s Profit Magazine.

Thank you to the UX team and the SOA Community. I’m still not technical enough to do this but I am technical enough to understand that PaaS4SaaS is a game changer and will continue to be seeing more and more in our community.