Confusion >> Fusion…Have you figured it out yet?

“If confusion is the first step to knowledge, I must be a genius”. That is a wise saying and is indeed reflective of the many theories surrounding the much hyped FUSION release. That is an interesting nomenclature and is truly befitting the era of fusion music, fusion food, fusion culture and slowly encompassing the technology circles with FUSION applications.

All said and done for each of us anticipating the FUSION release - the mystery around this technology of the future still remains.

If FUSION is Oracle’s next generation applications that promises a best of business integrated toolset, then will it deliver that kind of exponential value? What will be a good point to start? What happens to my current investments? How do I handle the exodus from existing applications to FUSION? There are often too many questions that have been haunting the collective mindset and numerous discussions surrounding the FUSION adoption.

I exited one such interesting discussion around possible technology approaches and by part that has spurred this blog. Though the discussion was non-conclusive and resulted in yet-another-meeting-to-follow-this, I realized that FUSION has survived all the hype and probing. The thought process has slowly but surely transcended from “If I decide to move to FUSION” to “When I decide to move to FUSION” and that clearly is a winning proposition.

But first, let’s explode the model and understand what is behind the jargon:

1. FUSION Middleware – It is the family of middleware products that encompasses SOA, BPM, BAM, BI, Collaboration and much more. For a Fusion adopter, it is the building-block or the first logical step to get FUSION ready. The scope of FUSION middleware will include all the gamut of things that is not databases and not applications, which I would say is mammoth offering. Some of the component areas are:
a. Development Tools
b. User Interaction
c. Enteprise Performance Management
d. Business Intelligence
e. Content Management
f. SOA & Business Process Management
g. Application Server
h. Grid Infrastructure
i. Identity Management & Enterprise Management.
2. FUSION Architecture – the layout that ties all the components together, the EAs, the middleware, the infrastructure.  The chief constituents are detailed to ensure design integrity. However - there are many threads to the Oracle Fusion architecture. There is a great deal of mystification about which parts to use for what purposes and how to get started.
3. FUSION Applications – the unified suite of products that will augment the best of business features from ORACLEs line of applications – namely PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, SIEBEL
While we await the FUSION applications to unfold in due course of time, is there something that adopters can do than just wait and watch. Absolutely! Increase your appetite for FUSION middleware components. Oracle's use of SOA with services characterized via the Service Registry — together with a process orchestration capability that uses process modeling and other BPM capabilities — echoes the rising industry consensus that next-generation architecture and applications should be more closely-coupled to the specific business processes and loosely-coupled with the cross-platform components. Hence riding the SOA and BPM wave may just provide the right head-start for this.
We will dive into the SOA & BPM aspects relative to the FUSION offerings in the subsequent blogs but just a parting note – while the emphasis on “open and standard” appeal of this platform is notable, the moment-of-truth is in the execution & implementation. So if the state of confusion is not past yet, it’s about time to be a part of this incredible evolution and find out where the rubber-meets-the-road. “ConFusion” should surely make way for some “InFusion”!!

For those, who know what FUSION is, I believe Frustration Ultimately Switched Innovation ON.

SOA

BPM

Comments

[Bipin]

Hi Prachi,

Good article, I would surely look forward to read more and more on this.
At the end, definition of FUSION was too good.........

Bipin

[Ben]

Very interesting Gartner article just released last month (G00161858) which talks about the 'Mystery' fusion. Basically they advise people not to consider it in their 5 year plans.... Seems its still MIA.