In this article we will be reviewing career options for Oracle Technical consultant, in our earlier post Career Choices for oracle technical consultant in the cloud applications era, we have reviewed primarily what Technical consultants should do in the cloud era. in this, we will co-relate with the Oracle e-business suite.

Pre-EBS R12 Period:

Oracle Application Tech-consultants were focusing on developing RICE objects. RICE acronym Stands for RICE (Reports, Interfaces, Conversions, Enhancements, or extensions). During an Oracle Applications implementation or post-production support, additional configuration, design, or programming requirements were necessary to meet different functional requirements and achieve the desired functionality of business users.

RICE objects commonly represent to deliver business requirements not currently supported within the Core Functionality of an Oracle Application suite being implemented or already implemented and thus it was leading to organization for building additional technical development skills in-house or out-source.

RICE objects involves:

1. Creation of Reports that are not available as standard reports in the Oracle apps modules.
2. Creation of the Interfaces to external systems.
3. Creation of Conversion programs to transfer data from a legacy system to the new system.
4. Enhancements/Extensions to add additional functionality to an existing system without disturbing the core application functionality.

EBS R12 Period:

With the release of the R12 version of the Oracle e-business suite, RICE objects transformed to CEMLI (Configuration, Extension, Modification, Localization, and Integration). It’s become an extension framework for ERP Applications.

1. Configurations: Configure the existing, pre-built application features according to the Business user’s requirement. Changing setups and profile values can be the example of configurations.
2. Customization: Customization leads to altering/changing the standard objects or the creation of custom objects to meet business requirements. It may be Extensions or Modifications.
3. Extensions: Extension leads creating custom code from scratch, existing objects (views, packages and java classes etc) can be used.
4. Modifications: Modifications are enhancing/changing the existing code to meet the client’s requirements. It is the modification of seeded behavior.
5. Localization: It is to define the different legislative support provided by oracle Applications based on country/region/language requirements.
6. Integration: This is Data Integration or Application Integration with third-party applications by using Open Interface tables, APIs, EAI (Enterprise Application Integration Tools), BPEL, AQ, EDI etc.

Cloud Applications Era:

In the Oracle Cloud application, we have got personalization and extension. On the Personalization front, we have got rich functionality within the application to personalize and to build extension we have got Platform as a Service model which has a huge set of products to offer us great functionalities to meet different business requirements. Within the extension paradigm, we may need to build new features in Cloud Application or Integrate with any third-party application. Broadly we can categorize the following main cases on PaaS4SaaS or extend and connect.

• Build custom extension application for Cloud Application
• Move/Host existing extension applications to cloud
• Integrate your existing custom and packaged applications with Cloud Applications
• Enhance Cloud Application by adding ready-to-go features

Primarily if you have are planning to work as a “Developer”, You should start focusing on the following areas:

Different products available to build, extend SaaS applications, or use independently…

• Mobile Builder Cloud Service – build mobile back-end components for custom mobile applications.
• Application Builder Cloud Service – declarative development of web applications.
• Database Schema Service – single database schema with the Application Express (APEX) toolset.
• BI Cloud Service – build rich analytics based on data uploads.
• Sites Cloud Service – used in concert with Document Cloud Service to build micro-websites.
• Java Cloud Service SaaS Extension – a Java EE run-time environment for custom applications. Designed for use SaaS.
• Application Container Cloud Service – Java SE and Node.js run-time environment.
• Integration Cloud Service – SOA-based declarative mapping of integration flows based on prebuilt connectors.
• Messaging Cloud Service – JMS and RESTful architecture for push/pull messaging between distributed applications.
• Process Cloud Service – SOA-based business process workflow creation.
• SOA Cloud Service – use BPEL and associated SOA Suite components to build process-driven solutions.
• Social Network Cloud – social collaboration services for business users.
• Document Cloud Service – content management and collaboration facilities for business users.

all PaaS products can be accessed on this link: Platform as a Service

Related Post: Career Choices for oracle technical consultant in cloud applications era